The young man was dead.

He lay on his back, eyes open, skin the color of ash, no sign of breathing.  It looked like he had fallen off a new Cannondale road bike.  The bike–carbon fiber, electric transmission, high-end wheels–was on his chest.   He wore earbuds for a cell phone tucked inside his clothing.  What looked like prison tats scrolled from his wrists and disappeared under his shirt.

A bottle of Jim Beam Apple Whiskey nested in the backpack’s side pocket.

The Port Townsend police officer shone a bright light into the young man’s eyes.  No reaction.  No blinking, no change in the pupils.

The young man under the expensive bike wasn’t breathing.

“Hey!” the officer shouted.  “Are you all right?”  He shouted it again.

No response.  The young man was dead.

I said a silent prayer.  Sadness crossed the officer’s face.

“Whah?”

From death the young man spoke and the officer moved in to sit him up and check him for weapons.  Slowly, the young man regained consciousness.  His speech was slurred, but he was coherent.  He said he was having a bad time.  Four friends had died from heroin overdoses in the past six months.  He’d been closed in a room with one of them.

He reached for a cigarette and asked the officer, “You ever perform CPR on a corpse?”

Port Townsend’s Dark Side

I’ve twice gone on patrol with the Port Townsend Police .  The first time, the officer behind the wheel educated me about the troubles most of the city never sees–the drugs, the violence, the aggressive transients that come to Port Townsend from Seattle, California, the East Coast.  They’d heard it was a cool place to hang and get high and get lots of free stuff and tender care.

But that night the only call was about a stolen battery from a vehicle impounded at All City Towing.  Nothing else to do, both units on duty responded.  The police officers recognized the truck.  They knew its owner, a troubled woman suffering from mental illness made worse by meth abuse.  She came out of the darkness and they greeted her by name.  The call about the missing battery was a ruse.  She wanted them to recharge her cell phone.

This night, June 9, 2018, I walked with two officers along Water Street.  People participating in the Steampunk Festival passed in outlandish costumes armed with fake swords and ray guns.

We were notified that a man “in a fetal position” occupied the floor in the handicap stall in the men’s room at the public bathrooms at Pope Marine Park.   He had locked himself in.  A bag with cans of fortified beer and other possessions was pushed against the wall.  He did not appreciate being disturbed.  He said he was trying to get some sleep.

The officers knew this man.  He had been harassing women at the bus stop at Haines Place earlier that day.  He had a long history of arrests for violence against the homeless.  He had threatened the life of one of the officers.  He had threatened the officer’s family.

He was placed under arrest for disorderly conduct. When notified he had the right to an attorney, he told the officers exactly what they had the right to.  It did not involve appointed counsel or keeping their mouths closed.  He bragged how the judge would let him out and be angry at them.  “You know Judge Landes will turn me loose and be pissed at you.”  More profanity, more mocking, more bragging about a court system he felt confident would put him back on the street after he got a good night’s sleep.  “Thanks for a free bed,” he said.

He looked at me.   Reeking of alcohol, front teeth gone, clothes filthy, he snickered, “They wish they had me for more than disorderly conduct.”

A minute later, the mean drunk became an assailant.  He kicked one of the officers and was now under arrest for assault.

These officers had spent years trying to help this man.  They had bought him food and once showed him respect to lay a foundation for trust.

“My guys are going to get you,” he said to the officer whose life and family he had previously threatened.

At the shelter under the American Legion we were told this man “cold cocks you.  That’s his MO.”  He carries a knife, as do most of the transients on Port Townsend’s streets.  He had used it to threaten the shelter’s manager.

Over a break for food back at the police station, officers talked about the city’s transients.  They’ve bought food for almost all of them.  The man arrested that night had destroyed a guitar that gave joy to another man who frequented the Boiler Room.  Officers collected funds to buy a replacement and hunted for the guitarist until they found his camp and delivered his new instrument.

All the money spent on clothing, food, and coffee comes from the pockets of police officers who get to know these people by name, arrest them, call for ambulances to get them help, or find them dead.

Back to that young man with the bike.  He looked familiar to the officers but they couldn’t be sure.  He gave his name and they learned those tattoos were in fact prison tats.  He claimed he had a wife with a good job.  An EMT crew from Jefferson Healthcare determined that, despite his high alcohol blood level (.333), he was not in danger of dying.  He did not want to go to the hospital.  The police could not force him off the street.

Washington does not have a public intoxication statute.

He had collapsed where camping was not permitted.  But if they forced him to move, there was a good chance he could become a victim.  His shiny, expensive bike would be a magnet for predators.

The police talked to him as a human being, not a pitiful drunk.  They did not want to see him hurt.  They wanted him to get help.  They worried about what he was doing to himself, but there was only so much they could do.

They gave him a blanket, Gatorade, and let him hide in the dark. They would check on him later that night to see how he was doing.  They poured out the whiskey because just a few pulls more could kill the young man.

I returned the next morning and took the photo shown above.  The bottle of whiskey the police had emptied was there.  The young man and his bicycle were gone.  A large, wild-looking man in the bushes screamed at me about money and being on his turf.  I got out of there.  I warned an elderly couple with a fluffy dog who were starting on a walk what lay ahead.  They got in their car and left.

Lights in the Darkness

They’re tough.  They’re firm.  They are imposing with their physical presence and the impressive weaponry they carry.

Inside those vests loaded with extra bullet magazines and a second gun, hearts beat for the broken souls these police officers meet every day.  We may avert our eyes, walk away and ignore strangers who might frighten or repulse us.  Police officers go looking for them to make sure they will live through the night.

They get spat and puked on, insulted, punched, kicked and attacked with human waste and blood.  Their lives and those of their loved ones are threatened.  They face guns and knives and never know what to expect of that person who won’t get out of their car or who won’t take their hands out of their pockets.

But they don’t stop.  They don’t quit.

For people living on the streets, on the beaches, under trees, huddled against dumpsters, in cars littered with used needles and filth, their nights are a little less black because of these compassionate, powerful men and women in uniform.   They are lights in the darkest corners of our town’s nights.