The week on patrol, July 18-22, 2011

This week we were stacked at the beginning and extremely short handed
at the end. We were unusually busy on Wednesday night. I rode solo for
three nights and had a partner for one. I was off on Friday to start
our week at the beach house.

Monday night I rode solo. We had six units in the beat which is the
most we have had in weeks. There were quite a few calls holding when I
signed on, which was very odd for a Monday. The desk sergeant informed
me at roll call that I had the front desk for the second half of the
shift. That means that I sit at the front desk of the station for a
few hours and handle any walk-ins.

I was dispatched to three loud noise calls during the first half of
the shift. They were at a dry cleaners where they were doing loud
construction, a midnight soccer game in a park, and live music at a
club. The construction and the live music were ending as I arrived.
Easy enough. The soccer game was in full swing. When I pulled up, the
game stopped and everyone walked over to see why I was there. That
never happens. There had to be at least 30 people there to play at
12:30 AM and they were very friendly. They agreed to try to be a
little quieter.

Around 2:30 AM I headed to the front desk. We currently have a
temporary front desk at my station. They are in the process of
securing the desk area with bullet proof glass and card access doors.
I watched a bad movie and managed to stay awake until I was relieved
by day shift.

I was by myself again on Tuesday. A had in-service training today. We
had quite a few units again tonight. Evening shift left quite a few
calls on the board for us to run. I was dispatched to a burglary of a
motor vehicle in the club area of my beat. A guy came out this morning
to go to work and discovered that things had been stolen from his
vehicle. All of the windows and door locks were still intact. He said
that this was the second time that his vehicle had been burglarized in
this manner. He lives on a very busy street with a lot of foot
traffic. I stressed to him that it might be time to take all of the
personal property out of the vehicle.

I left his house and went two block west to run a narcotics complaint.
The call slip described three males and said they had been selling
drugs on the street corner for the last two hours. Only one of the
males was still on the corner and he started walking away as soon he
saw the police car. I stopped him and he was not holding any drugs. He
was hard of hearing, so communication was difficult. He could have
been faking it, but I do not think so.

My last call of the night was a suspicious person. A citizen was
awakened by a female yelling. She looked out her window and could see
someone sitting in a vehicle parked on the street beside her
residence. I spoke with the person inside the car, a female and she
said that everything was ok. She said that she was waiting for a
friend to come out of a nearby house. She did not appear to be
intoxicated and was able to answer my questions. I told her to try to
keep it down.

Wednesday night I was solo again, and it turned out to be a busy
night. We only had 6 units in the district and that was with the desk
sergeant moving one unit down from the other district. A was by
herself again in her beat. They told us again that there were not
enough units for us to ride together, but they allowed it on early
side. It is getting to be a little frustrating.

My first call was the usual wild goose chase. It goes like this, a
concerned driver sees another driver weave a few times. They think the
other driver is intoxicated and call the police. They give a location
and then they begin to follow the other driver, updating their
location to the call taker. We get the call a few minutes later, and
most of the time the drivers are either already or about to be out of
our district boundaries. That means that they are usually far away
from us already. But, since it is a "citizen chasing a suspect" even
though it is out of our area, we have to go. By the time we arrive,
usually the citizen has either lost the suspect or lost interest. That
was the case tonight. The citizen started following the suspect
downtown. Just as I was dispatched to the call, the citizen lost the
suspect somewhere in my beat. Every wrecker in the city swarmed the
area looking for the suspect, to no avail. Every now and then, we find
the suspect and they are in fact intoxicated. Usually, we never find
them or we find them and they were either texting or playing with the
radio. Not my favorite call.

Then I was dispatched to an illegally parked vehicle that moved just
before I arrived. Next was an assault in progress that turned out to
be nothing at all. Then a robbery with weapons where the caller left
the scene before I arrived and would not return to give me any
information. Then the bottom fell out.

I was dispatched to a family disturbance at a very nice high rise
apartment building. The disturbance was on the 27th floor. A security
guard escorted me up to the apartment. A woman in her 30's answered
the door. Directly behind her were floor to ceiling windows with a
panoramic view of the city. She said that her husband had left wearing
just boxers when she called the police. I could not see any marks or
bruising on her, but it looked like she had been through a rough
night. She invited me and the backup officers into the apartment. From
the looks of the apartment, it had been a rough night. I counted at
least 6 holes in the wall that were each at least a square foot in
size, some were much larger. Furniture had been toppled over and large
statues had been moved around. She told me that any time that her
husband comes home drunk, he flips out and destroys the apartment. She
said that it happens more than once a month and showed us where the
walls had been patched in the past. She claimed that he had not hit,
pushed, threatened, or done anything to her. This was the first time
that she had called the police. I asked her why and she said that they
have a 5 month old baby and thought that a police presence would calm
him down. She did not want any type of report or police action. She
stuck to her story that he had not harmed her at all. She appeared to
be on the verge of telling us more, but did not. I told her if he
comes back and you are scared, to give us a call. Money does not buy
happiness.

