Gang Leader for a Day: Don’t Call the Police
From television shows and movies, we know housing projects are rife with crime: women raped, children shot, men beaten.
But no matter how bad it gets, if you live in the projects, you don’t call the cops. Why?
For one, a 911 call from the projects is seldom answered. Emergency calls from housing estates known for trouble are not handled like calls from other neighborhoods; that is, they’re ignored.
This means that if you live in the projects, you learn to handle emergencies yourself, and dial 911 only in the most extreme emergencies.
In one example that the author witnessed, a man was physically assaulting a woman. Residents got together and beat up the man, instead of calling the police. And because a call for an ambulance probably wouldn’t be answered either, residents drove the woman to the hospital themselves.
That said, even if the police did show up, they probably wouldn’t be welcomed in the projects.
Residents often throw bottles at cops when they respond to a call; worse, they can be shot at, too.
The police aren’t entirely innocent, either. Some officers of the law have been seen abusing residents, as part of a blackmail scheme.
“Officer Jerry,” for example, runs a protection racket. The author once witnessed him and three other police officers enter an apartment, handcuff a teenager and then brutally beat the teen’s father while demanding money.
Once the father revealed the location of his cash, the officers stopped, uncuffed the teen, grabbed a paper bag the father pointed out and left.
The author was even warned against writing about corrupt cops by other honest police officers, who were concerned about his safety. They even told him that some of the corrupt officers broke into the author’s car, intending to steal his notebook.