An Indelible Scene

This morning as I waited at the bus stop for the 635 bus to go to work at around 9:15, I saw a strange disturbing scene.

 

A middle-aged woman with slightly disheveled hair in a loose ponytail wearing a two-piece pink top and elastic pants tried to climb over a white railing that divides the traffic directions on Dongzhimen Wai Dajie.

 

A police car was nearby along with an obese policeman on a motorcycle watching.

 

They did little to stop her as she climbed over the railing from the traffic going westbound, to the eastbound lanes into oncoming traffic.

 

I was sure she would get hit as she literally tried to dodge incoming cars.

 

She tried to catch a taxi in the middle of the street but none would stop for her as it would have been illegal and policemen were standing right there.

 

What was this woman doing? Was she insane? Did she want to get killed? And why weren't the police catching her for jumping the railing which was dangerous?

 

Then she crossed the lanes of traffic back towards the railing and ran eastwards as one of the policemen made a half-hearted attempt to chase her on foot; the motorcycle policeman just sat there when he could have stopped her right away.

 

Another policeman on the other side of the railing also came to the other cop's aid when they finally caught her as she tried to get over the divider again to the westbound traffic.

 

The first policeman chasing her jumped over the rail and the two of them grabbed each of her arms and had to drag her forcefully back to the police car. She resisted as much as she could, placing her feet in front and sliding them, moving her arms so they had to hold her tighter. The woman didn't scream, but was trying to struggle free.

 

The police car was now backing up so they could put her in the car faster, but she still tried to resist and they had a hard time putting her in, her legs kicking horizontally as she lay in the backseat, and arms flailing.

 

It was at this moment that I realized that perhaps she had tried to escape from the police car and they had to recapture her again. What had she done? Where were they taking her?

 

Finally they had her in the car, two policemen sitting by each passenger car door and her in the middle.

 

A bus obstructed my view and when it finally left the police car was long gone along with the motorcycle.

 

What led to this woman trying to escape from the police? What was her story?

It was one of those moments where you wondered what had happened earlier to result in her creating a scene at the tail end of rush hour.

We may never know.