As soon as I was back in the car, I was sent to major accident. I was
not close. It involved a Tahoe and a Randall's tractor trailer. The
driver of the Tahoe thought that he had ben driving north bound when
he was actually going east bound. He had been out drinking at the club
and ran a red light hitting the rear axel of the trailer. He must have
been speeding since it absolutely destroyed his Tahoe. He did not even
hit the brakes and luckily for him was not injured. A DWI unit came to
the scene and took custody of the driver of the Tahoe. He blew a .124.
It would have been interesting if he would have hit the middle of the
trailer instead of the axel. I wonder if it would have sheared off the
top of the Tahoe?

As I was doing that accident report, a person down dropped on the
Spur. It was late and the other beat unit was busy. The dispatcher
preempted me and sent me the call. A arrived before I did. She got on
the radio requesting more units because we needed to shut down the
Spur. The Spur is a major artery that feeds directly into downtown
from a major freeway. Shutting it down at the start of rush hour would
be an under taking. Luckily for us, the fire department arrived with
two big fire trucks that really helped out. The call turned out to be
a head on collision at freeway speeds, not a person down. An
intoxicated Asian male was driving the wrong way on the Spur and hit
another vehicle driven by a man here on business from New York. It
took the fire department about 15 minutes to cut the drivers out of
their vehicles. They were both transported to local trauma hospitals.
Amazingly, the injuries turned out to be relatively minor considering
the accident. The Asian had a broken wrist and the other male a broken
arm. The Asian was charged with intoxication assault.

Thursday night we were short handed again. Four officers called in
from the district. Luckily, the supervisor that we asked understood
that we would be running the same calls all night anyway, so A and I
rode together. We had 5 units to cover the district and one of them
would be leaving early.

We started the night with three loud noise calls, one at a restaurant,
one at a house, and one at a club. They were all cooperative and
turned down the music or went inside to finish yelling and drinking.
A short time later we were sent to a family disturbance. We arrived to
find what appeared at first glance to be a female wearing Capri pants
and a red tank top. Her navel was pierced and she had fake boobs. She
also had huge hands and an adam's apple. Not a female. It said that it
had an argument with it's boyfriend. The boyfriend was drunk and tried
to drive off. It jumped across the boyfriend and tried to grab the
keys out of the ignition. The boyfriend slammed the driver's side door
on it a few times. The boyfriend then grabbed it's purse and ran off.
It claimed to not be injured, but wanted to press charges for the
theft. Since they live together, it is not really theft, but we wrote
it a report.

We drove to the hole and started the report. While we were sitting
there an Infiniti missed a turn and drove over two curbs and a median
and ended up in the parking lot where we were sitting. The driver said
that he was from out of town. He said that he had been drinking in his
hotel room and had a sudden craving for Jack in the Box. The food was
now scattered all over the front seat area of the car after the impact
with the curb. I called for a DWI unit. The driver refused all of the
tests which usually means that this was not his first DWI rodeo. The
task force officer called the district attorney's office who wrote up
a search warrant for the driver's blood. A desire for bad food ended
with a DWI charge.

Our last call of the night was an aggravated robbery. At 4 AM, a male
and female decided that they wanted some food from Jack in the Box. I
see a pattern here. As soon as they got into their vehicle, three
young males with bandanas covering their faces carrying guns walked up
to them. They pointed the guns at them and demanded their wallets and
cell phones. They also took the keys to the vehicle. They threw the
keys across the street, got into their vehicle, and calmly drove away.
Very bold. Just like mama always said, "only bad things happen when
you are out after midnight."

I was off on Friday.

That concludes another week on patrol.

Posted via email from will7079's posterous

The week on patrol, May 16-20, 2011

A and I rode together two nights and I was solo the other three
nights. We had a bunch of units on the nights that we did not need
them. Figures.

On Monday, I was by myself. We had plenty of units in the district. I
checked by with J on family disturbance in government housing.
According to the mother, one of her sons had been causing a
disturbance. He left before we arrived, perfect solution.

A and I rode together on Tuesday. Our first call was disturbance with
a neighbor. The complainant told us that this has been a long and
on-going problem. Her neighbor does not work, smokes dope, makes a lot
of noise, pees off of his balcony, leaves trash everywhere, and
threatens her. He is not a good neighbor. The female complainant said
that he put his hands on her tonight, by pushing her.  She said that
she was not sure what her options were. We explained them to her, but
she did not want any police action yet. She needed to consult her
boyfriend. We told her to call us back after the consult if she needed
us.

