My Trip To Southland

Last night, after leaving the Campaign for Working Families tax preparation site where I volunteer, I walked down the street to a gas station mini-mart, bought a soda, and went back outside to wait for my bus. As I stood there, I noticed a man at the corner. He was just standing there, as far as I could tell, although at one point a passing car stopped briefly and he talked to someone inside. A moment after that, I heard a brief "woop" from a siren, and suddenly a police wagon turns at the intersection and pulls right up onto the sidewalk. See the photo below that I managed to copy from Bing maps, with the approximate positions of the wagon, the man and myself crudely marked with text boxes. (I tried to get the street view through Google maps but it was wonky -- the images were all blurred and unrecognizable.)

Two officers -- one male, one female -- got out of the wagon and walked up to the man, asking for his identification. He handed a driver's license to the female officer and she went into the wagon (to look him up on the computer, I assume). The male cop began searching him, and then had him stand up facing the side of the wagon, arms and legs spread, hands up against the van. The other officer came out of the van and I heard her say, "It's suspended." She then began to search along the ground, and then asked me, "Did you notice if he dropped anything?" I replied, "No, but he was over that way a couple minutes ago," and pointed towards the corner, a little behind where she was looking.

A patrol car then pulled up and she went to talk to the driver. Unfortunately, the bus arrived so I don't know what happened after that. But it was interesting. As I Tweeted via text message from my phone after I got on the bus, "I think I just went to Southland without leaving Philly!" It was very much like a scene from the police drama "Southland." Not one of those big, intense scenes where there's a chase or a shootout or whatever, just a stop for routine police work...although I guess nothing is completely routine, as something very quiet can turn dangerous at the drop of a hat.

By the way, the Season 2 finale of "Southland" is tonight at 10 pm on TNT. Preceding it is a marathon of all the Season 2 episodes, starting at 5 pm.