elfs | Street scene: Police and Suspect

Cops and Allegedly Very Drunk Woman

"Allegedly" added for all the very usual legal reasons.

I was standing at the intersection of 3rd Ave and Bell, waiting for the bus that takes me home from downtown Seattle. It's not the nicest of neighborhoods; there's a divy Irish bar across the street and one block up is a rehab center that attracts sellers looking for those ready to fall off the wagon and buyers looking for the sellers.

A bus pulled up. It wasn't mine so I didn't pay much attention to it and went back to fiddling with my ipod. That is, until two bicycle cops came flying by, stopped at the bus and got on. Interested, I pulled out my camera.

They were talking to a little middle-aged woman sitting in the front section. I couldn't hear the conversation, but then the cops had her stand and, taking her by the arm, escorted her off the bus. As she was walking down the bus's steps I heard one of the cops say, "Whew. You have had a few, haven't you?"

The story came out in drips and drabs as I listened to them. The cops were loud, but the woman almost never said a word, she just leaned against the chain-link fence of the dog park. Allegedly she had walked out of a bar, I don't know which one, without paying her tab. The woman in the green coat was making the complaint, loudly. The cops were talking about having the grey-haired woman either pay up or be arrested for theft. While I was there another bike cop showed up, then a cop car. I never did hear the end of the saga because my own bus showed up. When I left they were still trying to get an answer out of her.