The probationary that I am currently training, Tray, earned the nickname, the Grim Reaper during his three weeks of training on evening shift. During those weeks, he and his trainer were dispatched to 5 dead person calls. A few were suicides and the others were natural DOA calls. So tonight, just after roll call, Susan, our regular dispatcher, sent me a text message asking if we needed a DOA for the training program. I knew Tray had done a few, but doing another while of the third phase of the training program would help to get him ready for evaluation. So, I texted Susan and told her that we would be on our way in a few minutes.
We arrived to find another officer already on the scene. Come to find out, the call actually dropped at 8:45 in the evening. We arrived on the scene at 11 PM. An early side evening shift unit got the call, passed it off to a late side evening shift unit, who passed it off to us. At least the evening shift officers had begun to gather all of the necessary information for our report.
This is what happened. Earlier this week, a 67 year old man that I will call Bob, had minor surgery on his leg. It seems that it was healing properly and he had no complications or any other major medical problems. His wife, I will call Lisa, flew to New York City yesterday to attend the US Open tennis tournament with their son who lives in NYC. This evening, Lisa calls their house and Bob's cell phone numerous times and gets no answer. So, since they live in River Oaks, Lisa called River Oaks patrol and asked them to check on her husband, Bob. Lisa also called their housekeeper and she came to the house to open the exterior gate and then the front door. The River Oaks patrol officers (they are off duty HPD officers or licensed security guards) entered the house and found Bob. They searched the rest of the house and found no signs of a struggle and no signs that the home had been broken into. All of the doors were locked and the windows were intact. It seems that Bob was walking down their stairs, lost his balance and fell forward. Towards the bottom of the staircase, the stairs turn 90 degrees. So, there is a small landing, then a wall, and then two more stairs directly to the left when coming down the stairs. Bob fell at just the wrong angle. His head hit the landing right where it meets the wall and his neck broke. His glasses snapped in half and his head forehead split open and bled.
The medical examiner came and processed the scene. They took pictures and inspected the body looking for anything that might point to something other than a tragic accident. They did not find anything. They loaded up Bob and took him to their office for an autopsy. In the mean time, two family friends had arrived. One of them came to take the family dog to her house and the other came just for support and to gather any information possible to pass on to Lisa in NYC. After the body car and the medical examiner investigator had left, the friends asked me about the house. I told them that there was a medium sized mess on the stairs and advised them that there were services that would come to the house to clean it up. They did not want Lisa to come home to find the mess, and I had to agree with them. They thought that Lisa would be home the following morning. So, they decided to tackle the clean up themselves. I sent the rookie to the car to start the report and I grabbed a handful of gloves and helped them look for cleaning supplies. We found the necessary supplies took care of the stairs. Lisa is very lucky to have friends like these two ladies. This was the first time that I had been in a situation to help clean up something like this. These two ladies were brave enough to do this for a friend, so I helped out. Each night holds something new on patrol.
As an officer you learn to distance yourself from what you see. It is a defense mechanism. I have seen all manner of things that you never wish to have to see, and very little bothers me. This scene bothered me. It hit way too close to home for me. Mom and Dad, be careful on your stairs! Take your time and if you need me to come down and take stuff up or down, call me. It is the least that I can do after you have done so much for me.
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