"To Protect And Serve"

Every once in a while someone breaks out of the crowd and rises to levels of greatness.

Today, that person is Officer Salvatore Rivieri of the Baltimore Inner Harbor Police Department. You see, for those of us who have been to The Inner Harbor in Baltimore, we know the diabolical criminals that lay in wait for unsuspecting tourists like ourselves.

I can personally recall a time while using a public restroom in the shops at the edge of the Harbor. As I was using the urinal, I began to hear a gentleman moaning across the room and to the left of me. When I looked over to see what was going on, I saw a young guy, probably in his early twenties, with his hand up his “Rush: Grace Under Pressure” t-shirt, rubbing his chest in the nipple region and giving me a strange look.

Disturbed, I turned my attention back to the tiles straight ahead of me at the urinal. Now this was a whole new level of urinal “stage fright”. What’s “stage fright” you ask? Well, it’s something that some guys experience when they feel that they’re being watched while at a urinal. No matter how bad you have to go, you can’t. It’s just one of those bizarre things that occur that no one can really explain, but it’s usually over the simple belief that one has that they’re being watched, and here I was, not only being watched absolutely, but with a human soundtrack to assist in the awkwardness. But then the situation took an unexpected turn. As I stared at the tiles, desperately trying to avoid eye contact again, I saw something written in the tile grout.

It read:

“If you want a blowjob, sit in a stall and tap your foot”

Now I was really disturbed. Not only was I alone in a restroom with a homosexual prostitute, but what if someone came in while I was tapping my foot and knew what was going on?!?....err….ignore that part.

At any rate, I thought it best to just leave as quickly as possible. So I gave up on the idea of relieving myself, and I quickly darted for the exit without ever making eye contact with the stall entrepreneur.

I could have really used Officer Rivieri’s swift exacting of justice then, but sadly this was the late 80’s, and Officer Rivieri had not begun his 17 year reign of zero tolerance on the Inner Harbor.

I returned to the Inner Harbor in 1991 with a few friends. We decided to explore the areas just outside the typical tourist spots. We ended up one block back from the Inner Harbor attractions, on a street where “LIVE Nude Girls!” signs adorned the front of what seemed to be EVERY doorway. As we arrived on this street we were immediately greeted by a black gentleman who was bleeding from his head quite significantly. He began screaming “Look what these motherfuckers did to me, MAN!! I was just minding my business painting this picture and they cracked my fuckin’ head open!” He was holding a dinner plate up to show the picture he was painting. It was the type of plate that you might see at a yard sale, white crockery with a winter snowscape and sleigh in the center under the glaze. But, the man said he painted it, and we weren’t about to argue the point. As I turned to look at my friend Bryan to see what he thought of the bleeding man’s “painting”, I noticed an extremely “portly” man with two black eyes in a sweater (on that warm Summer’s day) approaching Bryan from behind. He was thrusting his genital area and making a “grunt….grunt” sort of sound. I imagine we looked like Fred and Barney as our feet began twirling and that xylophone sound was playing right before the dust clouds were left behind in the shape of our bodies that used to be there.

I don’t think we went back to the Inner Harbor again.

This was probably the year that Officer Rivieri began cleaning up that area. It must be glorious now. There must be no crime at all. No drug dealers…no robberies….no gay prostitutes awaiting an unexpecting tourist in a family area restroom. No sir, after what I’ve witnessed this week from Officer Rivieri, there is such little amounts of *real* crime in the Inner Harbor of Baltimore, that he has now been forced to turn his Gestapo like iron fist on those who dance with the idea of bringing lawlessness back to his turf.

Oh I should just let you see what I mean…certainly my words can’t bring justice to an Officer of this majesty.

In the words of Alex from “A Clockwork Orange”…”Viddy well, my droogies….viddy well”:

Like the HAMMER OF GOD, I TELL YOU!!!!

Ok, now let’s get serious.

As I’ve read responses from people regarding this news story over the past few days, I keep seeing people saying “This kind of cop makes all cops look bad”. You may find your self inclined to agree. But I offer you this thought….

Officer Rivieri is not the disease; he’s merely a symptom of the disease. For the blatant pissing on the line of civic responsibility and professionalism that you’ve just witnessed, Officer Rivieri was placed on a PAID suspension, pending an investigation. In a nutshell, he was basically rewarded with an all expenses paid vacation.

You see, THAT is what makes all cops look bad. That when one of them clearly crosses the line…clearly violates the rights of a citizen because they’re simply on an ego trip…nothing happens. The “blue wall” goes up….they get paid to sit home…and when the storm subsides, Officer Rivieri will be back in his Bee costume and his Urkel mobile, kicking the shit out of a guy for tossing a Frisbee to his dog too close to the entrance of The Cheesecake Factory’s front door. To make matters better, we the people won’t say anything about it, because five minutes after seeing this on the news, Britney will be rushed away to a mental facility while speaking in an Eliza Doolittle accent and our priorities will fall in place! Then right after that, we’ll be reading the blog of a self important asshole who’s pontificating about how our priorities as Americans are skewed and he’ll site our bizarre fascination with Britney as his completely clichéd example and….um…nevermind. But ultimately, Officer Rivieri either consciously or subconsciously is aware of this. He knows that nothing will really happen to him…he knows his brothers in blue will put that wall up in short order…it’s what affords him his comfort zone. It’s what allows him to take such liberties with people’s rights. He’s a symptom of a much bigger disease.

And can you really blame him?

I mean, who wouldn’t love to screw over people they don’t like at work without fear of repercussion?

He’s just living the dream, people!