The Glory of East Palo Alto

The Glory of East Palo Alto

I had an interesting experience in Home Depot about half a year ago. I was looking at business cards near the entrance when I heard some police sirens. "Ah, the glory of East Palo Alto," I thought, and continued browsing. I started to get annoyed, though, as the sirens didn't go away, and in fact grew louder. All of a sudden a man ran into the store, followed close behind by a couple of cops. The cops tackled him in front of a display of 3-ring binders and started wrestling with him.

My first thought was to go and help, but I figured they had him outnumbered and could handle him, and I didn't want to get in the way. The store employees, on the other hand, all ran and hid behind the checkout counters, looking up every now and then to see what was going on, their heads popping up and down like in whack-a-mole.

After five or ten seconds of wrestling, another policeman came in, this time preceded by a police dog. By that time they pretty much had the guy subdued, though, so I didn't get to see the dog do anything. They hauled him out, and that was that.

I finished my shopping a few minutes later, and when I left the car with the guy had left, but there were some cops standing around doing paperwork. They seemed to be in a good mood, so I said, "Hi," on my way past them and went home. Ah, the glory of East Palo Alto.