I parked my cab a block away and walked toward the scene. Whatever incident had occurred was clearly already over because the cops were standing around telling each other jokes. Back then I assumed that so many cops descended on a call in order to back each other up in potentially dangerous situations. It was only latter that I leaned that the real reason they showed up en masse was to file for overtime.
I started to walk around the crowd to get into the store when I spotted a man laying face down on the street with his hands cuffed behind his back. He was chubby, in his mid-fifties and needed to turn his head to one side or the other to keep his mouth out of the puddle that the rain was forming around him.
He looked up at me with a dazed, distraught expression and said, "Madness ... Madness ... Madness."
I went into the store and bought my juice from the distracted store owner who kept looking out at the scene outside.
I stepped outside. The situation remained the same: the cops swapping jokes while the stunned man stared after me, twisting his head from side to side to keep from drowning.
The next day, the store owner told me what had happened.
The man in the street had been mugged by two guys who stole his wallet. He chased them, kicked their asses and took his wallet back.
Just as he grabbed his wallet the police came up, arrested him, cuffed him and threw down on the street into the position he was in when I spotted him.
Okay, anybody can make a mistake. It must have looked like the victim was the thief when the cops showed up. That I can understand. What they did next, however, blows my mind: without bothering to look at the picture on the victim's license, they gave the wallet back to the thieves who walked merrily away - no doubt to burst out laughing as soon as they went beyond the reach of sound.
"Madness .... Madness ... Madness ... Sloth ... Sloth ... Sloth."
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