Our last call was a minor accident. We arrived to find a vehicle
blocking two lanes of a major street. Immediately after we arrived, a
thin and wiry young black male with braids, the driver of the vehicle,
walked up and started talking. He was talking fast and not making much
sense. I tried to ask him questions, but he just continued on with his
narrative. We found a witness that said the black male was driving at
a high rate of speed. He came around the curve and rear ended another
vehicle and then slammed into a curb. The contact with the curb broke
off a wheel. The witness then told us that after exchanging
information with the thin black male, the other driver left. The thin
black male walked over and now said that he had been maced by the
other driver even though he was not crying and his nose was not
running. Then he went on to say that $700 had been stolen from him. He
was all over the place. We did an accident report and then completed
an offense report because of all of his extemporaneous accusations.

A and I rode together again on Wednesday. There were not very many
units in the district. Our first call was a simple disturbance with
the valet at a mexican restaurant. A customer came out of the
restaurant and his vehicle had dead battery. The customer tried to
blame the valet. By the time we arrived, the restaurant and the
customer had settled the disturbance.

Later, we were dispatched to a suspicious person. The resident said
that a young white female with red hair was trying to get into his
backdoor. We checked the backyard and checked all of the nearby
properties but did not find her. Before we arrived, she had climbed up
on top of the resident's car port and put her foot through the tin
which brought some debris down on top of a vehicle. There was no
damage, but it was strange.

On our last call, we were forced to check by with D on a major
accident to provide traffic control. We were to take R's place since
he was early side and it was time for him to go home. The accident
involved a vehicle that struck a power pole causing a power line to
hang lower over the road. R was worried that a passing 18 wheeler
would hit the wire. It looked high enough to me, but we sat there
until we were relieved by day shift.

Thursday night was very uneventful. I was by myself and had to sit at
a busy intersection for two hours monitoring the red light. I guess
there have been numerous accidents at the intersection. I can't think
of another reason why they would assign a unit there for two hours.
There were no accidents while I was there.

On Friday I was solo again as the print unit. They would not let A and
I ride together. The sergeant said there would not be enough units if
we rode together, even though other people were riding together. It
was strange.

I checked by with S on a domestic disturbance. When he arrived, a
topless female ran out to him. Then a man covered in tattoos came out
and handed S a small baggie of cocaine saying that it was the female's
powder. Not the way most disturbance calls start. He put the female
into the backseat for safe keeping while he tried to figure out what
was going on. I arrived and spoke with a witness. The witness said
that the topless female was an alcoholic who was also addicted to
cocaine. She had a 4 month old baby with the owner of the house. The
topless female was claiming that she had been assaulted by her husband
and that she was covered in bruises. We did not see any bruises, and S
had seen most of her. She was very excitable and kept banging around
in the backseat and yelling. She ended up going to jail for public
intoxication. She completely freaked out when Skeet went to put her in
hand cuffs. I had to grab an arm while he grabbed the other. Lots of
drama. S gathered all of the information and wrote a very detailed
report.

That concludes another week on patrol.

Posted via email from will7079's posterous

The week on patrol, July 11-15, 2011

This week I had a few interesting calls. I was by myself for three nights and rode with A the other two nights. For the most part, we are still very short handed. We have lost quite a few officers lately to transfers and retirements and the rate of replacement has not kept up. Add summer vacations and lots of officers out taking mandatory training classes, and that causes us to be thin on the streets.

On Monday I was by myself. I volunteered for a loud noise call in the beat. Another unit from a different beat checked by and arrived before I did. Thankfully. The noise disturbance was coming from a compressor. A cleaning company was at a restaurant cleaning the kitchen and the grease traps. They can not do the cleaning during business hours, obviously. Since our city does not have any zoning laws, we have restaurants next to town homes next to bars next to apartment complexes next to business strip centers. In this case, the strip center and restaurant were there long before the new town home was built. It is hard for me to have much sympathy for the citizens when they moved into the residence right next door to the restaurant or bar or whatever. The other officer on my scene had some sympathy. He spoke with the resident and then with the cleaning company and they came to a compromise. The company had 30 minutes to finish with the compressor. We left it at that and I guess they made the deadline because we were not called back out to the scene.

