Holiday staffing is based on seniority in my department. I have 15 years on the department, but I was still ordered in to work on Labor Day. I did not mind. Monday holidays are usually slow and I get paid overtime.
I knew the night was going to be a little strange when I realized at roll call that we would only have 4 units in my district. Holiday staffing is usually minimum staffing, but 4 units is a little ridiculous.
The night started out with a simple theft report. A female in her 20's had her bicycle stolen. The first thing that she said was this was the second time in 10 days that her bicycle had been stolen from the same location. She replaced the first bicycle with an identical bicycle, a magenta cruiser with a basket on the front. She had it chained and u-locked to the fence at her apartment complex. She came out at 10 pm and noticed that the chain had been cut. She went back inside and came back out an hour later, and shockingly, the bicycle was gone. The thief did not cut the u-lock, but ripped off the rod iron post from the fence that the u-lock was around. This thief really wanted a second magenta cruiser. Her roommate's bicycle was chained to the same fence ten feet away, just like it had been the last time her bicycle was stolen.
Her roommate asked me, "if the thief can rip off a rod iron bar, can't they just break in the door of our apartment?" She did not want to hear the real answer, which is yes, apartment doors are not secure. So, I deflected her question and told her that theives usually do not want to confront people. After I gathered the information for the report, I suggested keeping the bicycle inside. Sounds crazy, but just might solve the problem.
While I was talking to the bicycle owner, I felt something fluttering around the back of my head. I used my clipboard and brushed it by my head. What had been fluttering by my head, a large flying roach, landed on the bicycle owner. She screamed and then completely flipped out. She was running around acting like she was on fire. I could not laugh at her, because if I would have realized that it was a roach fluttering around my head, I would have had the exact same reaction.
After writing the roach hating bicycle losing complaintant's report, I was dispatched to a suspicious person. The call slip said that a white male in his 20's not wearing a shirt was looking into cars. I drove to the location and sure enough, I found a male matching the description. He was sitting at a bus stop swaying. I stopped across the street and watched him for awhile. There were not any cars near him. He could not stay still. He swayed on the bench, he walked around, he swung his arms, he took considerable effort to sit on the ground, and then promptly stood up. He stepped off the curb onto the crosswalk line and tried to walk in a straight line. All he had on was shorts, and those were falling off. He was sweating profusely. He did not notice me nor the police car.
I drove a little ways and circled back toward him. As soon as he saw me, he pulled up his shorts, and could suddenly walk like normal. It is amazing how the sight of the police can sober up someone. I pulled up to him and asked him if he lived nearby. He did not, but he was staying with his uncle who lived a block away. I let him walk to his uncle's house. I wish that I would have recorded him wandering around acting like he was talking to invisible people, waving his arms, and unable to be still. It would have been a great public service announcement to never do drugs.
My last call of the night was an attempted suicide. A girl in her 20's came home around 2 am. She checked on her roommate, who had been talking about suicide for the last month and had been hospitalized two weeks ago for suicidal thoughts. The roommate was fine and had a companion with her. Around 5 am, she heard a loud thump. She opened her roommate's door and found her passed out on the ground. Most people based on what I have told you so far, would have immediately called 911. Not this girl. She got online and did a little research first to see what to do in this situation. Then she phoned a friend, who advised her to call 911. Thirty minutes later, the paramedics and I arrive. The roommate was unconscious, but luckily, still alive. She had made some superficial cuts to her wrists and had empty pill bottles around her. The paramedics loaded her up and took her to the emergency room. Once she is medically cleared, she will be re-admitted into a psych unit for evaluation.
It was an entertaining night.
