Smuggler's Blues part 2

So I really fucked up. Apologies for the banal tone but what landed me inside was really daft and caused me to miss precious time with my beloved wife and bairns and witnessing how fast life goes by is criminal on my part.


I assaulted a police officer and I am damn lucky that his taser was we the only foreign object to penetrate my body because if that electric man dropper had been a .40 caliber bullet from his fully automatic pistol then this post might have been from the afterlife.
Lucky.


Smuggler's Blues part 1 described the situation next door with the world's dumbest drug dealers and their open air policy of business. Also as previously mentioned the FDLE website was awash with pictures and descriptions of their past discretions and this is what had me worried. The simple fact that they were convicted drug dealers and still dealing in public made for many a sleepless night especially when nocturnal thoughts drifted to how close this business was being ventured so close to my children.


Along with the entire neighborhood I planned and held covert meetings to alert the good citizens about the situation next door. The HOA held separate private meetings with officers from the local police department and patrols were stepped up then tripled once the names of the convicted were leaked to the office of the sheriff.
(It was me that leaked the names, shhhh...)
Game on.


Sunday morning, April 29th 7:11 A.M.  I walked to the driveway to grab the Sunday paper, my eyes still heavy from the early rise and the clink of glass from the night prior. Not sure if still in dream I lift the noggin to witness a barrage of blue and red lights not a mere 40 yards away, sirens were off. This blueberry cobbler wake up is further advanced by the made for TV sight of eight (8) fully armed members of the local sheriff's office making their way to my neighbor's step. I pick up the paper and step quietly back in the garage.


I am awake, I am more awake that I have ever been.


How many times have any of you witnessed this type of standoff on television? 50? 100?
Let me tell you something no matter how many times you have watched it whether is was Starsky and Hutch or CSI Miami, when you see it live and that close your realize two things.
I.  Glad I did not choose law enforcement as a career.
2. Glad I did not choose drug dealing as a career.


Problem.
My oldest son (14) was coming home from a sleepover from a friends house down the street, as usual he cuts through the back yards of the neighbors. His friend lives only four houses down and the locals are fine with him cutting through, I have told him time and time again not to cut through the drug house but he was supposed to be home by 7 and decided to take the dangerous shortcut.
Unbeknownst to the lad the raid was green lighted just as he was in the center of the drug house back yard when an unsuspecting officer saw a male running away from the scene. My child was tackled and with the officer's knee driven in my son's back he was cuffed ready to be taken to the van along with the scum that sold drugs in front of children.
Now I am awake, I am more awake than I have ever been. I react.


I plead, no beg that the cops have an innocent bystander but my front driveway courtroom pleas are falling on deaf ears as the protectors of the Innocent are hauling away my son, they will not stop just to listen to me they are assuming he is one of them and was trying to flee. My wife is inconsolable.


Big Problem.
I grabbed the arm of the arresting officer to argue my case and he and turns his attention to me, a shit storm of obvious and tired adjectives is hurled upon me as I offer my wrist in place of my child. My cries for help are completely ignored and I make my final case for the innocence of my 14 year old son.


Once again I am ignored and once again I place my hands on an officer of the law.
Bad idea but what is a father to do?


I don't remember the taser being fired but I do remember the strong overwhelming taste of metal in my mouth.
I am not a slight man and I have never taken a backwards step from a question but from what I have been told I went down like a torpedoed brick wall when I was tasered for laying hands on an officer of the law in the defense of the innocence of my son.
Innocent until proven guilty - not that day.


I did my time as quietly as possible, lucky to be in a county not a state facility. Once the realisation of the situation had clarified the charges were still not dropped, for the laying of hands on an officer of the law is a no-no even if that officer has ones innocent child cuffed and wrongly arrested. Apparently I swore death or justice, I can't remember saying that but the situation played out so quickly so who knows.

So here I am with two new holes in me, I got my left ear pierced in Broughty Ferry, Dundee in 1978 and I swore that would be the last time I would be pierced. Fast forward thirty four years and the latter two piercings are and always will be considered defensive parenting scars.


The world's dumbest drug dealers are gone and I found out later that one of them was released before me!

Sometimes karma kicks hard.

PS. Be nice to American cops.

What's this? we lost 5-1. Lock the bleedin' door.

Smuggler's Blues - Part 1

Back on the streets again...

The first time I saw illegal drugs was 1984.
I was at a party and a man wearing
a silk suit entered holding a briefcase.
The contents of the briefcase were:
2 bags of cocaine and twenty thousand cash money
It was in Lighthouse Point, Florida.
I was 16.

Needless to say I grew up around Miami in the 1980's where cocaine fell from the sky and square grouper (Marijuana bales) floated in with the tide and every joker with a mullet and a mustang was a drug dealer.
Like the songs says  "It's the lure of easy money it's got a very strong appeal."

Many moons ago my old college roommate and I shifted a few packages here and there, perhaps we watched "Scarface" too many times and harbored youthful dreams of cruising down South Beach in a Ferrari, stick thin model to our right checking her hair in the side mirror as the warm sticky Miami breeze offered no quarter. Luckily for the both of us we were smart enough to realize that the allure of cash heavy pockets and automotive fantasies did not mask the horrors of what happens in prison. Back to class it was for us because what happens in prison is no picnic unless you consider being raped in the shower a picnic...I do not and I left that business behind while Reagan was still in office.

As and adult I am a liberal sort of man and your business is your business as far as I am concerned what you are doing in the privacy of your own home is not my concern, unless you are a pedo or a drug dealer, then I become as conservative as a Texas sheriff married to the leader of a church choir in a border town during an election. Hypocritical? possibly but as a father my thought process is to protect and who out there has the same mindset they did as a kid?

Here lies the situation that landed me on the inside.
New neighbors arrived and they have brought with them a drive up can I take your order type of drug business. Vehicles arriving at all hours, runners coursing the neighborhood on cell phones arranging deals, cash handovers in plain sight. All of this right in front of my face, in my opinion they are the dumbest drug dealers in history, no care or concern as to who is watching or reporting. They are brazen.
A quick search on a local law enforcement site tells me that 3 of the new neighbors have priors for possession and intent to distribute and now they are standing in my yard just feet from my family.

Problem! My kids as well as the other neighborhood kids are front and center and the scum don't care. I have watched the dealings in person and have witnessed the complete and utter disregard for families and children, the safety of my own family is what fuels my disgust of this practice and my past reminds me of the danger and the dark side of the business.

I am thankful for the second amendment to the constitution which gives me the right to not wear sleeves and protect my family at the same time, I like being comfortable it's hot down here.
Part two of this post will tell of how I landed in the big house. Now it's time for a pint or four.
It's good to be home.
Sausage...