Welcome Back! How 'bouts a stick up?

So this morning I'm driving down Route 1 in Old Town, running late to teach my yoga class.  For some reason the traffic is moving slower than usual for a Saturday morning, making me even less "calm and peaceful" than I otherwise like to be before yoga class.

Just before King Street (the main artery through Old Town for those of you who don't live around here), I notice a car stopped in the left lane, forcing the traffic to merge right - hence the slow down.  I start grumbling to B about what kind of idiot just stops in traffic (again, not very yogic), when I see what I think is a cop writing a ticket.  "OK," I say, "at least that guy's getting a ticket or towed or something."

As I approach the stopped car, only one lane over to the right, I realize that the cop is actually pointing a gun at the car.  I can see the driver sitting behind the wheel with his hands in the air. We hear the sirens of another police car approaching from behind, while the first cop starts making a 'get out of the car' gesture with the gun.

WTF!??

I'm not a wuss, I swear.  I lived in New Orleans during the height of the worst crime wave ever seen in that city.  I lived in Adams Morgan when I first moved to DC, and actually saw bar fights spill out in to the street.  I even sat for more than two weeks on the jury of a high profile DC murder case, where believe me they showed some eye-bugging photos.  But never in my whole life have I seen a cop brandishing his gun at another person.

That is some seriously effed up shit right there.  I'm not kidding.   It's not like the movies.

And of course the real idiots in the cars in front of me are rubber necking like crazy.  Why would you want to slow down to look at that?  My car is now directly to the right of the stopped car, while the dumbass in front of me is still craning is neck to look back.  All I want to do is get out of there before the shit goes down, man.  Instead, I'm practically stopped and I'm grabbing B's hand.  I don't want to see a person get shot.

So, I honk my horn and start gesturing for the car in front of me to drive, and I do get out of there.  I have no idea what happened next, but I didn't hear any shots.

I'd like to point out that Old Town, particularly along King Street is, all upscale botox spas and fine dining.  However, Alexandria's housing projects are just around the corner.  But mostly just poor people live there - it's not a violent place, even though I'm sure the site of black people congregating makes a lot of soccer moms nervous.  I did catch a glimpse of the person who emerged from the car - a petite, black woman who looked normal enough.  The car wasn't dodgy or anything. 

I honestly can't imagine what was going on to merit the gun and the back up, but there ya go.  The latest batch of high-profile racism among law enforcement around the country is unsettling.  You've got the Jena 6 in Louisiana and the recent car accident in Gary, Indiana where the cops didn't even bother to look for the all the passengers from the car.  I wonder what I would have to do, how crazy I'd have to act, before a traffic cop would pull his weapon on me.