The week on patrol, November 1-5, 2010

This week included lots of traffic stops and property crime reports. That can only mean one thing, I am training again.

I started training D Monday night. He is 32, married, and a former drummer and pharmacy technician. He is in phase two of the training program. That means he has completed three weeks of training on day shift. I have not trained in a while, let alone a phase two rookie that knows very little. I am sure it will take me a few days to get back into the swing of training.

After I gave him the day one in my patrol car speech which covers driving very slowly and smoothly along with do what I tell you to do (I say it nicely), we made our first traffic stop. The vehicle made the illegal left turn, D activated the lights, and he pulled over into a gas station parking lot. After D made his initial contact with the driver, I got the driver out of the vehicle. There was a very strong alcoholic beverage odor coming from the vehicle and I wanted to see if it was coming from the driver or the passenger. It turned out to be coming from both of them. I called for a task force unit to come and test the driver. I was certain that he was too intoxicated to drive. It took the task force unit about 30 minutes to arrive. He put the driver through all of the tests and he passed. I was shocked. This was only the second time (out of at least 100 times) that I have called for a task force unit and the driver had not been arrested. So, D wrote him a ticket, he signed it, and was free to leave. It was his lucky night.

A few hours later we volunteered for a report call in the other district. The home owner, Y, told us that the suspect, V, was a person that he has known for at least 20 years. They went to high school together. Y is a contractor and V is a homeless alcoholic. Y, out of the kindness of his heart I guess, decided to give V a job and moved him into his home. Things went well for a couple of weeks, and then V started not showing up for work. I am not sure how that happens when you live with your boss, but that is what we were told. Y said that morning when he went to the garage to get his tools to load them for the day, one of his cordless drills was missing. He immediately suspected V and went to his room. V was not there. Y called him and V said that Y owed him some money and that is why he took the drill. Apparently V was not yet ready to be a contributing member of society.

I was off on Tuesday night. I had a golf tournament to play in Wednesday morning. Since I am the talent (just kidding) so to speak, I thought that I would get a good night's sleep before the event. It was a four man scrabble to raise money for the men's ministry at my church. I played with my Dad, cousin, and great friend T. We have played in a few of these types of tournaments over the past two years, but this was the first one where we actually played up to our potential. We won the event by a few strokes and then won 2 door prizes during the awards presentation. Finally.
Wednesday night started with another theft call. The home owner told us that on occasion his garage door malfunctions. It starts going down, gets about half way, and then goes back up. Apparently that happened last night. He came out to leave for work and noticed that both of his vehicles had been rummaged through. He described the missing items to us in minute detail (he had all day to make a list). I then asked him if the door from his attached garage to his house had been locked last night, and he said no. I do not think that he had thought about that fact. It was unfortunate that things had been taken, but it could have been much worse.

Then we were dispatched to an auto theft. From the address, I suspected that the vehicle had been towed, and not stolen. As we arrived, there was a tow truck towing a vehicle from the parking lot. I pointed that out to D, and then I showed him the sign by the parking lot waring that your vehicle will be towed if you park here and leave the premise. Sure enough, this couple had parked here and then gone across the street to a club. When they came out, only about twenty minutes after arriving, their vehicle was gone. The tow companies have spotters that watch the lots. As soon as you leave the premise, they call in the tow trucks. We showed the couple the tow away sign and then gave them the phone number to the tow line. It was an expensive lesson to learn.

Then we made a routine traffic stop and had covered all of the training categories for the night. wW had just settled into our report writing spot, when we were dispatched to an assault in progress. Numerous other units decided to check by and we arrived after most of them. The people involved were intoxicated and not very open with information. So, after the female complainant stated that she wished we would all leave, my Sergeant told all of us to do just that. We returned to our spot and started writing. About 15 minutes later, another call dropped at the same address. We returned and no one would come out to talk to us. We left again, and sure enough, 15 minutes later another call at the same address. This time we were able to get some cooperation. The female that lived in the apartment had a birthday party that night. It was her and three other males that all work together at a downtown restaurant. They were all drinking and all of the males were trying to win the affection of the female. She made her choice, and asked the other males to leave. They did not go willingly. Fights took place, bottles were thrown, and a knife even made an appearance. The district attorney that I spoke with did not want to accept charges on anyone at that time. We made sure that everyone had a safe place to stay for the evening, far away from each other, and then wrote the report.

