It all started one night in maybe December when Rick, Anacelia, and I decided to go out and experience the watered-down-faded-neon that is Badajoz nightlife. Walking back from Valdepasillas, we passed the police station and Rick accidentally knocked over one of their barricades (read: drunkenly roundhouse kicked it clanging to the ground). Then he did a couple of celebratory heel clicks and let loose a Viking victory shout.
Well, the police watching us from the station 20 feet away weren't very pleased, so they came over to have a chat. Rick, though, thinks that they are just disgruntled neighbors, so he flees, raptor-sprinting away through the Badajoz jungle. Naturally, Spanish police don't take it as a very kind gesture when you run from them, so they pursued like yelping dogs in an English fox hunt (except in this hunt, the dogs have 2 police cars and 6 officers on foot speeding after the fox who is stumbling over curbs and bushes and garbage containers).
So they caught him. But it also didn't help that Rick was carrying a hunting knife in his pocket. Bowie style, sheath and all. He did the smart thing at the time, telling the police that "I have a knife in my pocket" -- which, in hindsight, is probably not a smart thing at all to do (imagine being a policeman and hearing that from a foreigner at 3 a.m.). So they decided to get a little rowdy, pulled out their nightsticks, a gave him a good whack or two on the leg to make sure he was properly subdued and handcuffed.
Confusion ensued for about an hour until they let me go into the police station to see how Rick was doing. He seemed comfortable, the only criminal in the place, surrounded by 5 or 6 very serious Spanish police. They needed his passport for some paperwork, so I went back to his apartment to retrieve it (he wasn't allowed to leave the station). After lengthy amounts of apologizing and talking about respecting authority and calling people señor, Rick was let off without any charges, only the warning that if he ever got into trouble again they would banish his ass from Spain. I know I learned my lesson -- the police must be feared and obeyed, because if any thing upsets their perfect skeleton facade, giving them an excuse to exercise power, they will aprovechar it to the full extent. I'm only surprised that they didn't take out the search helicopter.
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