The Rundown

Last week, for the fourth time in my life, I had to chase someone down who had committed a crime(albeit minor this time). Like the other three occasions, I gave little thought as to what would happen once I caught up with my quarry, adrenaline ruled. I did mediate my pursuit as my younger daughter Sindi was with me, but I was resolved to catch the guys who had hit my car and fled.
The first time I chased someone down was also a hit and run incident. I was on my way to tutor a friend on a warm Sunday afternoon. Wardell was a great kid who suffered from Muscular Dystrophy. His mother was a wonderful woman, devout in her faith and her love for her son. I was younger, and I think I would have been tempted to debate with anyone else as adamant and staunch in their religious views, but she was so genuine, so honest, I knew it would have been vain and disrespectful to challenge her. I enjoyed visiting them and I knew that they both appreciated my help. Wardell and I would go over his Alcohol course and his mother would make us lunch. On that day, after a productive tutoring session and a wonderful meal, I left to make my way home. Wardell was an African-American and lived in a predominately African-American neighborhood. This did not concern me, but I was aware of it.
As I was making my way through the winding streets,I noticed a car approaching the adjacent stop sign as I was halfway through the intersection. I laughed to myself as I noticed the young driver was engaged in the "Detroit Lean", a term I had just learned. I supposed I knew he was going to hit me at that moment. He did hit the rear of my car, and spun me around a bit. I stopped, gathered myself and noticed he was driving off, ignoring the accident. I shook off the impact and turned the car around to follow him. I had no idea what I would do when and if I caught him, but I knew I was not going to let him get away. I didn't occur to me that I was a White male chasing a Black male through a Black neighborhood until I noticed bystanders in their yards. As I sped along, they pointed the way, showing me where he had gone. Eventually, he turned down a dead end street, and I cornered him at the guardrail at the end of the street. A small crowd approached as I got out of my car and confronted him. He was young, maybe 18 and I immediately felt sorry for him. My anger dissipated and I went about the business of exchanging information. I learned quickly that he had no insurance, so I knew I would be out a hefty deductible. The crowd watched and listened, and before I left two gentlemen offered to be witnesses. A third offered to call the police. I politely declined, figuring the kid had learned his lesson, and I knew I wouldn't recover anything from him. I left the cul de sac neither angry nor upset, perhaps a bit bolstered by kindness of strangers.
My second chase happened in Yemen, a year later. The circumstances were somewhat similar, I was a stranger in a neighborhood chasing down a local resident. This time I had help, and I wasn't sure things would work out well at all. At the end of our first year of service, the Peace Corps had brought my group together in the port city of Hodeidah for a check in conference. We had a great time, swimming, hanging out, eating great food. We stayed in a nice hotel that had a bar on the top floor. After a day of sessions and camaraderie, many of us met in the bar for a few drinks. Although Yemen is a conservative Muslim country, there were some Yemeni in the bar drinking. After a few hours, everyone seemed to be having a good time. At some point, one of the female volunteers excused herself and went into the restroom. We didn't know at the time that one of the Yemeni patrons followed her in. To this day, I don't know what happened in that room, nor did I care to know. I was sitting across the room when I saw her emerge, obviously shaken up. The Yemeni came out a moment later and bolted for the exit. In an instant, several other volunteers jumped up and followed him out. I made my way through the crowd and followed them to the stairwell (we were on the tenth floor). I could hear them below me, and I descended as fast as I could. When I got to the bottom, I went out the exit door and saw a trail of flip flops leading towards a few buildings. I caught my colleagues around the corner of the first building. They had chased him down the street, and he was now hiding under a car. As I approached, they were trying to drag him out. At this point, a very large, vocal crowd was gathering. Once they had pulled him from under the car, they were trying to restrain him. He was large and stocky, and they were having a hard time. He was also very drunk. I came up from behind him and put him into a full-nelson. I wasn't trying to hurt him, I was trying to get control of the situation until we could decide what to do. The crowd observing this was getting agitated as they did not understand what was happening, I don't think we did either. Eventually, a serious looking man stepped out of the crowd with a 45 pistol raised in the air very close to my face. He approached us and asked in Arabic what had happened. We tried to explain, but I think the alcohol on the assailant's breath probably told the story. He waved the crowd to the side and escorted us down the street to the police station. I released the man and we held his arms as we walked down the street. The crowd slowly dispersed and we entered the gates of the police compound. Two officials walked up and took custody of man. We were told later he was a naval officer, and had received a month sentence for public intoxication. I don't think the volunteer had filed a complaint. Once again, I had been assisted by a group of people who could have taken a different approach to the situation, based on some simple biases. Sometimes, right is right, anywhere.
