The week on patrol, May 1-8, 2010

In the past I have sent out updates to the blog on an almost daily basis. After some thought, I have decided to experiment with sending out weekly updates. Sometimes, if I feel like an event or story warrants it, I will send it out sooner. I will see how this goes and possibly tweak it in the future.
This week was a little different. I had a training class on Wednesday, so I was off Tuesday night. CC finished up evaluation and I started evaluating W, one of CC's classmates.

The tac team at my station had signed up to take a covert clearing training class at the academy that is taught by the SWAT team. The tac team ended up having a schedule conflict, so they offered their spots in the class to the patrol officers. Ten of us from my station showed up for the class and we all met on the SWAT deck at the academy Wednesday morning. The goal of the class was to teach officers to safely and effectively search and clear buildings while working as a team.

The first hour was in the classroom going over techniques. The next few hours we spent practicing the techniques while searching a small and large apartment in a four person team. Three members of my team were from our station and we picked up another officer from another station. Then we broke for lunch. After lunch they had some scenarios for us to run through. This time we had a five person team and we were all from my station. These scenarios had SWAT officers inside posing as suspects. Our goal was to search safely and to not get shot by the SWAT officers. They had pistols loaded with simunition rounds. They are small plastic rounds that will get your attention if they hit you. They told us that they would only shoot us if we did something stupid, such as not cover our backsides or miss an area that should be searched. We went through the two scenarios, found and arrested or shot the bad guys and none of us got shot. It was great training and made for a fun day.

Wednesday and Thursday night were boring and uneventful. Each night CC wrote two property crime reports and we made a few traffic stops. People are still leaving their laptops in their vehicles and are surprised to find them gone when they return from the bar or club or restaurant. And people are still making the same illegal left turns.

Friday night was a little more interesting. It was CC's last night of evaluation and we were dispatched to a robbery. A 22 year old female parked her car in the street across from her residence. When she opened the door, a male was there and snatched her purse from her. The male then demanded the keys to her car. She hesitated (dumb but understandable). The male threatened to take out his knife. She gave over the keys. Then as she was stepping out of the car, the male yanked down her dress exposing her and tried to grab her and pull her into the car. Her survival instinct kicked in and she fought. She was able to get free and ran away. He drove off in her car. She was able to give us a good description of the male and she knew her license plate number which is amazing in itself. Luckily she was not injured and hopefully we catch the basterd.

While we were dealing with her, another officer, SK, stumbled upon 5 young females in the parking lot of a local high school. The girls were all around 14 years old. They were there to meet three males. One of the females had met one of the males at a park and through a social network, set up this meeting. A short time later, the males arrived. They were all around 19 years old. They had marijuana and condoms in the car. One of them was a sex offender. There is no telling what all they had planned for the girls. All of the girl's parents were called and they all came to pick up their daughters. The girls were all supposed to be spending the night at one of the girl's homes. They left that house, went to a skating rink, and then took the city bus to the high school. If one of those girls was my daughter, I am not sure that she would ever see the light of day again before she graduated. They have no idea how fortunate they were that SK found them and helped them get home safely.

CC's last evaluation call of week one was a one car major accident. Three females were trying to find a club. The freeway was about tom split and they were not sure which way to go. So, naturally, they slammed into the traffic barrels. They totaled their car, but luckily for them, they only had minor injuries.
I started evaluating another rookie, W, on Saturday. This is his second week of evaluation. He went to college and has a tv/film degree. He worked in that industry for a few years and then decided to do what he had always want to do, be a police officer.

A hour into the shift, we were dispatched to an assault in progress. That is classified as a code 1 call which means lights and sirens. The call slip stated that two males were in the parking lot fighting and throwing bottles. Then the slip was updated to say that one male was fighting with two females. When we arrived, only one side of the altercation was still on the scene. The other group left before we arrived. The location was a Mexican food restaurant that has a very nice patio/cabana area.

One group of females was in one cabana and two couples (2 males and 2 females) were in the next cabana. The males decided to start throwing empty beer bottles into the nearby parking lot. They must have thought that stupid juvenile behavior always impresses the females. One of the ladies from the group of females decided to say something to the males because her vehicle was parked nearby. This started an argument between that lady and the other females (the ones with the bottle throwers). That argument turned physical, with one lady kicking another lady. When one of the bottle throwers saw this, he jumped up and pushed the lady that had just kicked his date. When he pushed her, this caused the raised cabana to roll back about 2 feet from the stairs creating a hole that two females fell into. Then more beer was thrown and finally the couples left and we were called. The females had all been out celebrating Mother's Day. They had not planned on being in a fight, but now they have a story to tell.

