I was feeling a bit restless at 12:30 AM tonight. My fiancee` works thirds during the week, so we're both accustomed to being up late on the weekend (I adjust my schedule pretty well back to working days during the week). So, I took a walk. I started walking from around Mt. Hope and MLK, up MLK, across Main St., Up Washington into downtown. I had told my girl I was talking a rather long walk and that I'd appreciate her being able to pick me up if I didn't feel like walking back home.
As always, I had my cell phone with me, which has a voice recorder and police scanner application, which I had tuned to Ingham County Public safety.
I got a drink and a bag of chips at Jimmy Johns on Washington. I sat around, watched the bars close up in the area as I ate my chips. I walked back down Washington when I was done and texted my fiancee` to ask for a pickup. As I was walking down Washington one of the LPD units was stalking slowly behind me, I noted over my shoulder. He pulled up the road and sat on a side street. I walked passed him about another 200 yards. Then I sat on the curb near Washington and and the I-496 overpass. I sat there so my fiancee` who would be coming up Washington would be able to plainly see me. As I sat, the same police car pulled down past me and continued down the street. As my fiancees` car pulled up, I heard an officer on the scanner. The conversation went roughly like this:
Officer: Just wanted to advise you there is a guy out on Washington exercising his open carry right. He's currently sitting on a curb on the 200 block of Washington, possibly getting somebody to notice him and call it in. He was downtown earlier. I had no reason to stop and talk to him. Standby for description.
Dispatch: Go ahead
Officer: Bald white male, approximately 40. Light shirt, tan pants, clean shaved (at this point I'm getting in my fiancees` car, apparently he's not in sight anymore because he wasn't describing this).
So we head back home and I'm telling my fiancee` I'm being talked about on the radio. As we're going along we see a LPD car (apparently the same) on a side street of Washing South of I-496. He must have made me in the passenger seat. He followed up down Mt. Hope and as we're driving, he says the following:
Officer: The man with a gun is now in a car, stand by for description.
Dispatch: 10-4
The officer proceeded to describe my fiancees` car, make, model, proximate color, plate info. No information about the registration of the vehicle was read back, but the dispatcher said they made a note of it.
By this time, he's sitting behind us on MLK and Mt. Hope. He turned north back up MLK as we proceeded West down Mt. Hope.
Proximate time of the scanner transaction was 02:30 on 9/5/2010.
The thing that bothers me most is I'm 29. Really?! 40?! *sigh*
