My absolute favorite detail as a police officer was an all-day protection detail at a Cheese Shoppe... where we had to protect it from anti-cheese activists. Who apparently had phoned in a threat in advance... I am not making this up. They threatened a cheese shop. So we stood there with the unit all day... because 30 anti-curd protesters set up to protest a cheese shoppe. In Vermont. Dairy country.
I had more fun than a tornado in a trailer park. People would come up and ask us why we were deployed between the road (where the anti-whey wimps were waiting) and the Cheese shops. And as the unit commander for that detail... I just completely deadpanned "We're here to protect the cheese, ma'am." "We're here defending the cheese shoppe, sir." Absolutely hilarious. About 3 in the afternoon, some chapter of Combat Vets MC Club Harley's comes in to the little strip mall where the Cheese place is. They come over and ask.... "What are you guys doing? What's up? What's with the deployment?"
I give them the deadpan "We're here protecting cheese, sir. Over there, is a group of radical anti-cheese protesters from out of state... and we have been called into defend the cheese shop, sir."
His response.... "You are joking, right?
"No sir. On SRT, we don't have a sense of humor that we are aware of. We're here to defend the cheese." He can tell that I am trying not to crack up laughing... but I pull off the deadpan. I'm dying....
So this guy gets his whole bike chapter... about 30 riders... and they go in the cheese shop and buy a whole shit ton of cheese... and then get between us and the cheese protesters... leathered up and not one of them under 6 feet. And they start eating cheese. All standing in a line eating cheese. In front of the cheese protesters.
We're just sitting there trying not to roll around laughing... Still defending the cheese shoppe.
Not long after that,they counter-cheese revolutionaries packed up their POS Camry's and hybrid Honda Impacts... and went back to Ma and Ct. But they left this one guy behind who would not leave. For two more hours, we had a whole row of SRT guys and this one hippie clownfish. Who finally got in his wood-paneled Giant 1990's Chevy Impala Wagon, no doubt inhereted from his great Auntie Chalymidia... and drove home.
The Cheese shop folks brought us out a huge cheese plate... which, sadly, we had to turn down. We aren't allowed to accept cheese gifts, you know. That would be like bribery. Really.
But it's still my single best PD police story... and belongs in a book.
So do you think these people are whacked? Ha... they got nothing on our ANTICHeese riot...
Cheers,
Sirhr