That brings me to the end of another week. I think that W is going to be my last rookie for awhile. The next class of rookies does not graduate from the academy until September. For a few months I am not going to have a rookie to do all of the work. It will be a nice break.

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Another week on patrol

It was an interesting week at work. I finished training the Sooner and I started evaluating CC. I rode one night by myself and another with a fellow officer. On the nights that I was not training or evaluating, I was dispatched to great training calls. Figures.
The week started out slow with my final day of training C. He started evaluation the following night and should not have any problems. The following night was my first night with CC. He is from Venezuela and has been in the States for 10 years. He was an engineer before becoming an officer. The night was very slow. There was very little traffic and no calls for service. We were able to make three traffic stops and checked by with another unit on a family disturbance. A husband pushed his wife and the district attorney took Class A assault charges on the husband. It was a perfect training call so we took over.
CC was still on his trainers schedule, so he had Thursday and Friday nights off. He switches to my schedule on Saturday. That meant that I was without a rookie for two nights. On the first night I was dispatched to a found property call. I arrived to find a business owner who had found a homeless person's property behind her business. There were two multi tools, a pair of pliers, a box cutter, a hat, some papers, and a wallet. The business owner asked me what she could have done with the stuff and I suggested that the trash was an option. Then I dutifully took custody of the crap, wrote down her information, tagged the property into the property room, and wrote a report. Outstanding police work.

Later I was dispatched to an assault / injury / just occurred. Most of those calls are simple, straight forward report calls. Gather information and then regurgitate it in report form. Not this time. A 54 year old schizophrenic female that is off her meds (of course) went out drinking with her daughter. On the way home, they get into an argument that turns physical. The daughter beat the crap out of mom. Then the daughter kicked mom out of the car. Mom's left eye was severely swollen and she would not stop crying. Then she tells me that she wants to kill herself and has tried unsuccessfully in the past. So, I have to cuff her and take her to the hospital. Since she is drunk and injured, I can't just take her to the psychiatric hospital. I have to take her to the ER where she will be allowed to sober up and her injuries will be treated. Then she will be transferred to the psychiatric unit. Once there, we go through triage and are assigned a bed. Then I have to do an Emergency Detention Order. Then I have to write an assault / mental illness report. It was a perfect training call, but I had no one to train.

The next night I rode with another officer in the beat. We are friends but had never ridden together before. We were dispatched to an assault with a deadly weapon in the ward. When we arrived the suspect was gone. We took the report info and left. Twenty minutes later the call dropped again. The person with the gun was back. Six units quickly converged on the area. We saw the suspect and he took off running. S and B took off running after him. The suspect jumped a fence and ran for a few blocks and then disappeared. Just vanished. We set up a perimeter and had a dog search but never found him. However, we were able to find out his identity. B then filed an evading arrest warrant on him and found out that he is wanted for possession of a controlled substance. That is why he was running.
After that we were sent to a three car accident with a disturbance in the gayborhood. We arrived to find a convertible BMW, an Explorer, and a Honda Accord parked on the side of the road. After talking to the drivers we found out that the BMW rear ended the Accord which then hit the Explorer. The driver of the BMW was a real PITA. His statement to me was "I do not know what happened" without any further elaboration. He received a ticket for failing to control speed. His BMW was towed because the radiator was destroyed in the accident. As the car was being towed away, the man began crying. He walked over to us and said "I do not think that it is fair that you are taking my car away from me. That is my baby. I hurt my baby."
Saturday night arrived and I was able to get back to evaluating. CC and I helped B with an accident involving a DWI. The driver was hard of hearing. So he got out of his vehicle sounding crazy. He was not crazy, just sounded that way. Going through his vehicle we found Cystic Fibrosis medications. Sure enough, the driver and his twin brother have CF. We talked about that for awhile. I made sure that he was not diabetic, since a diabetic reaction can look like intoxication. He had recently turned 21 and went out and had a few drinks. He had been driving southbound in the northbound lanes of a city street when he struck another truck. It was very fortunate that no one was injured. He was charged with DWI.
We also had a robbery / car jacking. A man was driving his truck and stopped at a red light. While he was stopped, two females and a male opened the passenger side door and jumped into the truck. They pushed the man out and began driving off. The man jumped into the bed of his truck. Bad idea. This is not the movies. The truck sped up and then made a quick u-turn throwing the man out of the bed of the truck and onto the street. Luckily he was not run over by another vehicle but he did have some road rash. Then he tells us that he knew the people that had jumped into his truck, one of the females was his ex-girlfriend. Ok, my BS meter was now on full alert. We asked if he was meeting them there. No. Why were they there? No idea. Did they know you would be in this area (20 miles from where he lived). No. Did you loan them the truck? No. He stuck to his they just happened to be there and jumped into the truck story. Whatever dude. Just because you say it, does not make it true.

