TIGARD POLICE EVENT AFTERMATH

A sub-division: No place to die. via Zillow.com

From the bloodless Tigard Police event.

I stopped in the local market for a few cold Beck’s Bombers.

A Tigard police rig sat in the parking lot.

Should I stop, or should I go. I stopped.

I stopped in, bought a few Beck’s Bombers since my regular place had a few warm ones last time, and before leaving asked the cop a few questions on the Tigard Police Event in front of my house with nine cars from Tigard and Washington County.

It went well.

It should go well.

Here’s what happend:Did you hear about the Tigard Police event last Friday?

“I was off duty, but if I’d been on, I’d have been there.”

What was it all about?

“We had a report of man with a gun and a sword and responded.”

I heard about the sword.

“The gun was in a box he had in his hand when he charged the officer.”

Charged?

“He dropped his stuff when he realized he was about to die and ran into the forest.”

That explains the dog.

“Right, but he wasn’t arrested since he didn’t have cause.”

A gun?

“In a box. That he dropped.”

Sounds like a technicality.

“This is a smart bunch.”

I talked to the mom and one of the guys living there.

“You won’t change things.”

The mom cried, and I asked the guy to help her out.

“So you’ve done your duty?”

That’s the least I could do.

“That’s good.”

I lived in New York and read about a crime from years back where a woman was murdered for half an hour in front of her building while everyone inside pulled their shades and turned up their TVs.

“You won’t change these people.”

Do you think I made an impression?

Tigard Police event from the other side.

• You have too much time on your hands if you’re calling in on suspicious cars.
• All you’ve done is make yourself a target.
• Either the people the police were after, or the police, will dial you up on their radar. That’s where you want to be?
• Are you, or any of the other Good Neighbors, feeling bad about calling the suspected drug house in?
• How can you live with yourself?
• Who do you think you are?

Community involvement comes from direct experience. I wasn’t around Queens when Kitty Genovese went down, but I was around Portland when Sara Zerbes went down.

One of the sweetest women I’ve ever met was raped, murdered, and set on fire in St. Johns. I couldn’t find a link.

She was a friend from NW Portland days, the woman who taught me to play Blackbird on my birthday.

It took over twenty years to find her killer, who was already in prison for another crime.

Raped, murdered, and set on fire is not the way to end a life. Neither is getting gunned outside my window.

But the man with the sword and pistol in the box doesn’t know the difference.