I didn't hit him. He jumped out of the way just in time. That image of
him that I have burnt into my brain was the sight of him in mid leap.
---
Christopher Hitchens
“ What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
”
― Christopher Hitchens,
On 4/19/2019 9:18 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Other people might not have laughed in that situation. I've never driven a car,
but if it were me, I'd have been horrified that I'd inadvertently hit someone
whom I hadn't seen, relieved that he wasn't hurt, and terrified about being
arrested. I suspect that if you were African American, he probably would have
arrested you for attempted murder, and you might not be here to tell the tale.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On
Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2019 10:10 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Attempted murder
Since I was using attempted murder as an example of how one could be charged
with a crime when the intended crime was not committed I reminded myself of the
time a cop threatened to arrest me for attempted murder. I tell you this only
because I thought you might find it amusing. In retrospect I do. I was driving
along once at night. I came up to an elementary school on my left and sitting
in the parking lot was a police car with its blue lights flashing, its
headlights on and a door standing open. There was no cop in it nor outside of
it that I could see. That made me curious and so I was looking at it wondering
what was going on. As I passed it I returned my eyes to the road just in time
to see the cop. The image I saw was burned into my brain and I still recall it
in detail. Right there in my headlights was an airborne cop. He was actually in
the air above the road with arms and legs spread out, with a flashlight also in
the air and detached from his right hand by several inches, and a look on his
face that could only be utter panic. I hit my brakes just in time to avoid
hitting the stopped car that was partially in the road and partially in a deep
ditch. I could see that the car was stuck and that the cop had been directing
traffic around it, but because I was distracted by his cop car with all of its
lights flashing I did not see him until too late. It was his leap that I caught
part of in my headlights that saved him, not my application of the brakes. The
application of the brakes only saved me from hitting the car. Once I had
stopped here came the cop from the foliage that he had leaped into. From his
mouth came a flurry of invectives each of which was preceded by the words god
damn. It was god damn idiot, god damn moron, god damn fool and god damn
everything else. Between the god damns he threatened to arrest me for reckless
driving, attempted murder and numerous attempted other crimes. Even while all
this name calling and threats were going on I was hard pressed to not laugh.
What struck me as so funny were all the leaves and twigs adorning his uniform
and his hair too. He must have landed in a real thicket. Amazingly enough,
though, he finally said that he had other things to deal with other than me and
he told me to get out of there before he really did arrest me. I left without
even a ticket.
