Today I started off to work. I stopped at my normal coffee-to-go place, Stewarts in the Village of Nassau. As I left the store, two young white men were yelling and threatening this young black man near the gas pumps. What? My attention was drawn of course to the yelling. Wow. They were basically in his face yelling about how he was “in the Village of Nassau now” and “pull your pants up!” sort of thing.

I pulled out my phone to dial 911 since it seemed to be escalating and as I did so I noticed another Stewarts customer pull out his phone too. I started explaining the situation and it was clear that both of us were reporting the same thing. At one point everyone disappeared around the corner but then the two white guys came back. I asked the EMS guy on the phone if I could quickly give him the license plate number since it appeared they were about to leave – Mass plates, got the number no problem.

I gave a description of the two trouble makers. Strangely when I said the guys had left, the guy on the phone said “ok so black car with two black guys in it.” Oh no, I said – “two WHITE guys, one with a shaved head. The guy they were hassling was black.” That struck me as really an odd thing, but he confirmed what I had said.

And then they were gone at a high speed. I told the phone fellow what direction they were going in. The other customer and I looked around but couldn’t find the victim of all this. I don’t think they physically hurt him. I wish he hadn’t run off but I certainly understand not sticking around. I thanked the other customer for calling as well. He allowed as he really thought it was about to get ugly. I agreed.

Got back in my car with my coffee and started off to work. I figured they had gotten away with this thing because what the heck, they weren’t even from Nassau – they were apparently from Massachusetts!

Pretty close to the 9 & 20 split, don’t I see a bit of flashing lights? Hmmmm doesn’t look like a police car and it had some strange license plate (some sort of state agency) but in front of it is a little black car with Mass plates – indeed it’s them! and in front of them is a regular police car.

Wow.

I actually pulled over and explained that I had called in this problem at the Nassau Stewarts and now saw this scene and I wanted to confirm that this was the car I’d seen take off from Nassau with the two guys in it. They thanked me and I thanked them for actually acting on our reports.

Back on the highway and on my way to work. And all day long a big chunk of my brain has been wrestling with where this stupidity comes from. Makes everything else seem pretty damn trivial.