My Kids' Encounters With The Police: David

Every parent who has an adult child can probably remember two specific experiences during their children’s teen years: Their first automobile accident and their first encounter with the police. I have decided to share a bit about the latter. 

Son David’s encounters seem to have been quite mutually helpful. This is surprising as he was in his teens during the late 60”s and early 70’s and he had very long hair, was part of several “movements” and lived and worked in Ann Arbor, MI and Chicago, IL. His primary encounter first came while he worked in the upper middle-class Chicago suburb of Glen Ellen. He worked with street kids. And he knew how to deal with them with, his response being appropriately related to each specific case. He spoke of some kids who got into trouble and the police actually called him because the kids may have come from influential families. Sometimes David would be the one who negotiated between the family and the police. 

In other cases he might say, “This kid might learn from an overnight stay in prison”. When the city “fathers” decided to stop David’s job, the local newspaper had quite a barrage of letters protesting his termination. These letters cane from both the young people and their parents. 

Later it was David and his friends who needed police protection. Dave and his partner Doug often hosted a Sunday night “house church” worship in their home in Chicago. Among the attendees were gay couples. When the worship was over these couples had to walk through the neighborhood to reach the elevated to get home. On the street they were seriously harassed, sometimes even physically attacked. David knew he had to call for police protection and once they got to trusting David they came and did exactly that!