Cheating

So, I work hard to find crime.  I really do.  I stop cars, pedestrians, and bicyclists.  I drive around the shit areas looking for hidden nuggets of felony gold.  I like to stay busy.  I hate just sitting around.  Drives me insane.

I haven't really had yet what I would call a big bust.  In the city where I work, it is easy to find a little bit of tweak.  Drunk drivers are all over the place.  I can pretty much go to jail every night, assuming the call board is not overrun with BS calls.

I am noticing a trend lately, and I am wondering if anyone else has had the same experience.  The really good stops I have gotten lately, just fall into my lap, complete with bow and ribbon.

I am sitting at a red light the other night and this guy drives right by me and runs the red light.  It was bright red!  What the hell?  Didn't you see the cop car?  It ends up being a great car stop.

Car almost crashes in to me making this shitty u-turn.  Drunk driver that blows three times the legal limit.

I hear a crash on the side of the road, on a major street.  It ends up being two bangers stealing tons of crap from a huge illegal grow house.  There was literally a trail of soil from my location, to the grow house.  It was funny as shit.  Ridiculous!

I am not complaining, it just seems like cheating.  I seem to have all this stuff falling into my lap lately.  It almost doesn't count.

It makes me laugh.  Before I became a cop, I used to think street criminals were smart and devious and it would be difficult to outsmart them.  Now I have realized, if they were smart, they would work on Wall Street and be a legitimate criminal.

Rinse and repeat.

Last Friday night, I am driving in one of our gang/drug areas and this car cuts me off.  It was bad enough that I had to hit the brakes to avoid hitting him.  I light him up and he pulls over.

Me: Hmm...say, don't I know you from somewhere?  Oh yeah, I arrested you last month for possession of meth.  Wasn't that a Friday night?

Repeat Randy: Yeah.

Me: Weren't you in this same car with another fine upstanding gentleman about 20 feet from here?

Repeat Randy: Yes.

Me: Did you bail out or something?

Repeat Randy: Nah, the DA dropped the charges.

(What the fuck?!?  I did not even get a summons to court and neither did my partner!)

Me: Ok then.  Do you have anything illegal in your car today?

Repeat Randy: No.

Me:  Do you mind if I have a look?

Repeat Randy: Go ahead.

So, we do.  And what do we find?  A little dime bag of cocaine!

This time we tow his car, as he is parked in front of a driveway.  At the very least, he will have to pay to get his car out of jail.  I have no idea why the DA decided to boot his last case.  Lame sauce.

So let's recap.  Same guy, same location, same day of week and same time of day.  At least it was a different drug. 

See you next month, Randy!

Honesty is rare.

Honesty really does go a long way.  Case in point...

I am driving northbound on our main drag at about 1000 hours.  I am in the number two lane.  In my driver's side mirror, I see a vehicle with a burned out headlight in the number one lane, about 100 feet behind me.  I slow down to about 25 miles per hour.  The speed limit is 45.  I will do this from time to time to see what the person in the car looks like.  If they look like a gang banger or are from a drug area, I will pull them over.  They may have drugs/guns on them.

This person slows down to match my speed.  The car is still 100 feet behind me.  This goes on for about 20 seconds.  The vehicle then turns left in to a parking lot.  So, I pass a major intersection and make a u-turn.

I am now headed southbound.  I see the same car headed northbound again.  Shenanigans!  This person is trying very hard to lose me.  That ain't happening.  I know this city way to well.  So I make a quick left turn eastbound, turn an immediate right into an alley and another right back on to the main drag headed northbound.  I am now behind the one-eyed evader.

At this point, I am a little amped up.  Is this finally going to be my first pursuit?  Is this person smuggling anti-aircraft missles?  What the hell are they hiding?

So I light 'em up and they pull over to the right, almost immediately.  Game is up, I win.  I unholster my weapon and walk up to the car with my weapon behind my back.  I am ready for the worst.  As I clear the backseat occupants, I see a 1 year old baby girl and a teenage boy.  Hmmm.  In the front driver seat is a young mother and a teenage girl.  What the?  Not exactly the hardened criminals I was hoping to find.  I re-holstered my weapon.

I ask the driver, "Excuse me, ma'am.  Could you step out of your car and come talk to me?"  I really did not want to dress her down in front of her kids.  So I escort her to the front of my vehicle.  I hand my partner her identification and I say, "So, lets list this out.  You have expired registration, your headlight is out and your license is suspended.  Think carefully before you answer.  Now, why you think I pulled you over?"

"Because I was trying to ditch you.", she says.  I couldn't help but laugh, "Ma'am, that is absolutely correct.  Your complete honest, short, concise answer is the reason you will be leaving here tonight without a ticket."

I explained to her that if she had just drove past me, I would have seen her and her family in the car and that I would not have pulled her over.  But since she tried to ditch me, I assumed the worst.

