When Good Emo Kids Get Attacked

So, I was walking by a park, maybe a couple hours ago. And there were, I kid you not, about 200 emo high school kids, long hair, Anarchist T-shirts, etc. The usual smoking corner crowd in the U.S.

Except there were 200 of them. And they could not possibly look more out of place than they do in Mexico City. I mean, no one looks even remotely like that who's over the age of 20. There are a lot of hipsters, clean-cut kids, preps, and of course your Latin American attempt at Eurotrash.

But not punks, not emo. Dashboard Confessional is not welcome in the D.F.

So, they were literally moving around this fountain like an amoeba. There was clearly an "elite" group that the rest were following and paying attention to, but there were so many, it was hard to see where they were. They moved so fast and so many that I ended up standing about 150 feet away watching with some policeman that happened to be there too (again, there are so many police).

We got to talking, and after accidentally letting slip that I couldn't understand him (he spoke INSANELY fast), he actually warmed up to me since he apparently has family in Chicago, instead of shaking me down for the several hundred pesos I had in my pocket.

He said they come to this park a lot. And then started laughing.

"Ve alli!" He said, and pointed over at one of the streets bordering the park. All of a sudden, about 15 police cars came blazing down some connecting side streets, and 25 police officers, batons drawn, charged the group of now scrambling emo kids.

The cop I was with laughed and laughed as a couple hundred high school kids ran at full speed from the charging police. I was glad I'd made a police friend before this happened, and that I hadn't happened to be walking through at that instant.

Let's just say, I think this happens a lot, and I was really glad I was wearing dress pants and shirt.

Really glad.

Machismo...