Later in the shift, I checked by with N and K on an assault in progress at an apartment complex. An upstairs neighbor heard a loud fight going on below his apartment. When we arrived, the female was in hysterics and the male was calm. The apartment looked like a disaster, but maybe that was normal? The door to the bathroom had been kicked repeatedly and was destroyed. I spoke with the male and he said that they got into an argument about them speaking to other people. He said that he did not lay hands on her, but that she pushed him. The female told another officer that they were arguing about speaking to other people and that the male choked her. She did not have any marks on her throat. Initially, she did not want to press charges. We do not need her to want to press charges, but the district attorneys are very hesitant to accept charges when the victim is uncooperative. Some friends came to pick her up and after talking with them, she decided to press charges. The district attorney accepted aggravated assault by choking charges, a serious felony, against the male. The DA wanted the female to write out a statement describing what happened and he wanted pictures of the female and of the apartment. A little later, the neighbor who called us came out and I spoke with him. He said that he heard the female yell, "Why did you choke me?" He went on to say that he hears them arguing and fighting all of the time. Well, they will not be arguing or fighting until someone posts bail for the choker.

Tuesday I was solo again. We were very short handed in my beat. At roll call I was given an alert slip by the desk sergeant. Generally, an alert slip is generated when a citizen calls our patrol station and explains that they are having some type of on-going problem, like a homeless person sleeping at their business or cars racing down the street. The office staff will ask what time and day the problem is taking place and then assign the alert slip to an officer working at that time. The officer will check the area for the listed problem and take any necessary steps to solve the problem. My alert slip was for the Mayor's house, she lives in my beat. She went on vacation for a week and wanted officers to keep an eye on her residence while she was out of town. This was not any special treatment, any citizen can call and get the same service. 

After the alert slip, I was dispatched to a welfare check. I wrote about it here http://will7079.blogspot.com/2011/07/indoor-rain.html

Later, I checked by with a DWI unit on a suspicious person at a local bar. The call slip said that there was a male inside of the bar that had an open warrant for a DWI. The caller turned out to be a friend that had posted a $1000 bond for the suspect. The suspect quit complying with the court's orders, a warrant was issued and the bond was forfeited. The caller wanted her money back. She found him at the bar and called us to come and pick him up. We got him out of the bar and while searching him incident to the arrest found a dime bag of cocaine in his pocket. A misdemeanor warrant just turned into a felony possession case. Afterwards, when I was getting the caller's information for the report, I asked her if the suspect had any other substance problems and she immediately responded with "cocaine." He was supposed to deploy with his unit to the Middle East soon, but I do not think that the will be making that trip.

Finally, on Wednesday we had a decent number of units and A and I rode together. This was day 2 of the alert slip at the mayor's house, she is scheduled to come back into town on the 16th. The majority of the shift was very boring. At the end of the shift, we checked by with D on an assault call. A homeless female had been assaulted by her boyfriend. She called the police from a pay phone at a convenience store. She then led us to the bridge under which she and her boyfriend sleep. We did not find him under the bridge, but he was nearby on a park bench, sound asleep. He claimed that he did not assault her and that she is crazy. She said that she was sleeping naked under the bridge. She was startled awake when her boyfriend grabbed her and dragged her into the middle of the road where he then punched her in the face. It was not our call, so we did not have to decide who to believe. D took the boyfriend to jail.

A and I rode together again on Thursday. During roll call, we were shown a video captured by a local news station. The subject was a day shift officer from our station. Following an attempted robbery and 15 minute foot chase, a 16 year old suspect was taken into custody. He was hand cuffed and being led back to a patrol car. A female officer walked up to him and punched him in the face. This was captured on video by a news helicopter. The officer has been suspended with pay pending the outcome of an internal affairs investigation. I am not going to try to justify her actions. I have no idea what was going through her head when she made the decision to strike a hand cuffed suspect that was not actively resisting. In fact, the video does not look good at all. I will be very surprised if she is able to keep her job.

Thursday night, we were short handed, which is getting to be the norm. We started out the night by running the alert slip at the Mayor's house. All seemed fine with her house. Then we checked by with N and K on a major accident with a rollover. It turned out to be a one vehicle accident. A Nissan Rogue had rolled a few times and came to a stop against a power pole. According to witnesses, the driver then climbed over the passenger to exit the vehicle and he then fled the scene. The witnesses then helped the passenger out of the vehicle. The passenger was complaining that she was having difficulty breathing and was transported to the hospital. Then we tried to determine what had happened. Our best guess was the Rogue was driving at a high rate of speed, ran a stop sign, left the road and hit a 4 foot tall mound of dirt. The mound acted like a ramp and the Rogue flew about 15 feet, turned sideways, struck a fire hydrant and started rolling. A few minutes later, I walked back towards the stop sign and saw a male that matched the description of the driver. I took him into custody and returned him to the scene. He said that he had been drinking at a nearby bar, but he had no idea how the accident happened. He said that the vehicle belonged to his mother's boyfriend. He said that the passenger was a family friend. At that time, A and I went to the hospital to check on the passenger. She was in a lot of pain and very mad at the driver. She said that he just started driving really fast, blew the stop sign, hit the mound, and the vehicle started rolling. An emergency room doctor showed us her x-rays and told us that she had at least 4 broken ribs and a partially collapsed lung, which explained the pain and her difficulty breathing. K called the district attorney's office and they took DWI charges against the driver. He refused a breathalyzer, but since he was involved in an accident with an injury, a blood draw was mandatory.

