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Flying Handcuffs?
To sum up the past week, I’ll say that I am now a Certified Firearms Instructor for my department.
I started my new unit (C.P.U.) on the 20th.
Being in a specialized unit is worlds of difference from Uniform Patrol. In my Jump out Unit I handle no calls for service but instead actively seek out violent crimes in progress and other major Felonies.
Yesterday, I had something happen to me that I’ve only heard other Officers talk about. I said to myself every time I heard a similar story, “I would have done something different”. Well, my chance came and I tell you, I almost swallowed my…
Let me start earlier in that day.
Just getting on my shift I was attempting to get some arrests and decided I’d target the people on Dirt bikes/ ATVs as they are normally either stolen or transporting Narcotics from one point to another.
Driving an ATV or Dirt Bike on a public roadway is arrestable. The bad guys know it, so every time they see Police cars they start driving like mad because they know they can get away and our cars can’t keep up or jump curbs. This has started a standard tactic of cutting them off and blocking their escape route in order to catch them.
First guy on a Dirt bike I saw almost crapped a golden brick when he saw me. He was so shocked that I pulled out from ‘nowhere’ that he actually stalled his Dirt bike. I pulled my car in front of Dirt bike and as usual, the subject decided he was going to reach for something in his pocket.
I jumped out of my car thinking he was going for a weapon of some sort and drew my Firearm. Pointing it at him while advancing on his position I gave him ‘loud verbal commands’, “LET ME SEE YOUR HANDS! GET EM UP”.
If his crap brick was golden, it had just gone platinum.
He put his hands in the air and I holstered my Firearm and got him off the bike. Once I search him for weapons I handcuffed him and placed him in the backseat of my car.
After checking the serial number on the bike I learned that it was not stolen. Lucky me, I stopped the only Dirt bike in my entire district that wasn’t stolen…
Just as I came to that realization, a mob of angry family members crowded around.
I’ll never understand how word gets out so fast. ‘Pookie’ gets put in cuffs and all five generations of family come out of the wood work seamlessly.
They were screaming the usual “harassment” non-sense that a majority of people scream. Then again, that majority have all been to jail more times than I am old in years.
I decided that this guy wasn’t the ‘arrest’ I was looking for, I wanted something solid. I wrote him a citation and let him be on his way.
Cruising not to far from the first stop, I found a fella on an ATV (All Terrain vehicle) driving in the street.
I saw him just about the same time he saw me.
What he didn’t see was the sidewalk curb in front of him and he crapped a solid silver nugget as he swerved his ATV attempting to avoid the sidewall at the high rate of speed he was going.
He too, stalled out his engine. So, in fashion I pulled my car in front of his ATV to block any movement and got out of my vehicle.
This guy also went for something in his pocket.
With my gun drawn and pointed I gave this fine gentleman “loud verbal commands” to “Get your hands up where I can see them!”.
He heard me. So did the rest of the block.
Before I knew it, I had 20 people around my car, all pissed that I had handcuffed their son/husband/uncle/brother/peoples.
I haven’t been cursed at like that in a long time. I had my entire unit come back me up in order to prevent anything from escalating.
Well, of course they all screamed they wanted to file a complaint with whoever because this moron was in handcuffs and in my car, regardless of the fact that he was breaking the law. I gave them all the info and once again, decided to play Mr. Goodcop and I wrote the guy some tickets and Unarrested him.
(Note, both traffic stops had formal complaints filed about them. Both unfounded and both citing me as stopping them because they were ‘black’. 2006 Census of my district shows that 87% of the population is African-American so that means about 9/10 stops, will have an African-American person behind the wheel. Profiling eh? I think its more statistics to be honest.)
After clearing that lovely brush with upper class citizens I had a nice lunch with my squad mates. Most of them I know very well, as I’ve worked with all of them on a personal level at some point. We all get along fairly well and only one of them is a utter and complete moron. That moron is a story for another day.
