They Fought The Law And The Law Won (Bad Boys, Bad Boys)

Yesterday (Tuesday, May 20^th) was an incredibly exciting day! Although the work itself was rather mundane (inputting data from surveys by Lincoln West students into an excel spreadsheet and creating graphs), Emeline, Rebekah and I had the opportunity to watch 3 people getting arrested on the street below the Esperanza office. Emeline was reading out numbers to me when all of a sudden I heard someone yell “STOP AND GET ON THE GROUND” from outside the window next to me. I wasn’t entirely sure if I had heard correctly, so I asked Emeline if she had heard it and what the person had yelled, and she was unsure (later telling me she thought she heard “FREEZE AND PUT YOUR HANDS UP!”). We quickly got up and peered out the window to see 8 police cars and somewhere around 16 police officers on the ground below us, with their guns pointed at three men lying on the ground with their arms above their heads. Emeline then texted Rebekah, who promptly hung up the call she was making a sprinted into the room. We watched the ordeal from the office window, as the men were handcuffed and frisked, culminating in police confiscating a large silver handgun and a bag of white powder from the men. Meanwhile, several cops ran around the nearby buildings, even into the library, seeming seeking another perpetrator. The three men were hauled off, and several witnesses were interviewed. That was pretty much the end of the excitement, and we went back to work still wondering what had happened. We later learned from our building’s security guard that these three men had robbed the clothing store across the street from our office, although Emeline and Rebekah still suspect that the arrest was drug related due to the bag of white powder they saw. There were also rumors that someone was shot during the robbery, which would explain the loud pop I had heard prior to the arrest, but the ambulance we saw had not picked anyone up and had come and go quietly. Overall the experience was fascinating, and more intriguing that scary. We left the office soon after the street calmed down to get to our meeting at the Shaker Lakes Nature Center.

            Our visit to the Nature Center was really fun. We first met with Lisa Fredrickson, Media and Events Manager for the Nature Center. She taught us a bit about their history and their current programing, and then invited us to walk through the park that surrounds the center. Rebekah, Emeline and I walked through the whole park, which none of us had ever done, exploring the different gardens and trails. We really enjoyed the woodland garden and the birding trails. I’ll be very interested to see what Emeline writes about in the feature, since I really enjoyed our time there.