Someone else's blood on my shirt and urine on my hands

So last night, i went and handed out Dean stuff with my friend M at an Al Franken booksigning/show.  It was all good, Franken was both hilarious and deeply emotional for the hometown audience on the anniversary of his friend Paul Wellstone's death.  

So i was dropping M off at home and getting her stuff out of my car when we were accosted by these two very drunk Ecuadoran guys.  One was asking for help in broken yet aggressive English. His friend was bleeding profusely from his face, after getting in a fight at a party over "some puta".  So we call 911, get the guy some ice, and try to calm two very drunk and upset guys down with about 50 common words between us.  I got poor bleeding Julio off his feet and on the curb by being as much his amigo as i could, which led to warm hugs and bloody fingerprints on my white shirt.  

Then a neighbor comes out who happens to be a co-worker of Fernando and thinks highly of him.  She helps calm Fernando down, we get Julio cleaned up a bit, and progress is at hand.

About fifteen minutes after we started waiting for the cops to drive two blocks ("Get up, get get get down, 911 is a joke in your town"), we figure out that Julio and Fernando don't have green cards.  Not wanting these apparently decent (if drunk) guys hauled off by INS for a fistfight (and considering Julio wasn't really badly hurt, he just looked a mess), we start trying to hide them.  That means, of course, trying to steer them, and figure out what house their party is in, etc.  We were a half-block away, negotiating with strange neighbors, when the cops came.  Luckily, M and her husband stayed behind and convinced the cops to leave without checking on them.  

Shortly after the cops leave and the neighbor friend says "You fucking owe me Fernando!", Fernando relieves himself on the street in that charming way unique to drunken young men.  Then he shakes the hand of his amigo (me) who saved him from the police, and promised to take me drinking manana.  I couldn't convince them to take an offer of a ride to ANYWHERE ELSE, so we left them stumbling to their next adventure.  

Now i ask you, how would REPUBLICANS have dealt with that situation?

•  Re: Someone else's blood on my shirt and urine on

  Quite a little adventure. I commend you for keeping a cool head, and having a sense of humor about it. Is that sort of happening out of the ordinary in that neighborhood, or pretty much normal?

  Also, can't help wondering what on earth M and her husband told the cops...?

  Um, wait. Oh dear. * * * I MEAN * * * ... (loudly) Goodness, how could you allow yourself to be made an accomplice to Illegal Immigration and Evading INS Regulations? For all you knew, those two men could have been terrorists! For shame!!!!! I am shocked, I tell you, shocked!

  (I grew up in Canada. I keep forgetting that I have no civil rights down here.)
  

  by Canadian Reader on Thu Oct 16, 2003 at 01:12:40 PM PDT

  •  Re: Someone else's blood on my shirt and urine on

    I'd say it's unusual but not likely in that neighborhood.  It's well into the process of gentrification, with middle-class yuppies buying up nice houses in older, central neighborhoods and sending the minority/immigrant population to less fortunate areas.  

    Getting rid of the cops wasn't that hard... see, Minneapolis is supposed to have 900 cops, but thanks to Bush's gutting of Clinton's COPS program and a round of ill-advised tax-cutting during the boom, we're down to 700.  Needless to say, crime is going up and police response time is going down.  Cops are off the street and back into prowl cars, police brutality cases are up, etc.  Thanks, Republicans.  I really enjoy my tax cut.  Anyway, the cop didn't want to hang around just to file a report and maybe arrest a couple of drunk latinos.  

    As for evading INS regulations - feh.  Most Americans have ancestors who were illegal immigrants.  They're both here and both working, and that makes them Americans in my book.

    by Radical Middle on Fri Oct 17, 2003 at 05:01:08 AM PDT