Evaluating a hug

I was asked to put my training of Ze on hold so that I could evaluate S. He has already completed one week of evaluation so he will be done with the training program after our week together. Ze will ride with other officers for a week while I evaluate S.

S is from Ohio. He spent a couple of years working for Atlanta PD. He left there because APD started lowering pay and benefits for the officers.

Our first call on Friday night was to check by with an evening shift unit on an accident on the freeway. The evening shift unit arrived on the scene at 10 PM. He decided that he did not have enough time to finish the accident report before 11 PM, the end of his shift. Well, he had an hour so you would think that he would have time to do something, anything. Nope. He did nothing except to wait for us to arrive. Pathetic.

We arrived and found a one car accident involving a Nissan 300Z. The driver stated that he was north bound on the freeway when another vehicle swerved into his lane. In an attempt to avoid that car, he jerked the steering wheel to the right and lost control of his vehicle. He went across 4 lanes of the freeway, over a curb, a median, another curb, an exit ramp, a curb, a median, another curb, two lanes of the frontage road, and finally one more curb before stopping. Amazingly he did not hit another vehicle. He said that the airbags deployed when he hit the first curb and he could not see anything after that so he just "rode it out." Hitting the brakes would have been a good idea. You don't need to see to do that.

After getting the driver's and passenger's information, S ran them on the patrol vehicle's computer. The female passenger came back with a class C warrant. S asked me what to do and I told him it was his choice. He decided to inform the passeger that she had a warrant and to advise her to take care of it. When he told her that she was not going to jail, she was very happy as you would expect. As a way of saying thanks, she decided to hug S. As she was hugging him, she asked why he was not hugging her back. S told her that we generally do not hug people on police scenes. So she backed up a little and then she felt his chest and asked if he was wearing a vest. He was and told her so. At this point, S was praying that I was not observing this exchange, since he is on evaluation. I of course, witnessed the entire interaction. He looked over at me and we both started laughing. After S gave the case number to the driver, the passenger came over and hugged me. I guess she did not want me to feel left out.

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One thing not to say when you get pulled over

I worked four hours of overtime on patrol yesterday. They like us to be productive when we are working overtime. That seems fair. If there are not any calls holding, that means it is time for traffic stops. I set up on one of my favorite spots for traffic stops and waited about 5 minutes for my first customer. A vehicle turned left at an intersection where there are numerous signs stating no turns are allowed. Why are turns not allowed you ask? I did not place the signs there myself. But, I think that the signs are there because there are not any turn lanes or turn signals at the intersection. The street is very busy and without turn signals, the risk of accidents is high if vehicles turn. So, they put up no turn signs in the interest of public safety. Sounds good anyway.

I stopped the violator and walked up to speak to the driver. I told her that she had made an illegal left turn where it is prohibited by sign. She responded with, "I have never seen the signs." Ignorance of the law is not an excuse, but that is a topic for another day. I asked to see her driver's license and proof of insurance. She provided the documents. I made sure that her stickers were valid and that she had a front plate on her vehicle. Everything was in order. I told her that I would return shortly and I went back to my vehicle to write her a ticket. After all, I am on overtime and need to show production.

I returned to her vehicle and gave her back her driver's license and insurance card. Then I told her that she was receiving a citation (ticket) for making an illegal left turn. She looked incredulous and said, "What! Why not a warning?" I finished explaining to her that by signing she was not admitting guilt and that she was only promising to either take care of the ticket or appear in court. She asked again, "Why not a warning?" I asked her to sign the ticket. Again she says, "Why not a warning?" In a very calm and reasonable tone, I said, "Ma'am, you are receiving a citation, please sign by the X." The broken record asked "Why not a warning?" "Because you are receiving a citation, please sign by the X." Then we had a mini stare down. Finally, she grabbed the citation and said, "Don't you have anything better to do than issue left turn tickets?" To which I replied, "No ma'am, this is too much fun. Have a nice day."

One thing to keep in mind when you get pissed off during a traffic stop. In Texas, you can go to jail for any and all traffic violations except speeding. I was very understanding and realized that she was just upset and venting. No problem, but the next officer might not be so reasonable.

