Monday, September 12, 2011

Wishing I Could Mix It Up

I am an in-the-box thinker. There are still places I drive to in this fair city exclusively using routes I was taught over 15 years ago. I have trained myself to think out of the box enough so that when I'm on a familiar subject I can usually crawl outside and think on the ledge for a bit but for the most part I'm safely inside with my Jr. Mints and a nice glass of caffeine free cola.

Last week, in the midst of some of the heaviest rain, I went out to give the dog his final soggy pee before bed and there was a hubbub in the guard's booth. You see, to get to any of the six buildings on my side of the apartment complex you have to go into the booth and sign in or use your key to be let through one of the locked doors to one side or the other of the courtyard. The guards we have now are very strict about this because that's what we pay them for. I have mixed feelings about it but it's the rule the majority has agreed to and I understand why we're doing it and things have been blessedly quieter around the joint since they started enforcing it. Lest you think the rule is only enforced for darker complexioned residents I will furnish a healthy rant upon request about the number of times I've struggled with up to 2 dogs, up to 3 shopping bags, my keys and a coat and they've let me open the ding dang door all by my lonesome, not even holding it open after I'd unlocked it so I could get through with my last, frayed shred of dignity still clinging to the bottom of my shoe. Anyway, from what the grapevine has told me the hubbub was about a whole snarl of stupid around that process. Keep in mind that none of this is from the mouths of eyewitnesses but it does come from two separate independent sources that I trust.

Apparently a young man (late teens, early twenties) who was born and raised in the complex came in around 10:30 that night and didn't have his key. He asked to be let in and the guard told him that he had to sign in and they would open the door for him. For whatever reason he took offense and got angry. He is, I'm told, over six feet tall and nears 250lbs. As the argument escalated he punched the guard, an older man in his late 50s or early 60s who, while firm, rarely raises his voice but at this point in the proceedings stabbed the kid with a penknife.

Stupid, right? All of it just as stupid as stupid can be.

The young man fled and had to be sought and captured. At the height of the search there were witnesses, building maintenance personnel and four police officers working the scene. The kid's mother was escorted out of her home at 11pm in the pouring rain to help. As it stands now the guard is suspended, probably fired, and being charged with carrying a concealed weapon. The young resident was hospitalized for his injury, is being charged with assault and eviction proceedings have begun for him, his brother and his mother.

The entire interaction was taped by our relatively new security cameras for easy playback. The bare facts of it are undeniable, though I assume there is no audio. We aren't made of money after all. From my third hand view everyone is at fault here. Extremely early in the proceedings anger, fear and pride got on the bandwagon and those asshats always screw up the party.

It may or may not be a stupid rule but it's been in place for a long time and by all accounts this young man is a smart, hardworking citizen so it can't have come as a surprise to him that they'd ask him to sign in. Also, as to smart, there isn't anything preventing him from signing in as T. Swift or K. West or D. Motherfucking-Duck for that matter. Instead he chose to let his anger get the better of him and to let the entire incident escalate out of control. Even if it had been confined to fisticuffs the outcome would be similar.

The guard is taking public transportation to a late shift security guard job that probably pays over minimum wage by a matter of pennies. He may or may not have known the kid by sight but, given the cameras getting every moment, he could, I suppose, have let the kid in and filed an incident report. Perhaps he'd be fired for that, I don't know what rules he's held to. As things progressed he was put in a position that must have been extremely frightening. Now, more than likely, he's out of a job and who knows how that's going to impact him but I'm guessing that mounting a legal defense and time off for court appearances and a concealed weapon charge aren't going to do anything for whatever nest egg he may have.

Here's where I'd like to be able to get out of my goddamned box thinking. To have this guy lose his job and to have an entire family evicted seems like a compounding of the stupidity that started that night. By all accounts both perpetrators are decent, law-abiding humans who fucked up a la mode on a shitty, rainy, aggravating night last week.

But I can't see how it can go down any differently and I fucking hate that.


  1. It's a complete lose, lose situation. Can't you vote as a community to no evict those people and somehow save that guy's job?

  2. "those asshats always screw up the party" = classic Kizzy. Thoughtful post about a sad situation.

  3. I had to look up pen knife, because I was thinking something like a box knife or an exacto that was just at the guard desk like an office supply, but it's more of a pocket knife, right? Are those illegal? I'm clueless. Every guy I know in Oklahoma has a knife in his pocket. How else you gonna cut the fishing line when it gets tangled?

  4. mind is boggling over this right now. i wasn't aware NYC's laws regarding self protection were *that* bad.

    @ChromePlatedGirl, NYC's got some funky weapons laws. hell, New York State's got some funky weapons laws.

  5. I got an update on the listserv today that lists the guard as having assault charges but doesn't talk about concealed weapon so that part may not be accurate. That being said, right after 9/11 I had to take my pocket knife out of my bag so I could get into buildings that were searching everyone. I guess I didn't HAVE to but it sure made life easier. My assumption, too, is that his possession of the "weapon" wasn't the issue but his use of it as such. But I don't know. I really don't know. The first time I heard the story he stabbed the kid with a pen so information is still trickling in.

  6. That NYC treats his act of self defense as an assault is what I find so disgusting. What, does the city expect people to merely roll over for an assailant?