IMG_0331.MOV Watch on Posterous

Video of the wrecker rolling the Rogue back onto its 4 wheels. 

I was the print unit on Friday. They would not allow A and I to ride together. They did not want us to be tied up on a print call as a two man unit. So, A was the only officer in her beat. Not cool on a Friday night. The shift started out rather slow, and then the bottom dropped out around 1:30 AM. For about three hours, A, a Sergeant and myself were the only officers running calls in the district. Everyone else was out of service, either actually working, or doing a good job of avoiding work. None of the calls were of any significance. Then we were dispatched to a major accident between a cab and a Ford Escape. The drivers had conflicting statements and we did not find anyone at fault. The rest of the night was dealing with drunks, disturbances, assaults, and loud parties, typical Friday night.

That concludes another week on patrol.

Posted via email from will7079's posterous

Indoor Rain

Last night I was dispatched to a welfare check. Usually, a welfare check drops when someone is worried about another person for one reason or another and wants us to check on them. Maybe the person did not show up for work or missed an appointment. Maybe that person has talked recently about suicide. However, the call last night was not usual. The call slip said that at midnight, downstairs neighbor Laverne (names have been changed), was worried about her elderly upstairs neighbor, Shirley. Laverne had tried calling Shirley and knocking on her door. Shirley's car was parked in the complex's parking lot so she assumed that Shirley should be home. So far, a normal welfare check call. Now, you are wondering as I was, why was Laverne trying to contact Shirley at midnight? Maybe some hot gossip, have some wine, watch a movie? Nope, nope, and nope.

Shirley lives directly upstairs from Laverne. Laverne got into bed at 10 PM and was pleased with herself that she had gotten to bed so early. A short time later, Laverne heard what she thought was rain outside of the sliding glass door that is in her bedroom. A few minutes later, Laverne started to feel the rain. She looked up and water started pouring down onto her bed from the running ceiling fan. It was not a drip, not a trickle, but a good sized stream of hot water was flowing out of the fan. Laverne thought that she could hear a faucet running and her imagination started running wild. She thought that her upstairs neighbor, Shirley had turned on the water in her bathroom and then slipped and fell and hit her head and knocked herself out. The water had continued to run until it was overflowing and found a way down through her fan. Sounds reasonable, at least when your fan is raining on you.

So, Laverne called us to come and check on Shirley. I knocked on her door and banged on her windows. Laverne kept trying to call Shirley. After about 10 minutes of this, we heard some noise from inside Shirley's apartment. A conversation ensued. She asked who was at her door? The police. Why are the police at my door? Please open the door and we will explain everything to you. But, I am scared to open the door. How do I know you are the police? Use your peep hole and check out the snazzy uniform. That did the trick and Shirley opened her door. We explained about the water and she let us check her apartment. There was no overflowing running water coming from her apartment. We apologized for scaring her. She understood and was pleased that her neighbors cared enough to check on her. At about that same time, Fonzie, the land lord showed up in his Porsche. We met Fonzie at the affected apartment and showed him the water. Now, it was starting to pool along the edges of the room and small trickles were starting to come down the walls. We asked the Fonz if he knew where the water shut off valves were located since we could not find them. He had no idea, which was not entirely surprising. A short time later, I checked on the flow of water again and it had decreased dramatically. I am not a plumber nor do I play one on TV, but I think that it was a hot water heater that let go or burst. That would explain the hot water. It would also explain the flow of water ebbing, since hot water heaters only hold so much water. To Laverne's credit, she was taking it well and trying to laugh about it. It was hard not to laugh. It is not every day that you see flowing water being thrown all over a room by a running ceiling fan.

Posted via email from will7079's posterous

The week on patrol, May 9-13, 2011

I had another four night work week. I was by myself for two nights and
rode with A for the other two. I was off on Thursday night in order to
attend Mama Mia, the musical, with the family.

I was solo on Monday. There was a decent number of units and not very
many calls. I was dispatched to a wagon call at a grocery store to
check by with a deputy who was working security on a drug possession
case. This could have been good or bad. If the deputy wants to dump it
all on me, it will suck. Otherwise it should be ok. Not that I mind
helping, but doing someone else's work is a little annoying. By
policy, on wagon calls the transporting officer is only responsible
for transport and filing charges. This time, it turned out to be easy,
very easy. The deputy just needed a name, he had his own county
vehicle to transport the prisoner. It was the easiest wagon call ever.

Things went crazy at the end of the shift. A condo blew up in two
district and lots of officers were needed for traffic control. Then a
code 1 sexual assault in progress dropped. Somehow, I got lucky and
did not get sent to either.

