Southside Perps Get Royal Treatment
by Steed Dropout
May 6, 2016
A TALE OF TWO PERPS
Home-run head-dent averted. Photo by Ted Friedman.The sentence “Southside perps get royal treatment” needs some treatment itself. Perps is a cheap shot, and royal treatment an exaggeration.
Yet, in scores of my photos of Southside arrests, there is a theme: our cops treat crime suspects kindly and with protectiveness to match their mottos, “Protect and Serve.” I can’t count the times they yelled at me, “get out of the street.”
Two recent Southside incidents make my case.
SOUTHSIDE SUPERHERO GRABS ASSAULT WEAPON MID-AIR, AVERTS HEAD-BASHING.
SuperHero takes a break in Peoples Park. Photo by Ted Friedman.The superhero is a homeless Southside icon, who has disarmed quite a few assailants.
Like the time a goon was lashing-out with a heavy chain in People’s Park. Superhero, Ray Gibson, grabbed the chain, mid-air.
In Gibson’s latest intervention, he grabs a ball-bat mid-air [again!]. The bat was headed for the head of a homeless man at a park-center in Berkeley’s Willard Park.
Undeterred, the bat-wielder head-butted the homeless man. The two homeless men had clashed in preceding weeks, according to a source close to the story.
Head-butting suspect awaits Medi-van. Photo by Ted Friedman.Although wounded, the homeless victim avoided a home-run head-dent, thanks to Gibson.
“Don’t call me one of them good Samaritans,” he requested. “They were an evil people. Read your scripture.”
ROYAL TREATMENT, OR JUST HUMANE
The would-be bat batterer turned out to be batty, and winds up—not in a squad car bound for a city lockup—but in a paramedic van headed for a mental health stop.
The victim’s wound, a red-scratch, was documented by a police crime photographer [pictured above] in case the D.A. wants to file charges against the batty batter.
PERP #2 MORE-THAN-PESTERS CO-ED
Creeped-out by this alleged creep. Photo by Ted Friedman.According to an eye-witness, perp #2 touched a co-ed’s shoulder after she gave him the cold-shoulder.
The perp wanted money. “I’m poor, too,” said the student—and, judging from press reports, students are certainly poor. “Get away from me,” she emphasized. That was when the perp touched the student’s shoulder. She wasted no time calling police.
He, too, got the ambulance ride to treatment rather than jail.
Royal treatment. Photo by Ted Friedman.He was out in a few days, and this time, hurling invective downtown (he may have a stay-away from Telegraph).
Next time he fucks up, he’s headed for county jail. In the meantime, he and other lucky-to-be perps-in-Berkeley are, if not treated royally, perhaps “shitting in high cotton.”
More photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/berkboy/