I ended up giving her a notice of her license suspension and told her to call a licensed driver to come pick her and her kids up.  I told her not to drive again until she got her license renewed and her car problems fixed.


Yup...MIND=BLOWN.

Excuse me, but WTF are you doing?

So they have me training new officers right out of the academy now.  I don't feel like I am qualified, but there it is.  I never realized what a difficult thing this is to do.  When I was being trained, I promised myself, that when the time came, I would be patient with my trainee.  Lord knows I made my share of stupid mistakes.

At some point during the night I lost it and said, "Holy shit!  What the fuck are you doing?!?"  I am going to let him drive tomorrow, in the hopes that it will keep him pre-occupied and so that I can keep a close eye on him.  Wish me luck!

Trust your instincts

It was about 0300 hours and a call came out for a burglary just occurred near one of our crappy neighborhoods.  It is one hour from my off duty time, so I am sitting at the station typing up a report from earlier.  The station clears out as five cars race to the location.  We are there quick as there is very little traffic at that time of night.

As I am turning left in to the apartment complex where the burlgary took place, I see a bicyclist in dark clothing cross the street.  Now my first instinct is to stop that guy just in case he is the suspect.  I have no suspect description and very little information at this point.  Instead, I follow my area partner into the complex as I am trained to do.  I don't want him to go in there alone.  As I complete my left turn and drive into the complex, this goes over the radio, "Units responding to burglary, suspect described as male hispanic in black clothing riding a bike."  SHIT!  I hit the brakes and reverse like a bat out of hell.  My other partner sees me and follows me.  He has no idea what I am doing, but he trusts that I am not just testing the reverse gear.  I hear another unit over the radio say he just saw the suspect go southbound into a housing tract.  He saw the same thing I did, but he was blocked by a median.  Stupid medians, they should all be banned!

So I patrol check the area and come across the bicycle in a front yard.  The next door backyard gate is open.  Approximately 5 minutes have passed.  We set up a perimiter and call out the helicopter.  The helicopter finds nothing and after searching two backyards we give it up.

I am still stewing today.  SO CLOSE.  Now, would it have been a good thing to leave my partner to go in there alone?  I am pretty sure there were units coming in from the other side of the complex, so he probably would not have been alone, but ehhhhhh...maybe.  It is kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't thing.  Do I wish I would have stopped or attemped to stop him when I had the chance?  HELL YES! 

I am still a new Officer.  I have been doing this for two years, but I am still new.  I had to make a split second decision and I went the safe route.  Not a bad choice, just an inexperienced one.  If I could have stopped time, to think it out, I would have realized...hey, it is 3 o'clock in the morning, he is cutting across the street dressed in all black clothing, and he is riding towards a shit neighborhood.  Hey dumbass, he is your guy!  I friggin' knew it too. It is not unheard of in my town for people to be riding bikes at that time of night, but there were red flags there.  It is time to start trusting my instincts.

The good news is, he will do something stupid and we will meet again.

Unchaosyness...I made up a word!

Lately, it has been slower than molasses in January. There has been fog at night and freezing cold weather...for California. It has been down to 40 degrees people! That is way too cold to stab your homies!
I am due to work tomorrow night and I am hoping for something, anything to happen. I see that it is supposed to rain again this weekend. Blech. Gangsters like the rain about as much as I do it seems.

That brings me to a thought. When people hear that I am going on patrol when I talk to them, they say something like, "I hope it is a slow night!" or "I hope the criminals stay indoors for you!" To which I usually reply, "I hope not!" At this point I get a strange, "What is wrong with you?" look.

Do I want people to get hurt? No. In fact part of the reason I do this job is to keep people from getting hurt. Do I want all hell to break loose in my city when I go to work? Oh yes. I think this is only something the patrol officer who really loves his/her job can understand. Is this mental? Probably. Do I care that I am possibly mental? Nope.

You are sitting in your black and white on a slow night. A call comes out of unknown trouble at a local night club. You get there and people are all over the place, some of them are bleeding and they are all looking to you to do something about it, they are all trying to talk to you at once and they are all drunk. Who is a victim and who is a suspect? What happened? When did this happen? Where did the actual crime occur, was it at the club or did it just end here? Why did the crime occur?
Ahhh...chaos. Love it. Making sense out of the nonsense.

OCD Pens!

You wouldn't think so much time and effort would go into choosing a writing implement.  I am here to tell you otherwise.  I have been through at least five different types of pens in an attempt to come up with the PENultimate patrol pen.  See what I did there?

My favorite so far is the Pilot G-2 Retractable Gel Ink Rollerball Pen, 0.7 mm, Fine Point, Clear Barrel, Black Ink.  BOOM!

http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/794047/Pilot-G-2-Retractable-Gel-Ink/?cm_mmc=Mercent-_-Google-_-Pens_Pencils_and_Markers-_-794047-%7Bcopy:IQ_PE%7D&mr:trackingCode=48066F1B-EC81-DE11-B7F3-0019B9C043EB&mr:referralID=NA

You need a pen that is sturdy enough so you can "press hard, three copies", cheap enough that you do not mind losing it or voluntarily giving it up after someone soils it, and writes pretty consistently.

Now, when you get out of the academy, you wear your shiny expensive pens in your shirt pocket.  You want to look BAD-ASS and dialed in.  That will last about as long as you polishing your boots every day. 

I have one pen in my shirt pocket and one of those pen shaped handcuff keys.  I keep an extra pen stuffed by my taser in case the other one goes out.  Your pen is one of the most important things you can have.  If you don't have a working pen and a notepad, you are pretty much useless.

Quick little academy/real life tidbit.  During training in the academy, they told me I could use my pen to double lock handcuffs.  How convenient!  Yeah, you do that a few times and your pen will start leaking ink.  Pen ruined.  Don't do that.  I don't remember who told me that, but I question their expertise.  I figured out that was a bad idea after I went through about 3 pens in one week.

I think I started obsessing about pens during training.  I had to write EVERYTHING down at an extremely fast pace.  If I had to stop to shake the ink in the pen, I missed something.  What did the dispatcher say about the guy with the gun?  Oh never mind, I am sure it was not important.

Am I a weirdo obsessing about pens? For those patrol folks out there, do you have a favorite pen?

I promised myself I wouldn't cry!

I had probably the scariest/best call I have ever been on the other night.  I am going to have to be careful what I say about it as the suspect is going away for a long time and I don't want anything I say here to jeopardize that.  He deserves to go bye bye.

Really, REALLY short version.  Guy with a gun tackled, subdued and arrested.

But, that is not the purpose of this post anyway.  The call was awesome.  Huge adrenaline dump.  We were all done and exhausted after it.  There were only minor injuries to us.  Let me give you some background...

I have been working in my current city for about a year now.  I have earned the trust and respect of 99% of my fellow officers.  They like me and I like them.  However, there is this one crusty veteran that treats me like old white dog shit on the bottom of his shoe.

I would show up to his calls when he asked for backup and he would say something like, "Where is Officer Betterthanyou?"  As if to say, I did not want you, noobtard.  So I stopped showing up at his calls unless he called for me.  Which he never did.  I can take a hint.

We had this stabbing at one of our ghettoish areas.  I show up and he says, "322!  Come stand here and guard this knife."  Does he even know my name?  I don't know.  How about a please/thank you.  I stood on that knife for five hours.  Ugh.

I would take his prisoners to the jail for him when I could.  So that he could stay out and catch more bad guys in his undercover car.  Not so much as a thank you.  In fact, he bullied me in to taking three loser prostitutes one night.  That was the most annoying, longest car ride ever, and I did NOT want to do it.  I am still new, so I took it in the pooper and taxied those three lovely young ladies to the clink.

So, we have this man with a gun call the other night.  I was in the middle of the scrap with three other guys, including Crusty Veteran.  After the craziness is over, this happens:

Crusty Veteran: Hey FlyTrap, do you have latex gloves?

Me: Yes, sir.

Crusty Veteran: Grab the pistol and clear it for me, please.

Holy fucking dogshit, Batman?  Was I recording that?  No I wasn't, shit!  First off, he called me by my first name...and please!.  Also, he asked me to clear the 9mm pistol this dirtbag had tried to kill us with.  That is a huge.  I doubt I would have trusted anyone but myself to clear a loaded weapon and my primary piece of evidence.

At this point, I would have shined his boots, kissed his ass and sucked his....well, maybe not.  It was a big moment for me.  The guy is a genius.  Treats me like shit for months and hands out one compliment.  Now I am ready to give him my first born.

I think it is mostly because I have worked hard to build a positive reputation for myself and he was the one guy I could not get a beat on.  I was convinced if I called out for help, he would run me over on the way, and take my arrest.  LOL.

I may be back to "Hey you!" next week, but for now, call me Captain HAS A NAME!!

SIDENOTE:  Best picture ever!

Pistol Pointing Pressure

I had a strange realization the other night. It is a good thing...just strange.

We get a call for a subject outside a residence trying to break in. As we arrive, I see this white guy with no shirt on running towards the backyard. I calmly put out, "322, white male no shirt, blue jeans running from us towards the alley to the west of the residence." I jump out of the car to the fence that is blocking my entry to the front of the yard. I pull my weapon out. At this point, I do not know if he is armed or not and I really have no idea what is going on. He could have just murdered someone for all I know.

One of our units goes to the back of the house and this guy comes back to the front yard. I notice he is bloody. I point my weapon at him. My partner is closer to him on my right.

PARTNER: "Hey! Police Officer. Keep your hands up and walk over here."

I put out over the radio, "322, we have the suspect in the front yard, one at gunpoint." The dispatcher quickly responds with, "10-4 322, one at gunpoint in the front yard, 10-33." 10-33 basically means the channel is to remain clear for us until we are safe.

NOSHIRT: "Why?"

PARTNER: "Because if you don't, we are going to shoot you."

NOSHIRT: "Oh, ok."

So he walks over to us. I keep him pistol pointed, my partner has him at taser point and another officer hooks him up, searches him and stuffs him in the back of his car.

My last transmission at this point was, "322, one detained 10-34." 10-34 means the 10-33 clearance is over. We are safe.

Now, here is where my realization came in. I am not breathing hard, my heartrate is not elevated and I am very calm. Jump back a year ago on a similar situation and I would have been shooting through the roof, sweating, breathing hard and in an adrenaline rush.

I think I have pistol pointed enough people and been in enough moderately stressful situations that I am getting used to it. That is a very strange thing to get used to. Pointing a weapon at a person who just committed a crime and is bleeding.

Now this "gentleman" had done nothing more than violated a protective order and cut himself running from us on a fence, but I am sure you can imagine how many different scenarios this could have been. He was drunk too and kept yelling, "Bonnie! I love you!"

I made a decision a while back to transfer to this area because it is a REALLY bad area. I did this after I made a stupid mistake on a code 3 run. I let the stress get to me and I was not thinking. I realized that I needed to be exposed to this kind of call more than once a month. I now handle calls like this once a night.

I love my job.

LLPOF

To say that last Friday was busy, would be an understatement. We had coppers coming in from other cities to cover our calls. It was nucking futs. I handled so many calls, it was ridiculous. We had gangsters running from us, major traffic accidents, drunks driving down the main drag on their rims, sparks flying. One of our guys got shot at. He was not hit and we never figured out who shot at him.

It has taken me a few days to process all the craziness from last Friday and you know what stands out to me the most? I got lied to quite a bit that day and it amazes me how bad people are at lying. Do you really think I am that stupid? Does the uniform activate some kind of dumbass lying reflex? Let me go by the numbers here...

#1. Recovered Stolen Vehicle
My partner and I get dispatched to a recovered stolen vehicle. I am handling the call. These are pretty easy. Someone forgets where they park their car and they report it stolen. They find it the next day and have to call us to come out and confirm. If they don't, they end up getting proned out at gunpoint on the highway.

So I knock on the door and LIAR answers the door. He is really quiet. I have to ask him obvious questions that people usually volunteer. His hands are shaking. Within like 15 seconds of talking to the guy, I know something is up. I am not sure what yet, but something is not right.

ME: Did you call us?

LIAR: Yeah.

ME: So you found your car?

LIAR: Yeah.

ME: Ok, where was it? How did you come to think it was stolen?

LIAR: Oh, I drove it to a parking lot, took a bus and forgot I left it in the parking lot.

So, he has a car, but he took a bus halfway? SHENANIGANS!

ME: Ok, let's go look at the car.

He show's me his POS (Piece of shit) car. I am trying to imaging anyone wanting to steal it. There is fresh front end damage on the car. BINGO! So I say...

ME: When did you get this damage on the car?

LIAR: About two weeks ago.

ME: Oh, because it looks a day or two old.

So my partner, wanting to mess with this dirtbag a bit goes...

PARTNER: The only reason we mention it is because some people report their cars stolen when they commit crimes or are involved in hit and runs. We are not saying you would do that, but we have to investigate.

LIAR: Really?

I smile at my partner, he rolls his eyes and I proceed to finish up the recovered vehicle report. I can't prove he was involved in a hit and run, but DUH.

#2. Rear End
We roll up on a small little traffic accident. A nice SUV rear ends a shitty mini-van. No big deal and the damage is minor. The SUV is at fault. I advise them to just exchange info. The guy in the mini-van said he did not need paramedics. However, he starts this Oscar winning neck injury performance. His neck must hurt from seeing dollar signs. So this means we have to take a nonsense traffic report just so this idiot can attempt to milk the other guy for $$$. Whatever.

While I am getting the info from the SUV driver, Mr. Mini Van comes walking over. I am thin on patience at this point. So I turn around and say, "Why don't you go sit down in your vehicle and I will be with you when I am done here. I wouldn't want you to further injure yourself. Are you sure you don't want paramedics?" I am hoping he could tell that I was not buying it. I even told the SUV guy what I thought was going on and wished him good luck.

#3. Vandalism
I stop these kids in an alleyway. We received a call on some kids tagging some store fronts. One of the kids has a white paint marker in his pocket, white paint on his hands, and he is sitting right by a pole that has been marked with a white marker. Hmmm...you think maybe they were tagging?

PARTNER: What name do you tag under?

KID: I don't tag.

PARTNER: Seriously? Look, this is your one chance. I am not an idiot. You can either get a ticket, go to the station and we can have your parents come pick you up, or you can be straight with me and I will let you go.

They go round and round like this for about five minutes. The kid lies like crazy until finally he tells the truth. We take his photos and info. We will see them again soon, I am sure.

#4. Traffic Accident
We roll to a traffic accident with a rolled over vehicle. It is a really nice Mercedes...bummer. The driver has a few scratches, but he is ok. Lucky dude.

He tells us someone hit him hard from behind and he crashed. So I look at the rear of his car and there is not a scratch on it. In fact the rear portion of the car is the only part of the car that does not have some damage on it.

You messed up and flipped your car over. You have insurance. Why lie? I don't get it.

I used to think it would be difficult to tell when people were lying to you. It is never this obvious on TV. 95% of the time it is glaringly obvious.

By the way, in case you did not figure it out. Liar Liar Pants On Fire.

So Many Flashlights

I carry three flashlights on my person at night. My primary flashlight, my backup flashlight and my weapon light. I am going to talk about each one, where I keep them and what brands I have used.

PRIMARY FLASHLIGHT:
I started my career with Streamlight SL-20X LED. It's a halogen light with an LED low light mode. The idea was that I could use the halogen for most things and the LED for doing paperwork, so I wouldn't blind myself while doing paperwork. I also wanted a hefty flashlight in my hand in case someone attacked me. I could use it for defense. I quickly noticed, after a 12 hour shift, that the light would be dim after a while. The battery just could not handle a full shift of car stops. My partners were getting the new LED lights and they seemed brighter.

After a few months, a friend of mine recommended the LED Lenser P17 flashlight. Initially it was very cool. You could focus the beam, for spotlight or for paperwork and it was hefty...too hefty. I stick the flashlight under my arm quite a bit. It stays there for an extended period of time. The idea is to keep your hands free in case the shit hits the fan. Keeping a fat, heavy flashlight under your arm for that long is tiring. I also noticed the light would dim towards the end of the batteries life. This flashlight used 3 D batteries instead of being rechargeable.

So one night my partner brings out his new flashlight, the Streamlight Stinger LED HP. It is skinnier, smaller and lighter than my other flashlights, so it is very comfortable under the arm for ling periods of time. Oh yah, and it is friggin' WAY bright. Noticeably brighter than my other flashlights. I also like that I can stick it in my rear pants pocket without it feeling akward. It is rechargeable. It has three brightness modes. Finally it has a very cool strobe effect that confuses the hell out of people and seems to stun them for a few seconds. This comes in very handy when I walk up on someone I think may have a weapon.

I still keep my LED Lenser in my bag as a backup primary flashlight. I also have not been using my Stinger for very long, so I may find an issue with it. So far it is awesome. I always work nights, so flashlights are very important to me. As I am sure you can tell.

I keep my primary flashlight either in my non-weapon hand, under my armpit or in my rear pants pocket. When I am driving, it is under my leg, so when I get up I am sure to grab it.


BACKUP FLASHLIGHT:
I do not obsess as much about my backup flashlight. I keep it on the rear of my duty rig in a holster. It only comes out when I don't have my primary flashlight on me. I always carry my backup on my belt, even during daytime. You would be suprised how much you use a flashlight during the day.

I originally had an old Surefire halogen flashlight, but the old halogen flashlights dessimate batteries, so I wanted an LED backup. I finally decided on the Surefire LED Aviator with a red low output beam. This is not a cheap flashlight, in fact, it is the most expensive one I own. My family asked me what I wanted for Christmas last year, and this is what I asked for. They went in together to get it for me.

It is pretty bright for a little LED guy. Not the brightest one on the market, but it is acceptable. The big seller for me was the low output red light. You can use this to see at night and not give away your position. I use it to read in the car when I am being sneaky.

WEAPON LIGHT:
There was really only one choice here, but luckily it was a good one. The Surefire weapon light was the only decent light at the time that had a pressure switch. The Streamlight had a rocker switch and my department would not sign off on it. The pressure switch is the only way to go anyway.

Hopefully, this blog post will help someone save some money. Of course, just because I like a flashlight, does not mean you will.

God's Pot

My partner ant I stopped a couple of kids the other day. They were sitting in there car in a shitty area known for drugs.

As we approach the driver's side of the car we see a bong in the backseat. No big deal, we could care less about marijuana at this point. So I say to the driver, "Hey bud, do you mind stepping out of the car for me?" So he steps out of the car and immediately blurts out, "I'm an ordained minister!!"

I pause for a second and then I start to smirk. It takes some willpower not to laugh, but I want to screw with him a bit. Oh yeah? Is the weed in your car part of your religion?

It turns out, he IS an ordained minister on the way to his sisters wedding rehearsal. He had a certificate with him and everything. It is one of those Internet churches. You can send them money and they will make you a minister. I let him go with a warning.

I don't want to mess with a deity's weed. LOL.

Barf-o-rama

I don't get grossed out easily. I grew up in a law enforcement family, which means dirty jokes and a twisted sense of humor. I had my first call the other night that actually turned me green.

I get a call for a fight. The door opens to the house and I see Ralph. His name was not Ralph, but I think it is appropriate. Ralph has a little blood on his mouth and he looks high as a kite.

I sit Ralph down and put some latex gloves on. I knew this was not going to go well. I can't explain it, you just know sometimes. It is a combination of body language, actual language and the little hairs on the back of your neck.

While my partner talks to Ralph's brother; Ralph decides to start getting squirrely. I end up taking Ralph to the ground after I decide he can't be reasoned with. I tell Ralph, "He dude, relax. You are making this much worse than it needs to be." I am a pretty patient guy, but I have my limits.

Ralph starts making this choking noise. I check to make sure I am not leaning on him too hard. I barely have any weight on him. I have my knee just touching his back and my left foot near his head. I took him to the ground pretty gently, so I am confused.

Then I realize what is happening and I quickly move my foot. Ralph starts vomiting right on his neighbors doormat. Nice. After he is done, I lift him up to move him out of his vomit. He begins to struggle, so I put a little weight on him. Ralph vomits again. I pick him out of his vomit and he flips out AGAIN.

At this point I have had enough. I tell him, "Look dude, I am trying to be nice here! If you vomit again, you are going to have to just deal with it. Everytime I lift you up out of it, you flip out on me."

So now the vomit fountain kicks into high gear. I have him right up on the edge of the stairs. So as he vomits, it runs down the stairs; kind of like a fountain, a disgusting, chunky fountain.

I call for backup to help me get him down the stairs and into my car. So I have to wait like five minutes while I am holding this guy down, in his own vomit. I have my head turned away from him, so that I don't get a full blast of the smell.

It was pretty nasty. I did not eat anything else that night. I think it was a combination of the sight, sound as smell. GROSS! I can still smell it and it has been days. LIVING THE DREAM!! LOL

Thief!

I was driving around town last Friday looking for drunk customers to escort to the clink, when I spot this car. It is a blue Crown Victoria with tinted windows and spotlights on each side. It does almost a perfect impression of one of our gang units cars.

Being the curious type, I pulled up along the right side of it to see who it is. I look in the window and I see some kid with his hat on backwards, dancing in his seat, to what I imagine is Britney Spears. He has got some arm tats and just looks like a little dirtbag.

I already have probable cause to stop the car, as it has tinted windows and I am pulling over just about anything that moves looking for drunks. So I slow down to pull in behind him. Just as I am about to light him up, my shady area partner speeds up behind him, laughing like a jack ass, and pulls him over. Son of a bitch!

I was laughing so hard I almost had to pull over. My partner seemed so pleased with himself. I guess he had been watching me size this guy up and when I decided it was a good stop, he snaked it from me. Wino! The joke was on him though. He put him through the field sobriety tests, got nothing and had to cut him loose. All that work for nothing. I'm sure it was worth it for the look on my face.

I considered squirting a little pepper spray out the window as I drove by, but thought better of it.

Mistakes

I am getting to the point in my training where I am handling calls and given more responsibility. Most of the time, I am allowed to drive. I love driving the police car and I hate it. Let me explain.

When I am sitting in the passenger seat, I can concentrate on one or two things at a time. I hear the radio, I can write down the calls as they come in and I can be on the lookout for anything else.

However, when I am driving, I have to drive safely, write down the calls as they come in, know where are my area partners are, be aware of my surroundings, look up the location of the calls in the mapbook and possibly answer my phone when my area partners call me with information on a call I may be heading to. That is quite a bit of multi-tasking. It is too bad I can't use my GPS while training. That would help.

It is super fun to drive a police car around, but it is also stressful and tiring. It is slowly getting easier, but I am still not 100% comfortable with it.

So with all the added responsibilities, I sometimes miss the little things. The other night I forgot to write in the number of phone calls my prisoner made at the jail phones. Really, not a big deal, but my training officer was behind me when it was kicked back at the jail and he rolled his eyes and said, "Come on!" It was embarassing, but I won't make that mistake again. LOL

On a positive note, when the shit hits the fan, I do well. I had a drunk lady the other night that went to take a bite out of a fireman. I was in the correct position and I took her to the ground before she knew what hit her.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a drunk male take a swing at me. Just by the way he was looking at me, I knew it was coming. I ducked and took him promptly to the dirt. I have never had anyone take a swing at me in my adult life. So I was suprised and relieved that it went so well. Go training!

I have started making checklists for the things I need to do for each type of call. Hopefully this way I won't forget the minor details along the way. There are so many pieces of paperwork that are different depending on what kind of call you get. I am suprised that my partner can remember them all. I suppose after you have done each kind of call a few times, it is not a big deal. I have done a few warrants and they are pretty easy now.

I am still at the point where certain calls I go to are a first for me. I had my first dead body call last month. I had my first mayhem call last weekend. So I had to look up the elements for mayhem to make sure the crime fit the event. It did. Ewwwww.

I love this job and I will get better. I am just at that point where I am teetering on sort of knowing what to do. I will keep telling myself that it will get easier. Anyone who said this job is easy, is full of shit. =)

Sickness

This is a just a quick post to inform those of you just getting into this line of work. I have been sick THREE times in the six months I have been doing this and I have found that I am not the only one that has experienced this.

As a cop you spend your time in a dirty police car, the hospital and the county jail. I guess I should not be suprised. Those are some pretty disgusting places.

I have heard that the first year is the worst and then you are semi-immune.

Jumping into the deep end

In the beginning of my training, I took a very passive role. I was told to observe and only to jump in if the shit hit the fan. I was comfortable with that. It is not a difficult position to be in. I had very little responsibility.

As my training has progressed, I would get to calls with my training officer and most of the time he or she tells me to handle it and then does not say a word unless I really messed something up.

I am in my mid-thirties, so I have some life experience. That being said, I haven't gotten in too many tense situations in my normal every day life. I don't hang out with the kind of people that get into trouble and I tend to avoid people I know to be unstable. I am sure the same could be said for most people.

Now, imagine you are thrown into one of these unfamiliar situations at least once a week with people you don't understand. Additionally, you are expected to handle it in a professional, calm manner as a police officer. People will be looking to you to fix things and protect them. I am finally starting to get the hang of it.

First off, I act like I know what I am doing, even if I don't. People can quickly sense indecision or weakness and will turn on you. You really do not have much time to weigh the pros and cons of your actions. You just have to jump in feet first and do your best.

I have gotten pretty good at ratcheting my intensity level up to 11 at a moments notice. When you deal with people who have hyper adrenaline levels and are pissed off, the only way to get their attention is to scare the shit out of them before they do something you have to take them to jail for. SIT THE HELL DOWN AND SHUT UP OR YOU ARE GOING TO JAIL!

Luckily, I do not have to do that very often and that is not appropriate for all types of people. You have to use your common sense. Most of the time it is just me being a mediator. 90% of the calls I go to, there is no crime. I just let people vent, tell them I understand and smooth things out. I may not understand and I may think they are complete morons, but I am there to keep the peace, not speak my mind.

Even when I am not the "handler" of the call, I jump in and contribute where I can and when I see something negative about to happen. It is a turning point in my training where I actually start feeling like I am a police officer and not just a ride a long.

Jumping in is very important. I see quite a few of the new guys just standing back and not doing anything. I have found the best way to know what to do is to ask. When you arrive on the scene say to the handling officer, "What can I do to help?" Simple, to the point. They will tell you what they want you to do and there attitudes towards you will change for the better. They won't let you drown...much. =)

Never Assume Anything!

I learned a valuable lesson the other night. Never assume anything with this job. That was the theme of my midnight shift.

The first call of the night came out as a domestic at the park. I arrived at the scene and another cop from another city was waiting to greet me with the victim. The incident happened just out of his jurisdiction and was now my responsiblity. He was trying to clue me in that the story was suspect, but being the rookie I am I did not quite catch on. I realized what he was trying to tell me later. I do not look like a rookie, since I am older, so sometimes officers assume I am the training officer and it is the other way around.

So I spoke to the victim and she told me that she was walking in the park when her ex-boyfriend, who she lived with for 6 months prior, attacked her in the park. I saw some bruises on her arms and I got excited. A righteous felony battery! I kind of honed in on this detail and did not think as much on the fact that she was obviously a meth head, probably a prostitute and her story had some holes. She said he was ranting about how he was "ex-military" and "killed people for a living" and then threw her on the grass. In retrospect, she was not wet and did not have any grass stains on her shirt.

I took down all her information, her story and anything else I could think of on my notepad and then went to contact the ex-boyfriend. I was ready to take him to jail as the night had been slow up to this point, so that made me happy.

As I walked up to the ex-boyfriends house I noticed that he was upstairs relaxing and watching porn with his current girlfriend. Not something I would expect someone who had just assaulted his ex-girlfriend in the park to be doing. Clue #1. I contacted him and he was very calm and genuinely suprised to see the police at his door. He was not sweaty and it was a hot night. Again, not something I would expect from someone who was ranting the way the victim said he was just 30 minutes prior. Clue #2. My partner spoke with his girlfriend and she said he had been with her the whole day and they had not even been at the park. My partner believed the girlfriend. Shit.

Now, I am not saying that there is no way that my victim was not assaulted, but I seriously doubt it. Not only did we not have a righteous felony, now we had to write a report about it.

The second call of the night came in hours later. At this point I had given up on the night as a whole and I was pretty sure nothing fun would happen all night. The city was dead. Dispatched informed me that county fire was responding to a 911 call and needed assistance with large Samoan males who were possibly resisting and had been a problem in the past. Sweet!

We arrive on scene with two other units. That is four officers in total. County fire is not even there. So I inform dispatch that county fire is not there with kind of a "what the hell is going on" tone. Dispatch informed me that County Fire was going to wait around the corner until we told them it was ok to come in.

As I am doing that, the door to the residence pops open and I pull my weapon out. The area I was working is not a good one. Out walks a small asian man who I am guessing is 100 pounds soaking wet and about 60 years old. So here I am expecting this big fight and it ends up being a medical aid with completely cooperative subjects. Haha...where are the huge Samoan males? Where the hell did that information come from?

I was already completely aware of the fact that calls come out that sound like nothing and turn out to be huge clusters, but this night was all about the opposite. It wasn't what I was hoping to happen, but it was educational. Never assume anything!

Bat-Belt

I have been working as an officer for about 4 months now and I think I may finally have my duty belt figured out. Why did it take so long?

In the academy, you do not have a choice how your duty belt is setup. You have your weapon, cuffs, silent key holder (with one handcuff key and whistle), baton/baton ring and your magazine pouch, in that order. You also have your pens in you pocket and a notepad in your back pocket. You have to have it exactly this way and you don't have all that much to worry about. Your weapon is not loaded and there are no rounds in your magazines. Nice.

Now that I am on the streets things change. I now have just on my belt silent key holder (with way more keys), weapon with weaponlight (16 rounds), pepper spray, two handcuff cases, full size flashlight ring, radio holster, collapsible baton holster, drop down taser holster (with small flashlight, two taser carts and latex gloves attached) and finally my magazine pouch (another 24 rounds). I also have on my person, my cell phone, field interview cards, pocket reference book, liquid paper tape (a must have!), two pens, a couple of pocket knives, black gloves, backup weapon (10 rounds) and my vest. I really need to weigh myself before and after sometime to see how much shit I am carrying around. Oh yah, and I usually jam my large notepad in the rear when I am on a call. That small notepad is next to useless. I only use it when I don't have the larger one.

That is a lot of stuff to put on your person!! So I have been tweaking the location of all of this crap since day one. At one point I had my collapsible baton closer to my mag pouch and I found out that certain times I would get in my car and the damn thing would jab into my gut. So now it is directly on my off weapon side. If it wasn't for the drop-down taser holster, I would still have some issues with space.
I also changed the orientation of my magazine pouch so that it is horizontal. After a 12 hour shift of that thing jamming into my bladder and I felt like I had to piss constantly. So now I have to re-train myself to pull out my mags horizontally...small price to pay, in my opinion.


Now I have seen officers who have room for all of this stuff and more, but they are overweight to say the least. I have no idea how those tiny female officers do it. I am going to have to take a closer look at their duty belts sometime. I am guessing they have to lose something or be even more creative than me.

It almost makes me miss the simple setup of the academy...but not enough to do that over again. =)

You can't give me a ticket on the freeway!

This is more of a rant than a post, but it is my blog dammit!

I was in the hospital and a lady walks up to me and says, "Excuse me, sir." I pull my best Officer Friendly voice out and say something like, "Yes, ma'am. How may I be of assistance?" Imagine Superman standing in the wind with his cape flapping behind him and his head held up high. I am sure it was something like that. So she asks, "Is it true that you cannot give me a ticket if I am on the freeway? Since you would be in the jurisdiction of the Highway Patrol."

So I say, "That is true! In fact, if you run from me and cross the border of my city, I have to slam on the brakes before I hit another cities jurisdiction and explode!" Ok, I did not say that, but wouldn't that be awesome?

Ok, so here is the skinny. California Highway Patrol, County Deputy Sheriffs, local city police, college police and some other coppers that I can't think of are all police officers in the state of California. That means they can pull you over anywhere in the state of California.

If you happen to blow by me on the freeway breaking the sound barrier, I may pull you over. Now, I don't like making stops on the freeway, so I will get on my nifty PA system and tell you to exit. You would need to be going pretty damned fast for me to light you up on the freeway or doing something monumentally stupid. I like to stay in my area when I do traffic stops, just in case I am needed by one of my area partners or vice versa and the freeway is freakin' dangerous.