When I arrived at roll call Thursday night, the desk Sergeant advised me that we would be running a search warrant with a narcotics squad at the beginning of the shift. That is not my favorite thing to do, but it would be good experience for D. We sat in on the planning meeting and were told our area of responsibility. We were tasked to secure the parking lot of the club and to take anyone in the lot into custody while the squad hit the front doors. We all loaded up and drove to the location. We all descended on the place at the same time and the take down went very smoothly.
After everything was sorted out, we were asked to transport the two females that had been arrested. They both were being charged with possession of a controlled substance. One of them liked to be the center of attention. She cried all the way to jail. She told us that her occupation was "bikini dancer". She got the dancer part correct, but I do not think bikinis are involved, at least not for very long. She had an envelope in her purse with about 300 one dollar bills stuffed inside. She kept trying to tell us that it was not her cocaine, even though it was in her purse. That will all be sorted out later.

Later in the shift we volunteered for a criminal mischief report. The "man" that answered the door told us that his ex-boyfriend came over and broke his window. Apparently their 8 month relationship had recently ended. However, over the Halloween weekend, the ex saw our "man" at one of the clubs in the gayborhood with a new squeeze. This did not sit well with the ex and he decided to get some revenge by breaking a window and then slashing two tires on "man's" car. Men tend to be jealous creatures and when they date each other, it can get interesting.

On Friday night we were the print unit. We made three traffic stops at the beginning of the shift. One of the drivers was dumb enough to throw his cigarette butt out his window and onto the pavement while we were writing his ticket. He made it very easy for us to add the littering violation to his ticket. Then we were asked to check for prints on a vehicle that had been burglarized. The owner had left his laptop in plain view in the backseat of the vehicle. When will people learn to take their valuables out of their vehicles?

Later in the shift things went a little crazy with burglaries. First up was a private pharmacy. Inside the pharmacy has a room where the drugs are kept. Customers come up to a window set into the wall of that room to get their prescriptions filled. The window is 3 inches thick bullet proof glass. The suspects used a large rock to shatter the front door. They then hit the bullet proof window with the same rock. The glass did not break, but the entire window, frame and all, came out of the wall and fell into the small room. The suspect jumped through the opening and took the drugs that he was after. I was able to lift a few prints from that scene. The entire event was on video, so I knew exactly where and what he had touched.

About thirty minutes later, a coffee shop was burglarized. Ten minutes after that, a Blockbuster. At the coffee shop the suspects were after the tip jar. At Blockbuster, the flat screen TVs were the target. Two TVs were damaged, but they were not smart enough to realize that you just have to lift the TV off of the wall mount. They tried to just pull them off, and that does not work very well.

I am glad to be training again. D is doing well and is picks things up quickly. That makes my job MUCH easier. That concludes another week on patrol.

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The week on patrol, October 25-29, 2010

This was a short week for me. B and I rode together every night and I was off on Thursday and Friday for our trip to Austin.

B and I were the print unit on Monday night. It was brutally slow, no vehicle or pedestrian traffic in the area. We checked by with J on a suspicious person call. The call slip said that a shirtless male was walking down the middle of the street yelling at cars that passed. We did not find anyone in the immediate area, but we did see someone a few blocks down the street. We drove down and found a male matching the description in the call slip. 

J arrived a minute later and started talking to the male. The male told us that he was homeless. Then immediately after said that he wanted us to take him home. We asked where that was and he said again that he was homeless. This was going nowhere fast. It was obvious from the smell of the man that he was intoxicated. It actually smelled like he bathed in beer. When J told him that he was going to jail, he laid down on the ground. We got him up, cuffed him, and got him into J's patrol vehicle. At least he will not be run over while walking in the middle of the street tonight. B and I were the print unit again. As soon as we signed on to the computer, there was a print call waiting for us. The call slip said that a Constable needed us to take some prints for him. That was odd. I have not seen another agency request us for prints. Other agencies try to drop calls on us all of the time, but this was different, at least according to the call slip.