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Reunion time again

My 20th high school reunion was in 2008. I did not attend. I do not really keep in touch with anyone from high school. Jen's 20th high school reunion was this past November. We attended and had a great time. This past Sunday, we attended another reunion. It was the 10 year reunion of my police academy class. I am not sure if other academy classes have reunions. It is hard to believe that it has been 10 years. In fact, it has been a little longer than that. It does not seem like I started that academy "just yesterday", but it does not seem like 10 years have passed.

The reunion was organized by our class secretary. She decided that she wanted to have a reunion and she coordinated, planned, and pulled off the entire event. She had some help from a few classmates, but it was largely her production. Our class president is no longer an officer (the city frowns upon double dipping) and I was the class vice president (my buddies in the academy thought it would be funny to nominate me for a leadership role in the class). It never even entered my mind to plan a reunion.

My academy class started with 76 cadets and 71 cadets graduated and became officers. There are still 59 of us employed by the department. Of the 12 that are gone, one passed away in a traffic accident, another was indicted, one retired for medical reasons, and the other 9 retired for various other reasons. One of my classmates is now a lieutenant and I think 12 are now sergeants with another one about to promote. 22 of us attended the reunion.

Everyone seemed genuinely happy to see each other. I guess that makes sense. Why else attend if you do not want to see everyone? I thought that we all looked pretty good after 10 years. No one had really changed very much, a pregnancy notwithstanding. I talked to people that I had not talked to since the academy. Overall it seemed like people were happy with their job. Everyone had found a niche in the department. Of those that attended, there are not very many left in patrol. Most have moved on to an investigative or specialized division. I think that there were two of us that had stayed in patrol at the same stations where we had trained.

A couple of people commented that they thought that I would have promoted by now. If you would have asked me 10 years ago, I would have agreed with them. I did take the promotional exam about 5 years ago. I had probably the worst testing day of my life that day. No big deal. I am happy where I am right now and I enjoy training new officers. When it comes time for the next exam, I will probably take it and spend a little more time preparing for the test than I did last time.

It was nice to see everyone at the reunion and I look forward to the next one in 10 years.

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A new puppy!!

Last night I started training a new rookie, Ze. He was born and grew up in Morocco. He moved here in 1998 with his brother. He has 8 other brothers and sisters living all over Europe. His mother still lives in Casablanca, Morocco. He speaks four languages, English, Moroccan, Arabic, and French. He is married and has a 16 month old baby boy at home. At the House of Pies last night, our usual waitress Dawn, gave him the nickname of Zorro. She gives everyone nicknames.

We started phase two of training last night. That means that he has completed the academy and only three weeks of field training. I have not trained a phase two rookie in quite some time. I have been mostly evaluating lately since we only have three evaluators on the shift. Those that I have trained in the last year have all been third phase rookies. It is amazing to experience the difference in knowledge between second and third phase rookies. The difference might not have been so dramatic to me if my last two rookies were just merely average. But, they were not, they were exceptional. It is completely different to train a phase two rookie. They know some of the basics, but not all. They still need to be spoon fed information. I have to watch myself to make sure that I do not assume that they know how to do even a basic task. I have to make sure that they know. To me, it feels like getting a new puppy. You have to take care of them and watch over them so that they do not hurt themselves as you train them to do the behaviors that you want them to do. It requires lots of patience and positive reinforcement.

Last night was very slow and mundane. Tonight was a little better. We took a 17 year old male back to CPS. He ran away from his placement earlier in the day because they would not let him brush his teeth. He decided that he had been gone long enough, and called the police to return him to CPS. We called CPS and sure enough, they wanted him back. CPS told us that he had been in their system since he was 9 months old. On the drive to CPS we talked about basketball. He was very polite and articulate. I hope that he is able to overcome his circumstances.

