The week on patrol, July 19-23, 2010

This week was not quite as exciting as last week. I had a few print calls. The majority of the calls that I checked by on involved crazy people. The City changed a court attendance policy and that policy change is getting a lot of attention. Let's get to it.

Monday was a slow night, like it is most weeks. An officer asked me to come by their scene to take some photos of an assault victim. This would be the second time that I would be photographing the same victim. I took photos of her a few weeks ago when a man smacked her and drug her through the parking lot. This time, she got into a fight with her girlfriend. Yes, you read that correctly. At first, she wanted to press charges and the district attorney's office asked for photos of the victim. Then the victim decided that she did not want to press any charges and the photos became unnecessary. I have no idea why she changed her mind, but she ended up leaving the no-tell motel with her girlfriend.

Right after that I was called to a local YMCA that had been burglarized. The officers had the suspect in custody. He was caught leaving the building. Even though the suspect was in custody, the complainant wanted a desktop finger printed. The complainant was sure that there were finger prints on the desktop and wanted us to lift them. So, the arresting officers called me. I threw some dust around for the complainant, but there were not any prints on the desktop.

Tuesday night was my slowest night so far as the print unit. There were only a couple of calls to even check by on and they were mundane.

I checked by on a three-way crazy fest on Wednesday night. The call came in as a check on welfare. The caller said that a man outside of his apartment in a green car was suicidal. I arrived and did indeed find a man, T, sitting inside of a green car. I quickly patted him down for weapons and then began a conversation with him. T seemed rational and claimed that he did not want to hurt himself or anyone else. T said that he had been out looking for his girlfriend, G. They had gotten into an argument and G left the apartment and walked away. He said that he had known her for a week. They had been kicked out of their last residence and were staying in this complex with a friend. T met the guy, R, they were staying with just a few days ago. I told him that it had been an eventful week for him.

Another unit arrived and went into the apartment complex to speak with the person that called us, R. R looked like a strung out squirrel and was wearing huge glasses. He was extremely anxious and nervous. I think that he was tweaking, otherwise known as under the influence of Methamphetamines. He said that T had stolen his cell phone and the keys to his apartment. R also said that he was scared of T. About that time, G showed up. She had been hiding in another apartment. She was also very anxious and looked like she was about to have a seizure. G wanted medical attention, so we called for an ambulance. G said that she was scared of T, but she would not tell us why. She did say that he had not hit her or abused her in any way. I checked in all of T's pockets looking for the missing cell phone and keys, and came up empty. R went back into his apartment and rummaged around for a while, eventually finding his phone and keys. Then he said that T had hidden them from him. Confused yet? We were.

T had not done anything criminal. R wanted T out of his apartment. T got his stuff and started walking somewhere. At that point, G said that she would leave with T. R told her that she could stay if she wanted. She did not have to leave. And there you have the entire reason we were there. R wanted G. He made up a story and called the police so that T would be forced to leave his apartment and he could have G to himself. G decided to stay. I guess she would rather stay in the apartment than sleep in her car. It felt like we were helping them make a love connection. What a waste of time.

There was a print call waiting for me on Thursday night. A nice townhouse had been burglarized the night before, and they decided that they wanted the place processed for fingerprints. They had stayed in the townhouse and cleaned up most of the mess that the suspects had made, but I humored them. I walked through the house with them and they told me what had been touched and gone through. I got my kit and printed a few surfaces that I thought might have been touched by the suspects and not by the residents since the burglary. I was able to lift one good print from the side of the alarm siren. The suspects had stood on a chair, ripped the siren off of the wall, and then placed it on the kitchen counter. It could be the suspect's print, or the alarm installer's print, or even the resident's print. But, it made the residents feel good that I found something. Then I took thirty minutes and gave them some practical crime prevention advise. They asked a lot of questions and seemed to appreciate the time that I spent with them.

At roll call on Friday, the desk Sergeant read a circular that told us to report to traffic court at 1 PM instead of 8 AM which is listed on our court issued subpoenas. This applied to jury courts and was effective the following Monday. What it comes down to is the City does not want to pay us to be in traffic court all day. So, the alternative is to make the citizen sit in court all day, because they still have to be there at 8 AM otherwise a warrant will be issued for their arrest for failing to appear. The court can not start a trial on the case until the officer is present. There has not been a shortage of reaction to the new policy. Our union is telling us to still go to court at 8 AM, since we have a valid court subpoena. The department has issued a revised circular that orders us to appear at 1 PM instead of 8 AM. My guess is ticket writing, at least among patrol officers will decline sharply. So, the city will save money initially by not paying the overtime, but will lose even more in the long run from the decrease in ticket revenue. It will be interesting to see where this issue finally settles.

B rode with me Friday night and we checked by on a family disturbance. A mother and 19 year old daughter were fighting. We met the daughter outside and she told us that her mother was going crazy inside of the apartment. She stated that she has two younger sisters inside of the apartment and that her grandmother came by to try to calm down the mother. When we got to the apartment door, we could hear loud yelling coming from inside. The door was locked, so the daughter used her key to let us inside the apartment. Once inside, we saw the mother yelling, the grandmother trying to calm her down, the two young daughters looking very scared, and a male family friend standing in the living room. The mother was acting very aggressively and would not calm down or listen to verbal commands, so she was taken to the ground and hand cuffed. She was then taken out of the apartment where an officer tried to calm her and find out what was going on. I stayed in the apartment and talked to the grandmother who informed me that the mother was schizophrenic and had an anxiety disorder. She was taking her medications, but she was also drinking heavily. I then went to talk to the mother outside and she told me that she thought that she was a threat to herself and that she wanted to go to the psychiatric unit at a nearby hospital. We called for an ambulance. We then had to walk her out of the complex and down to the parking lot. This was a huge apartment complex and while we were escorting her, she started hyperventilating and then holding her breath trying to pass out. She succeeded in passing out and the EMTs had to wake her. She was transported to the hospital and she signed herself into the mental health unit.

Our last call of the night was another family disturbance. A pregnant girl and her baby daddy went out to a club. While at the club, baby daddy ditched the girl and started making out with another guy. Shockingly, this upset the girl. Maybe she was unaware that baby daddy was undecided when it came to sexual orientation? She left and went home. Baby daddy stayed long enough to get drunk, and then he returned to the girl's apartment. He needed his keys to drive to his parent's home. The keys were in the apartment. She would not open the door. So, baby daddy broke down the door. Sounds reasonable? No. The neighbors heard the commotion and got baby daddy out of the apartment. It would be difficult to make this stuff up.

That brings us to the end of another week on patrol.

Posted via email from will7079's posterous