ArchivedLogs:What NOT to Do

What NOT to Do
...If You're Stopped by the Police
Dramatis Personae Micah, Anole, Kyle Whelan
In Absentia	17 April 2013 Anole gets arrested. Kyle probably wants to hit someone. Micah wants to institute mandatory classes in Civil Liberties. >_<'
Location <NYC> Central Park South
Central Park South is home not just to the park itself, but also to the Belvedere Castle, the Alice in Wonderland statues, and the Central Park Zoo. These areas tend to draw tourists like a magnet - it is, perhaps, for that very reason that places like Bethesda Terrace tend to attract more New Yorkers than not, if just to escape the press of tourism that infiltrates the whole city. Yet another day of beautiful spring weather finds Micah haunting yet another City park, after a long workday. The slim young man is dressed in a green and blue plaid button-down shirt, worn open over a plain white T-shirt and faded jeans that are patched in a plethora of varicoloured patches. He has settled onto a bench with a meal that may once have contained more foodstuffs, but is now down to a handful of French fries and a half a pickle in a little paper container. Hazel eyes are happily people watching as food continues to disappear at a prodigious pace. Yet another day of beautiful spring weather finds Anole -- actually it doesn't find Anole. At least, it's hard to find Anole, the small green teenager dressed in shabby old jeans, falling-apart sneakers, a hoodie with holes in its sleeves; all these things are currently faded into the mottled brown of a tree just by Micah's bench. He's /also/ peoplewatching, albeit from up above. There's another young man nearby, purchasing a hotdog at a stand; the man puts his wallet in his back pocket and turns to head down the path, a glob of relish dropping to the ground as he happily chomps down. As he's passing by Micah's bench, something -- something! Something looong and pink shoots out from -- somewhere diagonally overhead? It streeeetches to nab the wallet from the man's back pocket, disappearing again almost as soon as it was there. Although now the man is down one wallet. He stops at the brief touch, looking around a little puzzled -- at the hot dog stand, at Micah, but then just takes another bite of his hot dog. Approaching the hot dog stand from the other direction is one very burly man in the distinctive blue of an NYPD police officer. He's stopping to refresh himself, hot dog and Pepsi and nearby there is an bicycle leaning unlocked against a lamp post and bizarrely, nobody is stealing it. Or not so bizarrely, given that it says POLICE all over it. Hot dog collected, he is ambling over towards Micah's bench. Leisurely. It's a nice spring day. Micah has a French fry in his mouth and half-bitten when…pink things shoot down from the /sky/? And maybe just slapped a guy? Or took something out of his pocket. That seems marginally more likely than slapping. Marginally. The fry dangles from Micah’s lips like a cigarette in a Western as he stares incredulously. What. The young man stares back, when he catches Micah staring, a bit of puzzlement and a bit of annoyance mingling in his expression and his, "-- What." It's a flat what. There's mustard on the corner of his lips that he licks off afterwards. He looks behind himself like maybe Micah is staring at something else? "-- are you staring at?" belatedly finishes the sentence, when he ascertains that the answer is in fact /him/. Behind them, there is a creepcreepcreeping down from the trees, though this is still just mottled brown-on-brown and moving slow. Creepcreep. Creep. Kyle follows the path of Micah's gaze, between the man on the bench, the man with the hotdog. He takes a bite of his /own/ hotdog before asking, eyebrows raised but tone light and calm: "-- There a problem?" He is resting a foot on the far end of Micah's bench, elbow propped on his knee, soda held unopened in one dangling hand. Micah drops his fry back into the container when he is addressed…sort of accusingly by the other man. “I…thought I saw somethin’ flyin’…” His free hand darts nervously through his hair. Muss. “I dunno, prob’ly just cicadas comin’ out. Sorry.” And then there is a police officer? “Oh, no, Sir. No problems.” Micah’s head shakes with this for /emphasis/. No problems at all. "Yeahok." The man watches Micah uncertainly, eyes narrowing briefly at the other man's nervousness. He's taking a step back, taking another bite of his hotdog. In his pocket his phone buzzes; he reaches down to get it but then instead pats at one pocket and then another. And then another and then he narrows his eyes on Micah /again/. "/Hey/. My /wallet/." Over at the nearby tree