Wannabe cops and profiling

When I was a child of around 12 or 13, my younger brother and I had a paper route that covered several NYC apartment buildings. As this was the early 80s several of the buildings had evening neighborhood watches that hung out in the lobby observing. Also, as this was the early 80s, no one thought it strange that two young children would be able to go after dark to collect money for their little business without adult supervision -- except one person.

One evening we were buzzed into one of the buildings on our route by one of our customers to make our weekly collections. This building had some residents in the lobby keeping an eye on things and, as we approached the elevator, we were questioned by the watch as to what we were doing there. We showed them our collection book, what floors we'd be going to etc (no ID at that time, it was a simpler day) and were cleared to proceed. As usual we took the elevator to the top and walked down floor by floor. Collecting the money could be time consuming, depending on the floor, as we had to go door to door. Somewhere in the middle the local gestapo decided we were taking too long and kicked us out of the building.

When we arrived home early my dad asked why we were back so early. When we told him, he got up (a big deal, once he was on the couch for the night that was it), had us go back to the building and started telling the lead watcher off as he told us to finish collecting. When we were finished our dad was still telling the guy off and had us wait while he finished, basically accusing the dude of being a bully and making up for a small penis. Then, when he was finished, he told the guy - by the way, your fly is open. On the walk home he commented that certain people, who are otherwise weak, abuse power once they get it and that was one of those people.

From the little bits I've heard from news clips of his trial, neighborhood watch person George Zimmerman allegedly seems more and more like that wannabe cop with delusions of grandeur that my brother and I encountered all those years ago. Ignoring whatever prior bad acts that Trevor Martin may have done before his encounter with Zimmerman, the basis of  the confrontation seems to be that Zimmerman allegedly just assumed a teenager with a hoodie (in the rain) was up to no good just as our neighbor did with us. Maybe Zimmerman felt he was doing the right thing, maybe he was just profiling, probably this whole mess has become political, but maybe he thought he was more important than he actually was -- a man who wanted to be something that he couldn't be and forgot that in the heat of the moment. Real officers are trained to not allow an encounter such as what occurred between Martin and Zimmerman to escalate (and that is true even if they are undercover). Neighborhood watchers are there to watch and report.

I guess I should be relieved that the apartment building's watch wasn't armed. I guess I should also be relieved we were allowed to quietly leave the building and go home (which probably would not have happened if we were a minority race in our neighborhood). Sad that Martin didn't get the chance to go home and get his dad to defend him like my brother and I were able to do because he was determined not worthy of standing his ground.