The week started off with some mixed emotions. The middle of the week was uneventful and the last two days were at the very least, interesting.
Monday started off on a high note. A good friend and fellow officer, JR, who had been deployed to Afghanistan was safely back at work. He had been gone for almost a year. It was great to see him and I am looking forward to hearing his stories from the battlefield.
A couple of hours into the shift, I was called back to the station for the interview for the print unit position. It was between me and one other officer. The interview was conducted by two Sergeants and my Lieutenant. The interview lasted less than 20 minutes. Most of the questions that were posed were not open ended questions. There was not much of an opportunity for elaboration and I was given the impression that they wanted short answers to just get the process over with. About an hour after the interview I was called back to the station. As soon as I saw the look on the Sergeant's face, I knew they had given the position to the other officer. That officer is well qualified and I am sure that he will do a good job. But that fact did not provide any consolation. I was told that it was a split vote, two to one. The Sergeant that voted for me was given the task of telling me the outcome. He told me that I had interviewed well and that none of the interviewers had said anything negative about me. They asked me to finish out the week as the print unit and the following Monday I would be back to my regular duties.
My initial reaction was disbelief. Followed quickly by disappointment, frustration, anger, and embarrassment. Now I had a choice. I could be pissed off and let their decision effect my attitude and performance at work, or I could live my faith and be the best officer that I know how to be. Don't let me fool you, I did not have the best attitude for a couple of days. Jen really helped get me through that. She was very encouraging and supportive. Tuesday and Wednesday were still dark days for me. It did not help that Jen and the kids were out of town. Luckily, Courtney and Mike invited me over for dinner on Tuesday and my parents did the same on Wednesday. That helped. It was not that I just really wanted to be the print unit. Even though I did enjoy the position and felt like I was able to help out the other officer and the citizens. It was the sense of failure, of thinking that I was going to be chosen, only to have it go to someone else, again. I thought back to other interviews, and I could not think of a time when I was the "winner" after an interview process. Self doubt started to creep in. That is where the support of Jen and the rest of the family was timely and helpful. If only to distract me from work until my initial reaction had passed.
Tuesday and Wednesday were both very slow nights, until late in the shift. Then on both days, we had a rash of burglaries of businesses. They were all clustered in the same area and were all smash and grab burglaries. The suspect used a rock or brick to smash the front door glass and then ran inside to grab the coins from the register or the tip jar. It was a lot of risk for very little reward, but so far he has not been caught.
The desk Sergeant wanted JR to ride with an officer for his first week back on patrol. JR rode with B the first three nights, and then with me on Thursday and Friday. Thursday night started off quickly with a family violence assault in progress that dropped right after roll call. We checked by and as we were arriving another officer, JW, said over the radio that the suspect had just ran from him and jumped a fence into an apartment complex that we happened to be right in front of. With the help of other officers, we set up a quick perimeter around the area and waited for a canine officer to search for the suspect with his dog. Just as the canine officer arrived, the primary officer called off the search over the radio. JW was not happy. He had a suspect disregard his commands and run from him, and then another officer just called off the search without so much as looking for the suspect. I talked with JW later and explained to him that this particular officer does that at times. He does things his way, and does not like help from other officers.
Right after that call, we went to a burglary of a motor vehicle scene. The victim thought that fingerprints might be on the door handle. We arrived to find a black Hummer with a smashed out window. The vehicle was dirty and there were fingerprints all over all of the door handles. The door with the broken glass would be the most likely spot for the suspect to grab the door handle. On both the inside and outside handles, there was mud. Apparently the suspect had very dirty hands before they broke into this Hummer. The mud was smeared all over the handles and that made lifting any prints impossible for me. I then asked the victim what had been taken. She said that she had left an iPod and a MacBook Pro laptop in plain view on the backseat of the Hummer. When will people learn?
Towards the end of the night we were dispatched to take some photos of a robbery scene. A couple living in a gated townhouse community were awakened by the sound of breaking glass. The male looked outside and saw someone rummaging through his truck which was parked on the street outside of the gates. He grabbed a gun and went outside. By the time he got outside, the suspect had gotten into a vehicle and drove away. The male checked his vehicle and then stood by the passenger side of his truck in some shadows waiting for the police. As he was standing there, a car came down the street and stopped by his truck. Apparently the driver of the car did not see the male in the shadows. A suspect got out of the passenger side of the car and started walking toward the truck. At this point, the male yelled at the suspect and pointed his gun at him. The suspect quickly jumped back into the car and the car began to drive away. As the car was leaving, the driver stuck his hand out of the driver's side window. He was holding a gun, and he fired three rounds at the male, gangster style over the roof of his car. The truck owner fired one shot back at the car as he was diving for cover. No one was hit by the bullets, in fact we could not find a bullet hole anywhere. We did find one shell casing on the street, which I photographed. It turned out that there were five vehicles parked on the street. Two had been burglarized, both them belonging to the same couple. The female even said that there had been a few burglaries of vehicles on the street in recent months. That begged the question, why not park your vehicles in your perfectly good garage which is inside your gated community? That would significantly reduce the chances of a vehicle burglary. She did not have an answer.
Friday night started with a short chase. Another unit ran the plate of a vehicle and it came back as being a stolen vehicle. That unit called for back-up and everyone in the district started heading in his direction. For safety reasons, we try wait for another unit or two to catch with us before initiating a traffic stop on a stolen vehicle. But, sometimes you do not have a choice. The stolen vehicle made a few quick turns and then pulled into a paring lot. The driver stayed in the vehicle until he was given verbal commands to exit the vehicle, while having guns pointed at him. We arrived as the driver was exiting the vehicle. We noticed a man standing nearby, and he casually said to us that the vehicle was his. And that the man being placed in hand cuffs was his father. The vehicle had been reported stolen a few months ago, and the family had found the vehicle a few weeks later. The family had failed to notify law enforcement that they had found their vehicle, so it was still listed as stolen in our system. After quickly verifying the man's story, the dad was released and the proper report was completed to take the stolen hit off of the vehicle. It would be a little below average to be removed from your vehicle at gun point because the police thought it was a stolen vehicle. But, that is what can happen if you do not let us know that you found your stolen vehicle.
That brings us to the end of another week on patrol.
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