We arrived to find to deputy Constables talking to a group on homeowners. We asked the Constables what we could do for them, and they told us that they had been called to the house to make a burglary of a residence report. They called us to attempt to lift fingerprints from a few surfaces in the house. The county is divided up into 8 precincts. Each precinct has a constables office. Constables get calls in 3 different ways: 1. contract, their precinct will have a contract with certain apartment complexes or neighborhoods to provide services, 2. on-view, they see the incident take place, or 3. a citizen in their precinct calls their dispatcher requesting a unit. In this case, the homeowner called my department and decided that we took too long to respond. Then they called the constables office and a deputy arrived within a few minutes.

My department actually responded before the home owner arrived home. The damage was in the back of the house and that part of the residence was not accessible to the responding officer. We told the constable that we would take care of the primary report. They were thankful. The home owner then showed us around the house. The suspects came in through a set of French doors in the back of the house. Then they went upstairs, ripped the siren off of the wall, and started going through the master closet. As far os the home owner could tell, nothing had been taken. I tried to lift prints from the siren box and a few other surfaces, but only got smudges.

A few hours later we were dispatched to take a few photos of an assault victim. Her ex-boyfriend would not stop calling and harassing her. So, she decided that she would meet him in a public place hoping that she could convince him to leave her alone, not her best idea. They met at a local restaurant and the conversation did not go well. She got scared and decided to leave. He followed her and then began to assault her. He hit her a few times and then decided to drag her down the street. She was able to get away and other units responded quickly enough to take him into custody. I took a few pictures of her and tagged them into evidence. Hopefully, she will stay away from him from now on.

B and I rode my regular patrol numbers on Wednesday. The regular picture unit was not working, so we were asked to take a few pictures by my Srg. It was a tagging call. Two young males decided to buy some spray paint and go crazy. I took pictures of 8 different businesses that they put their mark on. They did not claim a gang affiliation, but they were very proud of their work.

That brings to an end a short week on patrol.

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Firemen and their tools

Every now and then, I will hear a transmission over the radio that really piques my curiosity. One of those instances happened last night. 

D, my probationary, and I had just finished loading up our shop with our gear, when over the radio we heard another unit say that she needed the fire department to check by on her scene. There was nothing unusual about that request. Then the dispatcher asked for patient information. Usually the response is something like, “white male, mid 30s, conscious and breathing with a cut to the arm,” or something similar.  This time the response was, “a poodle.” It would have been awesome if she would have said, “white male, covered in curly fun, 28 in dog years, scared to death.” I pulled up her call slip on our mobile computer. Her call slip stated that a dog had gotten its head stuck under a fence. As we were driving toward the call, I wondered just how necessary this was going be. Were the police and fire departments really needed? How stuck can the dog really be? Why can’t the dog owner figure out a way to set the dog free? If the dog is stuck under the fence, what about digging it out? All of these thoughts were going through my head. 

When we arrived, there were two officers and a Sergeant already on the scene. A K-9 officer arrived as we were pulling up. When D and I walked up, they all tried to be funny and asked if we were there to take doggy prints or pictures since we were riding the print unit. They asked if I had a “paw pad” for the prints. Everyone has jokes. 

I walked over to the fence. The fence was wrought iron, six feet tall with 5 inches between the bars. At the bottom of the fence between every two bars was a 4 inch in diameter circular piece of wrought iron that had been welded in place. The dog’s head was stuck through one of the circles. The owner of the dog was sitting on the ground holding the back of the dog and his “partner” was on the other side of the fence trying to keep the dog calm with soothing words. I have to admit, the dog was stuck worse than I expected. Even so, my first thought was “if he got his head through the circle, his head will come back through the circle.” The K-9 officer was thinking the exact same thing. He wanted to douse the dog with water and lather up its head with some dog shampoo that he had with him. Sounded like a great idea to me. About the time that he was bringing the shampoo and water over to the dog, the fire department arrived. 

