Tempest of Light

Day before new years.

I arrived at work several minutes early and decided it would be the best time to fuel my unit up. I took out my fuel card, put it in the machine and punched in my millage and proceeded to start fueling up the tank. Not 2 seconds into the fueling did the radio scream BEEEPPPP!!!!

ATTENTION ALL UNITS! SHOTS FIRED IN A RESIDENCE! CAN ANY UNIT CLEAR TO FOR THE SIGNAL?!

Silence.

I still had 10 whole minutes of peace before I was supposed to start my shift.

CAN ANY UNIT CLEAR REFERENCE SHOTS FIRED!

Silence.

Not a single unit piped up.

So I did what I always do. I checked into service and took the call. Immediately after I took the signal, 4 other Officers got on the air as backup.

Let me go into a rant about this for a second here. The officer that is assigned the signal has to write the report and the officers that are the backup units just get to do what they want and don’t have to write a bloody thing. So, if you get a cluster (totally screwed up call) then you’re stuck with tons of paper work while the other officers show up and stare at the situation. Biggest piss-off in the world.

Anyhow, I hit my emergency lights and head to the house. Upon arrival there is a crowd of bystanders and one shouts that the subject fled the scene but the victim was still inside the house. I ran up to the house and tried the door.

Locked solid.

Crap.. now I have to kick it in.

Let me start by saying kicking in a door is not nearly as easy as you’d think it would be from watching movies and TV, and secondly doors break in all kinds of unpredictable ways.

So, as my backup arrived I took a deep step back and mustered up all the awesomeness I had in me for a solid kick to the door near the lock.

Thud.

When you kick an wood door hard enough the door ‘kicks back’ and hurts quite a bit. How did I find this out you might ask? Experience of course. The experience of the pain that shot immediately down my entire leg. But, no time to worry about something so small, kick number two was definitely more determined then kick one, with the same result, a nice solid thud.

Fine. I mustered up rest of the energy I had in me for a final kick, took a step back and pretended I was a fat chick attacking a Twinky cart.

POP!

That was the sound my boot made as it went straight through the door. You have to imagine the look on my face when I realized that my foot was sitting directly on the other side of the door that was ‘supposed’ to fly open in a blaze of glory. It took me almost a full second to realize that the door hadn’t given much in the way of opening.

By now the other Officers that decided to show were laughing hard enough to agitate me. I pulled my foot out of the door, looked at them and reached in with my arm to unlock the door from the inside.

Pssh. Piece of cake.

Now I had to search the building for a person and we did a full CQB (Close Quarter Battle) search of the place. The only thing that resembled anything looking like a human was a pile of laundry old enough to be my mother. Nota. Zip. Zilch. Nothing going on in that house but molding.

Great. After calling my LT and advising him of the situation I wrote the report and we left. Some home owner was definitely not going to be happy about the new entrance to his house.

Next call I got came out as a home invasion robbery in progress with injuries. My partner and I arrived at the same time to see a kid being hauled off in an ambulance missing a quarter of his left leg. The blood trail we followed started at the street and became a zigzagging maze inside the house where he was shot with an rifle .223 round at close range.

Apparently, the family got home from whatever they were doing and a carload of 7 males jumped out of a truck, all tooting rifles and demanded all the money in the house. How they knew there was money in the house isn’t my call to make, but hey, people have to make a living somehow. They ended up getting $3000 in cash and I was lucky enough to be the backup unit this time. I however always help out on calls and wrote 1/2 the report and did all the BOLO and call outs for my squad mate. I feel the love.

The rest of the night was just as hectic. I even had a call at the local strip joint. A guy paid his $10 entrance fee and inside got a lap dance but failed to pay the young lady. He was promptly kicked out at which point he decided it would be a great idea to have the police come so he could get his $10 back…

Nothing worse then trying to help a drunk fool. I arrived there and assessed the situation. He was in the wrong and it was a civil matter. Nothing I can do but get him off the property, so I called him a cab and waited for him to leave.

That same guy called my station and filed a complaint on me.

I really don’t get paid enough for the aggravation I get for doing my job, unfortunately I love the job and am damn good at it.

End of the night came around and was topped off with a pursuit of a ‘hit and run’ car that a LT spotted. We caught the woman 110 blocks from the incident location. She ran because her Drivers license was expired. Now she had several felony charges and a very pissed off LT.

I’m exhausted and ready to pass out. To think, tonight will be New years eve. Its going to be a mad house.

Pray for me.

• Posted Dec 31, 2006