I was by myself again on Tuesday night. Once again, we had a decent
number of units and not very many calls to run. I was dispatched to an
auto theft in the club area. I knew immediately that the vehicle had
most likely been towed. I arrived to find a musician looking for his
car. I gave him the phone number to the tow line and sure enough, his
car had been towed. He said that he had just paid his rent and could
nor afford to get the car. So, I gave him a ride home. His night had
been bad enough without having to walk 10 miles home.

A and I rode together on Wednesday. Early in the shift, we were
dispatched to a trespasser. A male jumped a fence at a construction
site. The company had a video surveillance unit on the site and
watched him in real time jump the fence. We arrived and I saw the
suspect immediately. I got on the PA and told him to come out. He went
to the back of the building where I saw him again and ordered him to
come to the fence and climb out. Luckily, he listened. I would have
been less than happy to have to jump the fence. He told us that he was
being chased by two guys and that is why he jumped the fence.
Possible, but unlikely. He was not wanted, and since he did not make
me jump the fence to get him, we took him home.

I had a hospital assignment the second half of the shift. I was not
relieved by dayshift until 7 AM. It took the officer an hour to get
from roll call to the hospital to relieve me. He said that he had to
tie up the shop and get another one. For what? If it starts and will
run, why not drive it to the hospital and then tie it up after you get
relieved. That way, the officer already at the hospital can go home on
time. I was a little annoyed.

Thursday was Mama Mia night. It turned out to be an entertaining
musical and the kids really enjoyed it.

I rode with A again on Friday. Our first call was for illegal parking.
We left parking tickets on 4 vehicles. Then we drove off while three
wreckers waited and watched.

Later, we checked by with AR on a welfare check. A male had told
someone in California that he was going to kill himself on the 16th.
The person in CA wanted us to make sure that he was OK. Since it was
not yet the 16th, I figured that he would be just fine. We checked on
him. He had no job and was broke. He then said that this was the third
time that officers had checked on him in the last 10 days. He then
denied that he had told anyone that he wanted to kill himself. I did
not believe him, but we had no other information to go on and left him
alone.

Afterwards, we were getting a drink at Chevron. A noticed a guy making
a bee line for us. He came in and said, "not that you care but we just
got thrown out of a cab by a rude cabdriver." The cabdriver had said
that they were disrespectful. So, the cabbie dropped them off in the
parking lot and drove off. We offered to get them another cab. We
needed a name and he said "Frank Billingsly, Channel 2 news", I wanted
to respond, "I am William Sumner, police." He and his "partner" who
was wearing a see through v-neck sweater were both very intoxicated.
They left in another cab.

Our last call was a disturbance at apartment. I called the complainant
and he came out to tell us what was going on. He said that his
girlfriend just freaked out and started breaking stuff inside the
apartment. He wanted her to leave but did not want her to go to jail.
So, I asked what he expected from us. He just wanted us to talk to
her. It was time to put on the counselor hat. We found her crying in
an upstairs bedroom. She said that she had just found out that he was
cheating on her. We convinced her to take a cab home. We started
walking toward the front door. I was in front, she was behind me, and
A was behind her. I left the apartment to call a cab over radio. All
the while, I assumed that A was right behind me. All of the sudden, A
got on the radio and said, "Will, come back inside." I quickly went
back to the apartment and the girl was cuffed and on the ground.
Apparently after I exited the apartment, she tried to go through A in
order to get back upstairs. Wrong choice. I apologized to A. I guess I
can not let her out of my sight, just crazy.

That concludes another week on patrol.

Posted via email from will7079's posterous

The week on patrol, May 2-6, 2011

I had a nice four day work week. I rode solo for three nights and then
partnered with J on Thursday. I took Friday night off to rest up for
Metro Dash.

A cool front came in Monday night. It was about 20 degrees colder than
it has been. It was a nice, cool, slow night, with not too many calls
and plenty of units.

I checked by with J on a meet the firefighter call at a local 24 hour
deli. A guy was cold and just wanted somewhere to go. So, he called an
ambulance first and said that he was diabetic. They checked his sugar
and it was fine. Next, he said that he was having seizures. They
checked his blood pressure and it was fine. Then he went for broke and
decided that he wanted to kill himself. That is when the paramedics
called us. J took him to the psychiatric center where he was admitted.
J completed the Emergency Detention Order and he will be there for
three days getting evaluated. On the way to the center, the guy told J
that he uses bath salts as a drug. He says that it is an amphetamine,
he dissolves the salt in water and then injects it. People will try
anything to get high.

Tuesday night was still nice and cool. I started the shift by checking
by on a burglary of a motor vehicle in progress. The call slip
contained a lot of detailed information, more so than most. But, it
was not helpful, nothing in the area matched the information.

