There’s probably not a story in recent times that has hit more hot buttons for me than the story of DPD Officer Robert Powell and his treatment of Ryan Moats in a traffic stop outside the hospital where Moats’s mother-in-law was dying upstairs. Obviously, there are very few if any allies in Powell’s corner right now and rightly so, I believe. But it’s made me think about a few things and why this story hit me so hard personally.

First off, it made me realize how differently I think of things as a young white girl. I think about what I would have done if I were Moats or his wife and I found myself in that situation. Would I even be as likely to be in the situation in the first place being a young white girl? That’s pure speculation on my part but I tend to think I wouldn’t. But even if I was, my brain immediately tells me that I would explain hastily (as the Moats indeed tried to do) that my mother was upstairs taking what were going to be her final breaths and that I had to get upstairs. If for some reason the officer wanted to argue with me about that, he would have to do so as he ran to catch up with me because I would simply take off. It’s my mom and you’d have to Taser me into a smoking pile of obscenities before you stop me from getting to her bedside.

But that’s because I am not of an ethnicity which has faced being shot 41 times by a police officer simply for producing a wallet to supply an ID as was requested by the officer. I am not of an ethnicity which just a few months ago faced having a young man being shot in the back at point blank range and killed while other officers held him down in an Oakland BART transit station. Rodney King was not a young white girl. So what would happen to me if I did run? Clearly Ryan Moats could probably run faster than me but between his respect for the law and fear of disobeying an officer, he didn’t get to his mother-in-law’s hospital room in time. And that both earns he and his wife tremendous respect in my book and breaks my heart.

But the other thing it reminds me of is how many bad examples of the kind of people that go into public safety for all the wrong reasons I have seen in my life compared with the depressingly small number of examples of people who are actually in the game to protect and serve I can recall. I need to preface everything with this: I have some personal connections to law enforcement which gave me, from a very early age, a very grim view of how police departments and cops in general operate. In fact, one of the reasons why I can’t sit through The Wire is a credit to its realism. It might be gritty and wonderful and fascinating to watch for an hour each week if you are an adult but it’s terrifying and depressing and dehumanizing to witness that mentality as a child.

But back to the sort of people who go into this line of work. There’s a Pollyanna deep inside of me that wants to believe that the numbers are not the way I see them to be and that my vision is slightly if not terribly askew. The cops that I have met and known in my life who were good cops were doing their job to help people and to keep them safe. They make me happy. But how many of you have had a run in with or know of the cop who is a cop because of the power trip that they get from that position of power? Whether it was just a traffic stop that went on far too long for a broken taillight or it’s that bully from high school who you find out is one of the boys in blue now, it seems to be a job that is incredibly alluring to a certain type of character. Officer Powell seems to fit this profile. I’m sure he will not mind me profiling him as it seems to be a practice he wholeheartedly endorses.

Many cops that I have known have, after a few years, developed what I consider to be an incredibly dangerous mentality especially considering the whole point of their job. They develop an “us and them” mentality. I don’t mean “cops vs. criminals” or “good guys vs. bad guys”. I mean “cops vs. everyone else” and when I mention this to other people who have family members who are police, they immediately know what I am talking about. There is a kind of secret society/fraternal order that is understandable amongst people who risk their lives every day and never know who could be waiting to shoot them behind a door. But when that attitude carries over into everyone behind the wheel of a car, everyone crossing the street, everyone walking their dog it becomes dangerous. When I was a child, I actually heard a cop who was a family friend allude to this and say something along the lines of “we have to keep the public safe because they’re all too fucking stupid to take care of themselves.”

Now, Darwin Award winners aside, that’s the kind of attitude that terrifies me. That’s not Norman Rockwell’s officer helping a freckle faced child find a puppy. Hell, that’s not even the chuckling officer on Cops asking the cracked-out tranny hooker why she’s wearing two different wigs. That is the cop who thinks he’s God. And that’s the kind of cop who thinks he can “screw over” someone who is clearly (with hospital employees and Plano Police officers corroborating his story) in a hurry to get to the bedside of his dying relative.

I respect anyone who puts their lives at risk every day. And like I said, I want to genuinely believe that the bullies, racists and small men getting off on power trips are the exceptions and not the rule. I would not want to be a cop so I’m glad someone does. But this whole incident has made me remember how apprehensive I am about the ego and power that sometimes is packed tightly into that uniform.

It’s become incredibly popular to dogpile on the failed or failing or at least struggling Victory Park. I was and am completely guilty of that. In fact, I may have called Victory Park “the Dubai of the West” on FrontBurner last month. And I didn’t mean it in a good way. Let me get it all out before I actually try to be positive. The development in the way that it was originally conceived was catering to a very risky clientele. They were gunning for New Money. Old Highland Park Money already had a place to spend their money. They like their Snider Plazas and their Highland Park Village and their Mom and Pop Scots-boosting local merchants. They don’t need glass and steel and neon and awkward, uncomfortable ultra-sleek modern seating to be lured into buying something. Look at some place like Bob’s. The actual storefront of Bob’s is hardly overwhelming or architecturally breathtaking. It doesn’t seem to be hurting business at all. Old Money is stable.

