Shortly after Stephanie left for pilates at 6:30 tonight, I heard a sound outside like someone had dropped a box of books on the sidewalk. My stomach sank—had a car tipped one of our scooters? I looked out the bedroom window and saw they were both upright.

So I scanned the street, curious for the source of the sound. Just below our apartment I noticed some broken glass beside a car parked in front of our building. And I saw a person on the street side reaching into the car. No way I thought, someone is breaking into a car in BROAD daylight? As rush hour traffic sails by?

Without thinking, I ran out the apartment and down the stairs, expecting him to be gone by the time I got outside. But no, he was still there, still reaching into the car from the rear passenger window. I stood at the entrance of our building watching him through the car, thinking he’d notice me and jet. His obliviousness led me to believe that this was indeed his car, and that he’d just locked his keys inside and was trying to find them. It did look like he was searching for some specific thing, rather than just grabbing anything that was visible.

Across the street at the hospital parking garage a man yelled at him, “Hey is that your car?” He ignored the question. After a bit, I walked up to the car on the sidewalk side and knocked on the window. He didn’t notice me. I knocked again and said, “Hey! Did you lose your keys or something?”

He looked up, completely unfazed and said “Oh yeah, this sucks, lost my keys, with all my stuff in the car, I’ve got to get it all out, until the locksmith comes…” and he went back to what he was doing. I saw him grab money and a CD player, definitely things I wouldn’t want to leave in a car with a busted window.

The guy across the street yelled at me, “Hey, is that his car?” I shrugged my shoulders and walked back into the building. On the way up the stairs, I thought to myself, why would anyone break into their own car before the locksmith arrived? Kind of defeats the whole purpose. So I figured I should call the police, just as a precaution. In the very least they could help the poor guy out.

So I googled for “sf police” and called them (the number is 415-553-0123 by the way—it’s now in my cellphone), waited through messages in 18 different languages telling me to hang up and dial 911 if this was an emergency. Meanwhile I was watching this guy from my window still root around in the car. The dispatcher came on, and I told her someone broke the window on a car and seemed to be rifling through what’s inside. He said he’s the owner, but you can never be too sure. I gave a description of the man, and even craned my head out the window to read the license plate off the car (they were out of state plates). I gave her my name and number, and she said they’d send someone over.

I figured before anyone showed up he’d be out of there. So I just waited at my window watching him dig through the car, which happened to be packed with a lot of camping and travel gear. He seemed to be loading some backpacks with things. I started to feel bad. This probably was his car, and now he’d have to hassle with the police—who I’d also inconvenienced.

After a few minutes, a police cruiser stopped suddenly in the lane between the guy and the car. One quick siren “whooop” got his attention. They had the windows open, pointing guns or flashlights out the window as the car came to a stop. They yelled, “Get your hands up! Put your hands on the car! Do you have any weapons!?” as they got out of the car.

At this point I felt really bad for the guy, who looked clearly startled. But instead of listening to the officers, he started backing away from them towards the sidewalk with the stuff he was carrying. BIG MISTAKE. They did not like that, and yelled, “Stop! Get down on the ground! Drop what’s in your hands!” and they rushed towards him, right beneath my window, and I felt the whole building shake as they collided with it. Ugh! Poor stupid guy, I thought.

At this point the action was out of my sight, beneath the bay window. I expected them to discover that the car was indeed his. I imagined the cops having to apologize for body slamming the guy. I saw one of the officers looking over the car when my phone rang—an unknown 415 number. I answered. It was the dispatcher! She told me the officers had arrived (uh, yeah) and asked if I was still in the area (uh, yeah) and whether I could go down talk to them (umm, really?).

I walked down the stairs and stood at the entrance of our building, staying out of sight of the guy. I waved at one of the officers. Eventually he came over and made the connection that I had called the police. He asked whether I’d be willing to make a statement for them. But first I had to know, “Was that his car?” He looked down and shook his head. “Nope.”

No way! I actually stopped a crime!!! What a crazy rush! I cannot believe it! How freaking cool is that? It pisses me off every time I see freshly broken bits of auto glass on the sidewalk, and I see it often enough to consider theft from cars epidemic in San Francisco. So I actually helped the police catch one of the perps! Hot damn!

So I ended up writing a page long detailed statement about what I heard, saw, and experienced. I bumped into our upstairs neighbors who happened to see him earlier scoping out cars on our block, so they wrote a statement too. Meanwhile some other cops took the guy off to jail. Thankfully I didn’t have to see him again. The police officers finally managed to get in touch with the car’s owner who came over and thanked me for saving their stuff.

Stephanie had come home in the middle of this startling scene, so we went out to dinner to celebrate and recount what had happened. On the way home, there were no cars parked in the spot where the car had been, just a swath of broken glass. Ah, city living. So we decided to take a photograph.