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Tight work.
Being that I’m now in a ‘specialized’ unit, I’m now required to monitor 3 different talk group channels as opposed to a normal 1 or maybe 2. The main frequency, the squad channel and the county wide tactical channel. So hearing emergency calls going out tends to get a little hectic. Whenever a hot call does go out, someone on my squad will repeat the call and comments over the squad channel in case someone missed it from the main frequency they’ll still know to respond.
BEEP!!! ATTENTION ALL UNITS! ROBBERY JUST OCCURRED, (ADDRESS), 5 BLACK MALES WEARING (lots of descriptions) LAST SEEN HEADING WEST FROM THE ADDRESS OF OCCURRENCE!
I got on the squad channel and advised my mates of what was going on and we decided to split up into 2 groups, one heading west of the avenue and one heading east of it by two blocks to the next main avenue.
We were all in a ‘box’ just south of the address dispatch advised of.
I headed north and east from where we were, along with my Sergeant and another squad mate, while 4 other mates when west and north.
While driving I saw my Sergeant hit his brakes and I had to slam mine fairly hard to avoid having him retire with a marked unit stuck up his rear end.
I got on the squad channel, “Hey sarge, you see so..”, I stopped my question mid-sentence as I saw 5 guys jumping a fence from the apartment complex the robbery just occurred at and they hit the ground running headed west bound across a 4 lane road towards another apartment complex just west of a gas station on the corner they were running too.
My sarge pulled up quickly and made a U-turn and headed south, I suppose to cut off an escape since I was already near the subjects, he might have figured I’d grab a few and the rest would keep running.
Man, wisdom does come with age.
I speed up north towards the gas station and jumped out of my car, tackling one of the subjects and cuffing him while picking up all 90lbs of him and throwing him in the back of my car.
By the time I was done, the other 4 had already made it completely west and south behind the gas station and through a the large field behind it, in attempts to get to the apartment complex.
Too bad for them my squad mates were waiting with open arms.
Another unit called out a perimeter quickly and Aviation was already over head, lighting up the place. My squad was already spread out and covering all avenues of escape.
3 were caught as they hopped a fence on the south side of the large field while the other one took flight back towards me, his only escape route, followed by one of my squad mates that wasn’t wrestling with a subject.
The guy was jumping fences like an animal. In all his confusion, I don’t think he saw the police car with its lights on in front of the bushy tree he had now taken cover in.
My partner and I pulled him straight out of the bushes.
I got on the air, “Dispatch, I’ve got two in custody and my team has all 5 total”.
Searching my prisoner incident to arrest revealed he was in possession of an ID card.
Not so good for him was the fact that the ID card he had was a woman’s and just happened to be the victim he’d just beaten and robbed.
Taking a better look at the kid, he was about 15, skinny and wearing a red bandanna. A member of the Bloods, one of 19 known gangs in my district.
I looked at him and said, “Congratulations, out of all the things to keep on you after robbing a woman, you kept her ID. I know it isn’t easy being a gangster, but some common sense might help.”
I closed the door as K9 was arriving along with my LT.
Not much to do for K9 since JOS captured all the subjects.
My LT and Sarge gave us some thumbs up and we took our prisoners to headquarters to talk to robbery.
After several hours of interrogation the subjects were released back to us and we transported them to the JAC (Basically the kids ‘jail’). One of the soon to be fine adult citizens decided he was going to to play heart attack and stuck one of my mates with baby sitting detail at the county hospital for several hours.
In the past week we’ve apprehended a total of 7 robbery subjects and we’re doing a bang-up job, but that’s what happens when you put highly motivated people in the same squad with a defined purpose.
“Get out there and get the bad guys”.
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