New Money is often based on lines of credit and rounds of fundings and borrowing against future earnings and all kinds of shaky, shadowy funny money. New Money likes glass and steel and Michael Graves furniture and polished concrete floors and feeling extremely urban and cosmopolitan. Never ask to open a bottle of wine at New Money’s loft because they will produce a polished steel corkscrew from Sharper Image that will be a very complicated version of an extremely simple tool and it will make no sense and you will feel stupid for not knowing how to operate it and you will give up on opening your bottle of wine. Victory Park figured that Old Money already knew where they wanted to spend their money but they thought that the young New Money needed a place to spend insane amounts of money on anything and everything, as long as it was a steak dinner or a suit or a pair of distressed jeans. And didn’t New Money want to live where the action was? Well, unfortunately downtown Dallas is deader than a doornail after the sun goes down but at least there’s the AAC with events happening at least half the year, right?

Cue the bottom falling out, the funding drying up, the lines of credit going bye bye and the New Money evaporating pretty quickly. Old Money suffered but I can’t imagine that they felt it as suddenly and as sharply as New Money, who tended to lease and finance things beyond their means much more often. So all businesses suffer. Now if Victory Park had not decided to cater exclusively (and they have said as much with the “KISS concert” quote) to the top 3% of earners in Dallas, they might have been able to tighten the purse strings and cut a few corners and struggle through. But when you let the riff-raff know that they were never welcome in the first place, you never had a shot at staying afloat once your small customer base took a hit. God, did you learn nothing from The Five Man Electrical Band’s anthem “Signs” or the movie “Pretty Woman” guys?

Alright, now for the positive. As tempting as it is for me to refer to the recently announced plans to open several “moderately priced” eateries in Victory Park as an attempt to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic, I can’t for several reasons. The first one is that I went through a phase where I used that phrase to refer to almost everything and every situation to the point where a friend called me out on it and placed a moratorium on my use of the phrase. But also, I think there COULD be a bright-ish future to Victory Park, provided that some very major changes occur.

As of now, the baby steps towards avoiding complete irrelevance, oblivion and reverting back to an auto wrecking yard entails adding a pizza place, a Thai place and a Hard Rock Café. Umm, I’m not sure about those but I guess it’s a step in the right direction. However, the development company (Hillwood) in charge of Victory Park seems to still be sticking to their “city within a city” concept. Also, much of the conversation swirling around the future of the development centers on the AAC. I think that’s a huge mistake. The AAC should be seen as a happy coincidence but not as the anchor and life-breath of the development. Mavs games, Stars games and concerts are tantamount to only a few hours of foot traffic, at most, on event nights. And the even itself is usually so pricey that, in this economy, parking and tickets and a beer are pretty much all a budget will allow. So I don’t know why the entire AAC crowd is not set aside. Remember that the crowd attending a game are generally not even there during typical retail hours and games end after normal restaurant closing hours?

So that takes us back to this “city within a city” business. First off, that’s not viable because the only people who could afford to live within your self-described city can’t do so anymore and won’t be able to do so in any substantial numbers for the foreseeable future. But even if that were a viable concept, you haven’t built a city within a city. You’ve built the East Springfield that Homer Simpson built when he was indignant over a new area code, complete with walls made of garbage and refuge. Where do your city-within-a-city’s resident’s buy toilet paper? Where do they get their prescriptions filled? It’s 9pm and they want to have a bowl of cereal but they don’t have any milk. Where can one purchase a gallon of milk in the city-within-a-city? Will they have to go to some sort of MilkBar where they will be charged a cover and pay for premium top shelf milk while a DJ pumps out a clumsily-made mash up? I get that Victory Park is for people who love the nightlife but even people who love the nightlife need toothpaste and dishwasher detergent and some magazines.

Giving up on the city within a city concept could be the best thing that could happen for Hillwood and, more importantly, me. I live within 10 minutes of Victory Park. There is only one Target in the immediate downtown area and it’s not so hot. While I am no fan of their schlumptastic couture, Old Navy sells cheap clothes that I can wear to work. The only problem? There’s not a single one south of LBJ. But I understand Victory Park wanting to stay hip and keep its edge. Let me drop a few names on you right now, Hillwood: H&M, Marimekko, Ikea. You mix a few of those with some universal appeal places like Old Navy and you’re starting to cook with oil. You might say that either a) those places are too down market or b) that there are too many low income households in the Dallas/East Dallas/South Dallas area to keep those kinds of businesses afloat. To that I say, a) nothing is more down market than a Hard Fucking Rock Café b) I think that it’s very cynical to believe that low to middle income houses prefer to buy crap. Example: I hear people constantly say that they would love this or that from Ikea but that there is no way they are willing to drive all the way “up there”. So if given a choice between shopping in a litter-strewn Ross or Big Lots to buy a $6 pillow or $10 lamp or shopping in a clean Ikea to buy something comparably priced, I think that Ikea wins each time.

