After dinner tonight I hopped on my bike and rode down to the coffee shop to do some reading. It was a lovely, humid night, perfect for a ride. I rode up Annunciation on my way home, but had to go around this police activity. I could see the blue lights from several blocks away, and there were a lot of them. This picture doesn’t show the four other police cruisers packed around this intersection. As I cruised up to them, I thought about how normalized the heavy police presence has become for me. They seem to be everywhere, especially on weekends, and their lights are always going. Police almost instantly make me feel like I’m in trouble, at best, and in danger, at worst. Tonight I worried that there’s some law I was breaking by snapping a photo. I was all stealth, and felt a little panicky when the flash went off. Now, I’m a rule-following sort of gal, so part of this is on me, but I’ve also had experiences with the NOPD that predispose me to be anxious. Other folks, though, want a police presence; it makes them feel more secure in a city wracked with crime. I can’t help feeling, though, that there’s got to be a better way. We’ve got to solve the social problems that lead to what we call “crime.” Putting everybody in cages is no solution, not to mention that people don’t belong in cages.
What I Saw Riding My Bike Around Today 
Kate,
If the police presence makes you feel as anxious as you describe, then perhaps you are not the “rule-following” type of gal that you say you are. No, mere photography of the police is not a crime, but it would be nice if you were at least a little appreciative of their mostly wasted efforts to keep you safe in a neighborhood that common sense, if you possessed it, would prevent you from riding through, let alone living in.
Aside from the common sense that you are so obviously lacking, if you possessed any intellectual honesty, Kate, you would recognize that many of the “people” that are attracting the attention of the police in your neighborhood, are not reaching any acceptable level of humanity, and therefore aren’t deserving of being labeled as “people”. They are animals, Kate, and animals that aren’t found in the wild need to be kept in cages in order to protect real people from them. If it weren’t for police intervention, Kate, you would recognize that as fact upon the invasion of your home, the theft of all of your worldly possessions, and your being gang raped into oblivion. Your acceptance of them will not protect you when the destructive mood strikes them. If you were to survive the encounter, who would you turn to for help, Kate? The manly company you keep at the coffee shops you frequent? Your parents? No. You, like all other shrinking violets, will need and call out for the police. And they will come, Kate, in spite of your lack of trust and respect. They will come for you, in spite of your ignorance and inability to help yourself, whatever the time, because that is exactly what they do, no matter the danger to themselves.
Just a little something to think about, Kate, when you’re passing those crime scenes on your blissfully humid evening passages to the coffee shops of the Garden District Maybe instead of projecting resentment towards those anonymous heroes wearing their revered powder blues, you could show some small measure of appreciation to that very thin blue line that keeps chaos at bay.
Wow, Jamie, that is a venomous comment about the people who live in this city, and about me for my views on the police and crime. Crime and punishment are actually really complicated issues, especially in places like New Orleans with difficult histories and presents of the same. And people are never, ever animals to be put in cages. Ever. The insinuation that anyone ever is is incredibly offensive, and a huge part of the problem. Fortunately for you, my blogged opinions about the “heroes wearing their revered powder blues” make absolutely no difference in a place increasingly committed to expanding police forces and prisons rather than confronting the social and political roots of crime and violence.