50 Days 'Til 50 Day 40--Community

50 Days 'Til 50Day 40Community CommunityWhile the world debated whether grabbing pussy was enough to win or lose the presidential election yesterday our little beloved city of Palm Springs was dealing with a much bigger issue, rocked to its collective shaky knees. Not by the earth shifting and rolling under our feet from seismic activity, which was also a hot button topic all week, but by a 26 year old gang member living out his vigilante Rambo fantasy, killing two police officers, wounding a third, and rattling this community to its core by his selfish, crazed, and violent actions.Yesterday at 12:50 pm here in Palm Springs the residents received their 800 number computer voiced message. "Police activity in your area. Stay inside and lock your doors." I had to listen to it twice as I was just returning home from work. “In my area” was all I could hear. “Was it outside my door?” “Was it in my yard?” “On my street?” Immediately checking all the doors and windows and lowering my shades, as if this sense of false security would somehow keep me safe if there was a bomb or gang of thugs with guns slinking around the backyards of our quiet neighborhood. Only after finally locating a tweet from The Desert Sun, was I able to take a deep breath learning there had been gunfire at a home in the north part of Palm Springs involving police officers. I stayed glued to the page on the iPad incessantly hitting the refresh button for more news, for any news, all the while hearing noises in my house that I had never heard before. (Paranoia can do that to you.) The news came finally and it was bad. Three officers shot, two of them dead and the third in the hospital in unknown condition. Another gun related incident, in our city, on this weekend when one hundred thousand visitors were here for a gigantic music festival, in our community. Anxiously awaiting more news I tried to settle into my bed and nervously relax as I started to think of our community, and of community in general.I was transported to 1985. "Go straight to your cars, lock the doors, and drive right off the beach. Don't stay and hang out over here, leave the beach immediately!” Over here, referring to Miami Beach. The big man speaking referring to the bouncer at one of the only nightclubs that dared to be open on this long since deserted island which we all know today as South Beach. The hanging out there was something we did much of back in 1985. Those nights were fun from what I can remember and of course we stayed after the massive club closed. If you told us not to do something at my most mature age of 19, of course it meant we would. We slithered through the back alleys dodging pay-by-the-minute hookers, brushing passed the last of the cocaine cowboys, and darting over the octogenarian set as we bounced over porches and porches of the dilapidated Art Deco hotels of Ocean Drive.Being young and fearlessly naive it probably was worse than we knew but we banded together, making our own little community of kooks, clowns, and creatures of the night. For you see, something was happening. Our community started to grow ever so slightly as we would move into these run down apartments, our artist friends renting studios along Espanola Way for $100 a month, and the first daring shop owners scrounged for down payments and deposits opening their one-of-a-kind boutiques, restaurants, and yes, bars, lots of bars. We somehow knew as a community banded together that we were strong and we were. We were also, unbeknownst to us, turning this community around. On any given night a new business would announce their opening night festivities and we would all run, together to these amazing grand openings. This was life before Starbucks and Banana Republics on every corner and before the grand concrete high rises that now enclose South Beach into some tight urban prison. I remember the very first high rise that went up at the most southern point of the strip of beach called South Point. I marveled at the luxury and opulence of it with its glowing neon lights on the top. We now had landmarks, a sort of guiding light to guide us through those long nights, like a familiar friend that was always there for us.I remember when Barbara Capitman, one of the preservationists for the Art Deco style of hotels that lined Ocean Drive stood in the street, hands up, ready to get steam rolled by the construction tractors who were greedily mowing down any and all hotels and buildings that stood in their way. Luckily she didn't get rolled over and become a superstar in the community rescuing those old hotels from certain demise. Later on a street was named after her and for all her efforts. For any of you who know Ocean Drive and its candy colored strip of thriving Art Deco hotels, we have her to thank for that. Of course we were all there to watch and cheer at City Hall when it the announcement came; that these jewels would be preserved and the Art Deco District was officially on the national historical register. We were all there, our community was there to sit next to Gianni Versace drinking coffee at the News Café and later be shockingly slaughtered only blocks from that café in front of his grand home across from the beach. We all banded together when hurricane Andrew leveled half of Miami as we would go from friends to friends cooking massive amounts of food for all our friends who had lost their homes, who had lost everything. We