On our way back from CPS, we were driving northbound on 59 when a white Honda Accord flew by us in the left lane. The Honda was driving without their headlights on at night and was weaving back and forth between two lanes. I told Ze to catch up and stop the Honda. The Honda was going between 85-90 MPH. The Honda pulled over to the left on the freeway. After Ze talked to the driver, I spoke to her for a few minutes. I thought that she was drunk from the way she was driving, and that conversation confirmed it. She also had a six pack of Olde English 800 Malt Liquor in the back seat. She even tried to hide the open beer in the center console. We got her off of the freeway and a DWI task force officer came to the scene. She became belligerent with the task force officer and tried to do a test or two but could hardly stand still or upright. The task force officer took her for processing and told us a little later that she blew a .314 BAC. .08 BAC is the legal limit. She was almost 4 times the legal limit. That is the highest I have seen in a little while. It was Ze's first experience with a DWI, good training.

We ran a few more calls and traffic stops, but nothing very interesting. I am looking forward to training Ze while I learn a little more about his homeland and culture.

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C's last call was memorable

I patrol a very eclectic area of town. It is an artsy part of town and is filled with colorful people. Saturday night was C's last day of evaluation. During his week with me, he had not really had the full experience of this part of town. So, late Saturday night after reading a particular call slip, I looked over at C and said, "this will be your last call on evaluation."

The call slip stated that a man's jacket had been stolen. That is not what made the call worth volunteering for, it was the location. A particular bar that I had the misfortune of having to enter a few years ago. We arrived in the bar's parking lot and the man who called us, R, was waving at us as we got out of the car. R stated that earlier, he was inside the bar talking to two females. One of them was really flirting with him and gave him her phone number. A short time later, the same female started talking to him again, distracting him. The other female then walked by behind them and grabbed R's jacket that was sitting on a chair. That female then walked directly out of the bar and was joined soon afterwards by the other female. A few minutes later, R noticed that his jacket was missing and called us.

As we were talking to R in the parking lot, a male and female exited the bar and walked over to us. They were acquaintances of R. The female, A, began a conversation with us. Her second sentence to us was, "Hey, I am a badge bunny, are you guys married?" This was C's first experience with an attractive female throwing herself at the uniform. At this same time, R was telling us what was in his $600 leather jacket that had been stolen. He had his house and car keys, a portable GPS, cell phone, wallet, and $500 in cash in the pockets of the jacket. R was completely beside himself. He had no idea what to do. "Where do I go? How do I get in my apartment? What do I do with my car?" He was lost. Granted, it was suck to be the victim here, but his "the world is ending" whining got old real quick.

Security from the bar came out to talk to us. He said that they had the incident on tape and asked if we wanted to see the tape. C did not want to go inside the bar. Here is why. On the way over, I told him a little about the bar. It is typical for this particular area with one difference, the waiters all wear only briefs (tighty whities) and shoes. It is a little shocking the first time that you walk in and see that. With that information in his head, C asked the security guy if he could just burn a DVD of the footage and bring it out to us. The security guy said that he did not know how to do that. So, C looks at me and asks if he could just put in the report that the bar had the incident on tape. Then the investigator could come and get the tape. I responded with, "Don't you at least need good suspect descriptions for the report?" He hung his head, and then followed the security guard towards the bar.

C told me that the first thing that he saw when he walked into the bar was a male in his tighty whities talking to another male. Then the male in the briefs stuck his hand into his briefs in front of C. C responded by saying rather loudly, "I do not need to see that!" C then watched the video and sure enough, the entire incident was on the video.

While C was watching the video, I remained outside. A asked me how long I had been married. When I responded 14 years, she said that I did not look old enough to have been married that long. She was really working it. This was quickly followed by R remembering that one of the females had given him her phone number. He asked A if he could use her phone and then he dialed the number. He listened, and then looked at me and said, "it is all in Spanish, what does that mean?" I looked at him, and deadpanned "I guess she speaks Spanish." He said, "yeah, I guess that was a dumb question." You think?

C handled himself very well under the circumstances and I was glad that he was able to finally get the full experience of the area.

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Which way do we go, which way do we go?

When I begin training or evaluating a new probationary officer, I always ask them who trained or evaluated them previously. This will tell me a few things. The main reason why I ask is because I want to know if they will be familiar with the area. Their knowledge and familiarity of the area will be different depending upon the amount of time they have spent in the district. That brings me to C.

