Since we’re sharing scary facts about ourselves

Alright, I’ll bite: This one time in the suburbs of Milwaukee, WI, my friends and I had police dogs and a helicopter chasing us. I am not kidding.

After my freshman year of college last century, I went home to Brookfield, WI for the summer of 1999. Friends and I are bored because… Brookfield, WI. We start playing capture the flag in the nearby Wirth Park at night after everyone’s gone. Think we started around 10 or 11pm.

We do this a couple times and it became a thing for us, though it was not meant to last. Around the third or fourth outing was when the police were called. Except, not because of us.

As you can see, it’s a nice big park with not one but two collections of baseball diamonds, and our rules made most of it in-bounds. On this night, the game kicks off like normal. Teams split up, couple of us try to create a distraction on one side so the others can sneak in and grab the flag. Big brain stuff. As one aspiring flag thief and I make our way past the main entrance and parking lot on the east side, a giant spotlight turns on. Like, mounted to a car.

Not a big deal, we can head back south to hide in some trees near the railroad tracks, or bail entirely to our friend’s house. Another spotlight turns on. From the south… cutting off our retreat. Ok, let’s head northwest towards the pool that was previously out of bounds; they shouldn’t be looking for us there.

A third spotlight. Shit.

My friend and I cut straight west across a small field and make it to some trees. Yep, those are all cop cars. Time to bail. As we walk southwest through the trees towards our friend’s house, we hear dogs barking near the entrance and then an actual, factual helicopter overhead. No, I am not kidding. It was shining a spotlight down around the park and everything.

We start panicking. They sent police dogs and a freaking helicopter. For kids just playing capture the flag!

Turns out police dogs and a helicopter did indeed show up when kids were playing capture the flag at night. But they weren’t after us.

Remember those baseball diamonds? Well, they had fairly sizable snack stands that helped generate revenue for the park. And in the last month or two, unbeknownst to us, someone had been breaking in and completely looting them, down to the last candy bar.

One of our friends got caught by the police, handcuffed, and had to sit in a car for around 45 minutes. This is all second-hand from him talking to the police and listening to radio chatter. Apparently, a homeowner across the street from the park saw us playing, thought we might’ve been the candy bar mafia, and sounded the alarm.

Once the cops figured out we were only stealing each others’ flags, they chilled out and let our friend go. While they did indeed bring dogs, I doubt the helicopter was police (or does anyone know if Brookfield police had a helicopter in 1999? And if they used it for something as silly as baseball diamond snack stand thieves??). My guess: maybe it was a news chopper that got a hot tip on a huge bust of the underground candy bar smuggling ring that was plaguing good ol’ boring ass Brookfield, WI.