When shit that hits the fan hits home: the random acts of Police in Louisville, Kentucky - UPDATED 10/31/2009

Good morning friends,

Please pardon the crudeness of my language, but at the moment crude language is about all that seems to fit my mood. About 3 hours ago I had the pleasure of standing on my front stoop watching 2 policeman point guns at my friend as he and another friend arrived at my home in the Clifton neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky. From what I can tell so far they were being pulled over for a traffic violation. But, to keep matters clear I will describe only what I saw and nothing that I'm guessing at. Here is my experience:

I was sitting in the rear room of my long, shotgun-style house when I heard yelling outside. At first I thought nothing of it--I thought it was probably just some latenight partiers making their way home from a local bar. As the yelling continued and intensified, I became concerned and walked to the front door to see what was the matter. When I opened the door I saw two police officers with guns drawn and aimed standing to the left and to the right of my front sidewalk that goes from my front door out toward the street. I also saw the car they were driving parked in one of the parking spaces on the street. Both guns were pointed at one of my two arriving friends; he was standing with his back facing me (and the police officers; I was behind them all) near the vehicle with his hands up. At a distance I heard the voice of my other arriving friend talking to other officers at another car (that was the last I heard of that friend). The police were shouting orders at my (other) friend at whom the gun was drawn. Whatever they were saying was pretty much unintelligible to me from my vantage point, but from what I could hear it did include a nice drizzle of cursing. My friend (with 2 guns that I could see still pointed at him) walked in reverse towards one of the officers, who I could by then make out was saying something along the lines of, "walk towards my voice" (or "Just walk towards my fucking voice!"--probably closer). After cop #1 got handcuffs on my friend, cop #2 finally stopped aiming his gun. By around this time I had calmed a little and took count of the police cars present and counted 7 (seven). After my friend was searched, the police proceeded to interrogate him for approximately 30 minutes as he stood in front of one of their vehicles, of course handcuffed all the while. There were 4-6 cops surrounding him at all times. (Still couldn't see what was going on with my other friend; tree blocking my view.) Finally, they put him in the back of one of their cars and drove away. I presume my other friend was taken away in another one of the cars.

Okay, done with the quick recollecting... I'll probably recount some more details (like the fun conversation I had with the cops) a little late, but I wanted to get the critical points down quickly and with clarity while the event is still fresh in my head. The final points I'd like to mention now are...

• AT NO POINT DID I SEE MY FRIEND WHO HAD THE GUNS TARGETED ON HIM MAKE ANY VIOLENT MOVES.
• AT NO POINT DID I SEE HIM DO ANYTHING OTHER THAN COOPERATE WITH THE POLICE OFFICERS.
• YET GUNS WERE DRAWN AND AIMED AT A LIVING HUMAN BEING--APPARENTLY OVER A TRAFFIC VIOLATION.

Fucked up, eh?
Good times in Louisville.
Thanks for listening.
To sleep now until the judge makes his decision at 7 am about pretrial shit.

Best wishes to every free being on this Earth... Goodnight.

UPDATE: Saturday, 31 October 2009 - Both friends released Thursday late afternoon after spending about 36 hours in jail. All charges (they managed to rack it up to four!!!! separate charges) on my friend who had the guns targeted on him were, in fact, traffic-related.