C did not grow up in this area. He moved here for the job. While training, C spent first phase in my district. But during first phase, the probationary does not drive all of the time. It is very difficult to get to know an area from the passenger seat. Then he spent phases two, three, and week one of phase four, in the other district. I found this out on day one, so I knew that C was going to have a hard time finding locations. I had no idea just how hard.

C is a great probationary officer. Possibly the best that I have evaluated. His safety, scene management, knowledge, and attitude are all top notch. However, in this district, without a map, he can not find his butt with both hands. It is amazing. I go to the same Chevron every night. It is at a major intersection in my beat. Tonight was day five, so C and I have been to that Chevron at least 10 times previously. Do you think he knows where it is or can find it? Nope. It is such a dramatic difference from Z, my previous probationary officer. He very rarely needed a map and most of the time drive straight to where ever we were going. With C, if a map is not used, I am saying, "left at the light or right at this street or straight ahead." I have confidence that he will learn the area eventually, but he is not there yet.

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Tonight's Darwin Award Candidate

One of the characteristics of my job is that every shift is different. No two nights are ever the same. Two of the themes that I see recurring regularly involve alcohol consumption and absolutely crazy decisions. The two go hand in hand.

There is a Web site that chronicles stories of those that make less than stellar decisions, http://www.darwinawards.com/. I run into potential candidates for these awards frequently. Tonight was no exception.

C is on his fourth day of evaluation. He is doing very well. He has benefitted from having an exceptional evening shift and night shift trainer. He also has prior military experience and maturity on his side. C is going to be a good officer. Tonight we were dispatched to a robbery with weapon that had just occurred. We made it to the location and another unit was already there interviewing the victim, M. This is M's version of the incident. M lives in Hempstead. He goes to college downtown. He had a buddy that needed a ride to the downtown Greyhound bus station. If you are not familiar with the downtown Greyhound bus station, I shall shine some light on the location. I will preface this by saying that I am in no way demeaning those that ride the bus in general nor Greyhound in particular and I have no experience with the station during the day. But at night, the station is not the kind of place where you want to loiter. All types of individuals get dropped off at the bus station. When prisoners get released from prison, if they do not have someone pick them up, they are put on a bus. That bus brings them to the downtown station where they wait until the morning to catch a connecting bus or they try to find their half-way house or they just hang out. Not everyone at the station is a criminal, but it is an exceptionally high percentage.

M was kind enough to give him a ride to the station. They arrived a little late and his buddy missed his bus. While they were deciding what to do, someone backed into M's vehicle, breaking a headlight. The driver offered M $150 to pay for the headlight. M accepted and the driver handed over $150 in cash to M in the parking lot of the station in view of everyone that was nearby. A short time later, a stranger walked up to M and asked him for a ride into the 4th Ward. The 4th Ward is about a 20 minute walk west from the Greyhound station. The 4th Ward is a know drug trafficking area. M explained that when he did not have a car, someone had offered him a ride to school. He thought of this time and decided to give the stranger a ride to the 4th Ward.

They arrived in the Ward and pulled up to a house. The stranger got out and asked M to wait for a minute. M said sure. What? You give a stranger a ride and then he asks you to wait and you do? The stranger returned with another male and asked for a ride to another location in the Ward. Finally, alarm bells started going off in M's head. But, not loudly enough. M developed some false bravado and asked, "You guys are not going to jack me, are you?" M let them both in the car and started driving. The passenger asked M if he could have a few dollars. M said no. The other male then told M to give him all of his money. M said no again but kept driving. The male then reached into M's pocket and began extracting the $150 from M's pocket. M said that he had an additional $420 in his pocket. M started to struggle with the male while driving and ended up crashing his vehicle into a curb. M then got out of the vehicle in fear for his life and ran. He ran out of his coat and out of one shoe. Another officer found the coat and shoe nearby.

M was lucky. He was also lying to us. I just do not believe that he was giving a stranger a ride into a known drug trafficking area and was an innocent victim. He had $420 in his pocket before getting the additional $150 at the bus station. I think that he drove into the Ward trying to score some dope and got jacked. He was lucky that his vehicle did not get taken and that he was not left bleeding on the side of the road. If M continues to make these kinds of decisions, he may yet make it onto the Web site.

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Two more night of evaluation and court attendance

Work has been relatively slow and uneventful so far this week. C is in his second week of evaluation. Last night was day 2. Our first report was for a man at Starbucks who decided to leave his wallet on his table while he went to get a refill of coffee. Shockingly, his wallet was no longer on his table when he returned. Really, leave your wallet on the table? Then leave the table? It never ceases to amaze me what people do. Our second report was for a man whose vehicle was broken into and his child's car seat was stolen. Who steals a car seat? Maybe there is a big market at the pawn shops for car seats. I have no idea.

Tonight has been about the same, just different stories. Our first report was for a 63 year old male that was robbed while opening the gate of his apartment complex. Not that it is ever right, but robbing older folks, that is just ridiculous. At least have the balls to rob someone in your own age bracket. Our second report of the night was for a man who had his truck burglarized. He said that this was not the first time that this had happened to him and in fact happened less than 6 months ago to the same vehicle. At first, that sounds like bad luck. Then we ask what had been taken, and he says his Dell laptop computer. When you think that your vehicle gets broken into frequently, why do you leave a laptop inside? He said that he was only inside the bar for 20 minutes. It takes less than 5 seconds for the suspect to punch the lock, grab the laptop bag, and take off. After that, we made a few traffic stops as well. More illegal left turn tickets.

The subject of tickets brings me to our roll call tonight. Yes, every night we have a roll call just like they did in Hill Street Blues. If you are too young to remember Hill Street Blues, check it out on Hulu. The Sergeant started talking to us about court attendance. When we write tickets, most of them are handled by paying the ticket, defensive driving, or deferred adjudication. Which ever way is chosen, the city makes money. The officer never has to make a court appearance. A few people decide to take tickets to trial. They either represent themselves or hire an attorney and fight the ticket in either a judge or jury trial. When someone decides to fight a ticket, the officer is subpoenaed for that court on the day of the trial. If the officer can't make it to court, he can ask to be disregarded by the desk Sergeant. When you get disregarded, you are asked for a reason, sick, out of town, or child care issues and are all valid reasons. When the officer does not show up for trial, the ticket is dismissed. When the officer does show up for trial, he is compensated.

The issue is this, the city wants officers to write tickets. Tickets are a revenue stream for the city. The city also wants officers to attend court when their tickets are going to trial. After all, the city does not get paid if the ticket is dismissed because the officer does not attend court. So, what does the city do in response to officers failing to attend court? They attempt to punish officers. They start internal affairs investigations and give officers reprimands and days off for not attending court. What does this lead to? Officers stop writing tickets. The revenue stream shrinks and the city backs off on court attendance. Then officers start writing tickets again. It is not that officers do not want to attend court. We get compensated well for attending. But, sometimes it is very inconvenient. Just imagine if you were told at your job that after you got off work at 5 PM, that you had to be back at work at 9 PM. Then you were still required to be back at work at 8 AM the following day. Sometimes, that would be fine. Other times, that would suck.

But the thing that bothers me about the situation is this, why do those in charge constantly try to change behavior by punishment? That might work with 8 year olds, but not so much with officers. After trying this and seeing the same result every few years, you would think that someone might come up with a better idea. I am not in charge, and I do not pretend to run a city or a department. I did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night either. But, I have an idea. Try something positive to encourage officers to attend court. Right now we have a minimum show up time for court. No matter how long it takes in court, we are paid our minimum show up time. To get officers in court all they need to do is double our minimum show up time. Bingo. Officers in court. The side benefit for the city would be increased revenue because officers would write more tickets to increase their chance of having court. It will never happen. But I think that it would work.

