The week started out with an in-service class. I had a partner for two nights. I ran a few interesting calls, but overall the call volume is dropping along with the nighttime temperature.
I attended my second in-service class of the year on Monday. The topic was the Criminal Intelligence Division (CID) and a Texas Crime Information Center (TCIC) update. A few people from the CID division came and told us a little about what they did and how they can help us and vice versa. The theme seemed to be Homeland security. A couple of the speakers kept my attention and a few others that just read the Powerpoint presentation did not. After lunch, the topic was network and computer security. He was a good speaker and while I am sure most in the room found the topic brutally boring, I enjoyed it.
O was with me again on Tuesday night. I was told that it is basically up to me how long O rides with me before he is set free. He is getting close, but I think that he would benefit from a few more repetitions. The problem is that he is only with me three nights a week, and even less lately with my in-service classes. The other officer that he has been riding with works at a very fast pace. He worked fast when I evaluated him. He has a hard time slowing down enough to explain to O what he is doing or allow O to help, so O typically is just an observer. This night was very slow. The cooler temperatures really do decrease the amount of calls for service. We checked by and helped out on a few scenes, but that was about it.
Wednesday night we were a little short handed. Unfortunately, the crooks did not cooperate and it was a busy night. I checked by on a disturbance with a CIT patient. The call slip said that a man was in crisis. We had been at the same apartment a few weeks earlier. The same man had gone into crisis and destroyed a friend’s apartment. Once he got out of jail (earlier today), he returned to the apartment. The friend did not want him there, imagine that. He was not actually in crisis at the time, the friend just wanted him to leave. We gave him a trespass warning and took him to the bus station. He said that he had a ticket to go to Dallas.
A little later, I checked by on an assault in progress at a club in the area. This particular club is where most of our problems seem to be happening lately. There are probably upwards of 25 clubs in the area, but this is the one club causing us the most grief. As I neared the club, I saw two males running away from the area. The call slip did not have a description of the suspects, so I continued on to the club. When I arrived, the primary unit gave me a description of the suspects and I told her that I have just seem them running away from the area. I returned to the area in which I had seen them, and was told by a bouncer at another club that they had gotten into a vehicle and turned south. I took off and found the vehicle a few block away. I did a traffic stop, and took the males into custody. I then returned them to the club so that we could figure out what had happened.
There had been a fight inside the club. Beer bottles had been used as weapons, and each group said that the other was the aggressor. There were not any impartial third party witnesses. No one wanted to press charges and no one had any open warrants. We took everyone’s information and I wrote a report. On a positive note, the club cleared out after we had been in the parking lot for a few minutes. At least we would not have any more drama there tonight.
After leaving the club, a suicide in progress call dropped. A suicidal male was standing at a pay phone in the parking lot of a gas station according to the call slip. Six units responded, and a male was at the pay phone. He was holding a knife to his throat and was talking on the phone. These situations always have the possibility to go bad in a hurry. A person with a knife can cover 21 feet of distance before an officer can shoot them. Even if the officer already has their gun out of their holster. Three of us spaced apart had our guns out on and pointed at the man. Another officer was trying to talk with him. As that officer was engaging him, another officer circled around behind us and behind the man. That officer took out his taser, walked up behind the man, and tasered him while he was still distracted. As soon as the taser fired, the man went rigid, and we rushed up to get the knife away and to take him into custody. Luckily, the man did not fall on the knife and we took him into custody without anyone getting injured. It was a fantastic resolution to a bad scene. As the man was sitting there talking to an officer, he would periodically say, “damn, that hurt.”
The night ended with a disturbance involving a cab driver. The driver picked up a male at a club and drove him home his apartment complex. For some reason, during the drive, some racial taunts were exchanged between the driver and passenger. Upon arriving at the complex, the passenger exited the cab and went inside without paying. The cab driver followed him to his apartment and then called the police. The cab driver told me that the passenger just got out and refused to pay. He did not mention the racial taunts. After a few knocks on the apartment door, the passenger answered and I got the whole story. The cab driver then admitted to his part in the racial taunting. However, just because you are rude to the cab driver and he is rude back, you still have to pay the fare. The passenger got out his credit card and paid the fare.
Thursday night I rode solo again. It was a night much like Tuesday, with very little happening. Towards the end of the shift, I was dispatched to check by with a narcotics officer who was going to run a search warrant. I was less than thrilled. I do not like checking by with narcotics officers. There is never much of a plan going in, and what happens is never part of the plan. Things always seem to get a little out of control. I arrived at the meet location, and found an officer from another agency. He told me that the others would show up in about 30 minutes. Once everyone arrived (6 officers from another agency, and 1 from my department) the lead officer went over the plan. We were there to execute a search warrant on the upper floor of a two story townhouse. They had reason to believe that inside that location was a marijuana grow house. A few days earlier, after establishing reasonable suspicion, they took a drug dog to the back door and he went crazy. They got the search warrant, and here we were. The plan was to wait for the person to arrive who was tending to the plants, and once he unlocked the back door, take him into custody. They had other officers watching his house and the grow house. To me, this sounded like it was going to take awhile and we were not going to be doing anything anytime soon. When it was time for me to go off duty, I told the narcotics guys to call for another unit when they needed one.
I ended up seeing the narcotics officer a few days later, and he told me that they ended up running the warrant about three hours after I left. The male arrived who was tending to the plants and they took him into custody after he opened the back door. Inside they found a very well developed hydroponic marijuana grow farm. He told me that there were 2.4 million dollars worth of plants in the house. It was a good bust.
I was the print unit on Friday and O was my partner. We were dispatched to an apartment that had been burglarized to attempt to lift fingerprints. The primary unit walked us through the apartment pointing out where he thought there might be prints. The apartment was a complete disaster. It looked like a tornado had hit the place. Not a single piece of furniture had been left undisturbed. All of the food had been taken out of the kitchen and opened. The air conditioner vents had been opened. All of the drawers had been emptied and removed. All of the pictures had been removed from the wall. It was a mess. To me it looked like the suspects were looking for something in particular, like drugs or money. I tried to lift prints from a few places where there should have been prints, but came up with nothing. Not even prints from the homeowners. It lead me to believe that the suspects were wearing gloves and had even wiped down a few surfaces for some reason.
After leaving that apartment, a major accident dropped. It was a head on collision and we were close. We checked by to control and divert traffic off of the road. I used the patrol vehicle to close the street and O directed traffic for 90 minutes. He seemed to enjoy it, for some reason. I think that he is just happy being back at work.
That concludes another week on patrol.
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