Chris Hernandez shares a story from another officer:
Years later, in the late 90’s, an officer I worked with told me about a call he was on at a housing project. About three in the morning there was a fight. When the officer showed up he encountered a crowd cheering the fighters on. One of the people cheering was a healthy woman, about 40 years old, who we knew pretty well. She wasn’t a real troublemaker, but every time there was a late-night fight or shooting (which was several times a week), she’d be out there drinking a beer and enjoying the show.
Since the woman was a witness to the fight, the officer interviewed her. During the interview, he asked her, “Why do you just hang out here every night? Shouldn’t you have a job or something?”
The woman very calmly asked him, “Officer, how much money do you make?”
The officer told me he was surprised by the question. But he gave her an honest answer: his salary was about $38,000 a year.
She answered, “Well, I make almost as much as you do. And I don’t do nuthin’.”