there is one teenager, once-brown, now green and grungy-denim and faded-grey-sweatshirt, freezing as he takes a half-step away from the tree. Kyle is watching Micah's nervousness, too. His eyes don't narrow, but he is watching both the men rather more closely now. His eyebrows are raising higher. "Your wallet, kid?" He glances back to Micah. "You sure there's not a problem?" "Yessir." Micah replies simply. In case this /turns into/ a problem. It is time to enter 'don't run your mouth too much around cops' mode. His hands stay in his lap, immobile. "/Yes/, there's a problem, he took my /wallet/," the man insists angrily, still patting at his pockets. He does amend a moment later, at least. "/Someone/ took my wallet." Anole is hesitantly stepping back, leaning against the tree to shift from green to brown. Scuttling back up it. "Him?" Kyle looks a little skeptical, but gives Micah a long look, "Did you --" Until he catches movement from the corner of his eye; he watches that shift of colour with wider eyes and puts the hot dog and soda down on the bench. "Hey. Hey, you!" He's circling around towards the tree with a /deep/ frown. "You see that?" he's asking -- perhaps the others! This tree has earned his displeasure at least that is for sure. Micah looks resigned at the accusation, having expected things to go this direction. He manages to refrain from a heavy sigh. “No, Sir.” Whether this was in answer to the first, aborted question or to indicate that he hasn’t seen anything is unclear. Perhaps both. The redhead does crane his neck around to observe the offending tree as the cop moves toward it. Anole has only gotten as far as the lowest branch of the tree when there is /approaching cop/ and freezing still and camoflauged does not help when he lets out a tiny squeak of startlement. The tree is /watching/ Kyle, with huge bark-brown eyes. And then Micah. And then Kyle. "... hedidn'ttakeit," he blurts out in an unhappy rush, scuttling a little bit higher against the bark. "/Jesus/," says the other man, when he finally catches sight of the teenager in the tree, "... what /is/ that?" Kyle's eyes narrow sharply. He pinches at the bridge of his nose. "Jesus," he is also muttering under his breath, "get down from there. That's illegal." His arms, at the moment, are crossing over his chest, and he gives Micah a look that is a little resigned. "-- Wish it /had/ been you." Keeping to his seat, Micah just /observes/ this next exchange with anxiety plain to read on his features. Oh no, a kid with Genetic Enhancements. Please, please, don't let this turn into a /mess/! Just how does one respond to the sort of comment Kyle just made? "Um...thanks?"...for wanting to arrest me? Anole is shaking his head emphatically, for all this is only indistinctly visible in his current faded-brown state against the tree. "Wh -- what's illegal?" "Stealing fucking /wallets/," the man behind Kyle is saying. And to Micah, "You saw it, didn't you? You gave me that /look/, do you /know/ that thing?" "Climbing the trees here. Stealing wallets. Doing --" Kyle uncrosses his arms to gesture to Anole up in the tree. "/That/." It's clear from his increasingly steely tone which of these three things he considers the worst offense. His hand drops to his side. Not his firearm, at least, although that is right there in its holster, but the taser that is /also/ right there. "Get. Down." “I didn’t see anythin’ but some movement near you. It could have nothin’ at all to do with that kid,” Micah’s reply is intended to calm things away from the ‘get the mutant’ direction they seem to be taking. Or at least to keep the young man from making things worse. There isn’t much to be done about the officer. He does pull out his phone to record what is happening, openly. To encourage appropriate behaviour or document what might become inappropriate. "No, he doesn't -- he's not -- I don't -- lookI'msorry," Anole squeaks, edging a little higher against the tree trunk, this time not standing on any of its branches and just pressing his hands hard against the bark. His sneakers do not find the same purchase, though, scrabbling up until he manages to find a new branch to rest them on. "I didn't -- I was just --" He resettles his weight carefully on the branch, shifting from bark-brown back to green. One hand lifts off the tree trunk once he's found a place to more-or-less stand. "Look please I'll give it /back/ OK I -- heywhatareyouareyoufilmingthisohgodno." "Keep your hands where I can see 'em," he tells Anole, when the teenager's hand moves, "and get down /now/. -- /Hey/, what are you --" Kyle's words are almost an echo of Anole's, eyes slanting sharply to /frown/ at Micah and