Now muck-soaked and turtle-bitten

We responded to a report of teens at the rec center approaching dusk.  The dispatcher warned us that possible rowdy behavior had been observed by an eyewitness so we were advised to proceed with caution.

Upon arriving at the rec center, we spotted the teens idling near the Little League fields.  We approached the teens and asked them what they were doing at the recreation center at dusk and they responded that they were recreat-ing.  Officer Dirks confided to me that "recreat-ing" is well-known street slang for "sodomy" and at this time we noticed several of the teens were whacking emptied aluminum cans of an unknown nature with a wiffleball bat.

I informed the teens that they were in the rec center after dusk in clear violation of posted rules.  One of the teens replied that it was not yet dusk, that the sun was still out, and dusk did not begin until sunset.  Officer Dirks replied that dusk ended shortly before sunset and that the term dusk referred to a time of dim twilight, which, in his professional judgment as a law enforcement officer, had passed.  Several teens objected loudly that my partner and I were incorrect in our interpretation of dusk, and furthermore, no one could be expected to follow such an "ambiguous" ordinance.  At this time my partner and I drew our weapons.

We ordered the teens to lie face-down in the grass where they stood, which they did.  My partner demanded the name of the teen who had heretofore been the loudest in his protestations.  The teen replied that his name was Ryan Butt, which my partner verbally speculated was a fake name designed to shield himself from discipline and humiliate police in the process.  The teen denied that this was the case, but when asked to provide identification confirming his identity, he answered that he had left his identification at home.

At this time I approached a small, shivering teen near the edge of the group and told him to stand and brought him aside a few steps away from the rest of his peers.  I assured him that he was not in trouble, that I could tell he had never meant anyone any harm, that he probably hadn't even realized it was after dusk, that he had fallen in with a bad crowd and had never asked for any of this, and I assured him that he could escape trouble and get on with the rest of his life and not throw his future away if he could only help us in three small ways: first, confirm and testify to the effect that his friends knowingly violated posted rec center regulations by remaining in the rec center after dusk; two, tell us the real name of the teen who had identified himself to Officer Dirks as Ryan Butt; and three, confirm and testify to the effect that this teen had knowingly obstructed justice by providing a scornfully false nickname to police.  The shivering teen responded by popping the brim of my hat with his fist, causing the hat to fly off of my head and get caught in a gust which carried the hat into the pond approximately sixty yards behind us.

I asked Officer Dirks to keep his eye on the teens while I waded into the pond to retrieve my hat.  The water was deeper than I expected and the bottom of the pond was a very loose sinking muck, so I rolled my pants up to my knees and proceeded carefully into the pond with my weapon drawn.  When I was approximately shin-deep in water and still about twenty yards from the hat, which seemed to be receding in some unseen current, I stepped on a turtle and slipped and fell completely into the water.  I heard the teens laughing and making derisive comments about me from the direction of shore.  Now muck-soaked and turtle-bitten, I decided the best way to retrieve the hat would be simply to swim out to it, which I did, before returning with my hat to shore.

I made my way back over to the teens and noted that they continued to make disparaging remarks in my direction, even within my hearing distance.  I also noted that Officer Dirks was not reprimanding the teens but in fact was encouraging them in their remarks with a smile and a joking tone.  I ordered the teens to lay on the grass on their stomachs, but this was received with still more remarks because they were already laying in the manner in which I had instructed them.  Now the sun set and so it was unarguably after dusk, and I noted that the teens could no longer deny that they were in flagrant violation of park regulations, and Officer Dirks and I looked down for a moment to retrieve our citation pads from our belts, but when we looked up just a moment later, the teens were gone, and where they had lain on the grass, there was nothing left but blonde ash swept and piled in their shapes at our feet.