I awoke last night from a deep sleep around 2:26am and for a moment I was confused, thinking I was back in college. There was a loud ruckus going on outside and it immediately reminded me of when the Sig Pi's parties across the row would get out of hand late at night and for a brief moment, that's where I thought I was. But, that moment passed as the yelling intensified and there were the sounds of chasing and being caught. I aurally discerned that there was an unusually large number of people outside for being so late and so cold. Now I was awake and debating whether to get up and peek ever so slightly out the window or whether I would rather not know what was happening outside in the alley on Saturday morning at 2:26am. The crowd of noises grew and curiosity got the best of me. It sounded like the crowd outside, from the words being flung abroad, could erupt into a full scale brawl any moment. I wondered if I should call the police or not. I decided to look first. Oh, good! That's just great! The large crowd of people about to get into a brawl includes the Evanston PD already! This is unusual. There, right outside my window, right in the alley in front of my car stands about 15-20 citizens, about 7-8 cops, 2 civilian cars, and 4 cop cars. The yelling is getting intense and I am increasing my vulgur vocabularly by the minute. As I clandestinely observe the scene unfolding I discover that the sounds of chasing and being caught were of someone running from the cops and being caught and hauled back to the police car. The yelling and anger seems to be stemming from the fact that it was a white officer who caught the black man who ran. Several people are angry and accusing the officer of using excessive force, though I can see no one who looks injured in an way. The white officers and the crowd are yelling back and forth and the black officers are trying to calm each side down before things get really out of hand. I hear someone yell, "Of course he ran!!! What's a black man to do?!" I don't know what that reference was to. The event progressed and the officers eventually got people calmed down to where their shouted explitives could only be heard on this block rather than the greater Chicagoland area. Several people are calling for the one officer's name and badge number. It is given. People get back in their cars and the crowd disperses. One cop car is the last to leave. Several people leave on foot. And, much to my un-surprise, one person goes back into the building across the alley from where so much trouble has come over the past two years it's absurd. I am tired though, and have no brain capacity to start trying to figure out what happened so I decide I'll go back to bed and hopefully there won't be a race riot for the rest of the night. There wasn't.

This morning, the alley is calm with no sign of last night's brouhaha.

-R