A little later, I went by on a loud noise disturbance with J. The same
call has dropped every week on the same night for the last 2 months.
He has tried being nice, tried writing tickets, tried being mean, and
nothing is working. So, now he will go the route of calling TABC and
the fire Marshall. The club manager does not understand that the bass
can not shake the walls across the street on a Tuesday night.

My last call was a burglar alarm at the SWAT office. It was false as
usual. They accidentally set it off about once a month.

My first call Wednesday night was a suspicious event. A man knocked on
a guys door and then said that he needed help and wanted to come
inside. At least, the guy was smart enough to not let him in and then
he called the police. The suspect left the area at that point and I
was not able to find him.

My last call was a person down at 5:15 AM. P and C checked by with me.
I arrived to find guy passed out in his vehicle with the driver's door
open and blocking a lane of the road. He was difficult to wake up. We
finally got him up and awake and walking. C and P offered to complete
the tow slip and I transported him to jail for public intoxication.
While C and J were waiting on the tow truck, a barefoot female walked
up and said that she had been raped. So, they got an ambulance back
out there and she was transported to the hospital to complete a rape
kit.

On Thursday afternoon I rode overtime with J. We wrote 10 tickets with
16 violations. We had another litterer while were writing the ticket.
The driver threw a cigarette butt out his window. It is crazy. It must
be second nature to the people to the point that they do not even
think about it.

J and I rode together Thursday night as well. We were dispatched to a
burglary of a motor vehicle. A man found some stuff on his doorstep
and noticed that the car (not his car) parked in front of his house
had a broken window. Initially, it looked like a burglary of a motor
vehicle. We looked around a little and found some more stuff around
the side of the house. We found more belongings from inside the
vehicle. To us it looked like a guy had intentionally broken out the
window, took stuff out of car and threw it around. To top it off, the
guy took a dump on some of the stuff and then used a shirt from the
car to wipe his rear. So, we think it was personal.

Later, we were dispatched to a minor accident where one driver failed
to stop and leave information. The driver that stayed was from France.
He said that the other car ran a stop sign, hit his rental car and
drove off.

Right around drunk thirty, there was a shooting in the new major club
area of the city. An extra job officer started screaming on radio. He
made it sound like he had been shot or had shot at someone. So,
everyone starts flying in that direction. Come to find out, it was
gang bangers shooting gang bangers.

That concludes another week on patrol.

Posted via email from will7079's posterous

The week on patrol, April 25-29, 2011

I was the print unit two nights, had a partner tow nights, and worked
a little overtime this week .

I rode by myself as the print unit on Monday night. There were no
print or picture calls all night. Early in the shift, R tried to stop
a motorcycle. The motorcycle did not stop and the chase was on. I
started heading towards the chase, and the motorcycle came right
towards me. R was way behind the motorcycle, so I became the primary
unit and started calling the chase. The motorcycle was some type of
V-twin sportster bike, and the rider was blowing red lights and stop
signs. He nearly laid it down tuning north and had to drive through a
yard but managed to stay upright. On the straight aways he would pull
away from me with ease and I would catch up if he made a few turns. On
one straight away, he blew through a stop sign and missed t-boning
another police car by inches. He finally made it to the freeway where
I lost him. He was a little ahead and I saw him enter the freeway but
then he went over an overpass and I never saw him again. He just
disappeared. I was never able to get a plate number, and am not sure
that there was a plate on the motorcycle. The chase was fun,
frustrating, and very dangerous all at the same time.

P and I rode together on Tuesday. We ran 9 calls. There were not very
many units. We ran a bunch of illegal parking calls and issued 7
parking tickets. We ran a few loud noise calls, 2 at the same bar, and
a few disturbances. None of them were very interesting.

We checked by with W on an assault with a deadly weapon in progress
call. The call slip said that a lady was chasing a male around a car
with knife in a club parking lot. When we arrived, they were both
still there. Neither of them had warrants and neither wanted to do
anything. They said that they had an argument, but that nothing else
happened. The call slip said that they were yelling and that she was
trying to puncture his tire with the knife. They said that they were
messing with a hub cap, and nothing else. It was W's call, and he let
them go home together. Not the choice that I would have made, but it
was not my call.

I was by myself on Wednesday night. P was in the office and A had a
rookie with her. There were not many units but there were not very
many calls. I provided traffic control for an accident. A female
failed to yield the right of way while turing left. The accident was
very similar to the one that I was involved in last October.

Thursday afternoon, A and I worked some overtime. The OT program
wanted production, so we wrote tickets. During the overtime shift,
over the radio B said, "I found the DWI, he has a flat tire. Does
anyone speak Asian?" Another officer asked "which Asian?" The
dispatcher responded with, "I don't think we know yet." A few minutes
later, Vietnamese was the winner, which qualifies as a Asian language.