Now do not misunderstand me, I appreciate the fire department. They are very helpful and do a great job. However, in this type of situation, they would rather stick an ice pick in their head than listen to an idea from the police. Maybe it has to do with department rivalries? The four firemen from the fire engine huddled around the dog. The K-9 officer gave his suggestion of the shampoo, but that was quickly shot down by the firemen. They used the analogy of a kid getting his head stuck in between the balusters (vertical rails) of a stairway. Sometimes, what goes through will not come back out. Ok, that sounds reasonable when you are talking about a child. However, most children are not covered in fur with two floppy ears. This dog’s fur was rather loose and had a little more give than your average child’s skin. At the minimum, why not try it before destroying the fence with cool fire department cutting tools?

The firemen would hear nothing of it, and set out to figure out the best way to cut the dog free. They started out with a gigantic pry bar. The type that they use to pry open car doors or force entry into homes. Huge. They quickly decided that was not the right tool for the job. They went back to the fire engine, opened up all of the cabinets and drawers, but could not find another tool that they thought might work. At this point, maybe lather up the dog with shampoo? Nope. How about call out a heavy rescue ladder truck with an abundance of cool tools? Yes sir. The ladder truck arrived and four more firemen joined us. They talked it over for a while, and the first tool of choice was a hack saw. They removed the blade and tried to saw the weld that was holding the circular piece to the bars. The fireman could not get a good grip on the blade, so it was on to the next tool. They grabbed a Rabbet tool, a hand powered portable hydraulic ram designed for insertion between a door and its frame for rapid forcible entry. They placed it between the two bars above the dog and started pumping. The bars bent outwards, but the dog was still stuck. Next tool to come out was a cordless reciprocating saw. That was deemed to risky to try. It is difficult to keep a reciprocating saw steady and in one place, especially when the dog would be thrashing about less than an inch away from the blade. Then they got out the cordless grinder. They came to the same conclusion with the grinder as they had with the reciprocating saw. 

So the fire department Captain on the scene decided to bring out the big guns. He told his guys to get out the Jaws of Life. The tool that is most commonly used for cutting trapped victims out of vehicles. They unloaded the Jaws and the generator that powers them and fired everything up. At first they tried to cut the actual circular piece of metal that was around the dog’s neck, but there was not enough room between the metal and the dog. Then they decided to cut out a piece of the fence around where the dog was stuck. Six cuts later and the dog had an 18 inch by 12 inch wrought iron collar with razor sharp edges that he was trying to swing around. Eventually, they wrapped a fireman’s coat around the body of the dog and that seemed to calm him down a little bit. Now the problem was how to cut the piece of fence from the dog? While most of the firemen were discussing that, the Captain started working the dog’s fur and skin back through the hole. In about a minute, he had an ear back through. Then another minute and the other ear was through. A little more work and pushing and pulling, and the dog was free. The dog was physically unharmed, but I bet mentally he is a little leery of fences for a little while. 

It turned out that the cutting tools were not necessary. It just took a little patience. But where is the fun in that? Why not take out all of the toys and destroy a fence in the process first? After the ladder truck arrived, there were 14 city employees (police and fire) and approximately 2 million dollars worth of city equipment brought to bear to free the dog. And a little water and shampoo would have done the job.          

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The week on patrol, October 18-22, 2010

This week I rode with B twice, was the print unit even though I was not officially, and participated in an awesome in-service class. 

B and I rode together on Monday night. We were the print unit because the regular officer was off that night. It was a very slow night. Not a single print or picture call dropped, but we did check by with a few officers on their calls. Since October is my birth month, I needed to qualify with my pistol. Monday night was so slow, it seemed like a good night to drive out to the outdoor pistol range which is up by the big airport. It was such a slow night in our area that 6 other officers went with us to practice their shooting. I qualified, but did not shoot as well as I would have liked. It was the first time that I had shot since last October. I wrote last year that I wanted to shoot more over the coming year, but that did not happen. Hopefully, this will be the year that I am able to practice a little bit more. 

Tuesday night B and I rode together again. We rode my regular patrol numbers. Early in the shift we were dispatched to a male and female disturbance in the ward. We arrived and found our Sergeant already talking to the female. So we listened to what she had to say. The female who is 20 years old, told us that he ex-boyfriend who is 34 years old came over to her apartment looking for his cell phone. The conversation quickly turned heated, and the male ended up pushing her and then hit her in the face. Ok, so we have a good assault / family violence incident. The Sergeant decided to gather the information and do the report (I offered to do it, but she insisted). When the Sergeant asked the female to describe her ex-boyfriend for the report, the female looked at B. She said he was about B’s height and B’s weight. She said that he was dark skinned and then she changed it to light skinned. She did not know his date of birth or where he lived. She did not want us to find him. She was neither scared nor worried, just apathetic. So, why did she call us? I am not condoning his actions. If he hit her, he needs to go to jail. But if she does not care and is not going to help us catch him, why waste our time?

