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Gang Violence isn't always the brightest.
Going into work yesterday I wasn’t in the mood to do any sort of running, let alone much of anything at all. I hopped into my partners squad car and told him, “Hey, it’s our friday, so lets just chill out and relax”. The last day of your shift week is considered to be your ‘friday’ even if its a monday or sunday, since on average a Cops shift days are no where near a normal civilians shift week. On that day Cops tend to be less productive since they most likely had a long week and take it as a day to not get involved in anything that would make them stay longer then their shift hours.
The first two hours of the shift were spent getting paperwork from the whole week up to date, worksheets finished, arrest forms filed and checking for subpoenas so we knew when to goto court for the next week.
The squad met up around 4PM to eat at an Italian diner that we normally frequented. Everyone ordered their usual, which was normally an item that didn’t turn our stomach upside down since this particular place to eat may or may not have passed inspection if put to the test but it was Cop friendly so we visited it often.
During our meal we heard a Robbery in progress go out only 20 blocks away.
BEEP!!! ATTENTION ALL UNITS!! ARMED ROBBERY IN PROGRESS AT [INSERT ADDRESS]. SUBJECTS ARE IN A WHITE IMPALA OR MALIBU WITH TINTS AND A TEMPORARY TAG. FIRST BLACK MALE IS WEARING WHITE/BLACK JEANS, 2ND BLACK MALE IS WEARING A WHITE AND ORANGE STRIPED POLO SHIRT AND BLUE JEANS AND THE 3RD BLACK MALE IS WEARING WHITE SHIRT WITH BLUE JEANS. ONE SUBJECT HAS A BLACK HANDGUN, UNKNOWN CALIBER.
Before the call was finished being dispatched we had all pulled out $10.00 a piece and threw it on the table as we were running out.
We overpaid a wee bit, since of average the meals were about $5.00 a piece but I’m sure the waitress wasn’t going to complain one ounce of bit.
The squad, almost in rehearsed fashion pilled into our cars and took off towards the Armed Robbery with the quickness that can only be obtained through sheer motivation to catch these guys.
Halfway to the location of the crime the dispatcher got onto the air and said they fled in an unknown direction. Since it was so close to the County Line we figured the car was already in the County to the north, since thats the only logical place for them to run too.
Damn. That got my blood pumping.
We decided they were gone and setup a ‘box’ to work in so we could at least try to find a Gun or some Narcotics to get off the street for the day.
Four hours and nothing substantial turned up and we were getting bored. We only had two hours of our shift left and decided to goto a spot and hangout the remainder of the shift and gear up to enjoy the weekend.
We headed to a gas station and started talking about stuff Cops talk about; Guns, cars and law. One of the guys on the squad was getting into what he was doing for Easter for his kids.
“Yea, we’re going to the zoo first thing in the morning but I….”
BEEP!!!! ATTENTION ALL UNITS!! FHP IS RECEIVING AN ANONYMOUS CALL STATING THERE IS A WHITE LUMINA BEING CHASED BY A RED BRONCO EXCHANGING GUNFIRE. SPECIAL ATTENTION [DISTRICT I WORK IN]. THEY’RE ON THE TURNPIKE HEADED SOUTH!
Holy crap. The nearest turnpike exit was only 12 blocks away! I said, “Hey, that might be the car from earlier, lets get over there!”
We all ran to our cars and started booking over there as fast as we could.
ALL UNITS, WE’RE NOW RECEIVING A CRASH WITH INJURIES BETWEEN A WHITE CAR AND RED TRUCK WITH THE WINDOWS SHOT OUT, [ADDRESS GIVEN].
Those were our guys.
We got to the area and setup a small perimeter. Rolling up on the abandoned cars we found two guys claiming to be victims from the red bronco but no sign of the guys from the white Lumina.
We started rolling around the area when we found the LT talking to a woman pointing at her house.
My partner and I rolled up to him and got outside of our car to see what was up.
LT: “Guys, she says three armed guys just ran into her house. Go in there and get them.”
Show time.
I got onto our Tactical channel, “Guys, we’re at [insert her address]. The guys may be in there and they are armed.”
I told my partner, “Lets do this, I’ll take point.”
Him being former military, he knew what his role was, watch and cover as I took the lead in searching the house. My blood was pumping a thousand miles a minute. We got the front door, just the two of us. We couldn’t wait for the rest since we risked losing the ability to catch these guys off guard.