Two years later, I was back in Akron working for a literacy agency downtown. We had evening tutoring sessions, so often I would stay late to keep the office open then close up. On most of those evenings, I was the only staff in the place. It was a large complex of offices and desks provided by the library. On one evening, I must have been in the back, because later I discovered that someone had come in front doors and taken my new leather jacket. I was crushed. I called the police and a friendly officer responded promptly. He sensed my disappointment and told me to be sure to keep my eye out as Akron wasn't that big, and I might actually see someone wearing it. I didn't realize it at the time, but his advice would about drive me crazy.
I spent the next two months scrutinizing every brown leather jacket I saw in a city of 250,000. Finally, I gave up and let the jacket "go." A week after my closure, I was taking a former student and Vietnam Vet to the rehab center at six am on a Sunday morning (another story). On the way back, I drove through downtown, even more deserted than normal. As I was driving through an empty intersection, a lone figure caught my eye a block away. It was a man wearing a brown leather jacket, but with the plaid scarf that had been on the pocket when it was stolen. I pulled the car over to the curb, jumped out, and ran after him in the sub-zero weather. I was about a half a block away from him before he heard me - he took off. I chased him for about five minutes and caught him outside a bank. I grabbed him by shoulder and spun him around to the wall of a bank. As I caught my breath, I told him that he had my jacket, and I wanted it back. He looked at me and said something like "what if I don't give it back?" I knew he was scared, so I led with a Clint Eastwoodesque "Well, I am leaving with that jacket, you can go home or to the hospital." I should mention that such forays into similar masculinity had usually backfired in my past. He looked at me,told me he bought it and hadn't actually stolen it. I just held my hand out. He slowly took the coat off and gave it to me. I started to turn and leave, thought better of it and turned and addressed him. I asked him how far away he lived and he told me a mile or so. It was very cold, I gave him a ride home.
So, almost twenty years later, I found myself chasing down yet another offender. Sindi and I were in West Virginia apartment hunting (in case I accepted a job there) for a full day. I was frustrated as there were no decent places in town at all, and we had seen some very nasty places. On top of that, the town of 17,000 had traffic like LA. We were attempting to make a left hand turn and a white pickup truck hit us from behind. We finished our turn into a driveway when we noticed that the truck continued on. We backed out (I had not made a proper turn, and we were still in traffic) and drove fifty yards in the wrong lane. I saw the truck turn behind a hospital on the right. I cut through a parking lot and entered a small neighborhood. I wasn't driving recklessly, but I was determined to catch the guy. As we got into the neighborhood, we turned onto a dead end street. I saw the truck ahead of us, with a jeep behind it. I overtook the jeep and and driver was on the phone giving me a thumbs up sign. He had witnessed the accident and was trailing them. The driver of the pickup stopped realizing he had nowhere to go and two vehicles tracking him. I jumped out and I guess I was pretty hot. I approached the driver (there were two of them) and told him he had hit me. He and his friend told me that they didn't know they had hit us as we did not stop. I cooled off and wrote their license down. The driver of the jeep was actually some type of off-duty officer, and he had called the police. He gave me his name and number if the police needed any more information. He left and the police arrived a short time later. The officer approached me and asked me what happened. When I told him, he told me he had complaints about my driving (when I got out of the left lane). He looked at the other two who had an expired insurance card and overdue tickets and asked for their story. When they told him they didn't know they had hit me, he smiled and asked them where they were headed, especially at this dead end. They had no answer. At the end of the incident, he wrote them several tickets and gave me a reference number for a police report that I will have to pay $25 to obtain. A lousy day.
I have been lucky, I know. I just can't see how we should let people victimize us. I am not sure I would chase someone down again with my daughter in the car (she thought it was "way cool" though).
*Couldn't help posting the Rosario Dawson photo from the movie The Rundown. Editorial privilege