Right after roll call, we are required to “spark test” our tasers. This involves removing the dart cartridge from the taser, turing it on, and holding down the trigger for one second and then turning it off. This is done to make sure that the taser is working properly and will fire when you need it to fire. When I did my spark test on Tuesday, the taser did not fire properly. Usually this is caused by a battery issue. The desk Sergeant put a new battery in it and it still did not work. So, I needed a new taser. New tasers are acquired from the personnel at the outdoor pistol range. So, we headed out to the pistol range for the second night in a row. Since we were going out there, we figured that we might as well shoot again. So, already, I am doing better than last year. I shot a little better than the night before and got a new taser. Heck of a deal. 

Towards the end of the shift we were dispatched to a person down. When we arrived the person down was actually in the back of a cab. B opened up the back door of the cab and started talking to the male. I shined my flashlight on his head and observed a bump on his forehead. It was about the size of a baseball. The male looked like he had a creature living in his head which was trying to get out. About that time an ambulance arrived and the paramedics got the male out of the cab. They started to ask him a few questions to check his mental state. They asked him where he was (location) and he responded with “I am right here.” This was repeated about three times. The paramedics looked like they wanted to slap him. Then they asked him what year it was and his answer was “October.” Again this was repeated a few times. After the paramedics were convinced that he was really out of it and not being sarcastic, they decided to load him up and transport him to the hospital. 

I was by myself Wednesday night. The print unit was off, but the desk Sergeant said that we were too short handed for me to ride as the print unit. So, of course, the first call that I am dispatched to is a print call. Evening shift officers went out to a house that had been burglarized. Instead of calling for the evening shift print unit or even using the print kit that every patrol officer has been issued, they decided to wait until the end of their shift to drop a print call for the location. As soon as I arrived at the print call, I knew it was going to be a long one. The homeowner had numerous items out in the living room which he said had been moved by the burglar. Then he started asking about various surfaces and methods for lifting fingerprints. Outstanding, another person that has watched a little too much CSI. I explained to him the tools that I had been given for the job and what surfaces were conducive for me to left prints from. I ended up dusting quite a few items, but only came up with smudges. 

A short time later, my Sergeant called me and asked if I would come to his location and print another scene. This time it was at a laundry mat that has been burglarized. They had video of the incident so I was able to see exactly where and what the suspect touched. He put his bare palm down on a folding table. So, I got out my stuff and lifted the palm print. Amazingly, it looked pretty good. I dusted a few other areas where the suspect had touched, but nothing compared to the palm. Those were the only two calls for the night and they were both print calls even though I was not the print unit. Strange.

I was off on Thursday night. I was scheduled to take a tactical shotgun class on Friday, and I wanted to be well rested before the class, for my safety as well as my classmates.

Friday morning I drove out to the county firearms complex. The county has a nice covered pistol range, two outdoor pistol/shotgun ranges, and a rifle range. There were 8 of us in the class and we met in a classroom inside the range house. Once inside, we were met by a county range officer. His responsibility was to show us a safety video. He took the opportunity to practice his stand-up comedy routine, and was actually rather entertaining. In the middle of the video, a county officer that was looking for something, maybe, opened the door to our class and verbalized. I say verbalized because no one in the room understood anything that came out of his mouth. I think he was mumbling cajun with a heavy, heavy, heavy southern accent. If you have seen the movie “The Waterboy”, think of the “Farmer Fran” character that was constantly mumbling something incoherent, multiplied by 10. He was completely unintelligible.  

After the safety meeting it was time to get our get shotguns and head out to the range. The rest of the class was spent learning proper shooting techniques, speed shooting techniques, and tactical skills. We each shot about 200 rounds of free-to-us ammunition. Free ammunition makes any day a good day. The next time I go bird hunting, the birds should be very nervous. 

That concludes another week on patrol.    

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