I am getting closer to being caught up. It was another four day work week for me. The week had some interesting calls. I also received some big news from my desk Sergeant.
Tuesday started out slowly as it normally does. I checked by with a couple of units on routine calls and made a few traffic stops. Later in the shift, an officer requested that I check by with her to take a few photos of an assault victim. The location was a nearby hotel. I arrived and found the victim and two officers in an empty ballroom. This assault occurred in her vehicle near the hotel. After the assault, the suspect ran away on foot. The victim said that the person that assaulted her is her husband. He is currently on probation in two counties for domestic violence against her. And yet, she is still with him and married to him. Amazing. Usually, after pressing charges once, the relationship is toast. But this woman has pressed charges twice, won in court twice, and is still being assaulted by her husband. When will enough be enough for her? I am all for giving someone a second chance, but this seems a little extreme and dangerous for the woman. Hopefully, this will be the last straw and she will get herself away from him before he kills her. Early in the shift on Wednesday, I checked by with an officer on another domestic violence call. We found a young female and two young males in the apartment. At first, we thought that one of the males was the suspect, but that was not the case. The female told us that her on again off again boyfriend that is homeless but lives with her and has a key to the apartment, hit her a few times, threw her on the ground, and then slammed the front door into her. He did all of this while the other two males were in the apartment. They did not just sit and watch, but they did not exactly come to her rescue either (they verbally told him to stop). They did stay around and gave us witness statements, which is better than nothing I guess. We advised the female to spend the night in another location since the male had a key. She said that the two male friends would give her a ride to her father's house. She said that the suspect left on foot, and was probably in a nearby bar. We went to the bar and could not find him. A few hours later, the female called the police again. She had not left the apartment like she said that she would, and the suspect had returned and had used his key to get into the apartment. We got there quickly and were able to take the suspect into custody. He went to jail and was charged with assault.Approximately a week earlier, the desk Sergeant announced that some positions were open. Our positions are tied to nights off and a specific patrol beat. There were four openings, but I was only interested in one, a Saturday/Sunday night off position. The position is in the other district and is late side, which is 11 PM to 7 AM. I thought about it and talked to Jen about it. My parents agreed to come a little early on Wednesdays during the school year to take care of A1 and A2 to let Jen leave for work on time. So, I put in my request with the desk Sergeant. The posting of the positions closed on Wednesday at 11 PM. The desk Sergeant call me in the middle of the shift and informed me that I had gotten the position. The positions are all based on seniority. The person with the most time on the department that puts in for the position, gets the position. So, after a little over 10 years, I finally have the weekends off. Cool.
My buddy B who is usually off on Thursday nights, was working for another officer. So, we rode together as the print unit. B can not stand to be the passenger, so I reluctantly let him drive. The last time he drove me around, things did not go so well. I was hopeful that it would not happen again. It was a very rainy night. We checked by on a minor accident FSGI (fail to stop and give information) which is where one party leaves the scene of an accident. A man, F, was sitting in his vehicle which was parked legally on the street by the curb. F was waiting for a friend to get off work. All of the sudden, an older truck pulled out of a nearby business and slammed into the front of F's parked SUV. The truck kept right on going, never stopping. Luckily, F was not injured. As we were assisting in gathering the accident information, a citizen drove up and said that he thought that he had found the old truck that had driven off. B and I took off and using the citizen's description, were able to find the old truck in a nearby apartment complex. The driver had parked it and then covered the front end damage with a tarp. The vehicle was registered to the owner of a nearby bar. So, we then went to the bar in search of the owner. Conveniently for him, he was not there and was not answering his cell phone as his bar manager tried to reach him. Oh well, at least we found the vehicle and were able to give the FSGI investigators some information to work with. On Friday night the dispatcher was calling for me before I had even found my patrol vehicle. An evening shift unit that tends to be a little dramatic, was dispatched to a robbery at a restaurant. The evening shift unit arrived at the restaurant and immediately got on the radio asking for the print unit. He said, "there are prints and evidence everywhere". So, after I loaded up, I drove to the restaurant. The business had security cameras and the entire incident had been recorded. Two males had been hiding in the parking lot waiting for the employees to close the business. The employees came out to go home, and the two men came out of hiding. The men pulled out guns and ordered the employees back inside the store. They made the employees open the store safe. The men then took off with the money from the safe, about $1500. This is the second time that the business had been robbed in this way in the last month. As for all of the evidence and prints, there was nothing. The robbers had been wearing gloves and the employees had no idea how to make me a copy of the robbery. Later that night, I checked by with a unit who had been dispatched to a home invasion at a nice three story townhouse. A 24 year old woman, H, had been sleeping in a ground floor bedroom. H was only staying there for a short time, it was her father's townhouse. She was startled awake by the front door being broken open and three men running inside. She was forced into a bathroom and told to be quiet. The men then went through the entire townhouse. They opened every cabinet and every drawer, like they were looking for something specific. They did not bother any of the many flat screen TVs throughout the house. H said that they were in the house for about 5 minutes, then they left, and H ran to a neighbors house to call the police. H looked through the house and told us what she thought was missing. They took her iPhone, iPad, a MacBook Pro, and $20,000 worth of purses. When we asked her how many purses, expecting her to say at least 40, she calmly replied 5. Five purses worth 20 large, 4 grand a pop. Wow. Those were some expensive pieces of dead cow hide. I took pictures of the mess and damage that had been done. I tried lifting prints, but it became apparent fairly quickly that the men had been wearing gloves. I collected a sledge hammer that they had used to break open the front door and two crow bars that had been left behind. Maybe the print lab will have some luck getting prints off of the tools. Maybe they were not wearing gloves when they bought the tools, which appeared to be brand new.That wraps up another week on patrol.
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