I get to speak with a Federal Psychological Evaluator
Some crack head screwed me big time last night. I did 2 things wrong. Didn’t leave when I first met the guy and secondly, I tried to buy him some food because he was “helping”
I broke the rule of just leave if anything seems out of the ordinary rule and nearly got hosed.
A new BASE jumper and I went to a pretty heated location last night. He was to be ground crew. After putting body armor on under my clothes, I donned my stuff sack and off to the access point. Right off, this tall, hyperactive, soon to be angry, psychotic behaving, desperate, crack head, walks out of the shadows. We knew he was there on the corner, but didn’t pay much mind to him since it’s not uncommon in the area.
He walked up and I sat down on the cement barricade next to the fence. He proceeds to “help” by saying “whatever you’re doing, do it quick, the cops are right over there”
We already knew where they were, and there was a window of time to sneak in and he interrupted me. Rather than just walking back to my vehicle to reevaluate the situation, I talked to the guy. Big mistake. At some point I told him if he wanted to help, just sit back in the shadows and watch. He wanted to know why so I told him. It’s worked in the past. But he wanted to chat a bit more so I got up and began walking to the vehicle. Wouldn’t ya know it, that’s all the time it took to have a drive from the federal authorities. 1 minute later I was being frisked.
Crack head mentions that I had a parachute. Great… how do you explain that? The next question was “Were you going to jump?”
“No sir” I said,
“No, really, were you going to jump that?” he said with a grin.
“Heck no officer”
He glanced in my bag but didn’t see anything. Since he had reasonable suspicion it had some drugs, (because I was conversing with a crack head) he could have claimed he saw a transaction take place and search it. Wouldn’t have mattered anyway but now he was very confused. After that he asked me to leave and suggested I didn’t return.
My keys were in the hands of ground crew so I passed my truck and up one block to get out of my body armor and stop in at the corner fast food joint and meet my buddy for the keys. Crack Man later chased us down and insisted the feds were going to tow my car as soon as I returned to it. After some thinking we asked if he was hungry. “Hell yeah” says whacked out dude.
We had to wait a few minutes because the store shut down the cash registers for shift change and quick inventory, In the mean time my friend walked over near the truck to see if it’s ok. It was legally parked so there wasn’t too much concern.
Super Crack got anxious and went after my friend and started getting belligerent. “Give me money” exclaimed Whacky. “I don’t want a burger just give me some f***ing money” Mental note, since we weren’t smart enough to just leave, paying the guy would have been better at this point.
So, this guy flipped out and came back to the store where I was paying for the food, and since he was being an ass, I didn’t give him the meal. Off to the feds in a heated limp he goes and proceeds to tell them,” I just saw his parachute, He was going to climb that crane and jump off it, he’s crazy”
I walk out of the store and they drove up on the large sidewalk and stopped me. This time they frisked me a whole lot better. I was told I’m being detained until they get to the bottom of this. I was put in the back seat. Damn those things are secure. He wasn’t going to let me go until he had the parachute. He then threatened me with a 72 hour psychological evaluation. I asked him what do you want to know? I was left alone so I made a phone call and told my buddy what was up. My buddy volunteered to come back. We hadn’t technically done anything so at least we had that. I was stuck in the back eating Mr. Crackers cheeseburger while the officers assist a bust a half a block away. It was under control so I asked if we could go check on my truck.
We pulled up behind my truck and the female officer said, “Is this your truck that was broken into? That stuff always happens in SF”.
I calmly exclaimed “F***… *sigh* while you guys were being distracted, the very man who said what I was going to do, smashed my window”
Around the corner comes my buddy carrying my rig, “I saw who smashed that window” and he started to describe Doc Crazy. He was promptly sat down, they I.D.ed him and took my rig. He was stood up and he (just like I did) put his hands against the wall to be frisked. The cop laughed… “ This isn’t the movies, put your hands behind your back”
Just an FWI, when being frisked, you stand fairly close to the wall, hands held behind you so if you flinch, you will promptly have your nose pasted to the bricks. That didn’t happen to either of us, but that’s why the stance.
The police asked why a person would jump off anything so he said. “Just for fun, it’s a thrill” or something to that affect. So he walked over to me, opened the door and asked the same question but offered up that the answer of … it’s a thrill … was already given.
Here’s what I tried to tell the officer earlier but they didn’t want to hear it yet.
“Yes officer, it’s a thrill. I do this for fun” I pointed toward the building, “That looked like it MIGHT be fun so I was going to get a closer look and see if it was actually jumpable. I’ve never caused any harm or any damage before and am not about to start”
This is the funny part … well sorta.
Officer: “To me, this indicates you are an unstable person. Jumping off of things is not normal. You can be detained for a 72 hour psychological evaluation and I have the authority to make that happen”
He felt the easiest way to do this was to keep the rig, have federal evaluator call me to see if I’m ok, then I can come get the rig.
He wrote down a couple phone numbers and told me. I’m to expect a call from the federal psychologist. He kept the rig to keep me from jumping off of things. In other words, to protect me from myself.
We chatted for a while afterwards and that was that.
Hey Nic, Thanks for volunteering to come back. 72 hours detainment due to some crack head would have been less than pleasant.
