National Night Out

This evening was the annual National Night Out. We try to take part in it, especially since one of my neighborhood friends heads up the affair for our street. This evening we had a fire chief's truck come by; and later, two unmarked police cars stopped by for a visit. Since we live half a block from the city line, one car came from the community north and east of us, and the other came from our community.




Our road was properly blocked off so there would be no through traffic.

Let me give you lesson 101 in National Night Out block parties; there are lots of cops out visiting various parties (there were three on our street; one on each block), so it is not a good idea to break any traffic laws like, oh, running stop signs, or using closed off streets as through routes. And, oh yes, don't get snippy with the cops, either. They don't like it.

Why do I say this, you might ask? Because just as the officers visiting our party were leaving to head south to the next block, a car pulled around the barrier and slowly made its way up the road, past the children on bikes, past the toddlers in camp chairs, past the tables of food, past the parents overseeing the children and past the cops. The car rolled through the stop sign and started to go past the next barrier, through the intersection and a third barrier for the next block. Instead of heading south, the police car with two officers and a community services guy backed into a drive way, and pulled out, following the car. He put his siren on; (at first we thought it was for the enjoyment of the kids), until the car pulled over and the cop car pulled over with it.

We didn't stare, but did watch with some curiosity and talked among ourselves about what was going on. We saw some animated talking, some annoyed facial expressions, and a ticket pad. About seven minutes later, the cop car pulled around the corner one way, the violator pulled around the corner the other way. We watched and soon the officer and his buddies were at the party a block south of us.