Darren Harper "Road Weary”
As told to: Alex Hansen

I had planned for a normal day of skating around the different regions of DC. I had not long been back into my skating and you could clearly tell by limited tricks and my balance being off. I had taken my girlfriend at the time with me to skate a new spot call the IMF ledges in a new part of the city.

For me it was like a mini road trip because I hadn’t left the Southeast hood in so long. Now that I was trying to be back on my grind, I had to make my presence known and get training on some unfamiliar terrain. The streets back around the way would still be there when I can came home, so I took my girlfriend at the time with me to skate a new spot downtown. Me and my chick met up with a couple of other skate heads like Chris Brown, Paul McElroy, and a few other skaters. When me and my girlfriend arrived on the spot it was all good, the crew was skating and having fun. When the pack noticed I had stepped on the scene, they all stopped what they were doing to greet me and my girlfriend with hugs and dap. It was all love for a couple of minutes; then we all got back to business, skating hard but having fun. My girlfriend sat on the ledges while I practiced getting my skills back in order. At one point my girl had called me over for something, I don’t really remember what she wanted but when I went up to talk to her she pointed to a door in the middle of the skate spot, from which security was heading in our direction.
 

At this time, I sat on the ledge with my girl waiting on them to come and tell us what all of us skaters already knew. “There was no skating at this building, don’t you know this is the IMF (International Monetary Fund)!” It was right about then, when a pack of about four securities approached. Paul and a couple of other skaters were still skating when the guards told them they had to leave. The security guards were standing right next to me and my girl when I blurted out “Fuck security, I ain’t going nowhere because I ain’t skating.” One of the security guards must have heard me. He was about 6’4 and he was a little thick. He asked me, “What did you say” in an aggressive tone. I answered him back aggressively. While our exchange of words was going on more security guards had come out of the building. More words were exchanged and then it got physical...That’s when a female security guard started holdin the big boned security guard, as if she was keeping him from coming at me. I then said, “can’t no bitch hold you back, you’re a grown man”. He snatched away from his partner and lunged at me swinging a walkie talkie from his belt. My reflexes was on point. I weaved around the swings from the walkie talkie then knuckled his ass with a two piece. That’s when our brawl began. Lil Darren, D Streets Harper vs. Mr. Security 6’4 giant. After he threw a couple of blows but couldn’t hit me, he became frustrated. He began to wrestle me. At this time there was also about five security guards trying to pry us off of each other. When they finally got us apart, I had like four security guards still wrestling with me cause I had turned into the Incredible Hulk, so it was almost impossible to hold me down. Somehow in the brawl , Mr. 6’4 had lost his 2-way; which my girl had now been beating him in the head with as I was too busy handling the other fake squalie. Some how we all came at peace just exchanging words again, except for Mr. 6’4. He was now sitting on the ledge breathing heavily with blood running form his lips and his head. Me and my girl, plus the skate crew proceeded to leave after I taunted him saying, “ I told you that you were going to get your ass beat”.

The next day I returned to the same ledge spot , not knowing that Mr. 6’4 had filed a complaint against me and the police had been looking for me. So we proceeded to skate the spot and within minutes security was kicking us out again. After they told us to leave, I said to them “I know y’all heard about what happened to the guy yesterday, that was me.” The guard was like “Oh, that was you?” , in a very calm manner. Then he went back inside and in about 5 minutes  2 police cars pulled up and security guards came out of the building. They all pointed me out to the police as the guy from the situation last night. When the officers told me to come here, I walked over and they began to question me but when I heard one of the officers say “lock him up,” I took off running.
I ducked in and out of traffic and laid low in a parking garage. If I hadn’t come out to check the situation on the streets I might have never been caught.