THURSDAY, JULY 19TH
This one isn’t fun or funny.
Yesterday on the plane I met a musician. They invited me to come see them perform tonight only at this venue downtown. After wrapping up CCI for the day, I head over in that direction.
On the way there I hear a lot of yelling. A disheveled black man passes me, and stalking behind him is the bro-est bro who ever bro’d with two equally awful friends. Blonde hair, douchey haircut, shirt that definitely cost way too much money, the works.
Frat Boy: oh yeah now you fucked up!
Me: man why you followin him
He didn’t hear me. Neither did his two equally-horrble friends behind him.
The black man walks out into the street and starts looking like he’s ready to fight. He rips his shirt off and starts making fighting poses and blocking traffic. They yell and spit at each other some more. Frat boy never leaves the sidewalk.
They’ve passed me, and there are a few other bystanders debating whether or not to break this up before it becomes a bigger deal. I’m not really prepared engage up to four people. There are way too many variables here, and I don’t wanna call the cops either, because this is America and we all know how that ends for the non white among us.
So I do the safe thing and I keep walking. Was that the right thing to do? I’m not sure.
I get to the venue with a sour taste in my mouth. My airplane buddy is presumably long gone, and the place is mostly cleared out. Just as well, I suppose. I’m not really in the mood anymore anyway. I turn to go back to the hotel and what greets me but the party from before.
They’re still telling and the one guy is still shirtless, carrying around his white T-shirt in a closed fist. He turns around to glare at his pursuers, who yell at him a little more. I’m about to tell them all to shut up and let the guy walk.
POP
Black Man is on the ground immediately. One of the frat boys pulls the trigger on a goddamn taser. He’s in rough shape. There’s immediately blood spattered on the concrete, and he’s got a nasty gash above his eyebrow. It’s bad.
And this armed piece of shit just lays on the electricity, yelling at his victim.
I don’t know what to do. Do I call the cops? Do I grab the taser? What if he’s got another one? There are three of these assholes. If a fight breaks out, I will not win. What if one of them has a gun?
Eventually he throws the taser on the sidewalk and the three scumbags walk away. Me and a security guard from the nearby hotel get down and ask the victim if he’s okay. It looked like he was unconscious for a bit- he’d been tased a long long time.
Security Guard calls 911 and starts describing the incident. Almost on cue the victim gets up, yanks the barbed tips of the electrodes out of his chest, gets up, and runs off. In seconds he’s out of sight, and the situation is over. The security guard explains what happened, and that everyone left, to the dispatcher. Then we looked at each other for a second before walking away ourselves.
Rando on the street: Hey man! Welcome to San Diego!