police scene: do not cross

Saturday morning, I was meeting LeeAnne and her sister, who was in town visiting, at the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle to grab lunch from Bouchon Bakery (which, by the way, props go to Katherine for introducing us to such a treasure of a restaurant) and then we had plans to head to the Sheep Meadow in Central Park to enjoy lunch and a nice afternoon in the park. Before we went in to get our lunch, we waited outside for a few minutes to see if anyone else came along late that we should wait for. As we were standing there chatting, all of the sudden several (probably 5 or 6) police cars drove up right in front of the Time Warner Center with their lights on, parked in front of the building, and all started getting out of their cars - motorcycles, Suburbans, Impalas...the whole shebang. LeeAnne, Nicole and I started looking around at first wondering if someone famous was about to get out of the car. LeeAnne suggested Lassie. Then before we knew it, the police officers were opening up the back of the Suburbans and getting out bullet proof vests, putting on helmets and masks and then...arming themselves with machine guns! At this point, we started to get a little nervous and began to wonder who could possibly be inside the mall or around the premises. And who could possibly be about to run outside of the mall and open fire on hundreds of innocent bystanders. If you know me at all, you probably know that I'm sweating bullets at this point - about to cry and ready to run as fast as I can. But for some reason, we continue to stand around to see if we can get some insight into what's going on. We all agree that if there is someone inside the Time Warner building, then we shouldn't go in. After a few minutes of debating and gawking at the policemen carrying machine guns, one of the officers walks up to us and says "what's going on here?", in which we let the officer know that he took the words right out of our mouths. Then as we continued to converse, he kindly let us in on the secret, that apparently, this what the members of the NYPD do on Saturday mornings - drive around to random spots in town - looking like they mean business - get out and get all their garb on (including a MACHINE GUN) and "scare the heck out of people." He said, "it's not everyday that you see someone walking around with a machine gun, is it?" You can't believe the looks on our faces at this point. When I asked the officer if there was any cause for concern, he stated "Do you think I'd be standing here talking to you if there was a cause for concern?" Ok, good point officer. But I would also never suspect for law enforcement officers to cry wolf when innocent civilians are involved...hmm, I guess I'll think twice next time I see a police officer carrying a machine gun.

It's a little hard to see, but here is our friend (and I use that term very loosely...) assembling his "outfit"