I drove to the grocery store with my youngest sister who was in high school and my brother, brother-in-law and my other sister.
We all sat in the car while my brother-in-law ran in to get something. We were just sitting there talking idly. My youngest sister was practicing for an oral report she had to give for school.
I pulled out of the parking lot to take them home when an unmarked police car pulled up to our car coming the wrong way on the street. Then our car was surrounded by a whole bunch of cop cars. Snipers armed with shotguns were kneeling down and pointing the weapons at us.
A man with a megaphone told us to get out of the car and throw down the gun. My brother and brother-in-law were yanked out of the back seat by cops and spreadeagled on the car and patted down.
I got out of the car and said, “What’s going on? What are you doing?”
The cop said, “Throw out the gun.” I said, “We don’t have a gun.”
He pointed to the seat. I, very stupidly, reached into the car and picked up the toy gun my sister had been using as a prop for her speech class, and held it out saying, “This, it’s just a toy.” I am so lucky that they were not trigger happy or I could have gotten shot.
My only defense was that the entire situation just seemed unreal to me.
It turns out that there had been a string of robberies at local Photomat kiosks in grocery store parking lots.
We had just totally accidentally happened to park near the Photomat.
Someone called us in as suspicious.
It was the scariest moment of my life, and it permanently changed my view of the police as helpful.