his hand starting to draw his taser. But when he sees a phone and not a /weapon/ he -- OK, doesn't relax, exactly, but he's not about to shoot Micah either. He grunts, a short and huffed sound that does not sound particularly pleased. "Don't you have anything better to do?" he asks, looking away from Micah back up at the tree. Oh, lovely. The kid has all but confessed and is /freaking out/ at the best help Micah could offer as a bystander. Micah continues filming, biting back a dozen reassurances about things not going on YouTube and only filming for the kid's benefit. He does answer the officer, politely, because that is what you /do/. "No, Sir. Exercising First Amendment rights, filmin' for documentation purposes, and not interferin' with your work seems to be a valuable use of my time." Anole is moving like a /flash/ when Kyle looks away. He reaches into the pocket of his sweatshirt to pull out a wallet and /leaps/ out of the tree, clinging for a moment to a nearby lamppost before jumping to the ground, moving -- a good deal faster than a person should be able to. The wallet is dropped unceremoniously at the base of the lamppost before he is darting across the path, heading -- away! "Thank fucking god," is all the /other/ man says, going to pick up his wallet without, admittedly, a great deal of concern given to anyone else around. "Goddamn hippie," is what Kyle mutters, to Micah's answer. But then there is /movement/ and Kyle is drawing his weapon the moment Anole reaches into his pocket, aiming -- well, he /was/ aiming up and then he is aiming over and then "Holy shit," he is muttering because the teenager is /fast/. He fires the taser as Anole is crossing the path, wires shooting out towards the kid. Everything about this looks like bad ideas! Throwing things and sudden movements in front of people who are armed… Micah keeps his hand steady, filming silently. He may fail to suppress a wry grin at the hippie comment…because that’s the /clear/ equivalency of understanding one’s rights, surely. Tasers are fast but Anole is fast, too, and has a headstart; he squeaks-drops-rolls but not because of getting twitchy-electrocuted; mostly just because of /avoiding/ getting twitchy electrocuted. And then in undoubtedly a continuation of Bad Idea, scrambles back to his feet to plow past (or into) an oncoming jogger and then keep running. "Fff--" Kyle is bolting, too, ignoring Micah and his HIPPIE CAMERA and his FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS and vaulting the bench to sprint after Anole. Or, okay, sprint as far as his nearby bike and then /bike/ after Anole because that is way quicker and there is no way he can /outrun/ the teenager. He pulls up short just in front of the mutant teenager, yanking out his baton to THWACK it into Anole's path. Micah has to twist /quickly/ to keep this ridiculous scene on camera as it flips from one side of him to the other. Very nearly /over/ him, in fact! He is so intent on keeping a firm grip on the phone that he almost loses his remnant foodstuffs. /Almost/, phew. He winces as the baton comes out. Anole only manages a quick squeak as the bike pulls up in front of him before he goes crashing into the baton, dropping to the ground with a solid hard crack of metal on jaw. Even then, crabwalking backwards for a moment, he looks like he is thinking of running again. But he doesn't. He is /shaking/, visibly, eyes teary as he slumps against the ground. His gaze is darting around at the small crowd of onlookers that are rubbernecking, and in the end light on Micah and his camera. He swallows, cringes, looks away. He opens his mouth to speak, but closes it abruptly again with a rather pained grimace. "M'sorry," he mumbles, though these words make him wince again. "Yeah, whatever," is Kyle's grumbling response, dismounting reaching to turn Anole around so that he can cuff his hands behind his back. He's getting out his radio to call for a car, irritably waving his baton at onlookers. "We're done here," he says, narrowing his eyes at Micah. Oh, there are more reasons to wince when the baton connects. But at least it doesn’t seem to be escalating. Narrow eyes all you /want/, officer, Micah’s phone isn’t going to stop recording until Anole is safely in the patrol car. He doesn’t need permission as long as he’s not interfering and /oh look/, it’s a public place. Where Micah has every right to be. Eating French fries. He shoves a fry into his mouth in an attempt to look casual. See? Anole mostly just -- sits. Quietly. Possibly because moving his jaw hurts. For a moment he looks at Micah's fries enviously but then he just sits! And waits. It will probably be a long night for him.