were all there to guide the unsure tourists and friends who would come to visit always asking me before the drove over the causeway onto South Beach, "but is it safe there?" The arrogance of youth, mixed with half parts Cuban coffee and half parts chutzpah had given us the keys to the kingdom. We were invincible. We were the Kings and Queens of SoBe. We were the community. For any of you who have resided in any "up and coming" areas you'll know exactly what I'm speaking of, sort of like Palm Springs.It’s now 5:00 pm here in Palm Springs. The Chief of Police is giving the latest information to us through the television, holding back his tears identifying the two fallen officers now marked with a face, a name, and a story. Tears welled up in my eyes too listening to him talk about the man who was several months away from retirement after over three decades with the force but decided to pick up some overtime hours this weekend. More tears for the young woman officer barely on the force for a year and half having just returned from maternity leave and leaving behind a 4-month-old baby and a grieving widower and family. It all seemed too much to even fathom. It couldn’t be happening here in our city, in our community, but it was, and it did. All the anger, fear, and resentment inside me swelled to the top of my head. I started calling my friends who I knew lived in that neighborhood. After you’ve lived in Palm Springs for just a short while you know people who live in every neighborhood here. We are barely fifty-thousand residents. It doesn’t take long to meet members of the community if we are willing to go out and meet them. Having made sure they were all safe and sound even though they were not allowed to return to their homes for now, they were safe. I offered them a place to stay with us at our house if they needed to because that’s what we do for each other. I started seeing people on social media show up at the police station placing flowers and candles along the front stoop. They were so quick to act was my first thought. It warmed my heavily beating heart just a little. The news broadcast now announced that in and hour the fallen officers would be transported out of the local hospital followed by a caravan of cop cars, as they would be transported to the morgue in Indio, about 40 minutes away. I had to do something I thought. This is the community that I love.I grabbed my partner and we headed down to the site of where the caravan was to start. We were not the only ones there. There were hundreds of people already there. I started to cry out loud, in front of these strangers who were crying back to me. They kept coming; hundreds and hundreds of mutual strangers lined each side of the streets. Some with American flags waving, some with just a dirty tissue to wave, some just standing there because they needed to be there. I needed to be there. “We support each other here” said the strange but familiar woman next to me. “We love our community and we are all affected,” said the man on my other side. The sirens were deafening as the first car came around the corner and led this eerie parade of police cars and two white hearses. I counted at least 50 patrol cars, maybe more. We just stood there not knowing if they saw us but we were there. I prayed for the families of the officers. Palm Springs does things a little different. We have what’s known as community policing. Our officers are the ones you see everyday out in town on bicycles, on foot, and in their cars. They interact with us; they stop everyday to speak to the homeless that live near my partners work building. As if they are family too. And they are. Our officers are approachable; they don’t create this barrier between them and us making them more humanized and less vilified. They have pledged to defend us from harm each and every day. They are out on the streets and they know some of us by name. They know a lot of us by name and we know theirs. They are our adopted maternal and paternal guardians. To lose one felt like losing a friend or a parent.The cars now systematically and in perfect formation passed us on the sidewalk. This trail of blue and red haze would stretch out onto the I-10 highway for miles and miles. I had the chance to see it later on the TV. It was so hauntingly beautiful. I cried again for the brutal senselessness of it all. They were just doing their jobs. It was supposed to be a domestic dispute, easily rectified. It wasn’t supposed to be the last day of their lives, holding our community hostage for over twelve hours until they finally took the 26-year-old gunman into custody into the wee hours of this morning. When I looked around out here on the street I didn’t see anything but people being what I long have believed them to be. Good, honest, hard working members of the community. If that makes me naïve, then that’s ok with me. For if we don't have faith or believe in each other, how are we to survive? Cell phones lit and candles held high we lighted the edges of the road, illuminating a sort of pathway to heaven if you will for the slain officers. In that brief moment our scars turned to stars to illuminate their way. To show them we weren’t afraid, we are with you, and we will be here for you as you are here for us. Because when you hurt, we hurt. Because when you cry, we cry. Because all lives matter. Because when you need us we will show up for you.Because this is our community.jf