The Flo Zone Police Story
Studious, eh?
The worst picture I could find of John-Paul. Man, that's really bad.
Here's Justin. Say hi, everyone.
First, who the heck are you?
Hiya, my name is Charles. If you're here at my site, well, I hope you already know that. Anyway, this is a story of what happened to some friends of mine (and, me, too) at our local Community Access television station.
At any rate, my friends and I like to volunteer said Access center, making our own video productions. One of my friends who got me into this is John Paul Lohrstorfer. We were in the same troop in Boy Scouts when I was younger, and, although we weren't friends back then, I did definitely know of his reputation for being a hell-raiser, even at that age. Because of him, I have found myself in a number of crazy situations, ranging from sliding down the big hill outside East Hall to asking policemen if they've ever been anal probed. When all this went down he was also an employee at Community Access.
Oh, one more person deserves mention in these little exploits. Justin Scheidel was an Access employee who also became a producer on this show called the Flo Zone that we all worked on (but more about that below) Anyway, Justin is kind of a partier and a tad on the crazy side, but overall a fun fellow to hang out with on the weekends. I suppose his best talents are in editing, and, because of his relentless work this show we produced actually looked pretty good. Well, at least when you didn't see the show live.
So, what's all this about the Flo Zone?
The Flo Zone is a hip-hop show which we produced down at Community Access. We did a lot of on-location filming at local music events for the specials, and had a live show nearly every Thursday where local talent could come down and show off.
When the show was running, the Flo Zone was a term not unknown to those interested in the hip-hop scene in the southwest Michigan area. Frankly, we could walk into nearly any party and end up having at least one person come up to us and say, "Hey, aren't you on that Flo Zone show?" It was rather fun, and we all met a lot of folks from this whole thing.
The Flo Zone culminated with a party in January of 2001 which did not do so well. After this exhausting event, the show never really recover, ceasing live productions by February of that year. Although some work has been discussed to have the Flo Zone return, very little work has been done.
So why the heck am I still reading this?
Well, because something really interesting happened to us late one night at the Community Access Center. Something that I'm sure I'll never forget, and something that has taught me the value of never being afraid.
ŒFlo Zone promotions which I designed. Reports suggest it enjoyed some popularity at Kalamazoo Central High School.
The whole night began when I got a call from JP asking if I'd like to come on down to the Access center and help do some editing and computer graphics for one of the episodes we were working on. Okay, sounded good to me, so I headed on down. Justin was working that night, and JP was hanging out editing some stuff. Altogether, it was a normal night at Access.
Speaking of Access, well, it had just moved into larger quarters at the Epic Center building downtown. For those of you not from around here, the Epic Center is a place where yuppies meet fine art. Chock full of stores, theatres, and offices the place is actually kind of a cool place to hang out on a Saturday evening. Well, if you're one of those types.
So, anyway, we're at Access and 11:30 at night rolls around. This is about the time shows start going off the air at Access, so we began thinking about what we'd do after we were done that night. We decided that we'd stay till maybe 12:30 finishing up our projects and then head off to see some of Justin's friends. Noting, however, that we were out of music for one segment of the show, we thought we'd just run outside, get a CD, and finish up. Until things took an unexpected turn for the worse.
It's 11:30...do you know where your children are?
We headed outside for the car to get some CDs. Justin stayed outside for a cigarette, so we all stood around and talked for a while about the show and God knows what else. After that, we all headed back in.
The Epic Center has a back staircase which we took heading upstairs. But, as we headed upstairs, we noticed some sounds in the building. We all looked at each other kind of curiously, but didn't think anything of it until we noticed that the noises we were hearing were coming downt the stairs at us. Justin had earlier that night recounted some stories of burglars in the building or somesuch, so I know I was on edge. I think I was the first one to dart back down the staircase, quickly followed by JP and Justin.
We ran to the basement, and, instead of getting away from the noises, they seemed to be coming closer and it sounded like someone was yelling1 at us. I couldn't hear what they said; when you're running from some unknown person late at night in a supposedly deserted building, you don't stop and ponder who it could be. You just keep running.
