Prowlers beware!

Our crew has successfully apprehended 3 seperate sets of prowlers in the past few weeks!!! dominate!!!!! I hate those bastards. These dudes last night screwed up cause they stole credit cards which makes it a C class felony!!!! Yes!!!!! Score!!!! ONe of them sang like a bird and ratted out his buddy!!! Awesome!

dry spell gone!

I tell ya I have been going through the worst dry spell concerning tickets/arrests etc. Seems like lately I cant' even find expired tabs on the road.

Well it was storm city USA and I felt like those guys on discovery channels "storm chasers". The worst part was a 60 foot tree falling on some power lines. I thought it was okay relatively until my sarge came by and said uh yeah those are live wires on the ground. Shweew glad he knows basic electrical stuff cause I sure dont!

Anyway I decided to embrace the huge rain and wind and just get out of the car.....started stopping cars for just about anything...sucked getting so rainy and poured on but it ended up being good. I caught three different suspended drivers tonight...yep got the ol hat trick yeeee haw.

Prostitution : Now I tell you what it is a legal nightmare to try and get convictions on these things let alone even arrests...you know it when you see it but its hard to prove. Me and my partner were sitting in our super-dirtbag area. Its riddles with prostitution and narcotic activity. We see a car see us and all of sudden drive past where they should have gone and continue into an abandoned industrial building parking lot.....thankfully we got a reason to stop the car and a 50 year old dude is in the car with a 19 year old female.

I contact the driver....he gives me his license which lists a local address just a little ways from where we are....you still live at blah blah blah ? Yeah......what are you doing down here? Well just giving her a ride home. Who is she? oh her name is blah blah blah....I go over to my partner who is contacting the girl and her name is not blah blah blah. Who is she to you sir your girlfriend....stutter....processes for lie...uh she is just a friend he says again. Suspicious that he is best friends with this girl yet doesnt even know her name.

The next 20 minutes consists of playing a defense attorney game trying to figure out how we can bust these people...we know what they are doing or just did and now it was a challenge trying to prove it......it involves alot of psychology and reverse psycology getting them to commit to their lies and silly stories/explanations and excuses then use that against them when they trip up. I eventually get him to admit to picking her up along the road and agreeing to pay money in exchange for sex. She partially admits to part of the story but in the end we had enough to charge her. I could have charged him but he finally came clean and relatively honest with me so I didn't want to punish him for that since he agreed to write a statement which helps the case. I still got an "arrest" from him for a suspended license and she got an "arrest" for prostitution but we didnt book em into jail cause our jurisdiction is kinda poor and we dont like to book people.

Who knows if it will hold up in court but it was a good experience and a learning one at that!

to be continued....

Hurray baton!

Very slow night last night.......we spent about 3 hours fussing around with a 9-1-1 cellular hangup call. The female on the line kept saying something about having a seizure so we spent alot of time trying to find her. It kept bouncing off different cell phone towers in the city....

After about 2 hours my partner located a car and the registered owner's name from the plate matched the name that was listed on the cell account....indeed we found her having a seizure in the car. The car was locked so out came the trusty ol ASP expandable metal baton. I've never broken a window before....I think I over swung a bit cause the thing exploded!! BOOM! Yeah baby. The dog inside the car did not like the excitement and got scared crapless and started attacking us so we improvised....the gal in the car had some crutches so we grabbed one of those and used it to pin the dog back while we worked. We were able to get the door unlocked and I was able to drag her out of the vehicle so the aid crew could get her.

Here is the rub....after feeling like total heros she was faking the whole thing in an attempt to get pain meds from the medics as she was a junkie. So stupid.

We found a bottle of vicodin on her that she had filled the previous day...15 pill prescription and there was only 1 left in the bottle...also in the car where phenerol patches...like a nicoderm patch but basically its super high strength pain medicine for things like oh I dunno terminal cancer..........so lame.

We got the dog out and took it into custody...poor little fella...I'm a dog lover so I hate it when they get left in the wake of trauma drama.....I bought the guy some canned food out of my own pocket as I wasnt sure if he had eaten in a few days as the gal is homeless and lives out of her car. He liked it but it was sad seing him in the kennel at the station every time I went there. I wish there was like a CPS for dogs so we could get it to a better home.

Psycho chick DV Call. Went and backed my partner up at a DV call...by the time I got there she was already in custody. She had apparently got real drunk and the boyfriend didnt want her in the house anymore so kicked her out.....this apparently was enough to make her punch him in the face several times...I love how all the DV classes I go to always presume the woman to be the innocent victim in all of these instances....I can honestly say I've found it to be at least 50/50 guys and girls at fault yet every dv class I've been to always uses verbage like "when HE goes to jail" "when SHE is hit by the man" its one of my pet peaves. She was a peach all the way to the jail...I could instantly tell she was very manipulative when talking to her. I dont have patience for those people and I told her that I was done listening to her beligerant self and the quiet treatment drove her nuts.......I was escorting her to the jail and when you do that you hold them by the arm...A to keep control of them and B to make sure they dont fall on their face in cuffs....I explained the latter to her and she kept saying quit MANHANDLING ME she then proceeded to kick at me and try and twist away from my grasp and she started to rear up like she was going to spit on me....hell no!!!!!! I did some creative HYUKFORKFU (slang for kung fu ninja moves) on her and pinned her up against the jail wall in the sally port....out of nowhere this ninja style custody officer chick came out and grabbed her like white on rice and she got some alone time in the rubber room. Its so funny how a 40 year old can have the mentality of a 5 year old. It was like she was throwing a fit in there a total tantrum meltdown. How do people get this way?

Real Police Work!

The guys got into a fat pursuit last night. Suicidal female who slit her wrists and then ran from us in her car all around the city then got on a major freeway and went about 10 miles...her car just about blew up halfway into it as her radiator couldnt handle the stress! OUr cars did just fine! God bless ye ol patrol cars and their awesomeness. Get to the scene and she is bleeding everywhere from her wrists the inside of her car looked like something out of a freddy kruger film. Get her out of the car and she is chewing on something...get her to spit it out and she expells about 50 RX pills from her mouth...YUK

CAR PROWLERS!....I hate car prowlers...no I loath them. Stupid bastards cant buy their own stuff so they have to reek havok on others...dumb bastards. Get a hot car prowl in progress....911 caller sees the suspect in her vehicle...get in the area and set up containment...in comes the hero...a valiant german shepard K-9 woooot!!!!! They ended up hunkering down in some woods which is exactly what you need to happen so their scent just soaks up the ground and eminates like hot steam on a cold day. They say a footprint on a fresh suspect emits an odor so strong its like fresh cut grass to you and I!!!!! That is just awesome....doggy finds them and ends up with a good bite on the suspect causing some cool injuries and bleeding...if you ask me serves em right....dont run from the POLICE! You cant outrun Motorolla and a kick ass dog! Amen!

Just a well rounded awesome shift.

Started off with tagging a couple speeders..kinda bread and butter...some people dont enjoy it but I dont mind at all...its just straight forward and simple...I like that.

Got 2 suspended drivers. I like these cause they are simple and they count as an arrest. Got one guy that I knew was suspended...saw his car and ran him via computer and sure enough he was suspended.

Got another gal who was suspended coming out of a local known drug area. I couldnt get my computer to work and she was way down the road by the time it came back I saw that she was suspended. She was a stripper and man did NOT look good...she has had alot of years that have not been kind to her I dont know how she stays in that profession and actually makes money. I thought they were supposed to make alot of money as well but apparently she snorts it all up her nose. Had the drug dog run through her car and the dog indicated. Amazing dog he hit on a small plastic baggie (about 1 inch square) that had a little bit of residue in it. We found her secret stash compartment in her car but it was empty we didnt tell her we found that so next time if we see her we will know where to look. Tried to get her to "work" meaning to flip on a bigger fish but she wouldnt play ball so she got the full suspended charge.

DUI. Stopped a car that was weaving a little bit. She had all kind of indicators of a typical drunk. You give them divided attention tests at the car like asking them small talk questions (where ya goin, where ya coming from sort of thing) while they try and find there license. Drunks can only do one thing at a time and sure enough every time I asked her a question she would stop looking for her license and look right at me to answer or ask "what"?. Car reaked of Alcohol. She was driving her friends home...she was the least blasted of all three of them so I guess they thought that was the safest thing to do. She was only 18 years old and didnt even have a drivers license..she admitted to me later that she had used a fake ID to get into a bar in a city far away...Her friend was on her 21 run and was completely blasted when i walked up to the car she (in the back seat) had her dress down fully exposing herself cause she had leaned out the back door to puke her guts out.

Ran the field sobriety tests on the driver...I hate doing those things cause there are so many things that you have to be very specific about as far as instructions etc...she was hammered...she refused to blow into my portable breath testing machine. I arrested her for DUI cause you dont need much when its a minor...only a .02...got her to the BAC facility (the official blow test) and she lawyered up real quick...got her lawyer on the phone. There are several places they have to sign as your going through the forms and its not an admission of guilt just a receipt of acknowledgement that I read them certain legal items as far as constitutional rights etc and man she was so blasted she kept stalling thinking that her alcohol level would go down i'm sure...tactic doesnt work it takes hours to matabalize alcohol. I had to call and wake up the lawyer like 3 times cause she kept saying she didnt understand......lord almighty I lost my patience with that. She finally blew into the thing....wasted over double the legal limit for an adult and 8 times the legal limit for a minor.....wuuufta.

Then she started crying and crying and crying...trauma drama for sure. Spent about 4 hours between the processing and all the paperwork for the report....DUI is equal to failing to transfer a vehicle license title within 45 days which takes about 2 minutes to write the report...gotta love DUI defense attorneys that have made it that way....sigh.

All and all great night...3 arrests. Not bad at all...I'll take it!

plodding on!

Almost had to shoot.

