last night i made a quick stop in o’bryonville to find this year’s obligatory coworker christmas gifts. i plugged the meter (giving myself 38 minutes even though i only needed 32 — you know, just to be safe — and reminding myself in the process that CHEAP PARKING METERS is reason #312 why we love cincinnati) and proceeded to browse the local shops. i was finally successful in margot madison’s creative stationery store, where i found packages of clever post-it notes that were alternately sassy, gripey and just plain fun. voila: the perfect gifts for desk-jockeys.
after returning to the car and driving a bit i noticed a bit of flapping paper on the passenger-side windshield. my first thought was that it was a flyer, so i ignored it. then, when paused at a red light, i read the heading (backwards though it was) and identified the word “police.” merry effing christmas to me, i thought: a parking ticket. lovely.
it wasn’t until getting home that i realized what the piece of paper actually was: a friendly, very nicely-mannered warning from the local patrol that leaving a box for a cd player sitting in the back seat of my car could be construed by the criminally-inclined as an invitation to theft. never mind that the box was empty. my local constabulary was simply concerned that my car not be broken into, that my christmas goodies not be stolen.
the cynic in me is searching for all the hidden racial messages here. obviously only non-locals would drive to o’bryonville, for starters, and o’bryonville is pretty close to walnut hills (is it actually in walnut hills?), and, well, we all know what that means. the police are giving nice messages to wide-eyed suburban-types who come into town to shop and who aren’t savvy enough to protect themselves against the city’s unsavory element.
but the color-blind naif in me thinks it’s just really nice that somebody is looking out for cincy’s citizens.
Thats awesome they took the time to do that.
But what makes you think the suburban malls are any safer?
Back in Y-town we left the mall and drove to a Best Buy, when we came out everything was gone. They caught the guy a month later, the rocket scientist still had the receipts with our signatures on them. He was watching people come out of the mall and he’d follow them a few miles to see if they stopped anywhere else. He knew with the crowds anyone going into a store would be there awhile.
The cool part, we got everything back in the original bags with the receipts after his trial a few months later.
i don’t think they’re any safer, i just think the cops treat us differently in different locations.
my sense about the safety issue in o’bryonville is that it’s a city-specific initiative. you know, help the non-urban types not be hurt/mugged/robbed/ etc. while they’re “in the city,” because if they were hurt/mugged/robbed etc. that would make the city’s reputation worse. and in the process, improve the city’s rep by showing us that the policemen really *do* care about preventing crime and not just shooting at ostensible criminals.
i hate to be cynical, but i’m pretty sure that our saturn wagon looks like it belongs to folks who are white and suburban. i’m not sure i would have gotten the same attention if i drove a rusty beater. or a souped-up caddy. y’know?
i once got one of those in the parking garage in my (residential) building downtown. Was very surprised to see that there…
That is a great story…and it is really something that should be taken into account wherever you are. Whether it be near Walnut Hills or out on Union Centre Blvd…criminals don’t care about municipal boundaries and are quite frankly everywhere.
It’s good to hear that Cincinnati Police seem to care enough to take the time for you (and others). Happy Holidays.