TIFU by almost being shot by German police

I (43m) work as a live sound engineer. On this particular day 8 years ago my job was handing out microphones at the side of the stage. The ones we used that day were tiny mics attached to a metal tie clip and a little black radio transmitter the size of a pack of cigarettes to put in your pocket, connected wit a thin 2 foot cable. 

My job included, but wasn’t limited to: clipping microphones to the guest’s lapel, assist with any questions or wishes and advise my audio colleague on the sound board “clip 6 going on stage, clip 4 goes off, clip 7 is on Mr. Xxx now”, so he could turn them on and off accordingly. 

This particular event was very important. I do not remember what exactly the occasion was, maybe Hamburg was chosen to host a sport event or a prestigious building was completed or it might have been an award show. Important enough to have high ranking politicians and celebrities there. 

Everything started well, but just after the introduction speech I get a radio call “Hey, the mayor is late. He will be here right before his speech”. Ok, I have had this happen before, no worries. I am prepared and I know I can clip that mic on him in seconds. So I tell them “Check, please make sure he comes to me first, so I can mic him up”. 

The show goes on and then there is a small commotion and through the main gate of the hall our mayor and hisstaff walk in. But they walk straight to their reserved seats in the front row, flanked by the security guards who look like two Agent Smiths from the Matrix. Our stage has stairs in the front, and speakers walk up straight from the audience. That means I now have no way to clip a mic on him before he walks on stage and he is up next. My adrenaline spikes. Fuck! So I decide if he doesn’t come to me, I will have to go to him. I grab his mic and dart out from my little hide out at the side of the stage, I see the mayor and quickly walk towards him. 

Now let’s switch to Agent Smith’s perspective. As I said, these guys were straight out of a movie, bullet proof vests under the black suits, earpieces, sunglasses, armed, tactical dress shoes,  gloves etc. They had just brought in their vip and suddenly a big dude in all black runs towards him. Even worse, holding a suspicious black box with blinking LEDs in one hand and a chord with a button at the end in the other hand. Oh no, a bomb!

Back to me. I am about 3 feet away from the mayor and I see both agents going code red. They turn towards me, hands on their guns, yelling “Stop!”. I freeze and only now understand my predicament. I quickly try to defuse the situation by explaining to them what I am doing. To say that relaxed them would be an overstatement, but they didn’t want to kill me any more, which was good enough for me. I can finally fix the mic and when I get back to my hide out I have a little mental break down. Mind you, all this during a speech in front of thousands of important people including my boss and the press. And then my radio goes “Easy there Lee-Harvey Oswald”. 

The rest of the day went well, my crew made fun of me for weeks and that mayor later became chancellor of Germany.

Edit: typos, grammar

TL:DR I ran towards our city’s mayor and his security detail almost shot me