Firat CAKIR

The Fear Calling the Police

While being in a foreign country may be fun, there is always danger abroad. Living away from your country can be really uncomfortable since you are in a place with different laws and rules. There is always the possibility that something go wrong. And being in unfamiliar country may make you feel the least safe and promote more fear.

Two weeks ago, my three friends and I traveled to Chicago and we experienced a strange incident there and this led us to feel strange.

One of my friends, whose name is Sukru, graduated from his PhD program after four tough years. After his graduation, he was planning to go back to Turkey with a flight from Chicago. However, since he had recently had hernia surgery, he was not able to carry his luggage.

Around that time, Monday was holiday because of Labor Day. Sukru made a plan. He asked me to both take him to Chicago and spend this coming weekend and Monday together in Chicago.

Going to Chicago seemed fun to me. I’ve always loved this wonderful city because it fits with the image of America I had before I came to the US: tall buildings, the skyscrapers, a metropolitan city with all of cultural richness and so on. I accepted his offer and we also invited two other friends, who also accepted and joined us.

Our trip started well and went great. We had a lot of fun there, visiting Millennium Park and walking on Michigan Avenue. Luckily, our trip coincided with a blues concert at the downtown of Chicago, and it was amazing.

When we arrived in the car park area to drive to another location, one of our friends approached a garbage can to throw away a bottle. However, I saw him uncomfortable and his face turned white.

“Guys, look. There is a gun in trash!” My eyes followed his pointing finger..

We were not sure we wanted to look at this garbage can. I felt like my heart was loaded by a strange fear. However, my curiosity conquered my fear.

At first glance, I couldn’t notice the gun in a lot of trash. Maybe it was because of my fear. While I was taking steps to waste container, I was thinking about some stories about crime, guns, Chicago. A lot of things came to my mind. Most likely the previous day a crime was committed by someone with this gun. Maybe a guy coming from a fun party encountered someone, and they wanted to threaten this guy by using this gun and took money from him. Or maybe there was a fight about drugs between gangs, then they killed a member of another gang. A lot of stories came to my mind in a minute.

“I don’t see anything” I replied.

“No, there,” he said, pointing to the back.

Then I noticed the gun in the trash. This was a real gun in the trash. Actually, I'm not knowledgeable about guns. But it seemed real to me.

"Let's call the police," my friend said, breaking the silence. Three of us didn’t agree with him.

“We are foreigners here in the US. We are international students. We cannot defend ourselves. And they may blame us because of a possible crime” we said. In the end, we didn’t call the police.

Since that time, I have been thinking about having such a fear in a foreign country.  Did this just happen to us because we were foreign people, or does everyone who ever see this gun react the way we do?  Then I realized that this fear of calling the police is very common for someone living in abroad. Since the foreign people are not so familiar with the foreign countries, their self-confidence decreases, and they don’t want to interfere to any event happening around them. Although letting the police know about some crime is the best way to do ethically, I, personally, heard about many situations that the people who called the police got in trouble somehow. So, I still wonder how people should react when they witness a crime or criminal instrument. After all, I can say that if I were at the same moment again, I still wouldn't call the police.