Read Online On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City by Alice Goffman - Free Book Online
Authors: Alice Goffman
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his twenty-two-year-old girlfriend
was due with their second child. Chuck told her that he would be at the hospital,
even though he had a detainer out for a probation violation for breaking curfew. He
stayed with her up until the point that she was getting in her aunt’s car to go to
the hospital. Then at the final moment, he said she should go ahead without him, and
that he would come soon.
Later, Chuck sat with me on the steps and discussed the situation. “I told her I was
on my way,” he said. “She mad as shit I ain’t there. I can hear her right now. She
going to be like, “You broke your promise.” I’m not trying to go out like Alex [get
arrested], though. You feel me?”
As we spoke, his girlfriend called his cell phone repeatedly, and he would mute the
sound after one ring and stare at her picture as it came up on the screen.
Just as a man worried the police will pick him up avoids the hospital when his child
is born and refuses to seek formal medical care when he is badly beaten, so he won’t
visit his friends and relatives in prison or jail. Some prisons make it a general
practice to run the names of visitors; others employ random canine searches of visitors’
cars, and run the plates and names from the parking lot.
Funerals also become risky for men worried that the police may take them. Each of
the nine funerals I attended for young men who had been killed in the 6th Street neighborhood
featured police officers stationed outside with a tripod camera to film the mourners
as they filed in. More officers stood across the street and parked on the adjacent
blocks. When I asked an officer of the Warrant Unit about funerals, he replied that
they were a great place to round up people for arrest. “But we try to stay a block
or two away, so we don’t get our picture in the paper.”
Like hospitals and funerals, places of employment become dangerous for people with
a warrant. Soon after Mike got released on parole to a halfway house, he found a job
through an old friend who managed a Taco Bell. After two weeks, Mike, twenty-four
at the time, refused to return to the house in time for curfew, saying he couldn’t
spend another night cooped up with a bunch of men like he was still in jail. He slept
at his girlfriend’s house, and in the morning found that he had beenissued a violation and would likely be sent back to prison, pending the judge’s decision.
Mike said he wasn’t going back, and they were going to have to catch him. Two parole
officers arrested him the next day as he was leaving the Taco Bell, where he had gone
to pick up his paycheck. He spent a year back upstate for this violation.
When Mike got booked at the Taco Bell, Chuck chewed him out thoroughly. Didn’t he
remember the time Chuck got taken?
Chuck started working at the local McDonald’s when he was nineteen. Later that year
he caught a probation violation for driving a car, his driving privileges having been
revoked as part of his probation sentence. Though he had a warrant, Chuck kept working,
saying that if the police came he would simply run out the back door.
A couple of weeks later, a former employee got into a fight with three other workers,
and the police shut the McDonald’s down while they questioned witnesses and looked
for the women involved. When the fight began, Chuck had been in the storeroom, talking
on the phone to his girlfriend. He came out, he said, and saw six police officers
staring at him. At this point he phoned me to come pick up his house keys, fairly
certain he would be taken into custody. When I got there, it was too late—Chuck was
leaving in the back of a squad car.
A man worried that the police are hunting him—or at least may take him into custody
should they come upon him—also comes to see friends, neighbors, and even family members
as dangerous. First, he must avoid people who are “hot.” After Reggie robbed a
was due with their second child. Chuck told her that he would be at the hospital,
even though he had a detainer out for a probation violation for breaking curfew. He
stayed with her up until the point that she was getting in her aunt’s car to go to
the hospital. Then at the final moment, he said she should go ahead without him, and
that he would come soon.
Later, Chuck sat with me on the steps and discussed the situation. “I told her I was
on my way,” he said. “She mad as shit I ain’t there. I can hear her right now. She
going to be like, “You broke your promise.” I’m not trying to go out like Alex [get
arrested], though. You feel me?”
As we spoke, his girlfriend called his cell phone repeatedly, and he would mute the
sound after one ring and stare at her picture as it came up on the screen.
Just as a man worried the police will pick him up avoids the hospital when his child
is born and refuses to seek formal medical care when he is badly beaten, so he won’t
visit his friends and relatives in prison or jail. Some prisons make it a general
practice to run the names of visitors; others employ random canine searches of visitors’
cars, and run the plates and names from the parking lot.
Funerals also become risky for men worried that the police may take them. Each of
the nine funerals I attended for young men who had been killed in the 6th Street neighborhood
featured police officers stationed outside with a tripod camera to film the mourners
as they filed in. More officers stood across the street and parked on the adjacent
blocks. When I asked an officer of the Warrant Unit about funerals, he replied that
they were a great place to round up people for arrest. “But we try to stay a block
or two away, so we don’t get our picture in the paper.”
Like hospitals and funerals, places of employment become dangerous for people with
a warrant. Soon after Mike got released on parole to a halfway house, he found a job
through an old friend who managed a Taco Bell. After two weeks, Mike, twenty-four
at the time, refused to return to the house in time for curfew, saying he couldn’t
spend another night cooped up with a bunch of men like he was still in jail. He slept
at his girlfriend’s house, and in the morning found that he had beenissued a violation and would likely be sent back to prison, pending the judge’s decision.
Mike said he wasn’t going back, and they were going to have to catch him. Two parole
officers arrested him the next day as he was leaving the Taco Bell, where he had gone
to pick up his paycheck. He spent a year back upstate for this violation.
When Mike got booked at the Taco Bell, Chuck chewed him out thoroughly. Didn’t he
remember the time Chuck got taken?
Chuck started working at the local McDonald’s when he was nineteen. Later that year
he caught a probation violation for driving a car, his driving privileges having been
revoked as part of his probation sentence. Though he had a warrant, Chuck kept working,
saying that if the police came he would simply run out the back door.
A couple of weeks later, a former employee got into a fight with three other workers,
and the police shut the McDonald’s down while they questioned witnesses and looked
for the women involved. When the fight began, Chuck had been in the storeroom, talking
on the phone to his girlfriend. He came out, he said, and saw six police officers
staring at him. At this point he phoned me to come pick up his house keys, fairly
certain he would be taken into custody. When I got there, it was too late—Chuck was
leaving in the back of a squad car.
A man worried that the police are hunting him—or at least may take him into custody
should they come upon him—also comes to see friends, neighbors, and even family members
as dangerous. First, he must avoid people who are “hot.” After Reggie robbed a
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