When the Police Get It Wrong: My Experience with the Eugene SWAT Team

In Coeur d'Alene, Idaho this week, Lake City High School football coach Van Troxel was pulled over on suspicion of a DUI. Breath test plus urinalysis both came up clean. Police chief Wendy Carpenter apologized to Troxel for the inconvenience he suffered.

It turned out the police officer got it wrong.

This news story reminded me of an incident I went through about thirteen years ago.

My friend Jeff and I were on our way to Eugene, Oregon's W.O.W. Hall to hear one of our favorite improvisational/jam/blues/rock bands, Zero. Zero was playing a three night run of shows and we were excited on this Thursday evening for the first night of Zero.

We were walking through an alley close to my house. Cop cars popped up all around us.

We couldn't figure out what was going on and even commented that our neighborhood was swarming with police cars.

We arrived at the end of the alley, where, at Lincoln Street the alley opens up into a small Diamond parking lot.

Suddenly a SWAT team confronted us. A buzz cut SWAT team officer in camouflage fatigues, backed up by about six police cars and a small troop of officers pointed his gun right at us and screamed at us:

"Stop! Stop where you are! Put your hands behind your head!"

The officer's testosterone rose in heat waves off the asphalt.

"Separate them. You! You in the jacket, go over there. And you! The other guy! I want you over there!"

We obeyed.

Suddenly, I flashed back to my previous encounter with Eugene's SWAT team.

I was having a few beers at a North Eugene bar. To my left were a couple of men who were on their lips, playing a dice game for who bought the next round.

Kentucky and Oregon women's basketball team had just finished a tournament game at Mac Court and two couples, decked out in the Oregon Duck lime and yellow colors, came in and relaxed at a table.

It was pay day for the mill workers to my left and suddenly they began to dispute whose turn it was to buy the next round. The began to drop f-bombs on each other.

The Duck fan men told the mill workers to watch their language in the presence of their wives.

The mill workers did not obey. The Duck fan men got up from their chairs to protect the honor of their wives and a donnybrook broke out.

A woman working the bar was on the phone behind the bar with her boyfriend. The young man working the bar started shouting at the fighters, "Stop it! I'll call the police."

Moments later, "Stop it, you guys! I've called the police!"

I figured he had to be bluffing. The woman was still on the phone.

The fighters, after knocking a table over, got winded and returned to their respective corners. The mill workers said, "Fuck it! We're outta here." They paid their tab and left.

The disruption over, I returned to my beer.

Suddenly, the doors in the front and the sides of the bar slammed open and a half a dozen SWAT team officers, armed with night sticks, and poised for action, formed a half circle around the back of the tavern.

Tidal waves of testosterone flooded the place.

The guy sitting next to me at the bar and I slowly turned out heads toward the cops.

The bar was calm. The cops looked confused.

The SWAT team captain approached the bar, and addressed the young bartender:

"Is there an armed robbery in progress?"

"No. We just had a little fight in here."

"Did you push the silent alarm?"

"Yeah. I needed help out here."

"Son, we have Highway 99 blocked north and south. I've got a team of my best men out here. That silent alarm is for robberies, not bar fights."

"Oh."

The SWAT team ratcheted down their adrenaline and left.

I went to the men's room. The guy who'd been at the bar was at the next urinal.

"You don't come here often, do you?"

"No."

"It's not always like this."

Meanwhile, the SWAT team in the Diamond parking lot handcuffed Jeff and started aggressively interrogating him. The cops who had me were more relaxed as I took my Zero tickets out of my wallet and showed them I was headed across the street to the show.

I tried to quietly communicate my harmlessness.

The cops with Jeff quieted down. About twenty minutes later a security car from the Valley River Mall showed up, stopped, and immediately we were released.

It turns out that a guy had just stolen a car at the Valley River Mall and come into our neighborhood, forced himself into a woman's house, was armed, had left the house, and was at large. He was wearing black Levi jeans, a black Levi jacket, and wore a pony tail.

Jeff was wearing black Levi jeans, a black Levi jacket, and wore a pony tail.

The security guy, who saw the perp, got lost driving the five minutes from the mall to our location. But, once he arrived, he was able to tell from the street, without leaving his security vehicle, that the SWAT team had the wrong guy.

They didn't need to point a gun at us. They didn't need to handcuff Jeff. They didn't need to interrogate us.

The police got it wrong.

The chief of the Eugene Police Department did not call us and apologize for the inconvenience.

Neither did the SWAT team.