So it’s the day after the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. One would think that seven years after that horrific day, our law enforcement and emergency response teams would be taking their jobs with the utmost seriousness. Unfortunately, I have witnessed firsthand that this is not always the case. I wrote this piece for my personal blog a little over a month ago after I was prompted by something I read elsewhere. It’s an account of a truck filled with firemen either abusing their power or ignoring their duty. Either way, something was not right, and I was really disturbed by it.  Read the article after the jump, and keep in mind that I originally wrote it for my personal blog over a month ago.

New York Magazine’s Daily Intelligencer blog posted this piece yesterday about CopCabs - the undercover cop cars disguised as yellow taxi cabs. A few weeks ago I saw one pull over another (fellow?) taxi on Second Avenue for doing something. I don’t know what the perp cab did, but everyone was confused, like maybe the Taxi & Limousine Commission had instated some sort of quality control squadron and the perp cab was guilty of changing lanes too rapidly, thus jostling the passengers in the backseat (wouldn’t that be awesome, though?). The comments on the post on DailyIntel say that these CopCabs have been “around the city for years,” but I’ve never seen them before very recently. Regardless, it reminded me of another weird incident I noticed a few weeks ago on St. Marks involving other men in uniform.

This time it was firefighters. I live right around the corner from the gutter punk/Jersey high schooler haven of St. Marks, so I walk down the infested sidewalk at least 6 times a day. I was walking to my afternoon class around quarter-to-one and I heard a siren coming from down the block. Normally I can walk across the street to the north side without having to worry about vehicular traffic striking me down, but with a siren overpowering the blaring Kylie Minogue in my ears I figured it would be in my best interest to wait. What happened next was one of the most uncomfortable experiences I’ve had lately, and I have really awkward and inappropriate friends, so I’m not at a loss for uncomfortable experiences. I saw that the source of the siren was a fire engine barreling down the street, so I stepped back from the edge of the curb because the street is uneven there and I’ve actually seen someone get hit by a delivery truck that was listing over the edge of the sidewalk - scary. So, I’m waiting for this fire engine to pass, which I figured was going to be in .0001 of a second because the siren was on, and it was speeding, and I assumed there was a fire somewhere to extinguish. Next thing I know, the fire engine has slowed down and the firemen are catcalling three voluptuous girls walking down the sidewalk ahead of me. Then the girls stop to talk with the firemen, who are in a fire engine that is completely stopped at this point with the siren still screaming. My first reaction was something like, “well, can I cross the street in front of the fire engine now? I really want to go to Starbucks before class.” Then it was something like, “wait, what the fuck?! Isn’t there a fire somewhere to put out, and, like, people to save?! This is really irresponsible!” So, instead of crossing in front of the fire engine, I walked down the sidewalk towards the mating ritual playing itself out and put my iPod on pause so I could hear their conversation (don’t you love that trick!). The siren was still going, so it was difficult to hear anyway, but I heard one of the fire men ask, “what are you ladies doing tonight?” Like, “fuck the fire and the burning people, I really wanna bone. When can we arrange that?” Then one of the fire men spotted me slowing down my pace and kind of looking at the scene in confusion and did the whole straight guy head nod/chin raise “what’s up brah?” gesture. I just shook my head, put Kylie back on, crossed the street, and resumed my perfectly timed walking pace to Starbucks on Third Avenue.

As with most thing I see on the street, I made a mental note to tell someone about it when I got to class, but in the process of making sure the baristas in Starbucks actually added sweetener to my Venti iced coffee, and maintaining my perfectly timed walking pace to Kylie, I forgot about it. I don’t know if I was missing something, but what I saw struck me as completely inappropriate. There are two possible scenarios. One, the men of the FDNY were rushing to the scene of a disaster, but stopped to chat up the local hotties on the sidewalk. Or two, the men of the FDNY were using their siren to avoid upcoming traffic on Second Avenue and cross the red light, but instead decided to chat up the local hotties on the sidewalk. Either scenario poses a huge question regarding responsibility, and the “uniform”.

I don’t know if you’re aware of the incident that happened in Times Square on July 25, but a bicyclist was assaulted by a police officer for seemingly no reason during the Critical Mass bike ride demonstration. The entire incident was caught on film, and can be viewed here on Towleroad. Later, after the video stops, the bicyclist was arrested and charged with third degree assault. Except, wait. Shouldn’t the police officer be the one charged with assault? I mean, I’ve watched the video many times and tried to see it from both sides, but it’s pretty clear that the police officer picked a biker from the pack and assaulted him in a premeditated attack.

I would like to say “law enforcement” instead of “men in uniform,” but I don’t think any of these men are actually enforcing laws responsibly. So, we have all these weird things going on with men in uniform, and it brings up a big issue about responsibility given power. To be cliché and a 20-year-old child of the millennium, I’ll quote Spiderman/Stan Lee and say that, “with great power comes great responsibility.” I don’t think a lot of today’s “powerful” men are taking that to heart, but they certainly need to.

All of that is true, and my firsthand account of what happened. I am still so deeply disturbed and irritated by what I saw, and today is just another reminder that we shouldn’t have to rely on people with that kind of judgment in an emergency. I’d like to think that if the city were under attack again the FDNY wouldn’t play around with girls on the sidewalk, but I’m not so sure. I’m hoping I witnessed an isolated incident, but I don’t think I did.

Photo by Flickr user bitchcakesny used under a Creative Commons license.