Thornhill

Second in line to make a left turn onto Thornhill, I instinctively look down to the passenger seat and pick up my phone. The person in front of me does the same. I watch her eyes through her rearview mirror, as she looks right and down, her shoulder slipping to pick up her phone and then returning to normal. We all do it.

Periodically peaking, I look down at my phone for 5 seconds and then up, down and then up. It’s a 4-way light with left-hand turning arrows, so it will take some time. I'm content to look down and then up, while I wait.

Running through the up-down cycle, a movement to my left catches my eye. 30 yards from the intersection, I watch as a police officer grabs a teenager and gently forces him to the ground. The teenager, who looks to be no more than 13 years old, offers no resistance and the officer is being overly gentle. The officer cuffs the boy and walks back to the intersection, his right hand gripping the boy’s left bicep.

I watch as they walk back toward the intersection, trying to ascertain the context of this event. I scan the area for signs of unrest.

30 degrees to my right, an off-ramp from Highway 24 runs parallel to a frontage road, before making a hard right into the intersection. Mature pine trees line the off-ramp, obscuring the two roads.

The first three cars at the red light of the off-ramp are stopped, doors open and three men standing next to their cars talking on their cell phones. Some sort of accident, obviously. Because of the trees, it was impossible to tell if more cars were involved.

The light turned green and all of us eased into the intersection, our heads on a pendulum looking for clues as to what happened. I continued straight for a quarter mile, passed Mountain, making a left into the 7-11 parking lot. It was lunchtime and the lot was full of work vehicles.

In the store, I hear sirens in the distance. Police was responding.

Retracing my route, the scene outside is very different from when I arrived: 2 cars in front of me, a police officer briskly walks in the middle of the road, 2-way in hand, toward Mountain. At the first intersection, 2 patrol cars sit kitty-corner, officers outside of the vehicles scanning the area.  And, at the adjacent intersection, multiple police cars are parked, waiting. They’re looking for someone.

In the distance, a teenager casually crosses the road and disappears between two houses, trampling ice plants. Wearing Vans, nondescript dark clothing and carrying a heavy backpack that falls below the small of his back, he looks like every present-day teenager.

Inserting themselves into the drama, multiple cars stop and point in the direction of the teenager. The officer in the middle of the road disappears into the ice plant and reappears a minute later with the teenager. Like the other officer, he leads the teenager to the nearest intersection and puts him in the back of a squad car. I make the first left and disappear, putting together the pieces of what happened: teenagers steal car, crash it on off-ramp, flee and end up in the back of a police car. Very common.

While waiting for my son to get out of school, I watch as throngs of teenagers in heavy backpacks and Vans shoes flood out of classrooms and into waiting buses and cars – all of them potential car thieves. Shit.