I took out my service sidearm and said a quick prayer.
We made entry to the home through the front door, I immediately button hooked the left wall and was now standing in a dark hallway, my partner button hooked the right wall and was standing in an open living room with a connected kitchen.
He whispered “Clear” to me, signaling to me that his field of view was clear of any subjects. This meant that all the guys were in one of the four doors I could see that were accessible from the hallway.
We made our way down the hallway and I opened door number one as my partner watched the hallway to make sure no one came out while I was in the room.
A bathroom. I went inside it and checked behind the shower curtain. “Clear”.
I came back out into the hallway and next came up to door number two. My partner opened it up and I grabbed the ‘hot’ side of the door.
A closet. It was only two feet deep and two feet wide. I saw clear to the back. “Clear”.
We were at the end of the hallway now, two doors left. One to my left and one to my right.
I choose the door on my right first.
My partner opened it up and I rushed inside. Immediately I saw a guy halfway under a low bed. He was just fat enough to not fit and I put my gun equal to his head and said low and slowly, “Get your hands where I can see them or you’re going to have a really bad day.”
He complied. I immediately holstered my firearm while my partner covered the room and hallway. I jumped to the floor and threw my first pair of hinged cuffs on him.
I got on the air, “One in custody, start sending us more units.”
I told my partner to sit on him as I was drawing out my firearm again. One down, two to go.
I looked down the hallway where we came in and saw another one of my squad mates rush in and towards me. I held up my left fist in a ball to signal him to stop. Pointing to my eyes and then to the last unchecked door I motioned that this was the next point of entry needed to be made.
He lined up behind me while my other partner was still sitting literally ‘on’ the first subject.
I opened the door and rushed in, followed by my partner.
Pitch black. We drew out lights and saw an extremely messed room with a bed. On that bed was a blanket with what was obviously a guy hiding under it.
“GET YOUR HANDS UP! GET THEM UP NOW!” I yelled as my partner ripped the sheets off the bed.
The guy knew the jig was up and started reaching for something under him.
The decision I made next was one of those split second decisions you can’t really ‘Monday morning quaterback”.
I holstered my firearm instead of shooting him and jumped onto him, grabbing both of his arms. My partner holstered and we fought the guy into my partners handcuffs. During the fight as we rolled him over I saw a large black handgun that the subject was laying on top of. I grabbed it immediately and rolled off the bed as my partner held the subject now in custody.
Holy shit.
I unloaded the gun and searched the rest of the room for subject number three.
No sign of him anywhere. By this time, the entire squad had arrived and come inside the house. We started taking the guys outside and put them into our cars.
After about 10 minutes I walked back into the house and said to my partner, “Hey, where is that last guy.. was there a back door we missed or something?”. He said, “No man, we checked everything.. you wanna do another walk-through?”. I replied with the obvious answer, “Hell yes I do”.
Walking back through the hallway we suddenly heard heavy breathing in the walls.
I looked at my partner.. he looked at me.
We were standing in front of that closet that was empty except for some hanging clothes and shoe boxes. My partner reached for the door handle and on the count of silent three he opened it.
The scene we saw next reminded me of a Looney Toons show.
Our last subject was standing behind the shoe boxes and hanging clothes, hands at his sides trying to be ‘invisible’ as if closing his eyes made him invisible.
Well, to say the least, he was ‘invisibly’ pulled out of the closet and ‘invisibly’ thrown to the ground and cuffed.
Walking the last guy out of the house I spotted that the local news station had shown up. We decided to pack up and headed over to headquarters with our three robbery subjects.
The entire squad transported them there and we took them upstairs to the Robbery section of the building. Putting them in three separate cells we then called our robbery guys and the robbery guys from the County to our north.
Long story short, after 5 hours of interrogation they admitted to several robberies and the whole picture came into play.
They initially were headed to the County to the north to make a large drug purchase but needed some cash so they decided to rob a few people on the way up since they were short on cash.
Once they got up to where they were buying the narcotics, they attempted to rip off the gang members with the drugs since they weren’t able to get the cash to actually purchase the drugs. The gang members they tried to rip off were bigger and badder though and instead of being taken out like ‘punks’ they chased them all the way back to our county, guns blazing.
At the end of the night, I didn’t get off until 5AM but we did our job and did it well.
I felt more then accomplished for the night and our squad is truly the embodiment of Real Police work.
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