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An example of why Courtney's job is not for me

I started evaluating another rookie tonight, C. His evening shift evaluator told me that C is a little high strung, a real go getter. I took that with a grain of salt because the evening shift evaluator takes a very relaxed approach to policing. A go getter, he is not, and neither am I for that matter. C is older than most probationary officers. He is married and has two kids. He grew up in New York and has lived all over the country. He is in the National Guard as a member of the Special Forces. He was on the first truck into New Orleans after Katrina and has been on other combat tours. I am sure we will have some interesting conversations in the coming days.

As soon as we signed on to the vehicle's computer, I noticed that a sexual assault report was holding. We do not get many sexual assault calls, so this was a good opportunity for the rookie. I read the call slip, cringed a little, and then volunteered for the call. We drove to the scene and were met on the street by the 21 year old aunt. She gave us a brief rundown of what was going on and then led us into the house. We walked into the house and there had to be at least 20 people in the living room. C immediately took control of the situation and instructed all but 2 people to leave the room. That was amazing for a probationary officer. Most would have been intimidated by the number of people and would have tried to figure out what was going on in the middle of everyone. Probationary officers have to learn quickly that once the police arrive, we own the scene. Everyone has to listen to our instructions. C understood that and took control of the room.

The two people left in the room were a mom and dad of a 7 year old girl. The girl lives with mom (24 years old with 3 kids) and her husband during the week and with dad on the weekends. While the girl was at dad's house, mom decided to read the girl's diary. In the girl's diary, the mom found a page that referenced having sex with dad. Then at the bottom of the page, the girl wrote the nickname for the mom's husband. The girl was talking about her step-dad. The mom immediately called the dad. She explained what she had found to him and then asked him to talk to the little girl. He talked to the girl and then called us.

After interviewing the mom, dad, and an aunt, at the recommendation of a juvenile division sergeant, C interviewed the little girl. She is a very articulate and polite young lady. She is in the second grade. She said that last week she was awakened in the middle of the night. She said that her step-dad was in bed with her and was touching her down there. After she woke up, he threatened to hurt her or her mom if she told anyone. She also told us that this had happened one other time in the past. At that point, the parent inside of me had a lot of respect for the dad that after hearing this from his daughter, decided to call the police and to not take care of things himself. I can not imagine hearing something like that come out of my child's mouth. And I know how I think that I would react, and it would not be with a call to 911. The dad did the right thing. He gave us the opportunity to use the justice system.

That brings me to Courtney. She is a juvenile sex crimes investigator. I could not do your job. I realize that not all of your cases involve these types of situations. But enough of them do. I am glad that we have smart, thorough, articulate, resilient, and dedicated investigators, like yourself, to hunt down and lock up these animals.

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Another night of Zero tolerance

I finished training Z last week and have been waiting for my next probationary officer to come to night shift for evaluation. Z is currently in the middle of his first week of evaluation. Due to a scheduling issue, Z had to work tonight while his evaluator was off. Z asked if he could ride with me. I said sure. The past three nights riding by myself had been a little strange. I am not used to doing all of the work.

After roll call, I was in the sergeant's office when Z's evening shift trainer walked in. He was working four hours of overtime tonight. The sergeant told him that he had signed up for a zero tolerance spot and needed to put 2 bodies in jail. He kind of laughed and then asked me if he could borrow Z for four hours. I said, "no, Z is doing my work tonight".

About an hour into the shift, the desk Srg called me and asked if we would be the zero tolerance unit tonight. There were not enough late side officers to cover it. I reluctantly agreed. We immediately started running licence plates looking for a stolen vehicle or warrants. We drove around and ran at least 50 plates and found nothing. Eventually we went to my normal traffic spot and it paid off quickly.

We watched a Lexus convertible make the illegal left. We stopped the Lexus and noticed that warrants came back on the license plate. We got the driver's license and insurance. Sure enough, the warrants were the drivers. 1 or 2 city traffic warrants, maybe we notify you of them and give you the benefit of the doubt. But 8? She, C, the driver, was wanted for 8 city traffic warrants. We verified the warrants and wrote her a new citation. We had her sign the ticket and then broke the bad news to her, she was going to jail. She started crying as you would expect. She had never been arrested before.