And run we did, all the way around the basement, up the stairs, and back up to Access, where we promptly locked the doors and called the security which Access had. We told them that we'd be out of the building at 1 o'clock, figuring, well, if there is someone in the building who shouldn't be and they head to Access, the security guys will get them. Besides, we probably have scared them off by now.
We all talked for a minute about what had happened, each of us rather nervous and jumpy, and decided that we'd at least get the last bits done for our show. I returned to one of the back edit suites with Justin, while JP got on one of the Macs and did some Photoshop work. After about twenty minutes of work everything started to return to normal.
What? That's it? What a bloody stupid story!
Well, it gets worse. I heard the sound of a dog in the building, and, immediately, I was more confused than ever.
I saw JP shoot me a puzzled look and then get up from his chair. He didn't return. I mentioned that to Justin who got up and didn't return. I heard JP yelling.
JP was frantically trying to explain to someone that he had a key. I could hear their muffled voices, and could hear some scratching sound. JP must've got up at this moment and opened the door to Access, because the next thing I heard was someone pulling him out into the corridor outside of the Access Center offices, followed by Justin yelling something like, "Oh, shit!"
This finally piqued my interest, so I peeked out of the edit suite. Looking down, I saw Justin lying spead out on the floor and I saw shadows from the corridor outside. Taking Justin's lead, I decided it would probably be best to lie on the floor, too.
Justin was quickly taken out to the corridor by a policeman in riot gear. I continued lying down, begining to realize what had happened. Next a policeman came in and retrieved me, putting me in handcuffs, raising the obvious question: From the pictures above, who would you handcuff? I mean, c'mon, I've got to be the least menacing of these guys. Right?
So now we're in the corridor outside of Access, and frankly we were pretty damn scared. Three policemen in various SWAT team and riot gear bits. Three college guys. One very large angry German shepard. And then the questioning comes. The cops want to know what the hell we're doing here, and, frankly, we're kind of curious what the police are doing at Access.
It is explained to us that the Epic Center security guard chased three white males through the building and that they had come to investigate. The security guard arrives and identifies us as the guys. At this point, the police seem bent on taking us to the station to clear up this whole matter, but, after calling JP's boss at what was now 12:50 in the morning and checking us for warrants, they decided that we were actually kosher, and they left.
We were really overjoyed.
Tell me more.
I got a call two or three days after all this happened. "Yeah, this is officer Reginald White2 from the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety. Do you know what this pertains to?" Frankly, I thought the worst, that maybe they'd decided they needed to arrest us and sort something else out. But it turned out he just had my pocketknife and wanted to come and drop it off.
I got a chance to hear the story from his perspective then, which was the most harrowing version of all. They had arrived at the building, assuming that there were possibly armed burglars in the building. Ready for the worst, they scanned the building, got to the third floor, and had assumed that the place was pretty well empty. About ready to leave and regroup, suddenly one of the officers sees JP through the glass doors of the Access center. He orders him on the floor and calls for backup. JP begged to let him open the door, rather than having them break it open, as they had planned on doing.
The officers had their guns drawn and were ready to shoot, and they carefully pulled JP into the corridor. At nearly the same moment, however, Justin walks right past the glass doors. They all immediately began pointing their guns at him, and they were quite ready to shoot. They were especially taken off guard by this.
Luckily, JP mentioned I was still inside, otherwise it would've been another close call with me. At least I was on the ground when they walked in.
Anything else?
Just remember, kids, crime doesn't pay minimum wage. Don't grow up like your ol' Uncle Charles.
Notes:
1. Turns out the security guard was yelling something like "Stop, security" at us. Had I known this I would've stopped, but all I heard in my mind was the yellings of a raving maniac. The power of suggestion was apparent, I guess. After that story Justin told me about burglars in the building, I couldn't think of this person being anything but someone bent on harming us.
2. This really wasn't the officer's name. All I remember was that it was something that sounded exceedingly distinguished.
