Crime Wave

I grew up with a literary diet of western adventures where young Indian boys went on vision quests, then proved themselves by stealing horses and later by counting coup on the enemy. Today I have seen the enemy and it was me. I came back from helping a neighbor, who is moving, and noticed that my sister-in-law’s quite expensive three wheel recumbent bike was not in the garage. I had left the garage door open as we often do on the island. My first thought was that Linda had taken it for a ride. But, Linda soon appeared in the kitchen and we realized that the bike had been stolen. My first thought was to head for the ferry. Linda’s first thought was to call the ferry and give them a heads up. Better idea.
“Yes,” said the ferry guy. “There’s some kid down here riding around on a bike like that. We’ll hold them til you get here.” There is no law on Lummi Island. The ferry crew is the closest we have to a police force. One of the requirements for employment on the ferry is that you live on the island. So, our ferry crew has an interest in maintaining some security. They see who comes and goes and are often able to thwart the rare crime that occurs. One time some fellows burgled a home but missed the last ferry so they had to sit at the dock all night. They had a case of beer, so the story goes, and didn’t wake up when the earliest ferry left the dock. Cars passing around them noticed much merchandise in the car and alerted the crew who had a sheriff waiting on the other side. The first year we were here some young men knocked down a power pole just past our house. Their car was not drivable and they wandered back to the ferry but were so bloodied up that the ferry crew called the cops. So, today, when I rolled up to the dock two crewmen were talking to four little Indian kids, citizens of the Lummi Nation just across the water. They had spent a dollar each to visit Lummi Island for a Saturday adventure. We had five bikes clogging our garage and it was obvious they  felt we had more than our share. Hard to argue with them.
The biggest kid was sitting on Mayumi’s bike telling them that his mom gave it to him for a present. He was a nice looking kid, quite solid for an eleven or twelve year old. He was wearing a Husky jersey. “Nice try,” I said walking up to the group past the line of patient cars who were being delayed by this small drama. Husky jersey gave me a big boy sneer and I could see that in four or five years he would be formidable and very tough to deal with. He was angry and surly and was unhappy at getting caught. By the time I grabbed the bike and rolled it toward my car those waiting in line knew what was going on and had a vested interest in seeing the hand played out. Lummi Islanders have a tendency to blame the Indians for anything bad that happens. I once heard them blamed for a new variety of mosquito that showed up over here. So, there was lots of head nodding and understanding looks.
The crew had already called the sheriff and the Lummi Tribal Police. They wanted me to go across with them and press charges. The other three kids were denying they even knew the boy in the jersey and he was saying he didn’t know them. One guy waiting in line came over to tell me that a lady in a pickup truck had dropped them off at the dock. I was so relieved to have the bike, lost on my watch, that I would have been happy to head for home. But some sort of penalty seemed in order. And, the ferry crew had gone out of their way to help. These boys were veteran liars and showed no remorse, the big, good-looking one was still claiming it was his bike as I wheeled it to the car.
I was allowed to cut in front of the line so on the boat I was right next to the boys who were sitting in front of the cabin. “Who was the woman who dropped you off?” I asked leaning out my car window. “What? What did he say?’ they asked each other pretending not to hear. These kids were, sadly, already pretty street savvy, not giving an inch. Then one of them made the mistake of spitting on the deck which earned him a sailor-like lecture from a young crewman who made him clean it up. The crewman tried to get the boys to write down their names and phone numbers. They weren’t buying that. I was feeling a little bit bad for these kids until we got to the dock and Husky jersey sprinted away. But young crewman chased him down and he stopped. All the cars made their exit and we were sort of trying to herd these kids and keep them on the dock until the sheriff or Tribal cops showed up. No luck. One by one, they took off. No way I was going to get physical with some twelve year olds over a bicycle.
The crew gave me a set of Polaroids they’d taken of each kid. (Those ferry guys are good. And, not bad photographers). My big concern now was missing the return ferry so I pulled my car back into line. I’d wait it out until the next ferry was ready to leave and then I’d go too. There’s no way me getting on my high horse was going to have any real impact on these kids. The deputy rolled up. I gave him the photos. He called the ferry to find out who the woman was who dropped the criminals at the dock. The crew knew her and assured the cop she didn’t know who these kids were; had just given them a lift.
“What do you want to do?” the deputy asked me. Just then, my brother walked up having arrived in the ferry line. “You guys have better things to do,” he said. “We don’t want to press charges.”
I suggested he could drop the photos off at the with the Tribal Police and the deputy thought this was a good idea. As I was loading on the ferry I saw that the deputy had rendezvoused with a Tribal Police cruiser.
On the way back I got a free trip. “When the kids come over,” a crewman told me, “we count the bikes and make sure they haven’t picked any up. Last year some girls did this and we told them to leave the bikes and bring their moms back. They never did.” Racial profiling on the Lummi Island ferry—the ironically named, Whatcom Chief.
When we unloaded the bike we discovered we now had one of the kids sweatshirts, a nice one with the Pittsburgh Steelers logo. We’ll wash it and drop it off at tribal headquarters. Maybe he’ll get it back.
All in all, this is kind of a sad story. But that’s the way the hands have been dealt. The boys probably thought it was no big deal and almost got away with it. We were outraged, but happy to retrieve the bike. Thanks to the alert ferry crew.

Comments

[dave andersen]

Rule#1 for criminal behavior: Never do a crime on an island.
There is only one way off. The locals are so bored they are always looking out the window at every strange car or person.
Everybody knows everybody. They all talk to each other.

My favorite story here is the sheriff's deputy who answers a call for teenage house burglars (called in by a next door neighbor of course).
When he gets there, the teens flee into the woods with their pillow cases of loot.
"Deputy Hayseed" walks around the neigborhood feeling all the car hoods until he finds a warm one. He waits, takes a snooze,after dark the culprits skulk back to their car, the deputy apprehends them; they deny that this is their car, funny the deputy ran the plates and finds that it is registered to one of them. The criminals respone: "Hey, I don't know how my car got over here, we walked on the ferry.