BEEP!!!! ATTENTION ALL UNITS! ROBBERY IN PROGRESS AT THE BP GAS STATION!! SUBJECTS FLED INTO THE APARTMENT COMPLEX (ADDRESS GIVEN) ON DIRT BIKES (big surprise).
My squad all jumped up and we were rolling.
All 7 of us arrived at the complex and branched out. My partner and I drove around back while the rest of the squad branched around the front.
—-Let me describe this apartment complex so you have an idea. Its 4 free standing 2 story tall building in a pattern forming one large square with an open court yard. The building are approximately 1/2 a block long and the entire lot covers more then 100 yards square.—-
One of my guys got on the air, “I see them, their headed to the north side of the complex”.
A few seconds later and very short of breath he got back on the air, “They went up the stairs and into appartment E13”.
North building?! Thats the one my partner and I were standing behind..
I looked up at the wall facing me.. and started counting.. E1..E2..E3… and when I got to the window above me head, luck would have it to be E13.
I told my partner, “You just wait, one of those guys are going to try t”..
I didn’t finish my sentence before a kid opened the 2nd floor window and without even looking jumped out of it.
The next thing that kid remembers is probably hitting the ground.
I’ll skip the whole, “He landed right on top of us and was handcuffed before his stomach had time to catch up to his velocity.” thing.
The rest of my squad got the other guy and now we were playing the waiting game, waiting on the robbery detectives to come with the victim to do a ‘Show up’.
A ‘Show up’ is when the victim is taken in a police car up to the subject of a crime and is asked to ID the person that commited the crime. Once a positive ID is made the case is pretty much ‘good’ to go.
Well, my partner and I waited around for almost 2 hours. I opened a bag of nuts and started eating them one by one. Bored out of my mind.
Finally the detective came and we pulled the subject out of the car.
The subject was properly ID’d by the victim and the detective walked right up to our guy and said, “You’re going to jail. Congratulations”.
With that being said, my partner grabbed the subject with one hand and opened his police car door with his other.
The second my partner looked at the car, our subject shimmied to the left and booked.
When I say booked, I mean he was running so fast the back of his feet were touching the small of his back and it looked as if his feet weren’t even touching the ground.
My partner and I took chase on foot, starting in the north east side of the complex. We were running as fast as we could and this guy, even though cuffed, was still out pacing us.
During the transition from concrete to grass in the middle courtyard area I hit the ground running so hard my radio actually popped out of its holster and I watched it in slow motion fly up and over my head, landing somewhere behind me.
No time to think about that, ‘focus on the subject’ I told myself.
The subject was now 30 feet in front of me and 20 feet in front of my partner. I was now realizing that I had been choking on a peanut for the past 10 seconds and finally took the time to spit it out.
The subject reached the building on the south west corner of the lot and from the look on his face as he turned to go up a flight of stairs looked almost as if he was seeing spots and stars. He was absolutely exhausted.
Unfortunately for him I was all sorts of not exhausted and my partner wasn’t in bad shape either.
That guy ran up those stairs and started kicking on the 2nd door on the 2nd floor. The guy inside the apartment opened the door for him and then locked it behind him.
Oh hell no.
I kicked that door right in and made entry with my partner. Upon entering we were confronted by the owner of the apartment who said, “What the hell are you doing in my house, he aint in here!”.
My partner politely knocked him flat on his ass.
I kept going forward and into a hall way. I saw only one room with the door closed.
I opened the door hard and it pushed back immediately with an ‘oohh!!’ as the door squished the subject who was standing behind it trying to hide in the crack.
So this time I pushed harder and made entry to the room, with my partner right behind me.
No lights. No sound.
We closed the door behind us and made nice with our subject.
He was taken back into custody and we filed yet more charges on him.
But from now on when someone says they had a subject run from them handcuffed and fly like they had someplace to be, I’ll not only believe them, but I’ll be able to relate.
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