So my grandfather recently went for a ride along with me. It was very interesting and fun. For most the ride it was very boring according to my standards. I was looking to get into some action, however, even with the beautiful weather and sunny skies none was to be had. Finally we had a break. There was a robbery alarm that went off and we were the only car available. So we had to go code 3 to the run that was 10 minutes away with lights and siren. It was a two lane road that we were on so I did not have time to look over and see if grandpa was white knuckled or not. I will not say the exact speed, but rumor pray tells of upper double digits on a two lane road.
Anyways, another opportunity came on an injury accident. A drunk driver had a head on collision with a honda accord. The drunk was driving a dodge ram. Luckily no one was seriously injured, but one female (not wearing her seat belt I might add) flew forward and hit her head on the windshield and caused it to spider web. Well eventually we got the report done and headed down to the book with the drunk. This is only interesting because grandpa was able to see a breathalizer test as well as some unruly detainees at the book. He got a chuckle out of that.
Like most rides I hope to give people some action and get them to see some things that they don't normally see. This is to mainly get their eyes opened a little bit and let them have some stories to tell at work. Hopefully they find some humor, concern, appreciation, and respect for the job that police officers have to do. It is not all writing tickets, though some cops do love writing tickets I hate to do it. (That is a story in and of itself. People's reaction to being pulled over, their lack of understanding that they were guilty, and their so called integrity that they are innocent.)
Hopefully my grandpa enjoyed himself. He seemed too. It was nice to be able to spend some time with him, since I don't remember spending alone time with him in the past couple of decades. When I was in high school we were just to busy with sports. And in college the few months I lived in Michigan at the same time they did I didn't really have a chance to get over. The few times I did, as my grandma so eloquently put it "she always came along." (meaning my wife, girlfriend at the time). So grandpa thanks for going for a ride, putting up with my driving, and I hope you had a great time.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
WWE wantta be
So apparently I have taken a tremendous vacation from writing on my blog. And to be honest the only reason I even thought about it was because of my sisters blog. I will try and post at least once a week from now on. I believe I have a few more stories in the year that I can tell.
Let's start with one. I made reference to this story in one of my posts so I will tell it now.
First of all my dad was riding with me that night and I was in a pissy mood. It was raining, we had car accidents out the butt, it just wasn't a good day. Then all of sudden we get a run on a CIT patient, which is crisis intervention team, meaning people with mental problems that need help due danger to themselves or others. (This in and of itself is getting ridiculous on our department, I will write about that later) The run stated a 20 year old male is throwing things and making threats to his girlfriend and is apparently high on some type of illegal drugs. I pull up and the girlfriend is outside with the "consumers" (police term for patient since he is not a suspect in a crime) mother. Where my car is positioned I can not see the stair case coming down from the apartment building floor. As I am talking to the GF and mother, they both go there he is. I still can not see him at this point. All of a sudden I take two steps and he pops out from behind the wall, where the stairs are. He is ranting and raving, cussing up a storm, throwing his hands up in a menacing way, and trying to ensnare me into a fight (which I would have gladly given him due to my pissy mood). I am about 3 feet from him face to face. At this point my partner pulls up from behind him and yells at him to get his attention. As he turns his anger and jeers toward my partner, I slip on the "love gloves". My dad later told me "when you slipped on the gloves it was going to be a fun night." Once my gloves where on I moved in behind the consumer, once he realized I was there he turned and kind of swung at me with his hands. He missed so I took my right hand, grabbed him around the neck and slammed him on the hood of car. Apparently I lifted him off the ground a good foot, but I don't recall. That is pretty much the rest of the story. We had to tussle with him a little bit more, I gave him the "come to Jesus speech" all the while he is still cussing and saying he is going to whoop our asses.
I tell this story not so people will think I am involved in police brutality, but to set the story straight. My dad loves to tell this story and I wanted to get out my perspective. To be honest other officers probably would have tasered him and whooped his ass. However, we just 4 pointed him and then EMS took him to the hospital to get help.
Let's start with one. I made reference to this story in one of my posts so I will tell it now.
First of all my dad was riding with me that night and I was in a pissy mood. It was raining, we had car accidents out the butt, it just wasn't a good day. Then all of sudden we get a run on a CIT patient, which is crisis intervention team, meaning people with mental problems that need help due danger to themselves or others. (This in and of itself is getting ridiculous on our department, I will write about that later) The run stated a 20 year old male is throwing things and making threats to his girlfriend and is apparently high on some type of illegal drugs. I pull up and the girlfriend is outside with the "consumers" (police term for patient since he is not a suspect in a crime) mother. Where my car is positioned I can not see the stair case coming down from the apartment building floor. As I am talking to the GF and mother, they both go there he is. I still can not see him at this point. All of a sudden I take two steps and he pops out from behind the wall, where the stairs are. He is ranting and raving, cussing up a storm, throwing his hands up in a menacing way, and trying to ensnare me into a fight (which I would have gladly given him due to my pissy mood). I am about 3 feet from him face to face. At this point my partner pulls up from behind him and yells at him to get his attention. As he turns his anger and jeers toward my partner, I slip on the "love gloves". My dad later told me "when you slipped on the gloves it was going to be a fun night." Once my gloves where on I moved in behind the consumer, once he realized I was there he turned and kind of swung at me with his hands. He missed so I took my right hand, grabbed him around the neck and slammed him on the hood of car. Apparently I lifted him off the ground a good foot, but I don't recall. That is pretty much the rest of the story. We had to tussle with him a little bit more, I gave him the "come to Jesus speech" all the while he is still cussing and saying he is going to whoop our asses.
