Hugh Grant was arrested…for what? Oh, that. The older I get the more confusing this world seems. Not the arrest. Hell no. In my glory days as a forest-preserve copper I arrested plenty of people for that–or something like that. There are variations on variations. If you’re one of those people who spent your hormone years in the Chicago suburbs I may even have arrested you.
He should have been in the forest preserve when I was working. For starters, I wouldn’t even have known who he was. I can see it now. Probably he and his lady would be in Miller Meadow doing that in the backseat of his car. Let’s see, what’s he driving? Probably one of those snooty imports I never could identify, maybe the one with interlocking rings for a logo. I never knew what kind of car that was and never found the nerve to ask. Whenever I saw one whizzing by at 30 miles an hour–twice the speed limit in any Cook County forest preserve and obviously a dangerous crime–I just let it go. You see, when you call in a traffic stop you’re supposed to tell the dispatcher what kind of car you’ve stopped, and I didn’t want to say–on the air so that every copper in the county could hear–“I’m down on one of those fancy cars with the rings.” Nah.
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“Police!” you say. “Let’s see some identification.”
Notice I said ticket. What I’ve just seen Hugh and his friend doing is not something I would take anyone into the lockup for. It’s not a moral decision. It’s a practical matter. I still have 106 forest-preserve gates to lock. How would I get done if I locked up everyone for doing that? The way I look at it, those California coppers must have an awful lot of time on their hands.
So Hugh shows up in a Fourth District courtroom a month later, and nobody even knows who he is, because the only people they know down there are people connected with Chicago politics. Try arresting somebody named Daley or even Mell. Watch the interest shoot up. But Hugh Grant? Nah.
