Bad Apples

This week was the 4^th of July!!

On the 3rd, I shadowed Ranger Clark and was supposed to observe the Pops Concert, but thunderstorms prevented that from happening.

The 4th on the other hand was a busy, exciting day.  The highlight was the parade, where I got to practice my crowd-scanning skills and enjoy the show a little. Despite the low attendance from the ridiculous heat, the parade was a fun mix of music, Philadelphia cultures, patriotism, and unicyclists (my personal favorite).  As per usual, we had a ton of heat exhaustion calls.

On the 5^th I was debriefed on the craziness that happened during the night shift on the 4^th. There were a few wild fights and light posts down but nothing that isn’t expected on one of the country’s drunkest days of the year.  Rangers are responsible for supervising any set-up and break-down of stages around INDE, especially if it involves any traffic interference.  So while observing the break-down in front of the Hall, Ranger Keiffer was called to help one of the workmen ‘break’ into his car.

Around the time of the Philly I.C.E. protests, Philly PD asked for mild ranger backup. If you’ve seen the videos, you’ve seen the crowd control Philly PD has done. For my sake, the Rangers showed me videos of that day, and videos of past crowd control, and talked about their experience there, doing the usual after-action report of what went well and what could have gone better.

This week was also a huge arrest of a man we’ll call “Mark Apples”, for the sake of anonymity. INDE has a large homeless population, and rangers often talk to them and get to know the regulars around the area. It helps foster a more positive and safer environment.  Apples was known to hang around a particular bench and fist-bump people passing by. No malicious intent, no harassing, just overly-friendly fist-bumps and “hellos”. But sometimes, Apples would drink, get loud, and start grabbing people if they didn’t pay attention to him. That’s when rangers get called in to calm the situation down.  

In the morning we got a call that Apples was being the more aggressive version of himself. So we went out to investigate and talk with him. Rangers had never gotten a positive ID on him before, so they decided to chat and try to get some information. Apples wasn’t angry or aggressive, but he was very uncooperative in giving any information. He would give a few different names, claim he couldn’t remember his birthday, and interrupt any questions with exclamations on music he listened to recently or things he found interesting, all the while walking back and forth from the rangers, not entirely part of the conversation.

His 'names' weren’t found in any system, which the rangers expected. A few hours later we get a call that Apples was now belligerently drunk and had offered alcohol to minors on park property. After interviewing the minors, we found Apples and decide to follow him at a safe distance while waiting for backup. Based on his heavy stumbling and his adventures through the middle of the street, he was clearly drunk. Once backup came they contacted Apples, got a consensual search of his bag (which did indeed have a bottle of alcohol in it ), and tried once again to ID him. He became increasingly belligerent and angry with the rangers.  Since you can't cite someone you can't identify, and knowing that it was unlikely PPD would hold him for identification, rangers agreed to confiscate the alcohol and leave the contact for a later time while they try to identify him- there was no doubt he would back at his bench tomorrow. 

Apples had claimed he was a veteran, so Ranger Cooper and I drove over to the local VA to see if they were familiar with Mark Apples. They weren’t sure they knew him, and as we were leaving we get a text from a supervisor stating, “Oh! That’s Mark Apples”. He had been dealt with by the supervisor about 5 years back, and hadn’t been seen around since. Come to find out, this friendly fist-bumper has multiple warrants and failed to register himself as a sex offender.

30 minutes before the end of shift, as the rangers are planning his arrest for the following day, we get a call that Mark Apples was harassing people at the Liberty Bell line and was headed into the Visitor Center. An hour later Mark Apples was in custody, undergoing a full search by a ranger, and headed to the hospital because of his extreme drunkenness. Ranger Cooper led the case, so she was responsible for staying with Mark Apples until she could transfer custody over to the Philadelphia Sheriffs, even if it meant hanging out in the hospital for 3 hours after her shift had ended.