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My first day in my new Jumpout unit.
Exactly how I expected it to be.
Mostly junior people with no concept of team work.
I have worked with the Sergeant before and he’s a good cop and I’ve worked with one other person on my squad, Arod, before and I see traits that are compatible with mine, so I decided to jump in his car for the day.
My partner was driving around with no ‘box’ aimlessly while I was just looking at the people, cars, people in cars, trying to see if something would pop out at me. Nothing blatant was visible; it was still too early in the shift.
3PM came around and one of the guys on my unit asked for backup on his stop over the Tactical channel.
We drove on over to him and what I saw somewhat irked me. This guy was about to arrest someone for DWLS (Driving While License Suspended). I couldn’t believe it.
I thought to myself, “You’re supposed to be looking for real criminals and you’re wasting your time on this?”
I turned to my partner and gave him a look that said all it needed to say. We left and as soon as we turned the corner I said to my partner, “Listen, I don’t arrest people for traffic, petty amounts of marijuana and I definitely don’t go hunting for bench warrants. I want robbery subjects, guns, drug dealers and basically any forcible felony. If you start making arrests like that Officer just did and you’re on a Jumpout unit, you might as well be handling calls for service and back on the road. If you’re not up for the type of arrests I’m looking for, let me know, I need to be on the same page as you.”
He replied with agreement and that was that.
Later on my partner and I saw a car as it passed us at about the same time, White Monte Carlo, late 80’s model, broken tail light. The driver didn’t see us as we were heading in the opposite direction but he looked to be smoking a joint. Quickly I ran the plate of the car and the owner came back with a long past for narcotic sales and possession. This was probably going to be a good stop. Keep in mind, unlike in video games, the ‘bad guys’ don’t like up when you see them and don’t have big arrows pointing at them from the heavens, so it’s all down to visual and gut instinct.
Arod pulled the car around and we started catching up to the Monte. We hit the lights a few blocks up and stopped the car. The driver took a good while to pull over and as soon as he stopped, Arod stopped the cruiser. I jumped out of the car rapidly as normal and through the clear back window I could see the driver stuffing the bottom of a WD-40 canister with what looked to be weed baggies. I started laughing to myself, and even gave him time to finish.
Once he tossed the canister onto the passenger floorboard I approached his passenger side window and said to him, “Hey partner, hows it going? Do me a favor, cut the car off and put the keys on the passenger seat”. This was a heavy set guy now that I was up close to him and looked to be around 25. I knew he wouldn’t be a runner so that wasn’t going to be an issue.
He looked at me like a deer in head lights and turned off his vehicle.
Looking at his lap I had a huge grin on my face, “Listen, I’m not really looking for anything petty. If you’ve got a couple baggies of weed it isn’t going to be a problem, just be honest about it and you’ll be alright. If you lie to me, even a little, I’m going to take that as a sign of disrespect and gig you for it. That being said, is there anything I should know about ahead of time?”.
He said to me, as I caught the thick aroma of marijuana coming from his vehicle, “Naw man. I don’t do that stuff anymore. I got nothing.”
Still staring at his lap, “Hmmmm. Well in that case partner, do me a favor. I just want you to look down at your lap and tell me what you see.”
He did and he saw the few baggies of weed that he missed when he stuffed the rest into the bottom of the WD-40 can.
Arod and I pulled him out of the car and took him into custody. Going back to the Monte Carlo I picked up the WD-40 can and unscrewed the bottom, it started raining baggies.
You know, these fake cans, water bottles, whatever they can think of items, have been around forever. I sometimes goto the local head shops to see what the ‘hidden compartment’ items are and when I see them on the street, I have to laugh. I learned that stuff from Batman. I guess it works on some people, cause they sell a lot of them.
The guy we arrested also had a pocket full of $5.00 bills. I asked him how much money he had on him, as most people will know the exact amount of money they’re carrying, but drug dealers have no idea, they can only guess at how many bags they sold. As I assumed, he had not a single clue and was actually off by $40.00 from his guesstimate. He knew where this was going and spontaneously stated, “I only sold a few bags today man, I can’t go back to jail”.
Oh boy, I haven’t heard that before.
I told him, “Listen partner, you’re goal is to sell drugs and not get caught. My goal is to catch you. You lost the game today but you’ll be back out in a couple of hours and the next time you see me, step up your game. This is nothing but business and we’re doing nothing but keeping the status quo. Understand me?”
He didn’t and I didn’t bother explaining it again.
Arod drove us to the sub-station where our unit is stationed out of and I started writing the arrest forms. The LT and the Captain both came in talking about something else and when they saw what we got and started giving us the pat on the back. The LT said to me, “Man Dash, you got back from vacation and already you’re tearing it up”. I gave him a sly smirk, “Sir, my partner and I are tearing it up”.
We finished our paperwork and transported the guy and his property to the main station. So he, his felony amount of marijuana, his cash and his fake WD-40 canister all got booked/impounded.
Half the day gone I decided to take a break. I hadn’t heard my squad the entire shift outside of that one unit asking for backup. In fact, I didn’t even know if my Sarge was still here. Since I’m new to the unit I’m not trying to make any waves but I’m going to pull the Sarge aside and have a talk about maybe working Boxes like I did in my old Jumpout unit. It worked a lot better then this ‘randomly driving around’ crap and it made the unit work as a team. Right now the unit is operating like a squad of individuals and its driving me nuts. Then again, thats probably why the Captain picked me for the unit, to guide the troops in a way. At least that’s what I’m going to interpret it as. I’m going to set the standard and hopefully these Officers will follow suit and match par. At least I know my partner is up to the task.
We shall see.
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