Next week I will finish evaluating CC and I get to go to a training class in the new SWAT house at the academy. I am looking forward to that.

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Golf and Did he really just say that?

Terry, my Dad, and I went to Southwyck to play golf Tuesday morning. It was a cool and breezy morning. There were quite a few players on the course but the pace of play was steady. After a quick front nine, we found ourselves on the tenth tee. I hit first and promptly put one in a back yard. It was my first bad swing of the day. As I went back to the cart to get another ball, Terry and my Dad hit their tee shots. Terry's followed mine and Dad hit it right down the middle.

It was my turn to hit another tee shot. I was a little upset by the first shot, so I swung about as hard as possible at this one. I crushed it over the right side fairway bunker and had a little less than 75 yards to the green. Terry hit his second shot towards the green. Dad was about 140 yards out and he hit a nice shot to the middle of the green. I had walked up to my ball and Dad had the cart. As I was getting ready to hit my shot, the group behind us decided to hit their tee shots. Two of their shots rolled past where Dad was in the fairway and stopped before reaching me. I played my shot onto the green without noticing their balls. As Dad drove towards the green he noticed the two balls in the fairway. He had not seen them roll past him. He thought that someone had just left two balls in the fairway so he picked them up. When he got to the green and told me about them, I said that they were probably from the group behind us. They had hit too early and had hit into us was my guess.

We putted out on the green and started walking back to the carts. That was when one of the guys in the group behind us walked up and asked if we had seen any balls in the fairway. I said under my breath, "here we go." Dad said that he had seen the balls and that he had picked them up. He took them out of the cart, threw them back towards the male, and said in a reasonable tone, "don't hit into us again." This was a polite response. Hitting golf balls into the group in front of you is dangerous. Dad has been hit before. The male immediately said in a very aggressive manner, "F*** you" to my Dad. Not sorry for hitting into you, not you didn't have to do that, not thanks for returning the balls, but f*** you.

To set the scene, the male was probably in his 50's, about 5'10" and 175 pounds. He looked to be in decent shape. I am 6' and 205 pounds and look to be in better shape than I am, and my Dad is 6' and a few more pounds. For the male to see us and immediately jump to f*** you, I was amazed. I started walking towards him. I wanted to be between him and my Dad. I told him to pick up his balls and walk away. He stared at me for a few seconds and I moved a few steps closer to him, we were about 10 yards apart at that point. I waved my hand at him to back away and he did, telling us to mind our own business and go play. I said "your welcome" and walked back to the cart.

As we were about to drive off, one of his playing partners drove up and apologized. He had hit first and had not realized with the wind that he could hit it that far and he had not seen us. He apologized a few more times and we left it at that.

After the incident as Terry and I were talking about it, he was amazed at how quickly the male had jumped to f*** you. I was as well. He had no idea who he was talking to. Saying that does not leave anywhere to back down. It was an immediate and unnecessary escalation of the incident. It is easy to imagine someone else in my shoes walking up to the male and knocking him out for saying that. The last thing I wanted was a physical confrontation, but when those are the first words, a physical confrontation is a definite possibility. Thankfully it did not come to that. We made it the rest of the way around the course without further incident. I ended up playing rather well. Maybe a little adrenaline dump in the middle of the round is a good thing?

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Nervous nelly

So far this has been a very boring week at work. Mostly property crime reports and a few traffic stops is all that we have come across. C is in his third week of phase three training and doing very well despite the fact that he is a Sooner. Our first traffic stop tonight turned out to be a good training experience.

We had just parked in the gas station parking lot at our customary intersection watching for someone to make an illegal left turn. C had not even turned off the headlights when a silver Cadillac made an illegal left turn. We stopped him a few blocks away and noticed very quickly that the driver, K, was very nervous. Some drivers show a few signs of nervousness just because they do not deal with the police very often. However, this guy was off the charts nervous. That usually means that he has outstanding warrants or is in possession of something that he does not want us to find. In this case, it turned out to be both.

