morning in a city neighborhood disrupted by an arrest

morning in a city neighborhood disrupted by an arrest

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

Have you ever witnessed? In a small store I had ventured to buy flour for cooking and vitamins for my sore back. Two or three boys started to argue with the owner. The owner of the store used the shout box to summon drone security. After that everything happened in slow motion.

Outside the store I tried to hurry to my house. Maybe forty-five seconds had elapsed since the drone security patrol was called. The owner of the store put on a yellow asbestos blanket, looped his arms through the slots and pulled the orange hood over his head and waited outside the front door of his store kneeling per protocol. Across the street an old lady was slowly crossing her yard to get the mail. The boys who caused the commotion in the store joined three or four others youths and strolled toward the intersection. One minute had elapsed. The gang went in the Murphy house.

My chest was tight and constricted as I tried to hurry. I knew what was coming. As soon as the neighborhood dwellers saw the store owner in the yellow suit they began to disperse rapidly, some went in doors but most of the older people bowed in the safe position. The drones will not assault humans in the kneeling or bowed safe position. I can't hunch over, bad knees. I continued dragging along South, a bad left leg. My house is four doors down from Friendly Market. I was unsure if I should drop my cane, robotic units may use force against anyone in a riot area with a weapon.

The lady getting her mail was singing to herself. She was middle aged and attractive. As I thought to myself policemen like pretty girls at that same moment I saw the artificial intelligence drone 54 unit enter the lady who was getting her mail's side door. The drone busted down the side door with a loud crash and in an instant came bursting through the front wall and windows of the small house and grabbed the terrified woman. Using standard idiomic diction the robotic unit read the standard familiar Ohio riot act decree to our neighborhood very loudly as he dangled the limp woman in the air. The volume of the screaming policeman as it shouted was deafening. I could see the terror in the woman's face as the officer held her over his head with one arm while he held in his other robotic arm the siege and capture manual dutifully reading the riot act. Two minutes had occurred since the robbery. I crossed my arms in an X across my face in the normal witness procedure and the silver iron robot dropped the woman gently and faced me. I pointed three times as required by ordinance to the direction the gang of boys had went and held up six fingers to indicate the number in the gang. Within twenty five seconds the robotic unit crashed through the front windows of the Murphy's house and came down the steps holding Nathan Murphy over head. Nathan had fainted I saw. The other boys in Nathan's house were sprinting down the alley behind Murphy's house.

Seven minutes later Friendly market reopened for business. Neighborhood repair central was repairing the lady's house who had been getting the mail, no charge but the Murphy's will have to pay for the repairs to their property mostly completed already by the robotic construction crew.

My first time of witnessing was very exciting. Unfortunately since no one was killed or maimed in the arrest there was no television coverage so my son and daughter couldn't see me on the news that night.One of the Murphy boys brought me back my cane, everyone else was afraid to move evidence; those Murphy boys aren't really bad kids, there a lot like we were back in the day.