By the time I finish writing this, the incident happening right outside my office in a Skid Row homeless shelter will likely be over. It has been going on for over an hour. A man in his 30s is holding a box cutter up to his throat while clutching a knife in the other hand, and even on Skid Row, this has stopped traffic.
The most noteworthy thing about what is going on in real time is the normalcy of the despair one regularly sees down here in the part of Los Angeles not found in travel brochures. I have seen people do things that should only be done in private, while everyone else walks by like it is nothing.
And now, as I type this, the man with a box cutter is in many ways just another day at the office.
I want to go home. I want this issue to be resolved. I want the yellow police tape to be removed from the exit of our underground parking lot so I can return to the slightly less volatile world of the San Fernando Valley. I want to leave the smells — and there are smells of every kind one can imagine — and the constant whine of ambulance and police sirens. I will gladly return the next day to start the process again.
But here I sit.
This is the first time, in all the columns I have written, that I am writing about something as it happens. I had a column ready to go. I was not particularly crazy about it, but I have a deadline. Then, about an hour and a half ago, people started milling about the office, talking about the incident taking place on the street outside the shelter.
My first thought was resentment. This guy with a box cutter, a source of black humor to a lot of the people here, was a source of anger for me. He was preventing me from getting out of here for the day. He is still preventing me, and screaming periodically about how his Fifth, Eighth, and 14th Amendment constitutional rights are being violated, all while lobbing profanity-laced screams at a calmly speaking Los Angeles police officer.
So, what a perfect way to make this a mini-Lenten retreat. We are supposed to see Jesus in everyone we meet. It is hard to see Jesus in the boxcutter man. But he was once somebody’s baby, even a mom’s pride and joy.
There are a lot of diverse ways people wind up on Skid Row. There are some here due to no fault of their own, who have had horrendous episodes of misfortune. In reality, many are here because of horrendous personal choices and self-destructive lifestyles. That again is no reason to either feel superior to the boxcutter man or to think he is getting what he “deserves” when the police finally take him into custody.
But what is Lent other than a vivid reminder that we, as followers of Jesus, are also not getting what we deserve because of the paschal sacrifice? As this modern-day “Via Dolorosa” continues to unfold, my better angels tell me that if mercy and forgiveness are good enough for us, it certainly is good enough for the boxcutter man.
It has now been almost five hours since the standoff with the police began. The LAPD is allowing us to leave. So, although I’m happy to return to my natural habitat in the Valley, I will also pray for the boxcutter man, that God’s mercy intervenes on his behalf, as I hope it will for me.