C ran his name through the computer and he came back with warrants out of the city and two other agencies for traffic violations. After we confirmed that the warrants with a few phone calls, we went back up to the Cadillac and asked K to step out of the vehicle. He immediately asked if this was because of the warrants. Yes sir, it is. He was very cooperative and after cuffing and searching, C put him in the back seat of the patrol vehicle. I asked K if there was anything in his vehicle that he would not want us to find. He said no. C started "inventorying" the vehicle for the tow slip and immediately found two marijuana pipes. I am not sure about you, but I thought that those would qualify as something that I would not want the police to find.

Even though the pipes had been used to smoke marijuana and had trace amounts of the drug in the pipe, all we could charge K with was possession of drug paraphernalia, a class C misdemeanor, like a traffic ticket. The district attorney's office decided to not file any more "trace" cases for possession. That means if you have a crack pipe or marijuana pipe, your pipe gets confiscated and you get a ticket. So, the users will buy the drugs and smoke them immediately to reduce the chance that they will be found to be in possession of the drug.

Usually for a ticket, all that is required is to fill out the ticket and then complete a racial data form on the computer. But, since this involved a pipe, C had to fill out the ticket, take K to jail for the warrants, take the pipes to the narcotics division, fill out the evidence paperwork, and then write a report since we had to tag evidence. All of that work for a ticket. At least it was a new experience for C, and that makes for a good training call.

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Not at all what I expected

The night was going very smoothly for a Friday. We got our two report calls, a theft, and a burglary of a motor vehicle. Then it was time for traffic. Four stops later, four citations, and eight violations and it was time to write our reports. In the middle of our report writing, a call dropped and another unit was dispatched. The call was a person down in a vehicle. That usually means someone that has had too much to drink. They start to drive, realize they are drunk and pull over somewhere to sleep it off. I knew that the dispatched unit was meeting someone for dinner at that time, so I volunteered to run the call for her. I had no idea what I was getting us into.

We arrived on the scene to find an ambulance, a squad (specialized EMTs), and a fellow officer. Turns out that a wrecker driver was driving through the area and noticed a male leaning in through the window of a parked vehicle. That vehicle was parked haphazardly, close to the road in an apartment complex parking lot. The wrecker driver made the block and the male was gone from the window, but the male in the car was slumped over. The wrecker driver was concerned for the driver's well being or he just really wanted a tow and called the police.

The ambulance arrived to find the male, N, passed out behind then wheel. The vehicle was running and it was in park. They began to try to wake up N. After some effort, they were able to wake him up and get him standing. At that point, a fellow officer arrived. After a quick evaluation, he believed that N was intoxicated and placed him under arrest for public intoxication. While searching N incident to the arrest, the officer found a small baggie of cocaine in N's pocket. That fact alone completely changed the course of events to come, but that was only the beginning.

Now that N was going to jail, we had to do an inventory of his vehicle since it was going to be towed from the scene. Inside the vehicle we found a small pharmacy. N was in possession of Marijuana, Ecstasy, Xanax, and Hydrocodone. He had a crack pipe, Marijuana pipe, scale, hypodermic needle, and other drug paraphernalia. All of this was found in the driver's side door pocket. The rest of the vehicle was a complete disaster. There was trash and clothes and food everywhere. The car smelled strongly of body odor with a hint of death thrown in. We popped the trunk, and found the cause of the death smell. N had the carcass of a dead animal in the trunk of his vehicle. When I asked him why and what it was, N said that it was a small deer and that he was a taxidermist by trade. A little weird.

Then we tried to figure out just who N was. He did not have any form of identification in his possession. N told us his name, but he kept saying that he was born in 1952 when he looked to be about 30 years old. Usually when someone lies about their name or date of birth to us, they have an outstanding warrant. After five officers tried, P was finally able to get a real date of birth from N. After running him on the computer, we found out that he had an outstanding felony warrant for possession of a controlled substance (shocker) from a nearby county. Wonderful. That meant that we had to take him to the criminal courts building to have him warned by a magistrate before we could take him to jail. I sent off the warrant information to the dispatcher and she confirmed the warrant.

Then things went from bad to worse. N said that he wanted to kill himself and that he needed to go to a psychiatric hospital. And the hits just keep on coming. So, luckily for my rookie and I, AR came by and helped us. She took the drugs to the narcotics division to weigh and tag into evidence. Then she entered the charges for us. That saved my rookie about 3 hours of work. Other officers helped as well, it was a team effort.

