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I don't even know where to start.
Oh ... yes.
So ... around 1:30 a.m., as I'm falling asleep after spending about an hour trying to beat the same level of Plants vs. Zombies 2, I get a phone call from Matt, who I had assumed was either still working or was on the bus home by then.
"You'll never believe what just happened to me," he says, disbelief in his voice.
"Please tell me you didn't get mugged," I reply, panic in mine. I'm already envisioning him stuck on the Lower East Side, without his wallet.
"I was just handcuffed and put in the back of a police car."
I sit straight up in bed, no longer sleepy at all, and exclaim, "What?!"
So he proceeds to tell me the following story:
He'd just gotten out of work and had stopped for two slices of pizza and a bottle of Snapple at a place near the restaurant. Then he went to the bus stop, where he ate one slice of pizza and started on the next. It was chilly, so he had his hood up, and he noticed that cop cars kept passing him, slowing down, and then driving away. He thought it was weird, but that was about it.
Then an unmarked police car comes around the corner and three cops get out and approach him. They tell him to put the pizza and the Snapple down—which he does—and then they ask where he was coming from. He tells them he works up the street and his shift just ended. They ask what he has on him. He tells them he has his phone, his wallet, and maybe a pair of headphones. (Probably mine, for the record.) They pat him down and tell him he matches the description of a guy who just got in a fight with another guy, broke the guy's arm, and then ripped off a cab driver. Matt tells them he didn't do anything wrong, but they cuff him anyway and put him in the back of the cop car.
They drive him to the guy who was attacked, who is seated on a curb (where we guess they left him?) a few blocks away, and the guy tells the cops that Matt's not the guy who broke his arm. So they uncuff him, sort of apologize, and let him walk away. Before he leaves, one cop asks, "Did you get your juice?"
So this is when Matt calls me, confused and in shock and somewhat lost because they drove him away from the only bus stop he knows in the area. He gets a cab and is home around 2:30. He comes into the bedroom, turns the lights on, and shows me his wrists, which still have cuff marks on them.
Apparently, from what we gather, a white male, about six feet tall, wearing a gray hoodie attacked this guy. And poor Matt, being a while male who is 6'1" and was wearing a dark green hoodie, was mistaken for him. Because they didn't tell him he was under arrest, and because they didn't read him his rights, he wasn't technically arrested, but I think this would count as... detained? Not quite sure.
Either way, what the f— would I have done if the victim had either identified Matt as the attacker or if he had gone to the hospital and the cops had taken Matt to the precinct instead? I know I'd be the phone call he got to make, but honestly, what could I have done? I don't know any of his coworkers' numbers, so I couldn't have called them and asked them to alibi him out. I couldn't have called the restaurant because it was closed. I couldn't have bailed him out (if it came to that) because we don't have that kind of money. He would've probably had to spend the night at the precinct.
Luckily, they just let him go (minus a piece of pizza, a Snapple, and a ride home—rude!) so we don't have to worry about that, but it got us talking about all the innocent people who are accused of committing crimes every day and who, for whatever reason, don't have alibis and are held for hours on end for having done nothing wrong. And that's kind of disturbing... To think that you could just be getting off work, enjoying a slice, and suddenly be in the back of a cop car, accused of hurting someone when you were no where near them.
I'd say "Only in NYC," but I doubt this is only a NYC thing. I'm sure it happens elsewhere, but I doubt it would've happened if we were still in W-B.
At the end of it all, I looked at him and I said, "I can't wait to tell people about this tomorrow."
And, of course, I was late for work this morning (because who can just fall asleep after that), and in my inbox was an email from my direct boss: "Why 9:30 this morning?" To this, I replied, "Oh, do I have a story for you." I went into his office, told him what happened, and he listened the whole time with his eyes wide and his jaw slack. "I've heard a lot of late excuses in my years, but this one takes the cake," he told me. I swore I didn't make it up, and he laughed it off and said he believed me. After all, who would make this up?
So yeah... Matt was "arrested" last night. Got to ride with his hands cuffed behind his back in a cop car. And got ripped off a late-night snack and beverage. I think NYPD should apologize, personally. But I suppose they have bigger things to worry about... like shooting innocent pedestrians in Times Square!
Kristen, Jeff, and Christina: If you guys read this, we've decided not to tell your parents. They worry enough about him walking around that late by himself downtown. This won't help! lol.