Greetings faithful followers. Hey sorry its been a while since my last post. Where to begin with the excuses. Well first off my charger went out on my little laptop and I usually sit on the couch and type these up so thats been out of commission and lets face it after 12 hours walking 10 more feet downstairs to the other computer is waaaay to much work LOL. I got behind a little bit and then its like oh geez where do I start and finally sometimes Im just lazy sorry...its true sorry bout that. I was thinking the other day about the blog etc and I remember when I used to dispatch it was kinda the same thing. I would always come home with crazy stories but eventually they all just kind of blended together and it just melts into .....how was work??...well it was kinda busy ....or it was kinda slow. Eventually after a while the excitement kind of wares off and its like any other job I suppose.

Ok so a few weeks ago it was pretty crazy. I had one week inparticular that really took the cake.

Disturbance call: went to a call.....2 buddies were hanging out. ONe is just totally lunatic. They had both been drinking watching movies and lunatic boy decides to start breaking the other dudes dvd's for no apparent reason. Buddy confronts him about it and the guy just says "you and me right now" and ends up fighting this guy. What a wierdo. Well he is even wierder when we are talking to him asking what year it is etc etc. All is dandy until he gets in my patrol car. He starts bashing his head against my partition...I tell him to stop and he says "you think i'm playing games....fine!" then he rolls over onto his back and starts mule kicking my side window with both legs. I mean hard! His whole body is rearing up and he is lifting his knees up to his chin and thrusting both legs into the window. Thankfully our department is smart and we have reenforced steel bars that go across the window! I called for the welcoming committee at the jail and it was great. 4 big guards came out as I pulled into the sally port.

This one jail guard is awesome totally killed him with kindness and was like "hey man just want to give you a chance to cooperate" well the dude didnt like him either so they totally tricked him. After a screaming fit yelling something about how he is God or something the guard opens up the door with a big smile and was like "right this way Mr John Doe sir" so as the dude is scooting out that way no doubt about to start kicking at him 2 other big ass guards open the other door and swoop him out the other side totally confusing him! I thought that was awesome! As I'm doing my paperwork you could hear the guy in his rubber room screaming "F U C K ....Y O U ". Just like a 5 year old who happened to be now 40 years old . Gotta love it.


Man with a gun: I got dispatched to a disturbance call. A neighbor heard some screaming and overheard someone say something about "I'm gonna go get my gat". Well me and the ol sarge start walking up and we can hear some commotion behind the house.....so we start creaping around the house all ninja like and we round the corner. I SEE A DUDE STANDING WITH HIS BACK TOWARD ME AND HE HAS A HANDGUN POINTED UP AT THE SECOND STORY WINDOW OF THE HOUSE. HOLY SHIT BATMAN!

It was amazing to see all your training take over. "STOP POLICE DROP THE GUN" the whole 9 yards. He starts to turn around and then bolts off behind a blind corner where its dark and we couldnt see him. There had been 2 or 3 other people around him and they all ran inside the house as soon as they saw it was the police. So we started to chase him and then I just kept thinking ambush ambush ambush. I called out to just hold up and wait for the dog. It took every inch of me not to give in to the predator prey instinct and just chase him down but I think that in hinesight it was a very very wise decision. I'm really glad we decided to go that route. But now its crazy we got people in the house....there could be more weapons/suspects inside so you dont want to turn your back to the house and also you have crazy guy hiding somewhere with the gun...heart pounding! Juices flowing! Scary stuff for sure.

So the entire world shows up. Talk about cavalry...3 cities of cops dumped to get over to us. K9 track is on....they track his scent over about a block through back yards and find his shirt. ONly convicts know this trick...he is smart to ditch his outter shirt..makes sense right...say a bank robber robs a bank wearing a bright yellow shirt and thats the description that gets broadcasted well the first thing i would do is ditch that shirt so that my polkadot blue undershirt is the one i'm wearing. ONe of the containment units finds him back near the original scene...he doubled back. Of course he denies knowing anything that is going on and claims he was just walking down the street...despite being sweaty, having torn pants, mud on his shirt and grass in his hair (seems like someone who was running away from a police dog)....here is the crappy part...NO GUN. The dog handler tries doing an evidence track to try and find the gun but we never find it.

The crappy crappy part is....I never really saw his face. Even though you are 99 percent sure that is the guy and the dog tracks him all the way to the patrol car giving a positive indication that is the guy that ran (i'll spare all the science details here about court lore and dog tracking) we got nothin. Unfortunately in this job you have to think like a defense attorney half the time and not a cop.....so HE WALKS.

The rest is kind of a long story but I was so pissed we didnt charge him with anything after all that. How crappy is that...all I could think of is that hidden gun somewhere where a kid could find it and kill themselves.

So here is the cool part...fortunately dayshift came on and one of my partners knows this dudes parole officer. OH yeah the guy has done hard time for armed robbery in the past. One of his conditions was that he was not to associate with a certain somebuddy and that somebuddy happened to be in his house that night........thanks to that we were able to contact his parole officer and his parole officer showed up about a week later to his house on a surprise visit....they found 2 stolen guns and a bunch of drugs in his house!!!! WOOOOOOOT he is gonna go to the pokey for a long long time. That made me feel sooooo good.

Good times ya'll!!!! Thats all for now guys.

Some Compassion

I was running lidar (like radar but it uses a laser) and this gal came flying down the road ...60mph in a 35mph zone and weaving in and out of traffic. I pull the gal over and she doesnt stop right away....oh man its on I'm thinking here we go pursuit. So I she finally stops and I can tell immediately that she is probably too drunk to be driving. Long story short she blew into my portable breath tester after some field sobriety tests and she was almost double the legal limit. She was crying the entire time she was doing them and I asked her why she was so upset. She told me that her husband had just told her he was leaving her for another woman.....now usually when the tears come they are fake but these were real...as they taught me in the academy.......

When it comes to tears to find out whether they are faking or not the motto goes "No snot believe not" and I tell you that is so true...anytime anyone is really crying for real they will always have real snotcicles...I have used that to my advantage many times....I called her husband and politically corectly asked what the situation was and he cooberated her story so I knew she was telling the truth.

Now I have never done this for anyone before but I don't know man...I just couldnt see hammering this girl after the news she had received and the way I look at it...the legislative intent is to get drunk drivers off the road.....so wow did she dodge a bullet...an average dui costs around 5 to 6000 dollars in fees and lawyer charges etc...not to mention going to court and having this stuff on your record. So I gave her a break...a real big one.

I'm just glad I got her off the road cause she could have killed someone......I did give the dad speach to her and it really hit home when I talked about how she could have made her 7 and 8 year old kids orphans that night.....didn't know I could make someone cry so hard......those are the kind of people I don't mind giving breaks to if it is deserved and with me its a one time shot....if I ever catch her on the road again she is toast....I hope I made the right decision.

Training

Sorry ya'll been at training all this week...death by power point....I did get to run the EVOC driving course so that was fun!!! Anyway hope all is well with you all! Nothing to report!

Back to work in a few days

Just a small note

So the other night I had an 18 month old infant death...I really dont feel like talking about it too much guys. It was about as bad as it gets...heartbreaking. I'm just keepin this one for me guys sorry.

Suspended Hat Trick!

Was a really slow night....I had one call all night. Not great for the blog but sometimes its nice to just have an average slow night. I went to one followup call....this guy has been having his tools repeatedly ripped off from his shed. He said he found one of the stolen tools behind the shed....hmmmm so I guess it was a nice burglar who returns things when they are done...of course he wanted it dusted for prints....everyone wants things dusted for prints....I understand but its frustrating with all these CSI shows....apparently we have a portable DNA testing machine and an electron microscope in the car...contrary to popular belief its pretty hard to get good prints off of things....not to mention if you actually do find a good print it goes off to the crime lab...the only one in the state...I think they may be a little more pressed to find murderers and rapists me thinks! Ah well I dusted it for prints more or less to make them happy and show that I tried doing something....

I got three suspended drivers tonight. That is awesome...I love getting suspended drivers cause their license usually gets suspended when they dont go to court or pay their fines...its a criminal offense to drive on a suspended license so its a good catch for me! I'm usually happy if I get 1 in an entire shift. The last one was by this really nice new car....usually you only get good suspended's from crappy cars....i had to double check it a few times cause I just could not believe that this particular car would have a suspended driver....worked out well.

That was about it aside from your usual barking dog and run of the mill calls.

plodding on ladies and gents.....plodding on.

So you thought you had a bad day

So yesterday morning I was leaving shift and I heard the tones go out on the radio. Anytime you hear that you know its gonna be a pretty good call.....I wasnt involved but its a good story none the less.......

So the guys get there and there is a dude on the ground. He had apparently shot himself in the leg with his Beretta 9mm. It was a really bad bloody mess according to co-workers...well he survives. Apparently he had shot himself around 3am but couldnt get through to 911 till about 6am because due to the shock he was calling 611...

I get into work last night and I get dispatched to collision. Its a pretty bad one...a lately plowed into a parked trailer connected to a large suv....she apparently had become distracted by reaching for her phone and forgot to turn with the road. The trailer belongeed to a nice old couple who had just packed up their rare mode-T coupe before heading to Arizona for the winter. Talk about a downer.......so here is the kicker. The driver of the offending vehicle was the wife of the guy that shot himself just 12 hours Prior!!!! Talk about a bad day. Is days like that when you just have to wonder ...what next?.

3 suspended drivers tonight...yep I got the hat trick. Other than that it was pretty slow.

Animal Control

So unfortunately there is no animal control in our city past around 5pm so for the most part patrol officers have to take care of humane complaints now.....

The first call I got out of the gate was a hit dog by a car. I got on scene and the poor little fella was hit bad by a car. He was in the grass dying. He was agonal breathing which is not a good thing. I was worried to approach him because you never know what you are going to get...they could be protective and bite you. Luckily I was able to scoop him up. He was still breathing in the car but by the time I got to the animal hospital he passed away....it was sad pulling the big dog out of the car....I can only hope that he didn't suffer too much pain...I can handle alot of nasty things when it comes to people but I'm a softie for dogs. Really bummed me out.