She was a 29 year old female and was dressed to go to a club, not to jail. She was wearing black tights, and a shiny purple sleeveless shirt with matching shoes. She looked like a stripper.

She asked us questions all the way to jail. She was worried that she would not get out of jail in time to make it to work on Saturday. She worked in a real estate office. We assured her that she could be out in time to make it to work. After we arrived at the jail and as we were waiting in line for the jailers to process her, C was receiving quite a bit of attention. She did not look like the normal female brought into jail. I was asked by numerous personnel where we had found her and why was she arrested. Most had assumed that she had been arrested for prostitution. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck... But, no, not prostitution, she just liked to speed and then not take care of her tickets.

After saying farwell to C, we drove to the club district looking for our next victim. It took us all of 30 seconds to find him. Z nearly hit him in fact. He had been walking on the sidewalk and then just decided to cross the street in the middle of the block. Right in front of our moving police car. Z missed him, thank goodness. He was arrested for public intoxication. While Z was at the jail door dropping him off he said to Z, "I'm really gay, I am straight gay." why he just spouted off that, I have no idea. But he sounds confused to me.

Another zero tolerance night and two more bodies in jail. Hopefully the desk seargent does not start to think that we like it.

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It is little league time again

Jen and I allow A to be involved in two activities at a time. We want him to be able to experience and tryout different sports and activities without being over committed. Karate has been one of those activities for the past 3 years. Little League baseball is the other activity for the spring this year. He has played baseball every year since he was old enough for tee-ball. A had the same coach for three seasons of little league. We got to know the coach well and we liked the way he interacted with the kids. However, the coach's son was not promoting to the next level, so we were going to have to move on to a different coach. This made us a little nervous since we had seen the coaches of a few of the other teams treat their players in ways that we did not think was appropriate for 7-8 year olds. It turned out that our trepidations were partially realized.

Last year we realized that the little league in our town is a little cliquish and political. It was very evident that the kids that got the majority of the playing time and practice time were kids that were on the all-start team from the prior season. A had been invited to try out for that particular all-star team. We decided that the time commitment was too great for us. The all-star team practices 4-5 days a week and has tournaments every weekend for 6 weeks. That seemed a little extreme. During the practices, the all-star kids got to play the infield positions where the vast majority of the balls were hit. During the games, the all-stars stayed in the game while the non all-stars sat on the bench. The coach went so far as to tell the parents that the kids that were put in the outfield were put there for their own safety. Those kids were deemed unworthy of playing in the infield since the ball might be hit at them at a high rate of speed. How did the coach know if those kids could catch the ball in the infield since they spent the entire time at practice in the outfield? During the season there were some minor confrontations between the coaches and a few of the parents over playing time. It was not a great situation and there was quite a bit of tension around the team.

Flash forward to this year. I talked with A and asked him if he was serious about baseball and wanted to get better. He said that he was so I enrolled him in lessons. He goes once a week and the lesson focuses on hitting and throwing. So far, the lessons are going very well. He is throwing the ball much better and his swing looks much better than last year. Last year he was a contact hitter. He did not strike out very often, but the ball did not get out of the infield very often either. The instructor is working on harnessing some power in his swing. So far, it seems to be working, at least at the lessons.

At tryouts, A had a tough time with the bat. It was the first time he had seen balls from a pitching machine in almost a year. That was my fault, I should have at least taken him to a cage to get him ready for that. He was very discouraged after the batting portion of the tryout. I tried to build him up, but it did not appear to work. Then he went to fielding and did a great job. Each ball that was hit to him he fielded cleanly and then strongly and accurately to first base. I was very pleased with his fielding. I know that the hitting will come.

A week after the tryouts, they held the draft. The following day, the coaches email all of the players letting them know which team they are on. This season, A is a Hotrod. He has a few friends on the team, which he is excited about. The coach is one of the assistant coaches from least year. I am a little nervous about how this season will go. I hope that A gets a fair chance for playing time. I hope that he gets a chance to play in the infield. But, most importantly, I hope that A has fun and enjoys the season. That would be a vast improvement from last year.

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