Friday, June 25, 2010

Week on patrol, June 8 - 12, 2010

It has been awhile since my last posting. During the week I was the print / picture unit for four days. I actually had my first print scene and I checked by with other officers on their calls, a lot. I had loud lesbians and I got to play Batman. Just another week.

The week started off slow. There were no print or picture calls on Tuesday. So, I made a few uneventful traffic stops and checked by with a few officers to help them with their calls. On Wednesday, I was asked to check by to lift prints. My first print scene, finally. The call was a burglary of a residence. The home owner was out of town and someone broke into his house. The primary unit was dispatched to an alarm at the residence and arrived to find a flat screen television sitting in the flower bed by the front door. That is a good indication that the residence has been broken into. Sure enough, the front door had been kicked in. I arrived and began processing the television for prints since we knew it had been touched by the suspects. I found a few good ones and was able to dust them and lift them from the television. Amazing. It had been awhile since I had tried to lift a print. I tagged the prints and then wrote out my supplement to the original report saying what I had done and found on the scene.

 Later that night, I checked by on a loud noise call in a small apartment complex. An older man lives on the ground floor and a couple of females live directly above him. The older man told us that he has an ongoing problem with the "lesbians" that live above him. It is a noise issue. He told us that they stay up late, walk around too much, flush the toilet constantly, and sometimes have noisy kids over. Kids, noisy? That is crazy talk. One of the "lesbians" came out and joined in the conversation. She said that yes, they do stay up late, walk around, flush the toilet, and sometimes have her nieces and nephews over during the day. That was easy. A quick confession by the "lesbian". Case closed. Wait, none of those things are illegal. Maybe this is a case of people living right on top of one another? People make noise. The longer we were there, the more it sounded like the old man did not approve of his "lesbian" neighbors lifestyle choice. We told him to go back inside and go to bed. And then we told the loud lesbians to flush their toilet a little less frequently. Maybe only once every two trips to the bathroom? Maybe not. It never ceases to amaze me what citizens call the police for. Too much flushing? Come on, take an Tylenol PM and go to sleep.

Thursday brought another opportunity for me to attempt to lift finger prints. The call was a burglary of a motor vehicle at a nearby hotel. Two business men from out of town had their rental car broken into. They had each left their laptop bags on the floorboard behind their seats. Why not just leave the laptops sitting on top of the trunk? At least that way the vehicle would not be damaged. The business men wanted the outside of the vehicle processed for finger prints. The outside of a rental vehicle. You think it gets touched very often by different people? I got out my kit and found a few good prints on the driver's side window. I lifted and tagged them and wrote the supplement. When the prints are analyzed by our finger print lab in a couple of years, maybe they will come back to a suspect. Maybe that suspect will confess and give up his burglary ring and fence connections. I doubt it, but you never know. At the very least, I appeased the business men and got some printing practice.

Friday night, AR rode with me. I drive and she writes the reports, I like that arrangement. We were dispatched to welfare check at a local hotel. A woman's family was concerned for her safety. The woman we were checking on was staying at the hotel with a boyfriend that had cut her throat 10 days earlier. The woman had her own vehicle with her as well as her dogs. We went to the hotel staff and told them the situation. We needed to check on the female. She was in the room registered to her boyfriend's father. We asked for the room number, and they would not give it to us. They called the room, but there was no answer. We pressed them, but they refused to give up the room number. Exactly what I expected. The hotel is under no obligation to give out that information, in fact it would have been against their policies if they had given us the room number. But, then there is doing the right thing. Sometimes, the right thing might violate a policy. We did not have enough evidence to get a subpoena for the information. So, we left the hotel. There was nothing else that we could do. Another officer was flagged down later that night by the hotel security guard. The guard just wanted to know why the police had been to the hotel earlier. That officer called us and we explained the situation. Unfortunately, the security guard could not get the room number. But, the officer did see a woman matching the description of the woman we were trying to check on outside walking her two dogs. So, the woman was alive and easily could have requested help if she needed or wanted it.

Saturday night was relatively slow. I was talking to B when he was dispatched to a vicious animal call. I volunteered to check by with him. We arrived to find a nice three story townhouse. We were met at the garage by a very distraught middle aged female. She said that they were awakened in the middle of the night by a bat inside their house. This happens on occasion in the area. There is a bat colony that lives under a nearby bridge. She led us upstairs to the bedroom. We found her partner on the ground using a comforter to block the bottom of the closet door. The bat was in the closet trying to get out by crawling under the door. The bat would shriek every time the light in the closet was turned on. We got the partner away from the door and I slowly pulled back the comforter. At first, there was nothing there. Then we saw the bat stick a leg and a wing under the door and tried to squeeze out. The bat was too big to get out that way. The ladies brought us a bucket. I told B that I would take the bucket and trap the bat in the closet. The floors were wood. So, the bat reached a leg out again and B started pushing the door open. The bat got stuck under the door. He was sliding on the wood floor. We got the door open wide enough for me to get in the closet with the bucket. I told B to shut the door quickly. I had the bucket ready. B shut the door, freeing the bat as I dropped the bucket on top of it. The bat started bouncing around in the bucket. The ladies brought us a flat cookie sheet that we slid under the bucket, trapping the bat inside. The ladies asked what we planned on doing with the bat. I said that bats do not make for very good tacos, so how about I just set it free outside? Not really, but this is the fourth time that I have removed a bat from someone's home, and every time they expected me to kill it. I picked up the contraption and took the bat outside. I set it free across the street from the ladies' townhouse. Playing Batman to B's Robin was the last call of the week. Maybe B will wear the green tights next time?

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