After N's car was towed, we left the scene and took N to have him warned. N was very rude to the magistrate. He was cycling. Up and down. He would be polite and then freak out. The magistrate got the freak out. N said later that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and that he had been off of his prescribed medications for years. The self-medicating was not going so well. We then took him to the psychiatric center where he was evaluated by a doctor. The doctor released him the psychiatric unit of the county jail. N was down again and started talking about wanting to die and trying to bang his head. So, I made a deal with him. I told him that if he calmed down and did not bang his head on the way to the jail (10 minute drive) I would call his mother and he could talk to her. N had been requesting to talk to her because he wanted to tell her goodbye. N thought that he was going to prison for at least 10 years. N was calm on the drive and I let him talk to his wife (his mother did not answer the phone). His wife was not very understanding (who could blame her?). She said that she was tired of it all and that he had been gone from the house for a few days. She seemed more concerned with the car which was her means of transportation.

The booking process at the county jail is not very streamlined for non-county officers. Luckily, the deputies were very cool and helpful and made the 2 hours that we were there enjoyable. I sent C to the patrol car to start on the report and talked to the deputies while we were waiting for the district attorney's office to approve the charges. Once that was done, we left the county jail and went to finish the report. We finally finished everything about 4 hours after the end our shift. C did a great job on the report and everything else. It was an overwhelming scene for a rookie. It turned out to be a great training call and a little overtime every now and then is not a bad thing.

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A special place in Hell

C and I were dispatched to a theft delayed report call tonight. We arrived at a very nice retirement village. We found the correct apartment and the door was answered by a very nice lady. The lady is 87 years old. She has a bit of a difficult time getting around and uses a cane. Her mind is very sharp. Her husband died 5 years ago. He served in WW2. They had enjoyed over 60 years of marriage together. Her apartment is decorated with photos of her kids and grandkids.

Earlier in the day, she went to the post office to mail a package. She said that ever since she started using the cane, people seem to be very helpful. They hold doors for her and do other simple kind things. As she was waiting in a long line at the post office, a young man told her that he would keep her place in line and that she could go sit in some nearby chairs. She thought that was nice and went to sit down. When she sat down, she sat her purse down on a table next to her. The male in line kept up a conversation with her, distracting her. While she was talking to him another male that was sitting nearby, used that distraction to grab her wallet out of her purse. He opened it, took some things out, and then returned the wallet to her purse. The male standing in line reached the front and she got up and mailed her package. Afterwards she thanked him for the help.

She then went on to the beauty salon because she had a hair appointment. At the salon is where she realized what had happened. The male did not take her money or her credit cards. She would have realized that at the post office. You see, a few years ago due to arthritis she had to stop wearing her rings. She did not like leaving them in her apartment and liked having them with her. So she kept them in a small pocket of her wallet. The male in the post office found that pocket. He stole 5 rings and a watch out of her wallet. One of the rings was her wedding ring. Another was an antique ring that her husband had purchased for her 56 years ago.

She lost her husband 5 years ago and now she has lost the rings that he gave her. She was understandably devastated. I thought that she held things together remarkably well while we were there. At the end of our conversation she talked about her faith. She talked about how thankful she was to get the time that she had with her husband and her rings. Her reaction was a testament to her faith.

While at work I hear a lot of stories and see a lot of things. Very little bothers me. I detach myself from the stories and events so that I can do my job. However, her story bothered me. As soon as I walked into her apartment, I thought of Nana, Jen's grandmother. It was downright erie all of the similarities. I pictured Nana being the one that had been taken advantage of. Unfortunately, all it did was make me mad. I wish I had been able to find the two pricks that took her rings. I wanted to be able to make everything right for her and to find her rings. All I was able to do was to make sure that C got all of the information that we could from her in hopes that an investigator might get lucky. Sometimes there is not justice here on earth, but I sure hope there is a special place in Hell for those that take advantage of the elderly.

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Not a funny joke

Last night, C and I made our usual stop at the local Stop-N-Rob to use the restroom and to grab a fountain drink. While we were there, an older doctor wearing a white coat and scrubs walked in. He walked over to us and had a conspiratorial look on his face. It was like we area all supposed to be in on something, but C and I did not have any idea what that might be. The doctor then made a show of looking all around us, seeing who was nearby. When he was satisfied, he leaned toward us and began telling us a joke in a whisper. He is what he said.

"There is a black man, a hispanic man, and a Cuban man all riding in a car. Who is driving the car?"
Followed by the punch line.
Wait for it.
Wait for it.
"HPD"

At that point, C and I looked around to see if anyone else might have heard the good doctor's attempt at humor. When we were satisfied that no one was around, we breathed again and gave a small nervous chuckle. I have a fairly liberal sense of humor and can find humor in things that most people do not find funny. But, listening to a racist joke while in uniform in a convenience store is not real healthy for the career. We then quickly disengaged and left the store. You just never know what someone is going to say to you.

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