Then I got dispatched to a similar thing but it was an injured cat....I showed up and there was the little guy in the bushes...his paw was completely mangled and he couldnt hardly move....I tried getting closer to pick it up and combat wounded crawled into the bushes through a patch of thorn stickers..............I wasnt able scoop him up and it just sucked going after that dog call....bummer

Steak Knife to the throat

Ok I said I would get back and post about what happened so it basically went down like this......a couple of brothers went out partying at a bar drinking way to much. The older brother has been taking care of the younger brother who just cant seem to catch any luck. The typical broke no job story. So as they are drinking the younger brother starts feeling sorry for himself and when they get back home he does what any logical person would do........grab a steak knife in a cry for help and slices his neck wide open. We got there and they were both outside...the one guy was gasping for air and his brother was understandably shook up. The guy floppking all about the ground in pain....lotta blood but I think it was mainly superficial....what a crazy one!

where to begin

Well I don't know where to begin....the past few weeks have been slow apparently just to save up the business for last night....I have to get to bed cause I have to switch out of my graveyard schedule and be up at 10:30am today which is in about 3 hours so I can attend a wedding....lame...not the wedding but the getting up part! Sucky

I will come back in a few days and post about the night later but it ended with a guy stabbing himself in the neck with a steak knife!!! Good times!

Child Trafficking

So I got in the car...did my usual old check out routine. I must admit I've gotten a little slack on that....when you are on FTO (field training) you religiously check your car over before taking it out. Its almost like a pilot doing a pre-flight check of their aircraft before going out..cause its always that one day that you do not check something that something happens. I digress...

So right out of the gate I get dispatched to go help out on a call that dayshift was on. It was a DUI hit and run and they found the suspect vehicle. The guy was drunk and the other officer did most of the field sobriety tests and had him in custody when I arrived...he blew a .149 which is almost twice the legal limit. Now normally I would say thats alot but the guy was about 110 pounds soaking wet and he said he only had 2 beers.....I believe him ...usually I never do because everyone says I only had a couple when asked how much they have had to drink. But...this guy hadnt had anything to eat that day and considering how skinny he was I believe it.

He was pretty cooperative and had never been in trouble with the law before...I took him to the BAC machine (the official blow test). He lawyered up so I couldnt ask him any questions but sometimes that makes it easier. So I get all the way up to the jail (we dont have a local jail so they have to go up to the big county jail)...I get there and they are like ooooohhh he was in an accident yeah he is gonna have to go to the hospital to get cleared for booking.....sigh. Keep in mind its quite the process to get someone into the secure facility in the first place....so I had to go to the doctor at the ER and if you have ever been to an ER they sure are not speedy when it comes to anything.....and sure enough he got cleared...doctor asked him like 2 questions and took his temperature and vitals etc...sigh.

Anyway so we were waiting for the doctor and the guy told me....I dont lie to my wife or to the police and surprisingly I believed him...I said well you must have had good parents to raise you like that.....he said I dont know my parents I grew up in Thailand and when I was 4 years old I was stolen from my family and sold on the black market in Laos.....he said he spent 10 years trying to find his family with no success.......how sad is that ....I felt really bad after that about the whole thing......I mean really its not like he slammed into a kid or anything......unfortunately someone slammed on their breaks in front of him....well to bad its always the rear driver's fault for following to closely....sucks just a hard working guy and normally I never feel bad for these people but I actually felt a little bad for him.

He really wanted a smoke before going to jail and he didnt have any so I actually bought him a pack of smokes and let him smoke one before going to the jail....you wouldhave thought I gave him a 100 bucks or something....it was a small price and it felt like the right thing to do...considering he is probably going to serve some serious time for this....not like federal prison time but he will probably get 30 days in jail or something like that...not to mention possible job loss or something etc........ah well...crap happens right.....

Stolen car: agency assist call...got dispatched to help a neighboring agency with a dog track.....its where you sit on containment...basically a stolen car was seen and the cop turned around on them and they bailed on foot....so the chase was on with the k9 track...I used to get real excited about these but its pretty boring lately...you get assigned a spot and you sit there while the doggie tracks.....they actually found all 3 suspects and were taken into custody...I really had no part in it but it was still kinda fun.....

I had just about given up for the night and after I filled up my car with gas for the end of the night I was heading back to the station....I was pretty dissapointed cause I really hadn't found anything that night.....seemed like I just drove around the city in circles striking out running tons of plates......well I found a suspended driver right at the end of shift...that made me feel a little better!

Earlier in the night I saw a guy do a dip-$hit move turning from the inside turn lane across the curb lane 90 degrees really quickly into a parking lot.....I contacted the driver and the guy was just a jerk....I get up to the car and the guy is already a billy bad ass with me....saying nope I didnt do anything wrong you are just pulling me over to see if I'm DUI...although that would be cool if we were allowed to do that but despite his opinion I'm not allowed to pull people over for no reason.......well I give him a pretty heafty ticket for a couple violations and the guy says 'no you have to just give me a warning I didn't do anything etc etc" blah blah blah.....and then the guy has the nerve to tell me he is gonna go to the court and tell them that I was racially profiling....what an Ahole!

well thats about it....other than that it was a pretty boring night.

Call to Call

Had a rider with me. I like riders dont get me wrong...its kind of fun to show them what its all about but you forget how much you are multitasking when you are in the patrol car...you are listening to the radio...driving..typing on the computer...checking out cars and looking for crime etc and its just kind of hard to get in your own groove when someone is sitting right next to you asking a bunch of questions...its different when you have friends ride along then its kind of fun.

Went to quite a few calls tonight...lots of piddly stuff like disturbances etc. I went to a DV call (domestic violence)...2 brothers that had too much to drink and started a wrestling match that kind of got out of hand....well usually in dv cases somene needs to go to jail but in this case it was pretty impossible to determine who the primary aggressor was so we just let them go to bed and sleep it off....I really wasnt comfortable with it but the sgt was there and he said that was okay. If the stripes says its okay then i'm clear.

Had some juvenile complaints...not surprising considering it was the first week back at school...so ran around the city putting out small fires here and there.

The speeder from hell....caught a gal going 48 in a 35. Not to bad. I try to pull her over and she doesnt pull over despite my siren at full blare and my lights blinding her....she proceeds about another 8 blocks before pulling over. She proceeds to tell me how I should do my job and she did not pull over because "i didnt tell her where to pull over and I should do that". I asked her if she took a drivers test and she said yes.....I reminder her about the part where she is required to PULL OVER TO THE RIGHT if stopped by the police.

I gave her a speeding ticket and she went through the roof. She demanded that she see my radar and I was like no I dont have to show you it.....she told me several times how as a police officer I have to show her the radar unit flashing her speed. I wasnt sure if I still had the unit locked in and I told her several more times that I dont have to show it to her. But I figured that might calm her down so I went back to my car to make sure it was still flashing and it was so I brought her back to the car and showed it to her......she asked me what time that was taken at and I said that it doesnt show the time which it doesnt and she went through the roof calling me a liar etc and how the police are required to show her some kind of magic atomic clock with a picture of her car and a flashing speed reading..........so stupid just flored me.

Got 2 suspended drivers...so stoked i'm happy usually if I even get one and I got two that night. Lovin it.

Party complaint....not a big deal...even if its underage kids we usually just tell them to pour the beer out and no one is to drive. Go there and its totally loud...pretty unreasonable even for a friday night.....I knock on the door and they scatter like cockroaches....they see me through the window "oh shit its the cops no one say anything". No one comes to the door they shut out all the lights and hide like cowards.....the funny thing is...is that had one person come to the door that would have been the end of it...but ohhhh no they had to be dicks....look right at me in my face and turn around and go into another room. Well unfortunately some of their cars were parked in front of the fire lane which presented an un-do risk for public safety so they got their cars towed.....whammy.

That was about the extent of the fun for the evening.....the other stuff was just average calls nothing really of note.

Stacked UP Deep

So a couple interesting things happened last night.

I got a couple suspended drivers which is nice because my goal is usually 1 a night and i'm happy with that...getting 2 is just nice frosting on the cake...one pretty much fell in my lap which was nice.

I had to go to a neighboring city to try and look for an elderly missing person. I show up at a supermarket where she is known to shop and all these people flag me down well it was totally unrelated to what I was dealing with but these people saw a police car and flagged me down....they apparently had called 911 about a disturbance this guy had come back out to his car and found a stranger in it.

so I knock on the window and the guy is just about catatonic...I open up the car door and was like hey buddy get the F out of there and he is out of it....I dont know if he is drunk or stoned but he didnt know which way the ground was......so he wasnt goin with the program so I "assisted him out and to the ground". The other city pd came by finally and we werer trying to get him up and into the patrol car and yet again the guy couldnt even stand...we should have just let him stay on the ground but I guess it was probably safer having him in the car......needless to say I tweeked my back pulling up getting him on his feet it wasnt too bad but I think i'm gonna feel it when I wake up later today....I've always had a tweeky back....genetics I guess..my older brother has a tweeky back and it just sucks....they teach you all these neato techniques for getting someone off the ground without having to do that to your back but they are pretty painful for whomever you are dealing with and since I really didn't have a crime I didnt see it just to put the hurt on this dude.

Went to a theft call.....let me preface this with its campaign voting time so all the candidates for city counsel start going crazy over their yard signs etc....yeah well this particular fellow was well without giving it away was a very important figure to us police and what happened was this....someone took a few of his campaign signs down because they were posted in the plaza where his business is...I think thats understandable the guy doesnt want politics driving away potential customers etc....so I find the dude and the signs in the back of his rig and go back to the scene.....well usually we would just give them back I mean they are only worth a few dollars anyway but this particular victim really thought that he was important and decided he wanted the guy charged etc.....so dumb so we ended up referring it to the prosecutor and taking a report....so lame.

Stacked Deep.....got a call from another neighboring agency....they were looking for a guy who got mad at his girlfriend so he ran her off the road in a seperate car while she is 2 months pregnant...strangles her and then shows her a pistol......nice guy huh...well supposedly he was hiding out in an apartment in our city....supposedly this dude is a gang banger, carries guns, and sells drugs as well. I just switched to a different crew and one of the guys is on the swat team....thats cool and all but man I think the super ninja army tactics go a little overboard..why not just knock on the door to see if the dude is even in first....instead we spend an hour and a half rehearsing a scene from **plug action cop movie in here*** about tactics and who's got the riffle coverage etc....we had like 12 cops there......yeah pretty silly. I happened to get the shield guy position which means I'm basically a meat shield for everyone else if the guy starts shooting I basically hold the shield up and take fire.....great...not to mention the damn thing weighs like 25 pounds and you have to hold it up with one arm the entire time......fricken lame......also as noted above my back was already out of wack......so we sat there for an hour and half rehearsing this thing and the dude was not even in the apartment......call it being safe but I thought it was a little overboard.....again I'm thankful a swat guy is on my crew but I think this is the beginning of many things like this to come.......sigh.

well that was about it...another exciting night commiting law enforcement.

nice!

In August 2002, when the child victim turned seven years old, her case was brought to court, requiring her to testify against her abuser. Unfortunately, the young victim froze while on the stand and was unable to provide key testimony needed to obtain a conviction. During the recess granted by the judge, the prosecuting attorney, the child’s adoptive parents and a psychologist all attempted to convince the child to return to the stand.

After more than an hour of cajoling the child, Miazga asked to speak with the girl. He shared with her that he was often afraid during his job as a trooper and he removed his badge from his uniform and placed it in the girl’s hand. He told her the badge gave him courage and protected him when he was scared and that it would do the same for her if she took it with her on the stand. The young victim agreed to return to the courtroom, clutching the badge tightly as she told the jury the details of her horrifying experience. Her testimony led to a guilty verdict of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and a sentence of life in prison for her abuser.

In recognizing Miazga, The Crime Victim Foundation noted his willingness to give comfort and strength to a child victim of sexual abuse.

"It is only by working together as a community that we can truly empower victims and assist them in their attempts to heal from the devastating affects of crime," stated Rep. William Van Regenmorter, president of The Crime Victim Foundation. "Trooper Miazga’ s willingness to go above and beyond what was required to give comfort and strength to a child victim of sexual abuse demonstrates a commitment to all victims."

Again another slow night.

Wow this blog is starting to read like an accounting report....BORING. I really didnt have anything happen...seems like its been unusally slow lately...I guess that is a good thing.....I wrote 6 tickets tonight and had one arrest for a suspended driver....other than that man it was dead out there..I think I ran every plate in the city.

Rain Rain Rain

Traffic enforcement was ruff cause it was just poring down rain last night...couldnt believe it....I had my wipers on high at one point and I still couldnt see 10 feet in front of my car...cats and dogs I tell ya. I decided to make one stop right as the rain picked up and I've never cut anyone loose so fast in my life.

Catch em clean em......man we have a strange policy where if the sgt is gone the acting sgt cant leave the city...so this includes DUI's so my acting sgt had a DUI tonight. I had to take him to the blow machine at the jail. Wow the guy was annoying. He kept saying over and over and over how much of an asshole our city cops can be cause "he's not dangerous and he's not a criminal and shouldnt we be arresting pedaphiles and drug pushers etc and he knows when he has had too much to drink and I was just going a few blocks"....yeah to get more beer...what a jerk. The funny thing is that he had just been arrested a month before by us for DUI. His first one has not even gone to trial yet..unbelievable.....he blew over twice the legal limit. Yet we are picking on him somehow...god forbid we get this kind of guy off the street as your kids are walking around....guy was just a major ahole....just an unpleasant experience all around. Anyway...I dont mind processing dui's but its been getting old having to clean up someone else's catch of the day.....it takes me off the road for a couple hours total when you count having to write the report etc and I dont get any kind of statistic for it in my record so then my numbers go down etc.

Collision....kid was reaching for his cell phone...so it distracted him to the point where the road turned but he didn't so he just went straight off the road and into a parked car.....pretty easy...I used to hate doing collisions but now I kind of like them....I have figured out a good system of getting all the information I need so it actually goes pretty quick. There were some neighborhood kids in the area riding bikes and they were all looky-lews. It was nice to actually see kids playing in the street and riding bicycles ....they asked me if i had any cards or stickers and my car was totally empty....I told them I would come back with some goodies. I went back to the station and was happy. This lady brings us like 100 stuffed teddy bears to give out to kids that have been through something tramatic.....I grabbed 4 or 5 of them and a whole bunch of these Trading cards....they have a cool picture of our logo and patrol car on the front with our mission statement on the back........I gave those to the kids and man I looked like a hero. Their eyes totally lit up.....I tell ya after some of the crap I see on a regular basis this was a really cool thing to experience. It was worth taking the time to do it.....that kind of thing pays dividends way down the road and hopefully they end up being good young adults.

Stranded: 2 13 year old boys called 911 cause they missed there bus to get back up to town about 22 miles away. Luckily I knew a cop from that town so I was able to meet him halfway and take the kids up there....figured it was the right thing to do despite not being a taxi service....it was cold out and they were soaked to the bone. They were pretty appreciative for the ride which is nice to hear once in a while...it was really really slow due to the rainstorm and it was nice to drive somewhere different rather than driving in circles around the small city.

Suspended driver....I got lucky..I was really bored and checking a bunch of parks etc and this one car drove by.....it didn't have a license plate mounted in the front of the car......so I contacted the driver after I pulled him over and I thought for sure it was just gonna be routine.....it was a newer nice clean car and he had insurance on it so usually people like that are clean....anyway he ended up having a suspended driver's license! woo hoo

onward........

just an average night

Wow guys I feel like I've been letting you down....been pretty boring lately. No exciting calls. I wrote 5 tickets last night and one arrest for a suspended driver....the other stuff was just speeding etc...pretty fun night though...nothing super interesting.

great night

Great night last night...probably the best shift I've had in a long long while.

I didn't have any report calls last night at all so it was pretty much all self initiated activity. Had some great traffic stops. I ended up getting two arrests last night...I'll spare you the details but just wanted to hop on here and say how awesome it was. Just a good feeling overall!

word up!

The last day of this crew

So my schedule is staying the same but I'm its the end of the trimester at work and we are switching crews. I was issued a gun locker at work for home...super cool cause I was gonna buy one anyway...that was awesome of them. Also got a carry case for my ar-15...fricken sweet.

I'm going to a new crew and that crew is fat stacked....we are gonna have up to 5 and a sgt on at one time...cant even fathom that...its gonna be sweet. Usually its been 2 and a sgt...that will be nice on paper!

Pretty slow week. Last night was pretty uneventful. I had a couple reports. The first one was a threats report...pretty cut and dry...love triangle new boyfriend threatened old boyfriend over the phone...all over a girl...dumb.

Child abuse report.....step mom allegedly choked a 6 year old and tried to shuv dish soap down his throat...cute kid...poor lil fella. He did have a red mark. The stepmom I contacted her...she said her son actually pinched his neck...i am leaning toward believing that story over the dishsoap one I dont think that really happened..kinda a gut feeling. Anyway forwarded the case to CPS for them to investigate.

Partner got a dui...the passenger had a couple felony warrants. I got to take him up to jail.......

Shoplift report...kids did a beer grab and dash at a supermarket....too bad the clerk got his license plate number...mom was pissed...he came back and owned up to it....whoops!

That was about it...I was hoping to do a bunch of traffic stops but I kept getting tied up with little stuff last night.

snoozer!

Lame

Very slow last night...felt like I was driving in circles. Couple of tickets. Had a buddy ride-a-long...that was nice. Burglary report..laptop stolen...fight call...gone on arival....thats all folks

Seriously? Seriously?

OK really slow night last night...it was nice....all nice except a verbal domestic I got 30 minutes before going home....un-real especially on my friday...so lame. There were some "threats to kill" as well which significantly increases the paperwork load on the case......

tickets tickets tickets

Sarge wanted some more tickets as our crew has been pretty low lately so I went out and got 12 tonight. Felt pretty good actually...I'm usually not a big ticket guy but you know what....I have to go out and pay my fees etc, I have to keep it under 100 mph etc I have to pay for my insurance....I think other people should as well.

Anyway that was about it.....oh the craZY lady...gal called because she heard loud noises and people talking about cutting off feet. She was really crazy. She also was convinced her neighbor was chewing off her paint job on her car with their teeth....not joking she really thought that....I told her the coast guard investigation team would get right on it. Sometimes I cant help myself.

2 dv's if you please

2 girls fighting it out by the pool...one chased another one and punched her in the face...she got to go to jail.

The other one involved a boyfriend/girlfriend......she lit up a smoke in the house infuriating him so much he strangles her from behind and puts her in an armbar cutting off her airway for 30 seconds....luckily no one had to go to the hospital but he got a nice felony charge and a trip to jail...

Other than that it was pretty slow...I had a reserve with me all night...I pretty much let him run the show I think he thought it was cool to not have to ride shotgun...I let him pretty much do everything...got a suspended driver the guy saw us and ducked off into an abandoned parking lot at 2am....kind of a tell tale sign somethng is wrong with the dude...luckily we had probable cause to stop the car anyway and well sure enough his license was suspended...

pretty slow night aside from that.

Half shift

Got the night off for a kelly day...basically its a free day off once a month...pretty nice actually especially considering my work week is only three days anyway.

Unfortunately there was some kind of a scheduling error so they called me in to work half a shift...but the nice thing is that its considered ot for me so I got paid at time and a half vs just regular rate and I normally would have to be there anyway.

Burglary.....exhusband gets a job today and goes over to his ex's house...he wants to reconcile now that he has income and he wants to keep the family together....he doesnt live there anymore and ends hopping through a window just to "talk to her" cause she wont answer his phone calls.....bad news for him is that is considered burglary.

The only other thing we had was a call of a slumper....we call it that when someone is slumped over the wheel of their car either asleep at the wheel of passed out from bein drunk etc. ......we roll up there and its pretty comical actually. This dude has his door halfway open and he is slumped halfway out of the car and half on his seat with the engine running....he was wasted. Apparently his buddies dropped him off from a party to where his car was parked....he should have just kept his keys in his pockets and just went to sleep....nope he had to start his car and leave it running....he gets a dui...its actually considered "physical control" but its the same thing.....poor bastard....found some weed in the car as well....what a dumb ass.

What the $%^&?! Hold your fire tex

Ok so pretty crazy night at work. Different to say the least. I got there early so one of the guys could go home a lil early. Arent I nice?! Anyway the night started right out of the gate.....I get toned out (a 3 beep tone sent out over the airway for high risk/dangerous situations) for a shots fired call. A gal reported her neighbor fireing a scoped rifle from his porch and apparently he had threatened this lady before........lets roll man! Got a nice code run (lights and sirens) across the entire city.

Get on scene....got to grab my trusty M-16...always a good day when you get to do that.....you get some interesting looks form passerby looky lou's to say the least.....they all get the same expression on their face....its a cross between realizing santa claus is not real and crapping your pants...

So the house is just tactically a nightmare....its like playing king of the castle when you are a kid....the house is up a hill which gives our problem dude a huge advantage if he is shooting a scoped rifle. Your vest isnt gonna do crap against much more than pistol munitions....there was not much cover and the bad dude has a visual advantage....its always to better to be on high ground. Tactically it wasnt great...we were stacked up (in formation close to one another prior to moving together)and there was alot of "whats the plan" ok what are we doing talk going on...not good conversation to have when people are trying to kill you.

THANK GOD and I'll say it again THANK GOD my sergeant told me to move to another street so we could even out our assault teams....so I'm driving to my new assigned spot for this fiasco....there is some radio chatter and over the air in the background I hear a very very very loud/crisp "...C R A C K" . I knew exactly what the sound was from several years of dispatching...yeah gunshot...no car backfiring etc WHAT THE FRICK! You start running through every scenario in your head...what happened is everyone ok etc etc etc.......sarge got on the radio and advised of an "A.D" (accidental discharge) by another city's assisting officer.

Wow heart still raced for about an hour after that.. . . .

more later...gettin tired guys.

Stolen Car...stolen coats

It was a really busy night last night....I took a ton of reports and it just seemed like I couldnt get out of the station. It started out pretty exciting. A neighboring city got in a pursuit. The suspects had shoplifted a bunch of merchandice from a store and took off. ONe of my partners found the car and started following it....we went way out of our jurisdiction but ended up getting the car full of peeps out at gunpoint.

Well turns out the car they were in was an unreported stolen car and a couple of the occupants had a whole bunch of felony warrants. Ended up being a nice grab...props to my partner for finding the car and anticipating where the car was gonna be.

Mental guy: Went to another call....guy called 9-1-1 saying he's bipolar and wanted to kill everyone in site. Got there and the guy was totally compliant and calm....he said that he just realized that his medication levels were low and he knows bad things happen with this occurs and needed to get to the hospital....worked out great. I wish all mentals were this nice and compliant and realized they need help....makes our job easier.

Face fall guy: drunk hobo in the street....drunk fall down go boom.....helped him into the ambulance

Collision....hit and run. Girls car got nailed and the bastard took off. No witnesses...simple report for her insurance.

DV---simple verbal argument. I think the guy had enough of his girlfriend nagging him about alot of stuff......no threats, no assaults occured....still have to write a report on it. They were already seperated and she was on her way home by the time we got there. DV's get old quick. "welcome and thank you for calling 9-1-1 if you would like the police to instantly solve and de-escalate a social situation that took years to deteriorate....press 2".

Pretty busy with just some other mundane stuff and report writing and other run of the mill calls all night. Not much time for any proactive work.

good times

doggies!

Agency Assist

So a pretty slow week. REally not a whole lot went on. The big highlight of the week happened the night before last so I'll share a little bit of it with ya.

A neighboring city that borders us got a hangup call from a grocery store. Basically thats where someone dials 9-1-1 and then hangs up. Usually its nothing like kids playing with the phone or a misdial etc. I was close by so I told dispatch that I would be enroute to assist. Right before arrival dispatch says they got back on the line and apparently there was some kind of abduction....

I pull up front to the store and there is a couple of smashed watermelons on the ground, a women's shoe and a cell phone. Wow...looks like its some real police shit going on. Ok!

So apparently what happened was this... 3 or 4 guys come into the store, they mill around the front area and ask the clerk if they can stand there to "wait for some friends". They go back to the bathroom, get some sort of text or signal on there cell phone and go back up front....they then start to "warm up"...they start stretching out and pace back and forth....a couple of girls walk up to the front entrance outside and these guys attack them...they start wrestling them to the ground. Similtaneously a big truck pulls up and they force the girls inside and then speed off.

Sounds pretty crazy I know...so we start taping off the crime scene and photgraphing it...collect evidence etc. An hour or two goes by...I did an area check for the car...a big area check. I went all the way into the next county looking for this thing...I checked every hotel parking lot I could find.

Well about 2 hours goes by and one of the girls shows up at her hotel which happens to be right near the grocery store. They posted me on the hotel room and walah the other girl shows up scared and shaken about an hour after that. The primary suspect is then found a few blocks away in a different car.

I must tell you all that random crime is a pretty rare thing...usually things are all related somehow. OUr first indicator was that one of the girls boyfriends was there during the "kidnapping" and I dont know bout ya'll but if someone was trying to take my lady you would find me shooting and then jumping on the car like TJ Hooker as it sped off. This guy pretty much does nothing while it happens...while is girlfriend is abducted he decides to intervene by throwing a watermelon at the car. Then he proceeds to really not show any signs of emotional distress or concern at all and is very calm talking to us.....hmmmm suspicious. The hotel they were staying at is a hotbed for drug activity....and the girls??....have tons of local arrest and suspect records for burglary theft and drugs......all this is now kind of adding up........so its suspicious at best if not probably entirely orchestrated by the boyfriend who probably needs money etc........

I know that one guy was actually booked for felony kidnapping and unlawfull imprisonment but as for the motives etc I dont know as we didnt investigate it (it was the other city's investigation)...I just acted as an assistant really.

None the less it was a fun call and interesting for sure.

Thats it for now ya'll....till next time.

Granny throws a tantrum!

Had another rider again today. It was another explorer. Nice kid....big ambitions etc...ah to be young again. Actually its kind of cool. The kid is smart, polite, and respectful.....dont see that a whole lot these days. I had to stop myself cause I found myself talking about housing markets and other really boring things inbetween calls forgetting that a 19 year old kid probably isnt real stoked to talk about boring stuff like that.

Had several calls and traffic stops...pretty slow really. I spent most of the night finishing up my reports from the previous 2 shifts.

The play of the week goes to granny. Get a call about a 70 year old gal that had hurt herself by falling down in the bathroom. Fire Department goes out for an aid call on this one. Well she saw em coming up the driveway and locks the door. Now normally if someone doesnt want to be seen by someone that is perfectly fine but a neighbor was worried bout her cause her face was all cut up. Unfortunately we have a duty to check on people's welfare.

We were able to gain access to the residence via an open back slider door. Wow she did not like this..she was instantly combative. Storming around the house thinking that nazi's have just crossed the border into poland or something. Started hitting us and runnin all over the house. Now normaly if this was a 20 year old guy you just ask them to do what you want...then tell them to do what you need and if that doesnt work you make them.....ask tell make. We tried for probably a good 10 minutes to politely just say hey the aid guys are gonna check you out and if you dont want to go to the hospital thats fine....well she was having nothing of it. She wouldnt even just sit down for a minute to tell us anything about what had happened......

well she started going into the kitchen and whats in the kitchen..? Food....yes. Knives and stabbing weapons...? Yep can count on that one. Despite being 70 granny with a knife could do some damage. So long story short we end up "assisting her" to a chair and she continues to flaim about "what are you doing you cant come into my house get out now....my husband is a war vet...i'm from england but i'm an american citizen and i have rights.....i know a lawyer...etc etc on and on......how dare you etc etc blah blah blah. She was drunk off her ass to boot. Just really a pleasant ol lady. Well that was about as far as we got as far as the aid guys being able to treat her......she needed to go to the hospital end of story. We didn't know if she had a concusion, internal bleeding etc...she had a huge amount of blood on her face when we got there and well...she at least could have explained how that happened and we probably would have gotten out of here.

Ok trip out to the squad car...this should be adventure and fun. We had her handcuffed at this point and despite telling her 1000 times that she WAS NOT under arrest...she thought she was going to the electric chair or something. Anyway she starts squirming and yelling more. Its funny how age is cyclical because she was acting like a 5 year old little girl throwing a tantrum....no joke...a tantrum like she didn't want to go to the first day of school. Go to go put her in the back seat and she kicks out her legs and puts her feat in the door jam. The she starts pushing back on us....kicking at us etc. Now I tell you....we have a few choice techniques for when this happens to say a 18 year old dude. You pretty much treat them like a rag-doll.....but this was a frail old woman so you have to dial it back to about 1/4 impulse speed.

You can imagine the great captivating conversation I had with her all the way to the hospital. I was very glad to do my paperwork and be done with that ol broad. I hate it when you do everything you can to be as polite and understanding as possible and thats what you get back.....some people just cant be reasoned with.

sigh....weekend time......till next time......stay tuned for another episode of the rookie diaries.

Hi I'm a junkie...I'm driving the same roads your kids walk.

Had a rider today. It was one of the explorers. Its kind of like a boyscout program where kids can ride along and do mock scenes etc. Felt kinda good being on the instructor side of things...I found myself talkin to him like some kind of elite jedi warrior....enter cartman...yep you just gotta keep living day by day. lol. Its kind of funny cause I'm still really new and dont feel like I know what I'm doing sometimes.

A funny call. I was just driving around and I got flagged down by this passerby and he seemed distraught..I asked him whats wrong and he said that he had lost his dog...right next to him in the passenger seat sat his daughter who had an expression on her face like lassie just sat on a grenade. She was super sad. Her puppy was missing...bummer man. Well as I'm talking to him I get dispatched to a found dog call.....what are the odds of that timing...could you imagine if it was this guys dog...good oportunity to make some magic happen...I told him I'd find his dog and I think I know where it is....I went to the address of the found dog which was just down the road and sure enuff captain snuggles was A-o.k. Man you would have thought I was superman with better psychic powers. That kid lit up like a xmas tree. I tell ya you can do cpr on someone and bring em back to life and not get a thank you like that one. Very cool. I made sure to tell the guy that found him that he was the true hero. good times.

DV...the heat seems to bring out the worst in people....house full of people...takes 10 minutes of playing who's on first to determine how people are related to everyone else....*enter spaceballs line.....I'm your first cousin's sister's nephew's father's first roomate..** Long story short....boyfriend vs girlfriend got in an argument...side note..cutest little baby kid they had...could be on gerber commercials or welche's grape juice or something...absolutely adorable...anyway boyfriend vs girlfriend fight over money as is the case with most dv's. She get up in his face and he grabs her by the neck and slams her on the ground. Most of these guys are real a-holes but I actually felt a little bad for the guy...he was pretty ashamed of his behavior and legitimately felt bad...I usually never believe guys that do this but I did in this case....he admitted that it went to far and he shouldnt have done that.....anyway...he got a nice pair of bracelets and a tour of the city with a free stay at the grey bar motel.

The junkie....pulled a car over at 2am for driving without it's headlights on. I light him up and the guy blines it pulling over to the right slamming into a curb a couple times. He then proceeds to cross 2 lanes of traffic and pull over into a driveway on the complete opposite side of the road. Hmmm there's a couple indicators to write down for the report later. I contact him and the guy just looks stoned. As objective as you have to be in this job and you certainly can't make assumptions but its much like defining obscene :

In 1964, Justice Potter Stewart tried to explain "hard-core" pornography, or what is obscene, by saying, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . [b]ut I know it when I see it . . . "[1]

Its kind of the same with druggies...after a while you can just about pick them out of lineup. This guy's face was ghost white...his eyes were a bit depressed, wattery, bloodshot in some cases.....they are always sweaty and greeezy lookin. I didn't smell any alcohol on him so I called our super DUI king. He came out and did all the field sobriety tests and honestly he did pretty damn good. The only thing he didn't do well at is there is a rhomberg test (no idea how to spell rhomberg) where you close your eyes, tilt your head back and estimate the passage of 30 seconds in your head....you then open your eyes and say stop when you feel 30 seconds have gone by. Well he went almost a full minute.

My partner also took his pulse which is not standard practice but drug recognition experts do it. His pulse was close to 200 beats per minute...now being nervous is normal but that is a bit excessive. Something just wasnt right with this guy. He said he hadnt had a sip of alcohol and absolutely no drugs.....hmmm remember hitting the curb with your car pal? My partner leaned over to me at one point and whispered this guy is hammered. I trust my partner he gets over 100 dui's per year and that is alot. He said its up to you if you want to arrest this guy but he shouldnt drive. I thought it over in my head.....man I didnt have much driving on him...no smell of alcohol...no odor of weed...did pretty good on his sobriety tests....i just dont know..

i almost let him go but I remember in the academy they talked alot about legislative intent when laws are drafted...specifically they talked alot about DV laws and DUI laws. They teach you so ways and reasons why you should not arrest someone due to peoples "rights". Thats why I laugh when people say the cops can just arrest anyone for any reason...so not true. It actually takes alot of wrong behavior to get arrested contrary to popular belief. DV laws (domestic violence) were designed to primarily seperate the two involved parties at least for the night. This cools the situation down. Gone are the days when you tell the couple "well we better not have to come back out here tonight or one of you is going to jail" too many people ended up shot after the police left that basically any time an assault actually occurs...someone is going to the clink.

With the DUI legislative intent its basically all about getting people off the road..so much so that even if you arrest someone you cannot be held liable for a false arrest lawsuit down the road....kind of a nice protection...one of the few we have left. So thinking of that I was like ya know what.....lets just get this guy off the road..draw his blood and if it comes back clean fine and if it comes back with something I'll feel better about myself.

So I put the bracelets on him...I asked him "hey man am i gonna find anything in the car that's illegal "uh i dont think so" bam...that might as well be like saying yes.

Now for a suspected junkie this dude has a clean car. Usually when you search these people's cars they all have a similar smell...it smells like water sogged Camel Lights, bong watter, and geek sweat rolled into one. I dont know why but they all have that dirty laundry been sitting in the hamper under a heat lamp smell. This guys car was first of all nice and newer and it was clean. So I'm searchin and searchin and I get to the passenger side and I find a rolled up bath towel....I unroll it and jackpot I find his junk kit. Its a zippered pencil pouch style bag...within I find your typical heroin user supply kit.....2 small bottles of rubbing alcohol, tiny cotton balls (used as a filter when they suck up the juice prior to vain injection), alcohol swabs (you know to be clean about things) for the skin, 4 hyperdermic needles, surgical tubing (used to turnicut your arm to get vain expansion) and 2 nasty thimble-like things that have burnt tar residue in them....smelled like tar heroin...it smells like rotten butt sweat....

yeah i dont know what rotten butt sweat smells like but that is the first thing that pops into my head.....yep rotten butt sweat--its heroin bookem danno". Man what a liar that pisses me off so bad...of course he denied that it was his.....oh thats right..you held on to this stuff foryour buddy....your buddy oops left his stuff in his car....what a jerk..you know there probably would be a good chance I wouldnt have charged him with that stuff if he just would have told me about it but I can understand not wanting to let the cops know about your junkie kit sitting right on your seat.

Plodding on.....

Butter

Pretty intense night last night....had a DV call that ended in an arrest. The guy that called 9-1-1 ended up being the one that went to jail....I think he knew he screwed up so he attempted a pre-emtive strike.....an attempt to seem like the victim in the situation...well he had a warrant and he ended up being the aggressor in the situation.

My partner is a stud...a real magnet for finding good stuff. He got a DUI that ended up with a huge bust and search warrants and the full 9 yards...the case is still going on so I'm not going to reveal any details etc but it was majorly awesome! Its rare that something small like that can turn out to lead to much bigger and better things just in one shift. Call it luck...good police work etc but some bad mo-fos are off the street. Wish I could talk a little more about it but it will have to do.

Just a friendly reminder...please dont send out the link to this blog without letting me know. I try to keep things very general and I dont name names or places....but I still dont like random people reading this stuff. I trust all of you will respect that....tired now gonna rack out...rinse repeat.

Dont yell at me

3 arrests tonight. First two involved a love triangle. Ex-husband vs wife and new boyfriend. Ex-husband picks a fight with new boyfriend in front of ex-wife. Yeah I'm confused too. Anyway he gets his boys together and surround the new boyfriend then make some threats and take off....they show back up while i'm out there alone....3 of them and one of me. I order them out of the car and tell them to sit on the curb.

Well exhusband doesnt take the simple order and stands by the truck......what part of go sit down over there do you not understand?! I'm polite to a point but in this business you ...ask....tell....make. Period. Otherwise you end up dead by your own handgun in some cases. Anyway my taser in his face seemed to get the point across and he started to go with the program....but that came out afte he got in my face and like a small dog said "dont yell at me....you dont yell at me"...well sorry buddy I'm the Po-Po....screw you back buddy.....I can go back to being polite somewhat....well according to the ex husband he didn't do anything and nothing happened and he has no idea why we are there......he got up about 3 times after being told to stay on the ground....too late...probably about 2 times too many looking back on it.......he's done and I arrested him for disorderly conduct.

The ex-husbands brother was the one that actually did the threats....he too denies everything and has no logical eplanation as to what happened......dumb.....he gets to go to jail to. The jailer commented on how our city had been up there alot the past few days....and it was true. I got to know that journey up there real well...can do it just about blindfolded now.

The shoplifter........25 year old girl decides to shoplift about 30 bucks worth of food. Loss prevention at the store contacts her and goes to arrest her and the fight is on....she starts punching the poor guy (who is probably making about 10 bucks an hour) and takes off......unfortunately for her...to blend in with the crowd she decides to wear a bright polka dotted t-shirt....doesnt really blend in to well...one of my partners finds her and her buddy. The buddy didnt do anything so we kicked her loose....as for polka dotted girl she resists arrest so the $30 dollars in stuff she stole ended up like this.....she didnt get away with the stuff and she went from probably just being tresspassed cause the store got there stuff back.....to the theft charge, assault for the fight with security....and a third charge of resisting arrest.....man that girl was a whiner.....all the way up there...whoa is me...I'm gonna loose my job....wwwwwhhhhhaaaaaaa.....well you know what lady...? Your choice not mine...your consequences of your actions......I have no sympathy for people like that.....stupid.

Lots of reports and paperwork with those two incidents....other than that it was a pretty slow night. Kind of nice after the chaos of earlier in the week. Now its the weekend....yeeee haaaw

I'm so sorry for your loss

Ok worked the last two nights. Friday night was pretty crazy. We had a festival in our city. Equal to say a county fair...that sort of thing. I don't know why but it doesnt matter what city you are in and what fair it is....they all have that same smell...kind of a deep fried food and sweaty carnie tinge. I have to admit seing the gravitron and super loop brings back some pretty fond memories of growin up.

It was an insane night. Lots of punk kids that think they are bad to the bone. One kid started beating up a female and a bystander broke the fight up...the kids followed him to his house and proceeded to berate him and tell him that they were gonna shoot up his house in retaliation etc...well be careful who you screw with cause the guy pulled his own gun out and scared them off. The guy was perfectly within his rights to do so and honestly I'm kind of glad that he did. These kids have absolutely no respect for their elders anymore...gosh look at me sounding like grumpy old fart head. So we ended up arresting the kids for the threats but it got so busy that we ended up letting them go...crazy I know but yes it got that busy...it was insane...they will still get charged but I was a bit dissapointed that they didnt go to jail that night....kids need to understand that actions have consequences. We ended up arresting about 4 people that night not including these bozo's. You know its a good night when you have to break out the new transport van paddy waggon style to go to the clink.

It was kind of funny cause we were trying to figure out if we had room in one of our patrol cars to get all these people up....usually you can do 2 pretty safeley but the 3 we had to transport was way to much...they cant ride up front with you......oh yeah...thanks partner...we have a bran new transport paddy waggon...where's the keys. Man that thing was awesome....great ride except there is so much heavy steel from all the interior cage work that the thing is super top heavy....I felt like I was gonna tip over at any second....the really nice thing was that you couldnt hear the people squakin as I rode up...I'm begining to like taking people all the way up to the jail...its a bit of a ride if the normal local jail is closed...I'm getting to know some of the jailers up there and I dont know....usually people hate going up there and I kind of like it.

One of the guys we took up there got busted by my partner for driving DUI...yeah he was driving on the wrong side of the road.....pull em over and he ends up being totally wasted plus he had about 5 warrants for his arrest. So his girlfriend well I guess they weren't dating ....according to her they are just "friends" yeah I'm sure he isnt holding on to any hope or anything......anyway he was the less drunk of the two...and considering how wasted he was she must have been tanked......anyway..there was weed in the car and a couple of pipes but you know what? she came out clean and told us about it and I tell you what.....honesty will get you out of alot of trouble these days...we didnt charge em with that stuff.....kind of a reward for telling the truth..a true rarity in police work. My momma always told me to leave a room better than you found it....kind of applies here...maybe they will be honest again next time. You would think that this gal would be totally thankful that she wasnt going to jail which we totally could have taken her there due to all the drug charges etc but instead she was mortified that her car was gonna get impounded....I cant afford it etc etc.....well maybe if you didnt buy so much weed you wouldnt be so shocked at 150 buck impound fee.....man I tell ya give em an inch and they take a mile.......I kept trying to tell her how lucky she got off but she was drunk and irrational.....

Last night was a ruff one:

I tell ya it was pretty slow......the festival is still going on and it was much calmer tonight then the previous night. I even stopped by and got a slice of greesy pizza....delicious......so about midnight came along and out of the blue got dispatched to a suicidal call.....lights sirens the hole 9 yards.

So we get out there and its one of those funky addresses that are hard to find....it apparently was ontop of a mountain....man this driveway could charge 50 dollars for a lift ticket to the top during ski season.....talk about awkward.....straining for oxygen I got my tubby butt up that hill.....man its like running in mud with all that gear on. Catch my breath......take care of business......get inside and downstairs there is a dad doing cpr on is 19 year old son.....it was just sad....you could see it in the dad's eyes how desperate he was to save him. In my experience usually by the time you have called 911 and they are talking you through cpr its too late....the good thing though is that it gives someone who is in shock a distraction and a task to keep their mind occupied.

anyway....he was straddling his son and the son was lying on his back motionless....the paramedics got there and took over...they put all kinds of tubes in him and tried a bunch of techniques but just were not able to revive him. He had hung himself.......the worst part is that he did it while the family was upstairs watching tv and relaxing........There was a rope hanging from a towell rack...I was surprised that thing even held him but it was an actual screw in job not just a flimsy one.......the dad had cut him down and started cpr......

I tell you dealing with dead bodies never gets easy. Fortunately I've had alot of them where its expected...nursing homes etc but this was a young kid.....there were other kids in the house so it just made it extra difficult.....sucks to have to play counselor and detective at the same time...any time something happens like this you have to treat the scene like a crime scene till you know better.....really hard to tell someone that they cant see their son/loved one if they really want to.......

Looking at a body is hard....I dont know how those medical examiners do it day in and day out.....I guess like any other hard/discusting job you just get used to it after a while...luckily all of them are super experienced and can kind of act as counselor to the grievin family especially in that earlier of the game.........we also got out a chaplain to help with the family....what a godsend cause we started geting lots more family that kept showing up adding to the chaos amungst their grief............it was just really hard....I felt so bad for the family.

The body luckily was in fairly good condition. Unfortunately there were some very deep ligature marks on the neck that looked so bad and awkward. Anway...it was a pretty tough call to say the least. That pretty much took up the entire night...pretty sad. Loss is never easy.


Fin

Time to Roll!

Last night was great...probably the funnest shift I've had in a long long time. I'll try and give you the play by play!

Logged in...got my car prepped...checked the shotty, checked my M-16, lights camera action!

Checked Department email....hahaha lol

Traffic complaint of a DUI...way out of position couldnt get to it.

Checked a bus stop ...our big one nothin found just a roll through.

Collision...I was like the third person on scene so that ends up being nice...got stuck on traffic directing which is a cake walk...sit there and look good..wave your arms like a big dumb blue canary. Gal hit an occupied parked car...the parked car guy denied being in the driver seat and tried playing the ...uh no he was driving...uh no actually my friend was driving...wait no I was in the backseat...wait no I wasnt even in the car game...all because he had a suspended license....several witnesses put him in the driver seat....we couldnt even arrest him cause technically he wasnt even driving and he had nothing to do with the accident to boot but guess he was paranoid...gave him several several several chances to not lie but he didn't want to play so...despite having no fault at all he got arrested for obstruction...got a DV call over the radio...no one to call so I cleared the scene and headed off.

DV physical domestic...half sister vs half brother. The girl was the older of the two...she was like 25 and he was only 17. She was nice enough to bring him in and take care of him cause mom is out of the picture due to drug addiction. Kind of sad really. Anyway...she gets tired of payin all the rent and bills etc and gets up in his face and they start to argue. She pours water on his face...a shuving match ensues, she kicks him in the balls and in the stomach. Now in the old days I'd say thats fair fame...unfortunately the DV laws mandate an arrest whenever an assault occurs...there is a whole matrix for determining if an arrest should be made depending on who the "primary aggressor" is, compartitive injuries etc. Its kind of like playing referee on a mutual foul during a game...sux but has to be done. She was determined to be the primary aggressor so I had to hook her up.

It was sad because she was in good spirits but as soon as the bracelets went on she started crying...I felt horrible. I mean it really seams like she was doing the right thing taking in her brother and all but the bottom line is you just cant hit eachother etc. She had never been arrested before and I just felt aweful...if it was up to me I wouldnt have arrested her but the state says I have to...sucky. She seemed really scared...I'd be really scared going to jail as well....sux....

Taking the gal to the jail...realized we could kill 2 birds with one stone....back to the collision I go. Picked up liar dude. The DV gal seemed less than thrilled that she had to share a ride with this obnoxious dude who was drunk to boot. Went to the jail....got to see some old friend jail guards of mine...fantastic times. Lots of booking paperwork since it involved 2 different cases...booking forms, citations etc.....

cleared the jail

Dispatched to a found bicycle call.....pretty easy go there....guy says a kid just left his bike here but doesnt know who it is...check the serial number for stolen...get the callers name and date of birth etc then try and fit it into my cramped patrol car a challenge in and of itself. Got it in.........checked the callers name in the computer before leaving...side note came back as a kidnapping sexual offender...scary...seemed like a normal guy...yikes...know your neighbors.

Coffee time at the coffee shop as usual...headed up there...still had the bicycle in the back seat...looked a little ridiculous...bumped into one of my old bestest friends who works at a nearby hospital...always nice to see a friend...caught up a bit and made plans to see a movie tomorrow (now today)...killer. Sat with my patrol partner who had a rider friend riding with him tonight....they sat there for 30 minutes playing on their iphones....jealous I must admit those things are cool. A burp and back in service.

Headed to the station to type some of this paper (short for paperwork)....sit down and not 15 minutes later get dispatched to a suspicious circumstance

suspicious circumstance....man sees kids in an elevator punching eachother cant tell if they are fooling around or really fighting ...type type type..i'll stay at the station a few more minutes and at least type up the bicycle caper...other call can wait a few....cleared the station and headed to it........got there GOA (Gone On Arrival)

Back to the station...type type type

just sat down and 8 minutes later got dispatched to a possible suicidal...

on the way the call got upgraded to a definite suicidal overdose...unk details

Arrived.....first on scene...wait for back up...waiting...come on........get here........wife who had called reference her husband was standing outside waiting...."are there any guns in the house, knives, stabbing weapons, rocket launchers, grenades, bazookas..armed pitbulls with aids? etc ? no no no no no........while asking the questions I see the front door ajar and hear loud screaming/groaning...presumably from Mr Overdose her husband who she called about.....backup gets there....here we go......

walking up to the door.....all things rush through your head....what if he's hiding with a shotgun hallucinating thinking we are going to kill him...what if he has a knife...what if jumps at me...are there other people in the house? What about that armed pitbull with aids...ok if there is a dog in there and he attacks how can I kill the dog....if the dude is in there with a shotgun...can I/should I shoot him....what if he has a gun to his head...what now....etc etc mind racing all within a few seconds...enter the room

The living room is wierd...total sparce apartment...bare bones...no furniture, no tv...wierd...loud groaning around the corner.....start to pie around the corner (tactical term for using a wall as cover moving slowly around it so you can see better without exposing yourself)...pie pie pie...hand on gun hand on gun.....there he was lying face down in a pile of garbage by the kitchen....oh shit knives in the kitchen...think quick.....he's a big guy and he looks psychotic....you know that kind of crazed look in his eyes....he's diaphoretic (dripping buckets of sweat) gasping for air inhale inhale...groan....growl...yell....fuck he's a crazy mother fucker...shit. Anounce yourself (liability...enter defense lawyer..."did he know you were the police."...well I dont rent this chicken shit outfit buddy...) POLICE...WE'RE GONNA GET YOU SOME HELP BUDDY JUST RELAX....groan groan...yell flailing along the ground clenching his fists (pre-fight factor/clue)...shit. Alright here we go....watch his hands, hands have weapons, hands are weapons// allyoop swoop...boom pow kneel down similtaneously grabbing his right hand while my partner grabs his left arm (side note...pimp thinking in sync with good partner work...didnt even tell eachother what to do just did it)......wrestle wrestle...he doesnt want to go with the program......PUT YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK...RELAX GUY..GONNA GET YOU SOME HELP (lawyer shield again..always verbalize things if not to control the guy but for the any witnesses hanging around or a cell phone camera etc etc...looks better that way)....side note lol sometimes I have the urge to yell out "ouch your hurting me i'm in fear for my life!" just for that very reason...lol

Ok back to the fight....partner has one arm I'm got the other...he starts stiffining up and trying to pull his arms underneth his chest so he can lay on them....hands hands hands....whats in his waist band...a gun? armed pitbull with aids? I dont know....hands hands hands...control the hands now! Strong bastard...amazing what people can do when they are on the dope.......one thing for sure this guy had "Tard Strength" and a lot of it. My partner is a big guy 230 pounds and buff...I'm 200 and slightly less buff...but better looking. We started really struggling but we couldnt get his hands behind his back......shit...work smarter not harder right idiot? Time for the batbelt...what do I got....glock .45? maybe a bit much..whoa there buddy....what else...baton? not gonna do much good here....pepper spray? Hell no thats just gonna go everywhere and it ends up getting more in your eyes than his in a small room...good stuff but not real practical and it smells like shit....they dont call it lucifer piss for nothing.........what else oh yeah.....hell yeah.....yee all mighty X26 Taser...ol sparky...excellent choice. Ally-oop got it.......should I staple him (firing the two darts at close range)...luckily my partner was there...TAKE OUT THE CARTIRDGE AND GIVE HIM A CONTACT TAZE!.....good thinking thanks partner...eject the darts now It works like a handheld stun gun.......

IN my hands...ok aim...choose target....fleshy part of the lower back by the spine...lots of nerves and muscles down there....hold trigger, press like a hot iron and apply heavy pressure......CLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACK thats the sound the lets you know its working....SUCCESS! Like a magic wand....desired effect immediately, no more fight and presto handcuffs on. OK good to go...wait oh no...now he tries to headbutt us and kick at me.....ENTER TEX.

Let me tell you about Tex. I'll just call him that because I dont post real names on here. Tex is my other partner. He is about 6'04'' 250 lbs muscle and Tex accurately describes him...yes exactly what you are picturing now in your head.....old school, serious veteran, grizzly certified Bad Ass. "I got this he says" and proceeds to take his huge mits and pretzle the dudes legs up then he takes his huge knee and tex weight right down on the back of the dudes calf....like some kind of crazed carnival rodeo clown out comes Tex's hog-tie rope...yeah no shit.....I've seen these leg hobble ropes before and apparently Tex had one....wrap wrap wrap...in 2.2 seconds like a rodeo dude wranglin a sheep. Truely kick ass. OK send in the hosers (firefighters...they sleep till they are hungry and then eat till sleepy rinse repeat). Here they come and proceed to hook all kinds of computers, tubes, needles, probes, drugs etc up to the guy. Yes he is still trying to kick and groaning like a zombie. and yes crazy eyes still in full effect. Dude was trippin...pretty sure he could taste colors at this point.

Ok situation under control...catch breath....woooooosssssaaaaaaahhhhh. Switch gears detective mode...figure shit out...what happened.....talked to wife and I'll give you the readers digest version..... they moved her from oklahoma to start working at Boeing...he hurts his back on the job and gets fired (laid off i guess whatever...) ouch my back hurts ...translation I'm a horrible drug addict/abuser and need pain meds. Several clinics later and he has a nice set of pain killer cocktails at hand....uses up all the drugs over 6 weeks.....using them as directed of course...by crushing them up, cooking them in a spoon and injecting oxycontin like its heroin. *shit panic..check self did i get poked fighting with this guy*...I think i'm okay...oh great there is a hypodermic needle cap on the floor concealed by the garbage he was laying in...check hands...no blood good...no pricks i dont think....good swhheeeww. Ok so he 's out of drugs and is suicidal today so he thought it would be a good time to take all 50 pills of over the counter chest decongestant.......medics said its like taking 10 or 12 hits of acid....that would explain his zombie rage psychosis we had to deal with.

Off to the hospital...got to see my friend again that I just saw at the coffee shop eariler.....nice to see a good friend. Filled out paperwork...mental health professional is super nice but chats my ear off while I'm trying to write on all there required forms...one of those things where you are talking while writing and you almost end up writing what you are talking about "subject entered into a fit of rage after stating that he wanted to kill himself...yeah you know i do have family from the south and the traffic is bad in that part of town......" shit. Cleared the hospital...

On my way back to the station...to try and remember details from the other 10 reports I took 8 hours ago (thats why your notebook and pen are the best tools you have...good notes are key)......oh wait pass my partner on the road...lets go back him up....get there, he and Tex have a dude hooked up, partner got a ton of dope and cash off the guy just from a simple traffic violation...score.....sure its normal to carry $1000 bucks cash and a half oz of meth oh and a crack pipe....hmm wonder what he was up to that night....helped out baggin and taggin evidence for about 10 minutes.

Cleared.....back to the station.....take a wiz...that felt good....nothin like a good fight to get the juices flowing.......yep felt that good....really good...now I'm thirsty....gulp gulp gulp...no i didnt drink my piss you sickos..I'm at the water fountain. God you guys are sick......you sick bastards.

Sit down....ahhhhh quiet no calls..squak box (radio) is quiet. cricket cricket.....cricket cricket......type type type paper paper paper.....I'm there 18 minutes (no joke Im looking at my notes right now) and get dispatched to stupid malicious mischief report call (damaged property) at a casino.

Go out there...big security guy says someone broke there hand railing at their front entrance....seriously? sigh....ok....lets have a look....yep its broken...broken off from the concrete foundation.....write a statement for me por favor.......wait wait wait...wait ...he's writing writing writing....I go to the bathroom..drank all that water remember.......wait wait...look around...drunk people throwing their money away (not judging done it plenty of times myself)....ok I'm done he says...oh yeah I got security footage of the guy...view the tape...yep..basically the guy lost 3000 dollars at a table (later found out the guy makes 10 bucks an hour..which kind of makes the loss even that more sad)...he gets pissed walks outside and trashes the railing. How much would you estimate the damage to be? Well it happened before and it cost about 400 bucks.....oh and by the way we know who he is...he is a regular customer...gave me his name and date of birth.....

go out to the car and whip out the trusy bail book (your patrolman bible..basically an abreviated version of all the laws/codes/ordinances etc.....400 bucks...classifies it as a felony...whoa! I got a good case now.....run the guys name on my computer and holly shit he has a local address...call the sarge.....hey sarge can I go try and find this guy....sure go ahead....Tex and him were tied up so went over to the address with an officer from a neighboring agency...very cool guy fyi...he helped me out on the earlier domestic. KNock knock knock.......like a family of 5 latinos come to the door and they dont speak any english...I might as well been speaking Russian...I said the guys name and they seemed to understand......they go in the back and out comes this other guy...bingo. Looks kinda like the guy but the footage was a little grainy and now he was not wearing a shirt. I ask him his name and he nods his head......"licencia por favor?" (thank you basic spanish for law enforcement academy block instruction). He gave me his ID and it was him.....the only other thing I could do was say the name of the casino and he nodded...I think indicating that he was admitting that he was there earlier but I dont know...sometimes when someone only speaks spanish you could ask them "do you like birds.....Si..... who are you Si.....what does the color orange taste like....Si..." you get the idea. I asked his brother for his shirt and out came his shirt for him to wear...bingo, it was the same shirt in the security footage...a big picture of Jesus on the back"! Good! yay! clean arrest!

I sat there and attempted to read him his rights (right to remain silent, right to an attorney blah blah blah) but I had to read it in spanish....that was comical....I certainly cant speak spanish so I butchared reading it.

I was feelin good like something out of a cool hollywood movie kinda federal marshal caught the fugitive kinda way....then I got really sad and honestly started feeling bad for the guy. I honestly dont think that he understood what was going on cause I understand a little spanish and can muddle my way through a little bit.....He's in the back of my car and actually seems like a nice, honest hard working dude just trying to get by....I think he thought that he was under arrerst for getting drunk cause he started talking about how he had 8 beers that night......then he started pleading with me thinking that he could just pay the fine right to me or pay for the damage to the casino....probably not uncommon practice back in Mexico....and you could tell he was desperate cause he was crying and they were real tears not drama-get me out of jail- tears. I couldnt explain that thats not how it works here.......so I started driving back to the station and he is crying the whole way talking about how his mom had just died and that he has a son in mexico that he was trying to raise money to send back to mexico for his family...again I believed him just from his demeanor.......but then I thought to myself...no this is bullshit...cant feel sorry for a guy that just wasted 3000 dollars at a casino......wait...but then I started thinking...shit maybe he was just trying to double his money to send back to his family and maybe this was all his savings and he just got stupid thinking it would be a good way to get money faster......went back and forth with how I felt about it.....hard to judge sometimes...people are hard to read sometimes......

On my way back to the station I just kept thinking...shit I dont think he understands whats going on...I thought this cause from what I could make out I think he either thought I was taking him back to the casino so he could pay for the damage or that I was being nice and giving him a ride home etc....sigh...what to do.....I could call a translator service on the phone....that kind of sucks though especially with someone in handcuffs......luckily there was a spanish speaking officer with a neighboring city that was available....I met up with him and this was such a blessing...man just to be able to communicate. He read him his rights (again cover your ass from the defense attorney)....man the officer's spanish was WAY better than mine...that was a relief....he explained the situation to him and how he couldnt just pay me directly. I think it put the guy at ease just understanding what was happening...a very huge thank you thank you thank you to the officer and off I went to the station for some booking paperwork before going up to the county jail.

Off I went.....I think I could make out that he was calling me friend and that I was nice...I think he thought it was cool that I didn't treat him like a dirtbag...probably didnt hurt that I turned it to the local latino music radio station in the car.....I cant stand that stuff but I figured why not enjoy some good homeland tunes if your on your way to the joint. I was able to ask in my spanglish what he did for a living and I think he said that he is a cook and makes about 12 bucks an hour.........sad...he started crying again and I could kind of make out that he was asking if he was going to be deported....I said back to him imigration? La migra? and he was like Si Si......I was able to tell him "minyana...magistrado" trying to convey that he would have to talk to the judge in the morning and I think that did the trick......Si .....Si he said yes yes.

The jail is always a pleasant experience......not. I hate that place...I'll spare the details...

Went back to the station and then typed reports for the next 3 hours.....came home jazzed...great night...great friday...then I sat here and typed this for an hour or so.....wanted to get it posted cause I've left you guys hanging for so long....i'm fricken exhausted.....hope you guys enjoyed it....sorry for the novel!

till next time....stay tuned for the next episode of the recruit diaries....