Sunday, April 11, 2010

Okies and alcohol

I was assigned a new rookie, C, last Tuesday. He is in third phase, which is good for me. That means that he has some idea of what is going on. After roll call, we went to the parking garage and loaded up my stuff and then we went to his truck. On the back window in large white letters was an OU sticker. I immediately told him that we were going to have to do something about that sticker. He said that he had seen the UT sticker on my car and knew that there would be a problem once I saw his truck. Turns out that C graduated from OU last May. His father retired from our department a short time ago after 27 years of service. C seems to have a good head on his shoulders and is a quick learner, despite the fact that he is a Sooner.

Our first few nights together were very uneventful. We spent some of the time talking about football. Imagine that. Last night got a little more interesting. We had just left a loud noise call when we saw a green SUV driving with a flat back tire. It was obvious from the condition of the tire and wheel that he had been driving on it for quite some time. That usually means that the driver is intoxicated. That held true this time as well. After we stopped the SUV, a cab stopped and the driver told us that he had tried to help our driver. He saw him drive his SUV into a ditch and then pass out. The cab driver tried to take his keys, but was not successful. The driver woke up, drove off, and then slammed into a curb which is what popped the tire. The driver was too drunk to answer questions, could not get his wallet out of his pocket, and definitely could not stand up. We called for a DWI unit to come to the scene.

The first DWI unit that was enroute to us observed a truck driving erratically on the freeway. The DWI unit tried to stop the truck and the truck fled from the officer. The truck then went out of control, slammed into a wall, flipped over and caught on fire. The driver escaped from the burning truck and then tried to fight with the officers. Turns out that while on the freeway, he had hit an off duty officer's vehicle and tried to get away. Needless to say, that DWI unit did not make it to us to take our drunk. His dispatcher was kind enough to find us another unit to take our drunk.

That brings us to tonight. Right after roll call, we checked by on an accident on the freeway. A driver that left the scene, had caused two accidents. One was a four car and the other was a two car. When we arrived, there were cars and debris all over the freeway. The driver that left the scene had apparently been driving almost perpendicular to the traffic on the freeway. He came across the freeway and was clipped by a Camry. This sent him into the passenger side of a BMW. Then he hit the gas, made a u-turn and slammed into the driver's door of a Mercedes Benz. This is all on a Saturday night on the freeway when everyone is driving at least 60 mph. After hearing what that driver had done, it was amazing that no one was seriously injured. Another officer handled the two car accident and C took care of the four vehicle FSGI accident.

After leaving that scene, as we were heading to complete the accident report, we rolled up on another major accident. A drunk driver had run a red light and hit another vehicle almost head-on. Luckily for C, another unit was already on the scene and took care of that accident report. We just provided traffic control. Afterwords, C said that after dealing with so many drunk people in just one week on night shift, he understood what they might have been thinking when they instituted prohibition.

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