Today on my way home from work, walking a couple of blocks in a bad part of town, I craned to see whether my bus was approaching. A SFPD cruiser pulled over to creep along beside me, and the officer rolled down the window.
“What are you looking for?” he asked me.
“What?”
“What are you looking for?”
Reflexively defensive, “Er… I was looking to see whether my bus… uh… I’m just transferring busses, and I was checking to see whether my bus was coming, to see if I need to hurry to the stop…”
“The 19 bus?”
“Yes.”
“Your stop is…”
And that’s where I turned away and just made for my bus stop. I think he was just trying to help, but I’m naturally on my guard in that part of town, and I assumed the officer was targeting me somehow.
In retrospect, I think he was just trying to help a guy who probably looked a bit out of place, and I feel a little bad for turning away from him while he was still talking.