Peacemaker

Last Saturday afternoon, a friend had a last-minute schedule change and needed to use my incall at the same time as I had promised to sit different friend’s dog.  So I decided to take the dog to the bark park a few blocks from here, but when I arrived, I found two groups of people at the gate, arguing with one another.  Apparently one person’s dog had become aggressive with the other person’s dog and in the process of trying to break them up one of them had gotten very slightly bitten (no blood) and was freaking out about it.  Each of them had another person on their side and what I heard when I arrived was a lot of childish, pompous Seattle behavior.  I let my friend’s dog loose to run and was about to walk away until I heard the woman who had been scratched saying, “I was assaulted and I’m calling the police”.  At that point, I stopped being quiet; I told them I had no idea who was at fault, or if both were, and I didn’t care, but there was no way I was going to put up wih anybody calling the fucking cops (yes, that was the exact phrase I used).  The woman whined that she had been assaulted and that SOMETHING HAD TO BE DONE because what if she came there again and the guy she was arguing with was there?  I replied, “Then you both act like civilized adults, say quietly to yourself ‘there’s that asshole again’, and go to a different part of the park.”  Naturally her opponent now thought I was on his side, so I quickly smacked down that notion and said, “Do I really have to be the kindergarten teacher and break up this playground foolishness?”  When the woman brought up the cops again, I asked, “Do you really believe this situation would be helped by calling in a bunch of thugs whose idea of ‘helping’ is to tase a few of y’all and then shoot some dogs while they’re at it?”  That seemed to do the trick, and after a little more mediation on my part the woman & her boyfriend left and the other dude went and sat on a bench.  The reason I’m telling this story is: reminding people that the cops are violent, unpredictable thugs who make things worse actually stopped a ninny from calling them.  Remember that next time you hear someone threatening to do the same; I get that most of y’all are hesitant to intervene in a quarrel between strangers, and I usually would be as well.  But it’s that attitude which results in cops showing up to tase, beat, gas or even murder people over noise complaints or other mundane tiffs bystanders could easily have handled without violence.