A short time later, during one of our traffic stops, the female driver
told me that she could not see the illegal turn sign because her eye
was infected and dilated. But yet she was driving. She proceeded to
show us the eye drops and the receipt for the eye doctor. I said that
maybe you should not be driving if you can't see. Sounded reasonable
to me. She responded with, "but I can see ok." Maybe the eye problem
just prevented her from seeing traffic signs?

A and I rode together for our regular shift as well. We were
dispatched to a code 1 assault in progress in government housing. A
pair of drunk brothers were fighting with each other. Their mother
wanted one of them out of the house. He was a registered sex offender.
We did not have much else to do with him and didn't want him to come
back, so we took him to his half-way-house.

At dinner time, we were dispatched to a wagon call for K at B's
apartment complex. A guy was trying to sneak into the parking garage
and Kenny caught him. He had 8 crack rocks with him along with $350.
He had just smoked crack as well and was high as a kite. We
transported him to jail
for K and still made it to dinner on time.

I was the print unit on Friday. I had two picture calls. One of them
was for a burglary of a building. The suspect hit two offices at a
high rise building. He came into the building through a "not very"
secure parking garage. He used a fire extinguisher to break a hole in
the glass part of the door and then reached through and hit the button
that unlocked the door. He then went up to the 8th floor where people
were working and asked to borrow a ladder, which they gave him. He
then burglarized an office on the 4th floor and the second floor. Both
times he went through the office of the person in charge. He threw
files everywhere and made a big mess in both offices. I took pictures
of a shoe print on the front door of one office. We had no idea if he
was still in the building. There was no way to search the whole
building since there was construction going on. There were not any
cameras in the building either. It was a little strange.

The second picture call was for a family violence assault call. It was
a nice house and according to the female, had never happened before.
She said that her husband had, "flipped out and grabbed her and hit
her in the mouth during an argument." He went to jail for family
violence assault and I photographed her injuries.

That concludes another week on patrol.

Posted via email from will7079's posterous

The week on patrol, April 18-22, 2011

The call volume was light this week, which was good since we did not
have many units on the street. I rode with a partner two nights, was
by myself, two nights, and was off on Friday.

P and I rode together on Monday night. We rode his numbers, 30's beat.
We were dispatched to two loud noise calls. The first one was an alarm
at a business that kept going off. The alarm company could not contact
a key holder and there were not any old call slips that had phone
numbers for the key holder. So, the alarm just kept going off. The
second one was at a regular spot, a loud bar. They built an apartment
complex almost right on top of the bar. Not the best location. We
asked them to turn down the outside speakers.

Later, we were dispatched to a person down. He was BWI, biking while
intoxicated. He fell down and smashed his chin on the curb. An
ambulance checked him out and cleaned him up. P wanted to cut him a
break so we put his bike in the trunk and drove him home.

P went home in the middle of the shift because his daughter was sick.
I rode solo and the rest of the night and it was quiet.

Tuesday was a quiet night. I was dispatched to a call that came in as
a robbery at a 24 hour deli. I arrived within 3 minutes. The call slip
said that the complainant crossed the street to the police storefront.
So I went to the storefront. Then the call slip was updated to say
that they were not robbed. No one was at the storefront and there was
no answer on the call back, strange.

Wednesday was another quiet night. I was by myself again and there
were not many units. The rumors about layoffs persist. It was the talk
of roll call. There have not been classified officers laid off in at
least the last 26 years. It does not make any sense. Why not ask
officers if they want to furlough for a year? They have done that in
the past. It does not seem like they are looking at other options.

I worked some overtime with J on Thursday. We wrote 10 tickets which
had 15 total violations. J and I rode together during our regular
shift as well. The Captain came to roll call to address the layoff
rumors. He says that the numbers are accurate and it might happen, but
is a long shot.

We ran lots of loud noise calls, illegal parking calls, minor
disturbances, and were moderately busy throughout the night. We
checked by on a disturbance with a weapon. A guy threatened to stab a
bartender after his friend was kicked out of the bar. Then the guy
tried to leave just as officers were arriving. S grabbed him. But when
he went to put cuffs on him, he tried to run. At the jail, he tried to
run again. He turned a misdemeanor into a felony and was charged with
evading and escape.

Our last call of the night was an auto theft in government housing. A
young female came home from the club and her SUV was gone. It had been
parked right in front of her apartment. There was no broken glass and
she claimed to have all of the keys. Her mom claimed to have seen the
vehicle drive off with three other vehicles behind it. We think that
she loaned it to someone at the bar and was now sporting it stolen.
Sometimes you never know.

That concludes another week on patrol.

Posted via email from will7079's posterous