Climb not yonder trees

Having lived in Mountain View off and on for the past 9 years, when my wife
and I decided to purchase a home in the bay area it was an easy pick.  So 
much can be said about life here in our town that it was used as an example
of what a future city can be like in the World Futurists Society meeting held 
in San Francisco just a few months ago where professors and scholars from all 
over the planet attended.  This was an amazing affirmation that we had made
a great choice in settling down here, and planning our own future.  However,
not all of our experiences have left us with this warmth of reassurance.

My wife and I like to visit the St. Stephen's Green on Castro from time to
time, and for good reason.  The staff is kind, the atmosphere is perfect and
we've shared some good memories there - Matt's election to City Council,
the 2002 World Cup games, a New Year's celebration or two.  Last week an
unfortunate thing happened, which can happen at any establishment in any town.
My wife's wallet was lifted from her purse, and her friend's purse went 
entirely at large for some time until it was found discarded in a corner of 
the dance floor.  A tragic incident, one is left with hours of phone calls 
and tasks that must be undergone in order to put one's life back together.  
The staff of St. Stephen's Green were more than generous in their efforts to 
help us locate the wallet, and when I returned for a second look, they had 
doubled in numbers and were using flashlights to see underneath tables and in 
dark corners.  A staff member at the door even offered to ask guests if he 
could have them open their purses and packs to take a glance, but I declined 
the offer noting that I wouldn't want it to offend any of the customers or 
potentially give them a bad reputation.

Sadly defeated by our search efforts, we decided to stop by the police
department on our walk home, and fill out a police report as we figured it
may be needed in the event that we had to dispute any foreign charges on
any of our banking accounts.  In retrospect, I still would like to believe
that this accurately felt like the right thing to do.

Upon arriving at the police department, we buzzed the desk from outside of
the front door to ask if there was any way we could file a police report
on my wife's stolen item.  The desk responded that they would notify a 
dispatched officer, and have him come fill out a police report for us. So we
sat and we talked for some time, and I in my post-martini state of curiosity
decided to perch on a low hanging branch in a tree next to my wife and her
long time friend whose purse had gone missing.  I felt bad for the events 
that had taken place to transform my wife's friend's birthday evening into 
a less than pleasant experience.

Some time later, a police cruiser approached with full spotlight blazing
directly at us where we sat in the front of the police department on Villa.
I hopped down from my perch and my wife and friend walked towards the car
when we were confused by some shouting.  Assuming that this must have been 
another officer arriving having to deal with something that sounded quite a
bit more devastating and in fact quite violent, we then realized that he was
literally screaming at us for the treacherous act that was some crazed 
'monkey' that had been 'climbing a tree' in front of the police department.
The gentleman shouted loudly about public drunkenness and 'attitude problems'
when I realized that I had not yet spoken a word.  A quick glance around
assured me that the rest of our party were as shocked and stunned as I was at
the amazingly increasing hostility that was being directed at us.    I thought
for a moment that maybe this was some sort of unorthodoxed police tactic with
which he could 'shake up' a potential unruly drunken citizen so that he could
be safely locked away for the evening to sober up and not be a threat to the 
community.  My first response was 'are you really this upset because I sat 
in the tree?'.  I must admit his curiosity for why someone would be perched
in a tree branch in front of the police station was well founded, but as we
learned in school, hostility and violence are seldom the answer.  He threatened
to arrest me at this point for public drunkenness and shouted at me asking for 
some response to his threat.  In my increasing bewilderment, the only response 
that I could muster was to mention that the officer may have had a lot of 
trouble with kids in school who were like-minded and felt that violence 
resolved some inner struggle.  This may not have been my exact wording, but 
the delivery was calm and slow in an effort to perhaps bring this individual's 
tirade down to a reasonable level at which normal people have conversations. 
This was apparently somewhere outside of the realm of possibility.  At this 
point, our kind friend decided that it was necessary to make a lot of noise, 
and call in the rest of his crew on a '99' that was taking place in front of 
their very fortress of justice.  I'm guessing based upon the reaction that 
this had that a '99' is somewhere between a sniper shot at the president and 
'branch sitting with intent to do harm to the masses'.  Four more officers 
appeared at what seemed like light speed, each with his handy pack of 
police-things which included a flashlight that could display hand puppet 
silhouettes on the moon.  This device was promptly pointed at me.  
Accompanying it were lots of angry questions about climbing trees.  It was 
quickly made obvious to me that the fact that I had been drinking was viewed 
upon as being a sinful act, and that I was going to be treated as a very 
special case due to my alien state.  Each time I tried calmly to respond to 
these people,  they took advantage of my sedate approach, and yelled arrest 
threats and orders to remain silent.  I had hoped that one of the others would 
be willing to listen to my account of what had taken place, so that they would 
all stop standing around me, staring and shining their lights in my face as 
though I were a serious menace to society.  It reminded me of the pack 
mentality that takes place at the Mountain View Dog Park when several bullies 
align their efforts to harass the small dog.  One officer even announced that 
he smelled alcohol (smelling of alcohol is apparently a crime;  one may want 
to avoid eating onions or garlic as well when involved in the filing of a 
police report.) as he approached the scene, but was well out of my range.  I 
might have believed his claim if I had in fact consumed a large brewery.  I 
continued to try to shift their focus onto my wife who now saddened by the 
deceit she felt in her false sense of security, living in a town where we were 
no longer treated as citizens based upon perception, but failed miserably as 
the pack had obviously picked a victim for its hostility.  

After literally an hour and a half, we managed to file our police report.
We have it here written on the back of the first officer's business card.

Lesson learned, if my home is in danger, there's a stalker in the neighborhood
or some other situation which may merit the need for police intervention, I'll
ring the staff at St. Stephen's Green where I'm assured I'll be treated with 
kindness and understanding.