I tell this story not so people will think I am involved in police brutality, but to set the story straight. My dad loves to tell this story and I wanted to get out my perspective. To be honest other officers probably would have tasered him and whooped his ass. However, we just 4 pointed him and then EMS took him to the hospital to get help.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Long time with a tragic story
It has been a long time since I have written on here. Not because I don't have stories, cause I DO!!!! But because my life has been extremely busy with Grad school, vacation, sleep, and work. So anyways I will have to remind myself to discuss the choke slam that was straight out of WWE and other funny stories, but for now I will write about a tragic story.
Last night we had to make a run on a 20 month old that was struck and killed by a car. Apparently the child was run over as the vehicle was backing. I am not sure where the child was run over, but to see the child there was tear jerking. I won't go into the details, but it was pretty gruesome. The mother of course was hysterical, but when we gave her a chance to say goodbye to the child before the coroner to him she just laid her head on his chest crying and speaking something in spanish to the him.
I am impressed with the way our superiors handled the whole situation. First we blocked the view of the mother with the child from the media cause that is the type stuff they drool over. They also went around and asked those who were first on scene if we needed to leave, due to the circumstances of the incident with a child. In a somber and sorry experience it is good to know that the department still takes these things into account. Our department has problems like every other department but today I was glad that this was not one of them.
Last night we had to make a run on a 20 month old that was struck and killed by a car. Apparently the child was run over as the vehicle was backing. I am not sure where the child was run over, but to see the child there was tear jerking. I won't go into the details, but it was pretty gruesome. The mother of course was hysterical, but when we gave her a chance to say goodbye to the child before the coroner to him she just laid her head on his chest crying and speaking something in spanish to the him.
I am impressed with the way our superiors handled the whole situation. First we blocked the view of the mother with the child from the media cause that is the type stuff they drool over. They also went around and asked those who were first on scene if we needed to leave, due to the circumstances of the incident with a child. In a somber and sorry experience it is good to know that the department still takes these things into account. Our department has problems like every other department but today I was glad that this was not one of them.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
SWAT
I got to watch our SWAT team in action the other day. I must say it is even more impressive than I thought in person. What was really cool was seeing everyone in the neighborhood where it went down, outside looking at our caravan. We had 3 SWAT trucks, like 8 unmarked police cars, 4 marked police cars, and 2 ambulances (is it ambuli?) The size was mainly due to the fact that we had 2 different department agencies involved in the same search warrant. The swiftness and efficiency that they work with is something to see. I was scared watching them from a vantage point, I can't imagine being in the house.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Death
The loss of a local police officer makes brings to the front what this job is. Being there to enter when others won't, to respond to the needs of others regardless of what can happen. Most of the time I feel that we take this for granted that it is our duty to do so, until a moment like this brings it all back into the forefront of your mind. Though it is a tragedy and they will be missed, it is a moment that I feel pride in my job, these two men that were there did their job as they were supposed too and did not back down in the sight of danger or fear.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Take out the Trash
I am writing this because of the stereotypes that come with certain neighborhoods. I am going to be using some stereotypes and terms, but this is only to get the point across that you never can tell how someone is going to act in certain areas.
I recently went on a run for Domestic Violence (I hate this term or rather "run" because a child not listening to their parent is considered "domestic violence" to most people apparently, which is why we have to discipline their child. But that is a different story of how police are parents to not only children, but the parents as well in today's society) to a very nice neighborhood. We did the normal routine of listening to the victim, then we went up to the house to listen to the other person's side. As we did this, the step mother of the victim greeted us at the door then as we went to talk to the father, who we saw run into another room, she started going off. The father was no different, he tried to "buck up" on myself and my partner, but he wised up. We take the father out the front, while the step-mother runs out the back door and around the front of the house and starts yelling at the victim (mind you it is like 1130 at night). At this point you would expect nothing to happen, but window shades to open. Well as soon as she started her little ordeal people started coming out of their $400,000 homes like cockroaches. We easily had 30 people in their driveways watching and trying to intervene on everyone's behalf. If it wasn't for the scenery I would have thought I was back down in one of the worst neighborhoods in our city.
The point of this story is that you can take the trash out of the city, but you can't take the trash out of the people.
I recently went on a run for Domestic Violence (I hate this term or rather "run" because a child not listening to their parent is considered "domestic violence" to most people apparently, which is why we have to discipline their child. But that is a different story of how police are parents to not only children, but the parents as well in today's society) to a very nice neighborhood. We did the normal routine of listening to the victim, then we went up to the house to listen to the other person's side. As we did this, the step mother of the victim greeted us at the door then as we went to talk to the father, who we saw run into another room, she started going off. The father was no different, he tried to "buck up" on myself and my partner, but he wised up. We take the father out the front, while the step-mother runs out the back door and around the front of the house and starts yelling at the victim (mind you it is like 1130 at night). At this point you would expect nothing to happen, but window shades to open. Well as soon as she started her little ordeal people started coming out of their $400,000 homes like cockroaches. We easily had 30 people in their driveways watching and trying to intervene on everyone's behalf. If it wasn't for the scenery I would have thought I was back down in one of the worst neighborhoods in our city.
The point of this story is that you can take the trash out of the city, but you can't take the trash out of the people.
Shake it Out
I believe I have briefly mentioned this before, but it is extremely funny to me to see people (teenagers in particular) shaking when you pull them over. I find it humorous because when they shake you know they are never stopped by police and rarely do anything wrong. Another reason is because I can remember when I was a kid and how when I got pulled over it was the most embarrasing thing to me and in the back of my mind I'm thinking "My Dad is going to kill me." Most of the time I pull these type of people over I just give them a warning. Mainly because I don't have the heart to write them a ticket, but also because they are tax paying average day citizens that do what they are supposed to. It still makes me smile every time I go back to the car though.
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