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Backup? What backup?
Last night my squad was covering for another squad that needed to goto training.
Instead of coming in for our usual afternoon shift, we came in to work midnights since the midnight squad for that area had training they got the day off and we had to cover their area of patrol.
Our Sarge told us at the beginning of the shift that our main job was to handle calls for service instead of what we normally do, which of course lead to some sighs and smart remarks.
We have 6 Officers in our unit and normally we all pair up, two Officers to a squad car. Being creatures of habit today was no different.
I happened to get paired up with the only guy on my squad that I don’t see eye to eye with. We call him Egg Head or Showboat, since he has no idea what real police work is and was only placed on the squad due to politics. He’s slow, slightly over weight and not the sharpest tack in the box, or the entire store for that matter. He is a danger to himself and everyone he works with.
No problem, right off the bat we were handling calls for service, referencing (requesting the calls as they were dispatched) all of the priority calls. After handling eight or nine calls that really required no police action we were getting bored. Normally we’re looking for Robbers or Murder subjects but today we’d already saved a cat, played peace keeper, played paramedic and after 3 hours into the shift the calls just stopped coming in.
The sound of silence was a beautiful thing.
This meant there was time to ‘play’ now. Even though we weren’t looking for anything major, we still at least wanted something to do so our time would go by faster.
I told my partner to head to the back-streets of one of the drug holes and see if we can find some petit dealers or some guns.
We turned onto a 2 way residential street and saw two cars sitting side by side directly in the middle of the street. One of them was a 3rd Generation Chevy Camaro and the other was a newer Chevy Impala.
Hmm. I told my partner that the best bet would be with the Camaro so he pulled up behind it without activating his lights. We simply pulled behind the Camaro. Nothing fancy, just as if we were trying to get through.
Its about midnight and the street lamps are just bright enough to see that there was one person in the car. Suddenly, I saw the driver check his review mirror and then I saw the plums of smoke start to rise as he pushed the gas peddle to the floor board.
My partner screamed out to me, “He’s running he’s running!”, as if this was something to be hyped up about. I told him to calm down and not to get on the air and advise until we knew what we had here. He started following the Camaro through the back-streets with me constantly reminding him that he needs to drive at a safe speed and just make sure we can see the Camaro. No need to chase a car if we don’t know why they’re running from us.
Well, that didn’t last very long as the driver of the Camaro obviously had some serious issues with traction, he lost control on a turn and went straight into a metal fence.
My partner only several feet away from the Camaro pulled his cruiser up to the driver side door of the Camaro so that his nose was ending just behind the driver side door.
This normally isn’t a bad thing, except the fact that he just pinned me inside the car as my door was not able to open due to the fact that the Camaro was made of ‘matter’ and as we all know, two objects made of matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time. My door made a solid ‘thud’ on the back quarter panel of the Camaros driver side rear.
Crap.
Then I saw the driver open his door about the same time my partner opened his door. Being that the position the driver of the Camaro was in, his only avenue of escape was through the small space between the front of our cruiser and the fence, meaning he’d have to go through my partner to get free.
Well, my partner managed to botch that up too. He got out of the car so fast that he lost his footing and fell flat on his face. The subject simply hopped over my partner and started running.
Me, still very much stuck in the passenger seat of the cruiser, was a furious ball of fire.
I dove across the car and out of the driver side door, over all the computer mounted equipment in the center and hit the ground running.
Now, I’m not going to say I’m the fastest guy around, but my squad mates have voted me the most likely to catch a subject on foot, several times.
This guy had a good 25 foot lead on me by the time I was out of the car and there was no way I was letting him get away.
Chasing after the subject east bound, I looked back to see what my partner was doing and I was astounded. He simply got up and sat back in the cruiser. I am chasing a subject, who may be armed or in the mood to kill a Cop and this guy is sitting down in the cruiser making no attempt to help me chase this guy or maybe even drive the squad car up to us so we can head the guy off…
Screw it. I turned back towards my subject and went into ‘running’ mode. I started controlling my breathing and fought the tunnel vision that is bound to win out when the adrenaline is pumping.
The subject cut a left after several houses. I was right behind him, now maybe 15 feet and closing. I could smell his fear.
Now heading north bound I saw the subject losing steam. I knew at some point he’d start jumping fences while he still had the energy too. Before I could complete that thought the subject cut a left into a yard and now only 10 feet in front of me he headed for the first fence.
This fence was one of the standard wire mesh fences with the metal poles and the metal pole along the top. It stood about four feet tall and this guy cleared it without even touching it.
I’m good, but not that good. I threw my right hand on the fence and hopped over it. My jump took a bit longer and the subject gained some ground on me.
Crap.
All of the sudden I heard the radio.
BEEP!!! ATTENTION ALL UNITS!!!! SUBJECT RUNNING FROM AN OFFICER REFERENCE A BAIL-OUT!!! PERIMETER POINTS ARE AS FOLLOWS : [INSERT POINTS].
The subject then cleared a 6 foot wood fence, this time using both hands and one good push.
I made it to that fence seconds after him and attempted the same jump. Up and over I saw the subject hit a corner around a house and as I landed I made my way around that same corner.
I didn’t see him.
I listened for fence noises or dogs barking.
Nothing. No sounds. Just sirens coming for the backup.
Then I thought to myself, how on earth is my partner calling backup, aviation and K9 when he has absolutely no idea where I am? He didn’t see me after the first block and now we were quite a ways from the initial bail-out..
I lost the guy. Taking in a deep breath I got on the air, “Dispatch, I lost him at [insert address]. He’s headed west bound and may be doubling back.”
The units arrived and setup a perimeter pretty much where it should have been.
K9 did their sweeps and Aviation didn’t see anything.
This guy got away from me.
Now that the foot pursuit was over with and the scene was being taken down, I told my partner to drive me back to the station. He didn’t say a word the entire way.
I got out of his car and got into my car.
I refuse to ride with someone that doesn’t have my back. I could have been hurt or even worse, killed, from his lack of action and his inability to back me up. If I chase someone on foot, I need to know my backup is behind me, even if they can’t keep up I need to know that if I have to fight a subject or worse, get into a fire fight, that my partner is only a few steps behind me.
It’s a cold and lonely feeling when you know that it’s just you and the subject. No backup, no support, nothing.
I checked into service under my own unit number and was visibly upset.
There are certain things you just can’t do in this line of work. One of them is being a Coward.
By the time I calmed down it was time to go home. I’d met up with everyone else on the squad including my Sarge and they all were quite upset about what happened. Egg Head wasn’t there and its probably best he wasn’t, as I still had a few pieces of my mind to give him. I went home and relaxed but every time I see Egg Head I’ll remind myself that he is a coward and he doesn’t deserve the Badge on his chest.
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