【21】Japanese Cops Bullying a Disabled Man and What that Means to Me

Yesterday, I couldn't help but notice four Japanese policemen standing around a young man at a busy intersection in Kichijoji, Tokyo.

The man was barefooted, had long hair that was covering most of his face, and looked like a homeless. What also stood out was his red Disability Identification Card, which indicates that he is either physically, mentally disabled, or both.

From afar the cops didn't seem like they were doing much. The man wasn't doing much other than sometimes yelling "Stop touching me! Go away!" to one of the cops. It looked like school bullying, which is quite rampant throughout the country. The man didn't seem dangerous at all. He is a disabled man for goodness sake! 

But these cops were merciless. It looked to me like they had too much time on their hands and wanted to earn easy points by interrogating a person who looked like a homeless because it is technically a minor crime for homeless people to be roaming the streets in Japan.

I wanted to help the man or at least walk over to him and say something comforting but I didn't have the guts. I didn't want to get involved with those cops. 

I walked away feeling devastated because I could have been that man. I have been writing in Japanese about my complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) and premenstrual exacerbation (PME), which are caused by my childhood incest abuse trauma, and how "illicit" drugs have been helping me heal from my wounds. Every time I publish a blog entry, I would then unpublish it after a second thought. I worry about the cyber police coming to arrest me for "encouraging illicit conducts" and then finding my stash. 

I went home and unpublished all of my entries that mentioned cannabis or psychedelics even though they were meant for harm reduction purposes only and not meant to encourage illicit conduct at all.

The police were hungry to arrest people and I was certain that they would interpret my writing however they liked to meet their goals.