The Brinks, Andersons and some Police

This past week Curtis and Emily Brink, our new team members (showing up in January) came out to Mexico City with their good friends, Mark and Abby Anderson. We're so excited to have the Brinks as we worked with them in Boulder for 2 years. They came out to see the city, look for housing and cars. They had a full 4 days. The first day I took them around some used car dealerships, different parts of our neck of the woods and then to a local spot for some street tacos carnitas style. We were enjoying our lunch and our adult beverage (Tecate) sitting on a plastic chair and table arrangement this place has set up in the street outside their local. Soon there after, basking in the warm sun, enjoying my taco afterglow a local municipality police officer taps me on the shoulder and says he needs to talk to me. ugh oh!!

After some nervous heart beating phrases of fear spewing out of my mouth he informed us that we had broken the no drinking in public places law. Hmm, of all places to experience this broken law, Mexico. I didn't know of this law and I informed him we were sitting in this restaurant's table and chairs about 3 feet from the curb. It didn't matter. He and his shady partner weren't budging. They informed us that we all had to go to the local jail and pay a 900 peso charge ($90 US). Ouch!!!

I had two approaches;
1. Be a dumb arrogant American and yell, kick and complain. The guns and paddy wagon scared me out of that one.
2. Go the Biblical humble approach and say I'm sorry. I did break the law theoretically. I did follow this one but it didn't seem to work.

We have a friend here, Illiana, who is a lawyer and we keep her on our cell phones for moments just like this. I called her and she, on the phone, went back and forth with the police officer. She talked to me and told me I had two options. Go to the jail and find out what the real fine is or make a street agreement. At the same time I was talking to her the owner of the restaurant, Andres called me deep into his local. He told me not to worry about it, wait, he was calling his friends on the State Police. They were the good guys. Then two more cop cars pulled up (the good guys), tons of more guns and shotguns and some arguing between the two types of so called police.

Then the good cop bad cop technique was pulled on me. The bad cop open up the paddy wagon and said in a strong voice, "Get In!" The good cop routine guy called me over behind a pick up truck and asked me what I wanted to do. I decided to go with the street agreement option. I told him I could offer him 500 pesos ($45 US) to allow the law breaking American to take his American Tourist friends back home. He went over to his bad cop partner and they agreed.

Then in a flash of an eye Andres bolted out of his restaurant mad and insistent that he pay for the fine. He gave the officer 500 pesos and the whole situation was made good. We were good to go said the police officer. All 3 cop cars and the paddy wagon took off.

All the while some local Mexicans mad and angry were shouting at the police officers for giving us a hard time. The apologized for us and took tons of pictures of the whole ordeal on their cell phones. We tried to tip the owner 500 pesos but he refused to take our money. He apologized as well for the situation and told me that not all Mexicans are corrupt.

What a lesson learned. No drinking in public places.

Other than that scary moment, we had a great time with the Brinks and the Andersons. We went downtown to the Zocolo to visit some Day of the Dead festivities with about 150,000 other people and headed off to Cafe Tacuba for some good food and mariachi.

We can't wait to have the Brinks down here as they add so much vision, passion for God and the lost and their skills and talents are a steal.

Categories: MexicoCity