I am just saying this: it seems like you have two options here. You can keep trying to make Victory Park into a self-sustaining upper-middle class residential neighborhood which relies heavily on game nights for increased business and foot traffic. Or you can make Victory Park an actual commercial retail and restaurant development and let people know that even if you don’t live in the neighborhood, there is plenty of shopping and eating and revelry to be had in Victory Park for you. You don’t have to worry about paying for parking unless it’s a game night. All that scary stuff you heard about crime and confusing one-way streets and snotty salespeople and stores that spray vinegar in your eyes and bum toss you out when they realize you don’t make six figures? That’s all gone. We want your money. What little you have, you can spend here and leave with more than a foam finger and a doggie bag. If you live in Lakewood or East Dallas or Bishop Arts and you need some placemats and nice scented candles or maybe a skirt to wear to work, why not come down to Victory Park? Bring your friends and sit down and have a nice lunch for under $10 a head.

The burden is not on the retailers, it’s on Hillwood. They are going to have to beg and grovel for franchises to give them a second chance after originally being the self-proclaimed arbiters of good taste who deemed certain franchises too lowbrow. They are going to have to entice bar owners to open Old Monk and Idle Rich type pubs which encourage people to drink before and after Mavs games and eventually, on nights when there are no games happening. They are going to have to get the word out that the old concept of Victory Park is dead. They are going to essentially have to write a huge, groveling “Take Me Back” card to the city of Dallas to win back business. They are going to have to slash rents for retail spaces dramatically and take a hit for the time being if they stand any chance of not taking the disastrous hit of the whole thing failing and imploding once the development across from NorthPark gets fully up and running.

I am assuming that since I am not in retail and restaurant development or city planning, there is something atrociously wrong or undoable about this idea. I just want to know what it is so I can let go of my hopes of one day being able to go down to Victory Park and stroll around and shop for clothes and housewares and have a nice lunch with my friends. Provided I produce the proper documentation required of non-residential outsiders requesting one-day visitors passes.

A Little Touch of Cobra Clarification on my Nom de Plume

There’s something that’s been bothering me for a little while now and I feel like it is time to address it. I get asked at least a half dozen times a month by people who read this blog why my pen name (blog name?) is Amanda Cobra. More specifically, they ask if it is some reference to the on-air nickname used by Corby Davidson of 1310 The Ticket, a sports radio station here in Dallas for those of you who are not in the area. Corby Davidson goes by the nickname “The Cobra” or “The Snake” or some variation thereof on the air pretty regularly and I guess people have assumed that since I write about sports a lot that I must have decided to in some way co-opt or coattail ride on that nickname. Here’s the story:

When I was 22, my five closest friends and I formed a girl gang/fake band called the Very Very Dangerous Cobras. We would have boys pledge by doing things like scrawling our VVDC gang sign across their abdomens or at the top of ladies bathroom doors at bars across town. One or two may still even be visible to this day in places like the Dubliner. The band never really got off the ground other than some great song titles. I still kind of wish that “Gallons of Lace” and “Stab Stab Stab” and “Five Dollar Lover/Five Dollar Cover (Slight Return)” had come to fruition. But we did start going by our “Cobra” names as a joke. But this also coincided with the Great Social Networking Revolution of 2003-ish. So Friendster came along and then Myspace and frankly, I never really loved the idea of giving over my complete identity to the internet so Amanda Cobra it was. It was just a nickname that stuck and then became the name under which I blogged. All of which sprung from a fake band who all collectively drank Cherry Vodka Sours in pint glasses on a nightly basis. We were all on a race to see who could get diabetes first, I guess.

Fast forward to early 2007. A good friend of mine named Aaron tells me that I should check out this radio station called The Ticket. He says that since I like sports so much, it’s weird that I don’t listen to it. He tells me to listen to the afternoon show called The Hardline. I listen to about 45 minutes of one show and tell Aaron that he has greatly misjudged me. I tell him that I can’t stand The Hardline and I don’t understand anything because it’s all just inside jokes and random disembodied voices coming out of nowhere that say things that don’t really pertain to anything that anyone is talking about. And perhaps most annoying, there is some tool who just keeps interrupting the other guys to mention that he has a flask in his car if anyone wants to have an after-party. Peace out. Aaron told me to not write it off and to stick with it and give it another few days. He also kindly explains what “drops” are to me. With that knowledge and after a few days of slowly being hipped to the inside jokes, I did start to find the show pretty entertaining. I would still get confused from time to time about who was who but Aaron made me a cheat sheet for quick reference (grumpy older guy who likes baseball = Mike/cocky younger guy who always talks about college football = Corby). I like the show a lot now. I thank Aaron for that. But to clear up any future confusion, here’s a cheat sheet for you: