Jingle Bells

So besides being a beat cop, I have a couple collateral duties.  I am part time on the SWAT team and part time in our aviation unit.  When I fly I am an observer or what we call TFO Tactical Flight Officer.  Basically I do the law enforcement function so the pilot can focus on flying.  We Fly MD500E helicopters and we have an awesome surveillance plane as well.  Most of the time I fly in one of our helicopters and the basic duty is to monitor in a scan mode our normal 4 district channels to listen for stuff to go to as well as two other PD channels for highway patrol and other agencies as well as two aviation channels so I know when my pilot is talking on his channels so I don’t try to talk to him at the same time when he is talking to tower or other aircraft.  I run the same computer we have in a patrol car, a spotlight and a FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) camera which is thermal imaging which is operated with an Xbox like controller.  So you hands are full so to key the mic to talk you have two buttons on floor one to talk to the pilot and the other to talk on which ever of the 7 channels I am listening to I select.  It gets busy to say the least.  Now you fly around a have to be able to know where you are, where “they” are and describe in a clear enough manner that the bad guy gets caught.  Its serious multi tasking.  Now factor in leaning out the cockpit to look for things find flying in circles and not getting sick, it gets pretty tricky.

One night a couple years ago shortly before Christmas I was flying as TFO and we had a passenger in the back.  It’s always neat to fly around Christmas time because its fun to see all of the Christmas lights.  But since its cold we fly with the doors on, which looking through the curved Plexiglas makes things look funny so I don’t dig doors on very much.  It was my first time flying with NVG Night Vision Goggles and they were not set up for me (which I would learn later in NVG School at the local Air Force Base is a bad idea)  Within moments of taking off my inner ears let me know they were not happy to be flying.  Looking though the curved glass and flying in circles did not help the nauseous feeling in my gut. 

A few calls into it were flying circles around a house and I am keeping the spot lot on the target while officers search in side for a suspect.  My job is to notices any squirters (people who come squirting out of the building running) and start calling out their description and direction of travel and talk the ground units in to apprehend them.  My pilot asks me on the intercom (ICS)  “Hey, you ok?”  My response was something similar to Ving Rhames line from Pulp Fiction when Bruce Willis comes down to the basement of the pawn shop to free him.  “Nah, I’m pretty freaking far from okay” He could tell I was struggling to not puke.  I must have looked pretty green even in the darkness.  He says “Okay I will level out a bit, fly  a wider orbit and when we are done head back to the hangar”  and when we are done we start to head back to the hanger and another priority call came out and he does an banking S turn to change direction to head toward the call. 

For 68 minutes I had been doing everything in my power to not barf but that was too much.  I put my hand up to my mouth, moved my mic out of the way and up it came.  I didn’t want to clean it up so like a champ I swallowed down the first batch, which pretty much guaranteed a second batch which was now blocked by my hand so it took the path of least resistance, out my nose.  Yup, peas carrots and Raman noodles shooting out my nose.  I moved my mic back down and shouted “barf bag” and reached back to the lady in the back, who promptly threw a barf bag at me.  I’m retching my guts out and my pilot gets on ICS “No, no, no I’m a sympathetic puker” he looks left away from me pulls collective, shoves the cyclic forward and starts singing jingle bells to distract himself between radio transmissions to the tower. “Jingle Bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way….Falcon five are we clear for direct approach…negative on gecko approach….request direct approach…Jingle bells, jingle bell”  We came skidding in and I pulled my mic cord and jumped out to finish my business. 

After when I was done cleaning up myself and the helicopter the lady in the back and pilot were both laughing at me and she said I heard you ask for a barf bag and wave your hand like “Look bitch, hand me a barf bag now! So I threw it at you as soon as I could”.  We all laughed. I haven’t barfed again since.  I now have my NVG set up correctly and my pilot still sings jingle bells from time to time to make me laugh.  The rest of the guys made me special barf bags with my name on it and a happy little picture of me.  I still get grief about it every time I fly.  Good times to be had by all.  But I won’t eat Raman.

Officers Newton and Pauli

I read through my posts and it seems like it’s been a while since I posted any funny stories.  I will lay off the hard stuff and write about something a little lighter, so here goes.  For the most part these days I pretty much forget about what happened at work the night before then some time down the road someone says something that causes you to chuckle, and people think your coo coo for coco puffs.  Someone said something the other day and it reminded me of this funny story. 

A few years back I was working as an FTO (Field Training Officer).  That’s when you train a newbie the ropes, teach them how to apply what they have learned in the academy in kind of a walk before running environment so rookies don’t go out and get killed their first week.  In this case my OIT (Officer In Training) was a veteran officer that had been terminated but had been rehired by the agency.  I avoided getting involved in the why he got terminated however, I assume that since he was hired back and given back pay for the time he was separated from the agency it was one of those wrongful termination situations.  Regardless he was a vet so it was more like we were partners and I just had to write evaluations about his performance and since he was a good cop it was easy. 

One of our first nights we were out trolling around midnight in a high crime area and a car flagged us down to tell us there was an extremely drunk guy stumbling around nearly waking into the street.  So we pull around the corner and just as described is an intoxicated male subject.  He looks back at us as we approach then he takes off running, Or stumble/running.  My OIT had already checked off on the radio that we were going to be out with the guy but we didn’t feel a need to report he was running yet and get a bunch of cops flying our way lights and sirens and since his motor skills were impaired, I was pretty sure we could catch him.  My OIT speeds the car alongside then in front of him then up a drive way to pinch off his path.  I open the door and miss hitting him with the door by inches.  Suspect turns and runs the opposite direction; I jump out and take off running after him back towards the rear of the car. The car was still moving when I jumped out so the car was nearly halfway passed me by the time I started running.  On about the third or second and half step I failed to take into account the elevation change between the sidewalk and the curb down the street.  Being more top heavy than normal with my vest and equipment I feel myself falling forward. Picture Velma from Scooby Doo running with that forward lean she had, but when she needed to her legs would speed up to that blurry speed and she went faster.  I desperately try to peddle my legs faster to try to compensate, but no blurry speed for me, I was already at a full sprint, at least for the two and half steps.  No love, I feel it coming so rather than do the superman slide I do the TJ Hooker tuck and roll, we call it the SWAT roll too (vintage swat videos).  My roll was pretty successful, for the most part.  With the exception of thumping my melon mid way through, causing a flash of white in my vision and possibly concussing myself it wasn’t too bad.  I was back up and running without even missing a step.  My OIT was next to me by now looking at me like Whisky Tango Foxtrot.  He had no idea why I chose to do a sweet tuck and roll in the middle of the street for no apparent (to him) reason.

We round the corner together and apparently suspect failed the TJ Hooker tuck and roll of his own and was getting up and we didn’t have enough time to slow since the train was a movin, me at 250Lbs and my OIT at least that it probably felt like freight train hit him.  We start cuffing him up as a car is approaching us.  They roll down the window and my OIT says “Keep moving, nothing to see here” Which is the typical cop line and it’s fun to say just to say.  The man in the car says “I just want to make sure that Officer that fell is OK”. I felt like I left my dignity back in the street where I did my SWAT roll, but this confirmed it.  I assure them I am fine as we pick suspect up off the ground.  He is spitting out dirt and grass as we walk. 

This was at the height of the “Four Locos” fiasco where someone had a bright idea of mixing malt liquor and energy drinks.  Normally they would pass out from being drunk but now they were full of energy and ready to fight or do other stupid things.  So we are trying to ID this kid.  My OIT asks him his name but as he is saying it he keeps spitting out dirt and grass making a “Spitzth” sound.  My OIT asks jokingly “Is that spelled one Spitzth or two”.  The OIT asks his height with a heavy slur “I’m nine feet six inches” the suspect says.  I laugh and respond “Dude your are not nine feet tall, you’re a Hispanic male and historically you are probably going to be five feet four inches to five feet six inches tall” in the same slurred speech “Fu#$ you, I’m nine feet six inches tall” After a few minutes of mumbling he comes to the realization he is in fact five feet six inches tall. 

He starts complaining “You mother fu#$ers kicked my ass” I laugh and tell him, “I am sorry but you got your ass kicked by Physics, Primarily Newton’s first law and that a body in motion tends to stay in motion and Pauli’s exclusion principal that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time” He pauses, “well those mother fu$#ers Officer Newton and Pauli kicked my ass then.”  He is so drunk in fact he has no idea what I am telling him and the fact that he was arrested for being drunk on campus and assaulting a teacher at high school leads me to believe he may not be the best student.  In fact this little gem turned out to be a genuine menace to society.  He later (all while still being a juvenile committed a string of armed robberies including one where he forced the victim into the trunk of her own car and kidnapped her then stole her belongings at knife point).   We took him home to his mother with a coupon to return to court at a later day for being a minor consuming alcohol. 

Later we both laughed about my tuck and roll and how awesome it wasn’t.  But in reality as lame as I looked, I would have looked way more lame if I just slid into home plate right there in the street.   

Stranger than Fiction

It’s an old cliché that truth is stranger than fiction.  No place is this truer than law enforcement.  Even after 5 years, I still get amazed by things I see, things people say and do.  I suppose it’s because we get called to handle the strange and unique situations that most people do not want to deal with.   I remember one situation in particular that was in fact strange.

I was called to investigate a guy pooping in the backyard of a vacant home that transients frequented.  I was actually quite interested to find the guy, not just because it would be funny or entertaining; but it’s a serious degradation of the quality of life to look out the window and see someone planting sewer pickles in the backyard of the house next to you or in the alley behind your house.  I mean really, nobody wants to see that.   I check the backyard, of the vacant home.  I am careful to avoid lawn sausages.  I was there a while back and one of the other officers stepped in a sewer pickle and it was a major hassle to get it off his boots, so I am looking to avoid that inconvenience.   The backyard was negative so I check the alley. 

I find a guy hiding in an old sofa.  It was one of the pull out sleeper kind but, it was just the frame with nothing inside except a partly nude guy.  I will call him Sammy (not his real name) is ducked down inside the sofa laying down.  I see a tube of lotion next to him and can’t see his hands.  I advise him that if he is rubbing one out we are going to have a significant problem.  I get him out as my back up is arriving.  I ask  “are you the one droppin a duce in the vacant house yard?”  he denies any felony or misdemeanor pooping.  At this point I am not inclined to use more probative investigative techniques to determine if he is in fact the pooper I am looking for.  I am more concerned with him reaching his hand down his pants and touching himself as he talks to me.  I advise him that it is offending my sensibilities that he is touching himself as he talks to me and I explain how it’s in his best interest to cease this activity. (It didn’t really sound like that, it may have had some colorful adjectives and metaphors and  possibly some veiled and not so veiled threats about what might happen to him if he didn’t stop, but that was the point I got across.)  My problem at this point is that his activity is public sexual indecency, but in this state I need a victim.  I as an officer am not allowed to be a victim of disorderly conduct and such.  It has to be an active crime against me like someone assaulting me or something like this.  So I am looking around to see if someone, anyone has seen him roughing up the suspect.  I contact the caller who called about his pooping and she didn’t actually see him she assumed what he was doing.  I don’t blame her, I would not watch for the gritty details either, but it doesn’t help my quest to put him in jail. 

So with no luck on taking him to jail we document the contact and the suspicious nature of his behavior; his outfit should have been the tell tale sign of things to come.  A white guy, (besides me, the only one in a mile any direction) wearing a derby hat, a vest from a three piece suit no shirt, snake skin vinyl pants and cowboy boots. (rule of thumb, never trust a guy in snakeskin pants and a derby hat)  We release him because he has denied us a consent search for drugs and I have no probable cause to search him and to be truthful I am not willing to find any evidence that may link him to the sewer pickle planting incident.  So after he is warned about trespassing and loitering and public sexual indecency, on his way he goes. 

The next day I was checking the ally much later in the shift to see if Sammy is back.  I stop and talk to the original caller and she tells me his is hiding in an irrigation junction box.  In this alley is a concrete bunker of sorts.  It’s like a giant T to send water in different direction, it’s about 4 feet deep, 3 feet wide and shapped like a giant T.  I leave my car on the street and quietly make my way back to this concrete box.  I shine my light inside and sure enough, Sammy is in there, surrounded by porn on ever side of the inside of this concrete junction box.  But now there is the fact that he is wearing woman’s yoga pants with the crotch cut out so the twig and berries are out and about and he is taking care of business.  I ask him what the hell he is doing.  His left hand shoots into one of the pipes that makes this den of iniquity a T.  Not knowing what he is reaching for, I draw my gun and tell him not to move.  I advise him that if his hand comes out of the pipe and into visibility with a weapon, I will in fact shoot him.  He slowly pulls his hand out with and drops a baggy of what looks like meth.  I keep him at gunpoint until I have the units I requested to meet me in the back are with me.  I get him out and realize that his tight whites are around his neck, yep, neck through one of the leg holes and the waistband and yes, his junk is in fact out and about for the world to see.  This because he chose to cut the crotch out of these woman’s pants.  I cuff him up and the female officer that was backing me up asks him why his underwear was around his neck and not covering his goodies.   His response “Pffft” with a look like “duh, why wouldn’t you”.  

The bad part of this incident, I know your thinking, what?  The other stuff wasn’t the bad part.   Nope, I had to climb down into his den of iniquity to retrieve his meth bag and meth pipe.  I asked him to tell me where his “DNA” would be found in this little pit so that I could avoid it.  I assured him that he would be rather displeased with my reaction to getting his DNA on me down there.  I took off my vest and shimmied my not so slender frame down into this hell hole and got the evidence I needed.  I will leave it at that.  I took him to jail for the drug possession.  He admitted that he was in fact the sewer pickle planter so the caper was solved and ended well.  And really, how strange is it to take a guy to jail wearing women’s yoga pants with the crotch cut out exposing his junk, wearing a derby hat with tightie whities around his neck.  Not quite as strange as the double horse rape report I took, or when the guy jumped out of the house wearing a Mexican wrestling mask and nothing else but it was a still something I could never have made up. 

My Friday

A few months back I opened my mouth and made a suggestion on some new technology I stumbled into on a traffic stop.  I was asked by my commander to write a proposal about my suggestion.  Like a sucker I did in fact write a proposal.  I expected that my boss would present the idea.  Nope, six months later first thing in the morning I am standing in front of the chief of operations and all of the division commanders “pitching” my idea.  The idea was well received and the meeting went well but caused me to rearrange my normal work schedule.  Because of said schedule rearrangement I was home much earlier than expected.  To celebrate my being home early I was sittin on the sofa chilling watching “The Wire”.  The Wire is not for everyone, but it’s without a doubt the closest look into the game (Cops and robbers) that I have ever seen.  My wife cannot stand even five minutes of it because the language and content is so offensive and she is right, it is; but so is life and the word I work in.

Anyway, Chillin I was, getting my Wire on, then I heard some racing motors and skidding tires and the ghetto bird on a very low orbit.  At first I thought to myself, screw it.  “I’m done with work for the day, it was my Friday, I’m going to ignore it”  But then I heard some more cars zoom by my house and realize the air unit is on a very tight low orbit right above me.  In the event any bad guys had run into my yard, I put my Rottweiler Zoe into the backyard.  (she likes watching The Wire with me even if my wife doesn’t)  I figure, if bad guy does have the misfortune of running into my yard it would be much better to let her enjoy a new chew toy.  In reality it would make it much less likely for bad guy to stay in my yard.  He would most likely will jump right back out as soon as he sees the dog.  So after sending Zoe out back I grab my radio and switch it to “hot” but it’s not the radio traffic I am looking for. 

I peak out of the blinds and see a patrol car in front of my house and from experience I can tell it’s the south end of a perimeter.   I head out my front door and walk north as I see my neighbor two houses up being escorted (not in cuffs) out of his back yard in swim trunks and a towel.   I recognize the officer by name and he recognizes me.  (I know most of you are wondering why I wouldn’t recognize the officer since we work for the same agency, but with nearly 800 officers, the truth is I don’t know them all.)  he tells me they chased a suspect into his yard and asks if I can stand by with the neighbor at a safe distance so they can search for the bad guy.   He tells me the radio channel it’s on (the gang units own channel) so I switch over, turns out my neighbor was cleaning his pool while swimming in it.  A suspect had run from a traffic stop and ran into his yard but he was underwater and didn’t see him.  He did see the cops with guns.  Since his back door was open and he was certain it was closed when he got into the pool, it needs to be treated like he is in the house.  I see the sergeant on scene is a bro of mine and was my last sergeant when I left patrol.  Over the radio he asks me for information about the house to ask my neighbor.  Bing! I’m on the clock for overtime now!  I ask and relay the info.  Back and forth several times with info and if he is willing to press charges for trespassing and such,  I relay that he is just fine with the landshark (K9) being let loose and finding said chew toy (suspect) in his house or yard.  A few of the SWAT guys arrive and they recognize me and we engage in some playful verbal banter about how they are bringing down my property value and such.  The SWAT guys ask me to take my neighbor and the crowd of neighbors from in front of my house to across the street since we would be within the field of fire if the suspect came out shooting. 

So we saunter across the street.  At this point I know who the suspect is and why they are looking for him.  As the intel officer I put his name on our target list of criminals to track down since he had a felony warrant and was wanted for questioning on multiple vehicle and residential burglaries in my work area.  So I start calling the detective that needs to interview him to let him know the a-hole he is looking for is barricaded up in MY NEIGHBORS HOUSE!!.  As I am on the phone, I have to answer some questions over the radio and my personal cell starts ringing.  It’s my wife who is out of state but is getting calls from all over the neighborhood about whisky tango foxtrot (WTF) is going on in our neighborhood.  I give her a brief run down and tell her I will call back.  I get back onto the mix.  I hear over the radio they are going to deploy a “DD” (Diversionary Devise otherwise known as a “flash bang”).  I tell my neighbors to plug their ears.  I should point out that I have the crowd of neighbors positioned behind my neighbors car in the event anything goes bad.  But this teenage couple did not heed my warning when I said they probably shouldn’t stand so close to the police perimeter.  So they were as close as you could get.  And when I told my neighbors to plug their ears they looked at me like I was insane.  So when I hear “Stand By for a report” over the radio, experience tells me in about 2 seconds a very loud BOOOOM will go off.  So instead of watching the flash bang go off I watch the teenage couple nearly jump out of their skin.  The girl was so scared she started crying and sobbing instantly.  I chuckled, I know I am twisted but that is funny. 

In the end, they found the bad guy and dragged him out to cart him off to jail.  I chit chatted with some of my cop buddies and neighbors before they left.   Before going back into my house one of my neighbors was telling me how crazy this whole thing was to her.  I told her this is everyday stuff for me and she was just puzzled when I said.  Isn’t it fun?  She didn’t think so.   I must say, this Friday ended better than it started. 

Weird stuff

I seem have the unique opportunity to a front row seat to the weirdness of the world.  At work I get to handle all sorts of strange things.  I think back to a warrant arrest I helped out on in when I was first on the street.  I was still under the supervision of a field training officer.  The subject was a pre op transsexual and I wasn’t sure if she was pre op or post op male or female.  So I had to ask, “So, uh.. are you a male or female?”  I needed to ask because male officers don’t search female prisoners the way that we search males.  So my next question was “Uh.., are those breasts uh, real?”  So now is where the weirdness begins.  My FTO tells me you need to get those out.  “What if he has drugs or a weapon hidden in there?”  My response “Are you kidding me?  I have to go into his bra?”  My FTO thought it was good times.  I didn’t.  I had him handcuffed so I had to reach in his bra and pull out the doubled up, rubber/silicon bra inserts.  He told me he got them at Fredrick’s of Hollywood.  They looked like little breasts with nipples and all. He had them stuffed two per side to get the size and shape he desired.  So, now I know where to get bra inserts if I want to start cross dressing.  The best part of the whole encounter was when I had to put his purse and fake boobies into property so he could get them out when he got out of jail.  I had them in a plastic bag sitting next to me on the desk in the report writing area.  Several officers were so amazed at his boobies they were passing the bag of boobs around poking and squeezing away at the imitation boobies.  At the time I was new and thought it was weird to see dudes passing around a bag of boobies.  Now it’s just funny.

By far the weirdest thing that happened to me occurred several years back.  My wife and I were headed to Linda’s Doll Hut in Anaheim to see my buddy Jeff’s band Piggyback play.  I would love to hear “love letter” live again.  That song kicked ass, but they split up so no joy.  If you have never been to the Doll Hut, it’s a hut, not really, but it is a very small house in the middle of a  industrial part of Anaheim. And I know by the name you were thinking strip club but it’s not.  I hesitate to use the word dump to describe the place because it has so much character.  But it had to be a 1000 Sq feet or less for the whole bar.  In order to make room for the band to play the pool table had to be pushed back out of the way.

When my wife and I arrived there was a crowd of 20-30 punk rock types milling around the front of the joint.  I made my way to the entrance and after getting carded to get in, Yep I used to look young enough to get carded, anyway we entered.  Keep in mind the bar is about 5 feet from the door, and then you have your choice of going left or right.  I think left used to be a bedroom and right used to be a living room, but it’s just a guess.  In the midst of the stink of cigarette smoke and booze was a small bar with three trashy older bar flies that did not appear to be there to hear the band, as they looked like characters out of the movie Bar fly.  I notice an older white guy with a fro.  Instantly it struck me at how much he looked like my father.  Yup my dad had a fro.  Growing up I wished I had a fro like my dad because we all know the saying Fros=chicks is true, and when I was younger I needed all the help I could get.  I still scored a hot wife but the fro would have been cool and who knows, maybe pushed me to male super model status.  My good looks and a fro, shoot.., nuff said.

 But as soon as I saw this man, like a bolt of lightning it struck me.  Now, my father died 13 years before this, when I was 10 years old.  But I couldn’t help but think how much this guy looked just like my dad would look if he was still alive.  It was like all of the ambient noise was gone and suddenly the guy looked over his left shoulder at me and it sounded like he said “Hey Aaron, how’s it going?”  I freaked out.  My heart skipped a beat and started to race, I instantly turned the other way to go around the left side of the bar by the KISS pinball machine (very cool).  As we rounded the corner out of sight from what was ‘cool, looks like my dad dude’ to ‘holy crap freakiest moment in life, mind reading, back from the dead dude’.  My wife tugs at my hand (we still held hands back then) and says “do you know that guy at the bar who was calling you?”  I just about pooped my pants.  I was thinking that I misheard the guy.  But now it was turning into a full blown weird out.  I asked her if she heard him say my name, she confirmed she did.  I played it cool like it was no big deal.  We had only been married months so I didn’t want her to think I was a sissy and freaked out by creepy fro guy so I passed it off like we misheard it. 

So by the time we got around to the other side again, dude was gone.  I was glad.  Piggyback played and kicked ass.  Jeff got up on the bar in the same spot where the possessed incarnation of my dad had been sitting and while singing one of the songs, feeling the moment, stuck his head into the moving ceiling fan to stop the blades with his head, which was awesome.  As if him stopping the fan blades with his forehead wasn’t awesome enough, he finished the set with blood running down his forehead.  Bonus.

At work I see weird things all the time, like two weeks ago when I went to a call.  I went into the kitchen of this dumpy little trailer and I saw blood covering the floor, fridge, all over the walls, ceiling, and dude with a bloody pumpkin head with a wooden chair on top of him with the leg looking like it was stuck into his forehead.  Then the dude says “I’m good, I’m ok” Holy crap I just about shot him.  I thought he was dead; he shouldn’t be freaking me out talking.  We start moving crap away and it turns out that the leg was not stuck in his face, but his face was swelling around the leg of the chair from the savage beating he had just endured.  But the three 40’s of Steel Reserve malt liquor had him feeling no pain.  So I start talking to dude to figure out who he is and what happened, but he is very hard to understand because his face is swelling shut, even though his cheek is ripped open.  He says, “I’m ok, you guys can split... hey, can I bum a loosie (single cigarette)?”  I tell him “dude you don’t need a smoke you need medical help”.  He responds “I’m good” So I take the opportunity to pull a line from Pulp Fiction.  “Dude, you are pretty freaking far from good.”  After I got the gist of what happened, I broke the bad news to him that his stack of vintage porn VHS tapes was covered in blood.   He was bummed.  Well the dialog ended as he was being moved out of the trailer on the gurney.  His head had swelled to the point he went unconscious.  He is still unconscious and may not make it.  As weird as it was to have a guy with his face splayed open ask me for a cigarette, it’s still not as strange as the weird out at the Doll Hut.

Fun and Games

Those of you that know me know that I have an odd sense of humor.  However, I do find great joy in practical jokes, unless they are done on me.  In law enforcement, like any job there is a certain amount of competitiveness in everything we do.  We are measured by our stats, i.e. how many felony arrests, how many calls taken and stuff like that.  Well of course it’s fun to be the leader in competition.  So when the competition turns to practical jokes, the ultra competitive nature of cops tends to get things out of control. 

I will not incriminate myself or others on any disgusting practical jokes but I will share a few.  What caused me to write about this was an incident that occurred on Saturday night, but I will get into that a bit later.  I think one of the best ones that happened to me was at Banner Desert Hospital.  Working late swings, by the time we can break for lunch most decent places to eat are closed.  So we often eat at the hospital, the food is good and you can see them make it so you know you’re not getting an extra portion of spit.  We all park along the side of the emergency lane that ambulances and other emergency vehicles pull in.  It is pretty common to see three or more cars at the hospital, not because we are all eating because there some officers working on a call that takes them to the hospital to follow up.

One night I walk out after eating I walked out and saw that my car had been moved.  I reached down to the key holder on my belt and found that I still had two keys.  Not only was my car moved, but it is now facing the wrong way, and parked 6 inches from another patrol car driver’s door to driver’s door.  So there is a line of patrol cars parked nose to tail along the fence, then mine in the middle parked the wrong way.  I look around to see if I can find any snickering cops.  I am totally puzzled as to how anyone could have got my key from me.  So I crawl over the from the passenger seat, over the center consul filled with buttons, and switches, modems and all kinds of electrical stuff.  It was no easy feat with my 32 pounds of gear on and my vest feels like a turtle shell.  So I looked over and saw that the helicopter flight crew was watching me climb in and chuckling, it must have looked like a hippo trying to squeeze into a VW bug.  So I finally slide into place and look over to the flight crew and give them “What” tough guy nods like “What are you looking at”.  All three of them turned away so I could drive away in dignity.

I found out the perpetrator of the car parking thing was my buddy Brandon.  He heard me check off on the radio and got the spare key while he was at the station at lunch and moved it while I was inside eating.  So the next night I was riding with my buddy Jake as a two man unit.  We heard Brandon check off on the radio at a local park.   So we head that way to see if he gets into anything good.  As we arrive we see him trolling through the center of the park with his alley lights, takedown and spot light on.  So Jake drives up the curb and sneaks our way over to him with our lights off until we get right behind him.  I blast the big horn (like a fire truck horn) and flip on all the over head lights at once.  Brandon later told me he about pooped.  He was not expecting it.  So we played spot light tag for a few seconds and went our way. 

Speaking of lights, our patrol cars have what we call alley lights.  They are essentially a head light mounted to the side of the light bar.  It shoots lots of bright light to the side and is very nice when cruising the alleys behind business at night.  It is also very fun to ask someone if you have left something on the roof and when they look up, hit the light.  LOL, I never get tired of that one.    So one day I was ridding two man with by buddy Steve and we were on our way to a violent subject freaking out at the ER at Banner Desert.  Well as we get to the intersection my buddy Chris pulls up alongside.  He has a sneaky grin because he is poaching our call so he can have fun tackling a violent crazy person.  So as he looks over at us.  I hit the alley light on his side and he squints and turns away from the pain of the bright light.  Steve is laughing so hard he can barely drive as we pull away from the green light.  Chris is still seeing green spots so he can’t tell the light is green so we get there first.  All three of us are laughing very hard as we run into the ER, one of the nurses says, well you’re not going to be any good if you’re all laughing.  Good times. 

So Saturday night I was a bit late hitting the street because I was meeting with my sergeant going over my annual review.  So it was dark by the time I got out of the staion.  I get dispatched my first call as I am pulling out of the QT parking lot.  When I answer up on the air it felt like something fell into my lap.  So I put the radio mic back on the bracket and reach for my hand held flashlight on my vest and light up my lap.  HOLY CRAP!!!!! There is a tarantula sized gray spider on my right thigh, instinctively, I stab my light into my thigh and thrust the spider off.  I throw the car into park and jump out.  By now my mind is telling me that it is not real but is a rubber spider.  But what has me freaked out is in the spider looked very much like one that freaked me out in China when I was there on business 10 years ago. In that case the spider  was the size of a tarantula but was gray and slimy looking like this one but it ran across the room as fast as a rat or mouse, not your typical spider mosey. 

I shine my light to the floor board but the spider is gone.  I look over behind my car and there is a car behind me with a 20 something female looking at me like “what the heck is wrong with you”. And two other people back at the parking lot with similar looks.  So I give them the “What?” tough guy look and nod.  So she drives around and the others go inside.  I still can’t find this wicked fear inducing spider.  Now I am starting to wonder if it was real.  How could it disappear?  It had to walk off, right?  Could this be a real spider?  I am now starting to check all over my body to make sure it’s not still on me.  I am getting freaked out big time now.  I turn on the internal light on the car and search cautiously for this stupid bug.  After a few tense moments I found it in between the seat and the consul.  So I pulled out my collapsible baton and poked it to make sure it was fake.  Yep, it’s squishy, but it’s one of those sticky slimy rubber toys.  So when I pull my baton back, it sticks to my baton and comes towards me.  I freak out thinking its walking and thrust my baton into the rubber spider and jump back.  Now I am just being paranoid so I stare at it for a few more moments, nope it’s not moving.  It’s a toy, were code 4, time to go to my call.  But it was a good prank.  I just don’t know who to prank back yet.  

Here Kitty Kitty

So with budget cuts you might imagine that services get cut.  Well our humane (animal control) department has been cut to nearly nothing.  This means that we as officers have to go drag dead dogs out of the road, pick up wounded animals or strays and take them to the pound.  I have been called to all manner of animal calls but my least favorite is cat calls.  I don’t like cats.  I see them as evil animals that are nothing more than parasites.  But what bothers me more is perfectly healthy people call us to have a police officer come pick up a stray dog or cat that they have caught instead of taking it themselves.  I guess it makes more sense to someone to have me take a cat to the pound then patrol for crime.

One night in January I was dispatched to “priority cat pick up” Apparently there was a feral cat in the neighborhood that had been run over by a car. I was ridding two man with my buddy Kenny that night who loves animals, most animals but cats.  We arrive and the guy points to his bush out front and says there it is. Now Kenny has about 11 years of service on me so guess who gets to pick up this cat?  Not Kenny. 

So put on my leather gloves and duck down to take a peak.  Holy crap this cat takes off across the yard using just its front legs as it appears to be paralyzed from about half way down its spine.  I was blown away at how fast this thing was moving with just two legs.  I am trying not to laugh as I am chasing this paraplegic cat around this guy’s front yard.  The guy is watching so I don’t dare do the foot to the back of the neck trick to trap it down.  So I get it cornered and reach down and grab it by the back of the neck, Ah ha, I got ya.  Ironically the cat looks just like our own home cat Elvis.  So I am walking it to the car and as I get to the car my buddy Kenny who is still laughing about me chasing the cat gets on the air and gives a “One in custody”.  This is a joke because you normally say this when arrest someone, it starts the 24 hour clock for that person to see the judge.  But in this circumstance it is just funny because it lets everyone that knows I am on a cat call that I just had a physical struggle with a cat.  Well as Kenny opens the back door so can put the cat in the back the darn thing turns into my hand and bites me. Its top and bottom fangs penetrate the leather and both sink into my right index finger, “son of a …. “  Not realizing that the reporting party is still there, I throw the cat into the car and it bounces off of the Plexiglas divider.  Kenny slams the door shut, and says, “Oh buddy, you got to be careful with cats, there unstable, there not like dogs”.  I’m thinking, “thanks”. 

I pull my glove off and blood is pouring out of my finger.  I get a banaid out of my first aid kit and we head to the pound to drop of this devil animal.  Well sometime during the engagement in the front yard, I became the arch enemy of this cat.  As we are driving to the pound I am in the passenger side (with the prisoner behind me) and this possessed cat starts to climb under the seat to get to me.  Not satisfied with finding a safe refuge under the seat it is trying to get me.  I tell Kenny that this crazy cat is trying to get me and he starts laughing and so do I.  I feel the car swerving with the waves of laughter from Kenny.  Holy cow this cat has made its way up to have its head and front legs exposed under the front of my passenger side seat. I am trying to push it back with the heels of my boots but it is biting my boots and trying to mortally wound me.  I can’t push it back so I grab my mag light and start pushing it to get it back under the seat.  It won’t go its biting my aluminum flashlight to try to get me.  By now I am starting to get concerned that it might make it into our passenger compartment and make us crash.  So I am in the battle of wills, mine against this evil possessed paraplegic feral cat.  I use my flashlight to deliver strikes to the head of this cat to try to drive it back, Kenny is laughing so hard he is about to crash our car.  The cat is just hissing after each strike.  Finally it ducks back under the seat to seek refuge from my three D cell mag light.  I am wondering if it is just regrouping.  It was right, it makes another charge, and I have to strike it again with my light, Hard.  It pulls back under the seat and now I need to drive it back.  The battle has been raging for about 5 min now.  I start to swing my light side to side under the seat like ringing a bell.  Except one side it hits the seat and the other the cats head.  It finally recognizes my superior tactics and weapons systems and retreats to the back seat until we arrive at the pound. 

The worker tries to catch it with a snare, but it out smarts him and seeks a tactical advantage under the seat.  I know its game so I flush it out by “ringing the bell” at the front edge of the seat.  It retreats again and then charges out of the front.  I have to pin it down by the neck with my flash light holding it tight as the worker jumps over me to try to get the snare on.   Finally, we have it hooked up and it is flailing around trying to free itself.  He dumps it into a barrel and says “Holy …. That is a crazy cat”  I said “tell me about it, I had to fight the thing the whole way here and got bit by it”  So because I got bit they had to put it down right away and send it to the lab to get tested for disease.  It came back negative.  But I still had to go to the doctor and have them stick a syringe in it and flush out the car germs.  That sucked.

The worst part of the whole ordeal was by the time I got back to the station it had been circulated that I got my ass kicked by a paraplegic feral cat.  So now when I get dispatched to a “cat pick up” you will hear several officers key their mic and “meow”.    

Running from the cops 101

I never cease to be amazed that people run from us.  More often than not the odds are stacked against them, yet they still keep trying.  I am going to point out some of the mistakes made in an effort educate you in the event you want to run from the Police (pronounced Poleece). 

The first example I will use occurred just the other night.  One of my buddies attempted to pull over a car for expired registration, which as you can imagine is a very minor offense.  Well dude decided that he did not want to stop.  He just kept strolling along for a few minutes not driving reckless, just kept plugging along.  Well this was mistake number one, because it allows other officers to move that way to assist.  So like a pack of wolves hunting our prey myself and several other officers to position ourselves to pounce.  I saw the suspect proceeding east through a complex with two units behind and I knew that when he got to the end he would go north or south.  So I took a gamble and moved north one street and went east.  It turned out to be a good decision as the suspect decided to bail out of the car part way through that complex and run north.  Well guess what.  I was north to cut him off.  But before he got to me he jumped a fence into a back yard.  This was mistake number two.  What he did not know was the two officers that were out on foot directly behind him were much faster than him.  Part two to this mistake was the yard that he jumped into was home to three dogs.  Well, lucky for him the dogs were inside, but the yard was littered with lawn sausages and by lawn sausage, I mean dog poop.  Lots and lots of dog poop.  You see where this is going right?  Yep, when he was tackled, I mean “assisted him to the ground” he fell into the land of many poops.  He was covered in dog crap.  I mean covered.  His hair, his face, smashed into his clothes.  In my haste to get there and get into the action I did not glove up yet.  So when I grabbed onto him to open up his jacket, not knowing that he was covered in poop and you guessed it.  Dog crap all over my hands.  I was so mad.  I washed my hand with Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer, and soap and water about 15 times.  Then some more hand sanitizer again.  I’m just thinking it’s got to be a really crappy (no pun intended) when you go to jail covered dog poop. 

The next example of what not to do occurred several months back.  I was back up officer on a traffic stop.  The officer observed them leaving a know drug house and when the driver made a traffic violation he pulled them over.  We run them for warrants and find that one of the passengers had a warrant, so he was cuffed up and taken to the back of a patrol car.  The rear passenger who the officer had seen at the door of the dope house was sweating and fidgety and looking very nervous.  We got him out of the car and sat him down on the curb to talk to him separately from the others.  Well after he gives consent to be searched the other officer searches him he has him sit back down on the curb and take off his shoes and when he does baggie of crack cocaine falls out, Here comes mistake number one, He jumps up and takes off running with three cops within 5 feet of him.  Mistake number two was trying to run across granite landscaping rock with only one shoe on.  Well he made it about 30 feet only before he was landing like a lawn dart face first into the 1 inch granite landscaping rocks.  Upon impact his face exploded with blood I was down at his feet manually crossing them then kneeling across them to keep him from kicking the other two officers were cuffing him up.  I went back and checked my call comments and I called out foot pursuit, gave out the description and DOT (direction of travel) and called “one detained” meaning we had him secured all on the same minute.  So let’s review his mistakes.   Trying to take off running from being seated is just asking to get caught.  Secondly, trying to run with only one shoe is, well aside from being funny is another bad idea.

Let’s face it, we have all seen the show Cops.  We know what is going to happen if you run.  More likely than not, running from the cops is going to end in a polyester pileup of officers pouncing onto you like a pack of lions on a gazelle.  You’re going to get dragged out scuffed up and bleeding and you’re still going to go to jail. 

I have been lucky thus far and I caught every bad guy I have chased down.  I think mainly because I try to mitigate my chances of getting smoked.  If I have even the slightest inkling that the person will run I sit them down and warn them that I will use whatever force necessary to keep them from running.  I often let them know that with the taser I can be 25 feet away and turn them into a running lawn dart.  Most times the verbal threat is sufficient to keep them chilled out.

So let’s review what we have learned here today.  Don’t give us time to encircle you. Don’t run into unknown territory.  Don’t run if you can’t run fast.  Don’t run if you’re seated.  Don’t run with one shoe on.  Let’s just leave it at, don’t run from the cops.  You’re going to get caught and going to jail, sweaty, bloody and covered in dog poop.  And that can’t be as pleasant as just going to jail right?