My First Police Encounter essays

My First Police Encounter essays I was twelve years old and had recently moved from an impoverished environment in a suburb of Birmingham to an all-white neighborhood in San Diego. I and my adoptive mother were elated to be invited by her grandson to stay with him and his, at the time girlfriend. He was a recent Coast Guard retiree who was about to get married and wanted us there for the wedding. Also, in my opinion, he wanted to be able to take care of his elderly grandmother. I was in California meeting new kids and all of them were very mischievous. It was during one of these meeting outings that it happened. I was about to have my first police experience. It was the summer of 1976 when I met Johnnie. He was a hippy-type who rode BMX bikes, skateboards, and motor cross bikes. Being around Johnnie intrigued me because I had never experienced his type of life style. Johnnie was a rebel. He came and went almost as he pleased because his father was a single Dad and worked long hours. I and others would go over Johnnies to hang out sometimes after school where we would drink beer and smoke cigarettes. On one occasion, we decided we were bored. Because we no had no money we would brainstorm to come up with ideas to get money. On this particular occasion someone came up with the idea that we should go retrieve golf balls from the pond of a nearby Navy golf course. I thought it was a very safe and sound idea at the time. But, little did I know that the decision we made would lead to my first police encounter. The golf course we went to was on a military installation about one mile from Jack Murphy stadium, in a section of San Diego referred to as Allied Gardens. It was a very gorgeous installation were the local military held lots of picnics and activities. At the time, I had no idea that you needed an I.D. card to come on this installation. Nevertheless, my friends and I proceeded to take a roundabout route to the golf course and we traversed some woods and...