We were invited to an Irish Channel Neighborhood Association meeting tonight. Something about setting up a “neighbor watch” program — similar to your more familiar Neighborhood Watch. So I decide to walk over there and find out what’s going on, since the speaker is supposed to be from the Sixth District police station. I figure what the hell — maybe I can learn something and be a part of Something Larger than just our little two-street, informal, cover-your-ass kinda thing.

There’s a park (I forget the official name of it) that’s between Annunciation and Chippewa and Third and Second Sts — and it’s a nice one. Playground equipment, a baseball backstop, some asphalt basketball courts — a good hangout spot that’s kept pretty nice for the most part (except the grass needs mowing a lot — and usually the neighborhood association takes care of it). More and more, it’s been a place where the neighborhood folks hang out. There is still a problem at night with some drug activity, but basically it’s been an okay place. We feel safe there (during daylight hours).

So anyway — I’m walking to this neighborhood meeting and I go by the park and there’s some kind of activity going on there with some hiphop music and lots of folks are there and everyone’s having a good time. Folks are out on their front porches and enjoying the music and there are lots of children running around and it’s good to see the nearby folks enjoying the park, right? Then I hear some sirens and all kinds of constabulary show up and they’re going the wrong way down streets and parking diagonally and cutting people off and bailing out of their cars and going into the park and telling people to clear the park and go home and get out and back off and otherwise get the hell out and go the hell home.

Huh? WTF? I mean, WTFF? All of a sudden I’m standing across the street from the park with like 30-40 other folks wondering what the hell is happening and what’s wrong and why things are being broken up and everyone was having such a good time and why the hell??????

Maybe the cops knew something we didn’t know — we’ve been having a few more crime problems here lately than in the past. Maybe it was simply a way of overenforcing the fact there wasn’t a proper permit for this gathering. I have no idea. And I like the cops around here — they’ve largely been good and nice and helpful and all the stuff you’d expect and want. But damn. I didn’t see and no one around me saw anything out of place or potentially wrong or otherwise out of place. Seemed to us the park was being enjoyed like a park ought to be enjoyed on a nice, mild spring evening.

At least for now, I don’t get it.

Related posts:

1. Culture shock
2. What a difference!
3. Thanksgiving in New Orleans
4. Where’s Jack-do
5. Dr. Doogooder