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Everything happens for a reason.
Saturday was supposed to be the last day before my partner Arod was going to be transfered to the RID unit, stationed out of Headquarters. It was a cloudy day and pretty much crappy weather conditions.
RID is basically the same Jumpout gig we currently do, but instead of being district wide, they operate County wide and instead of using marked police vehicles, they get to drive cars off of a ‘rental’ lot. Its pretty much as high profile and prestige as a Jumpout style unit can get. They target only robbery subjects both at large and in progress. RID is extremely selective when it comes to who they pick to be on the unit. Out of 4000 sworn Officers only 24 are in the unit and if you recall the RID school training I posted last November, it isn’t easy being certified for the unit either.
My partner got in the car with me and basically told me he just wanted to relax for the day. This week we’d already got a robbery subject and some other good arrests so laying low for the day wasn’t going to be an issue.
I turned to him and said, “Alright, well, unless it jumps out in front of us I’m not going to look for it”. That was that. We drove to a spot and got some water. I was looking over some reports that we still hadn’t turned in and he was making phone calls. This went on for several hours when the radio started going nuts.
BEEP!!! ATTENTION ALL UNITS! CAR JACKING IN PROGRESS! [ADDRESS HERE], JUNIOR FOOD MART!
Oh boy, I was still in ‘chill’ mode so we walked to our car expecting this to be another GOA (gone on arrival) type call and usually in these types of calls, the incident occurred minutes to hours ahead of time so rushing there and killing ourselves was pointless. I started driving to the scene when the additional information came out.
RED NISSAN ALTIMA, 2006 TAKEN! LAST SEEN HEADING NORTH BOUND ON THE AVENUE. 30 SECOND TIME DELAY.
Hmm…
Just then one of the Jumpout Sergeants got on the Tactical Channel (Main channel our unit works off of).
Sarge – “I spotted the vehicle north bound on [avenue] at [street]…”
We were about 3 blocks away and 2 of those blocks were just north of him.
Sarge – “Bail out! Two B/Ms running north bound! 1 is White shirt /Blue jeans and 2 is Black shirt / Black jeans”
I stopped the car just by a fence that was covered in grass directly 2 blocks north of the Sarge. To the south was warehouse buildings and to the north were some Project housing. I figured the guy would try to make it back to the Projects.
Just then, the sky opened and a beam from heaven came down shining directly in front of my cruiser. And wouldn’t you know it, the subject literally ran directly across the hood of my police car. I looked at my partner and yelled out, “Sign from God, lets go”.
So we jumped out of my car, laughing at each others expression while trying to advise we were actively chasing one of the subjects now. The air was being used by someone else though so we couldn’t transmit. The subject turned and looked behind him and I guess seeing two Officers in full raid gear running after him at full speed got his adrenaline going even more, because he started running like a Rabbit.
He hit the north side of the street and started running through the two story project housing. It was all open space between the buildings and there was already a typical crowd forming outside to watch.
The guy ran 2 blocks north through the housing with us about 20 feet behind him, neither of us gaining or losing footing in the chase. The subject then decided to make a bold move and ran up a flight of stairs and at the second floor opened a random door, slamming it behind him.
My partner and I were only seconds behind the subject and immediately took Fresh pursuit and made entry to the apartment.
Now, we still couldn’t get on the air and we didn’t know if the guy was armed or not, so we made entry with a cross button hook formation and leap frogged the entrance, kitchen, bathroom, and two bed rooms, clearing it room by room. Nothing.
My partner yelled to me, “Hey Dash, he may have doubled back somewhere we didn’t look, lets check back outside”. With that, he started running out the front door. Me, not letting my partner go anywhere alone followed suit and on the way out, I noticed a small 2 foot hallway which was about 10 feet long that was hidden with tons of debris piled almost chest high that we actually missed in our search.
He had to be here. I called out to my partner but he was already outside. Creeping up to the hallway and into the mess I saw hair.
I said in a loud but calm tone, “Hands up now”.
Nothing.
I raised my voice, “Get those hands up or I’m going to light you up”.
Two hands shot immediately into the air followed by a loud, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”.
I holstered my gun and my partner came running back in. We removed the guy from where he was hiding and once he was out of the hallway he tried to get away from us.
He sucker punched me in the chest and knocked me back into the wall. My partner immediately punched this guy in the throat and it was on.
In that cramped hallway we went at it for just under a minute and by the time we finally got the cuffs on this guy, both of our uniforms needed to go into a Bio-hazard bag. As we were dragging him out of the house and down the stairs the RID guys showed up. I suppose my partner was finally able to get on the air to advise our location but it was a wee bit late for that.
Walking him back to the cruiser the initial crowd had grown into a mob. It didn’t help that my partner and I were covered in blood.. so the mob went from on lookers to shouts of Brutality.
I’ll never understand how these people always claim the police do nothing but when we actually catch violent criminals we’re all the sudden demons. We didn’t want to hurt this guy, but he fought with us. I like getting punched about as much as the next guy so returning the favor is fair game.
Tossing him into the squad car the RID LT showed up. I’d worked for him before when he was my LT in my old District so I knew him.
He walked up to my partner, who was going to RID effective Monday and we all started talking.
I had to move the subject after Fire rescue treated him due to the mob and I drove a few blocks down.
The Robbery detective showed up about 30 minutes later with the victim to perform a Show-up.
A Show-up is when the victim is taken to where the Subject of a crime is, in hopes of identifying the person that is in custody as the person who committed the crime against them.
Well, in this case, we got the subject out of the car and stood him up so the victim could see the subject from inside the detectives car without having to get out.
The victim decided he didn’t want to stay in the car and instead got out. He was an older man in his 60’s, about 5’4 and at most 120lbs. He was yelling out, “That’s the sonna bitch! Let me at him!”. The victim, who was beaten badly and then carjacked was quite upset and I had to hold him back and calm him down. My partner put the Subject back in our car and we followed the Robbery detective back to Head Quarters to complete the paper work needed.
It just so happens that the Robbery Office is joined directly with the RID (Robbery Intervention Detail) Office. So, our Subject was sitting in an interrogation room awaiting the coming interrogation when a RID Sergeant came up to us. He talked to Arod first, “Hey, you’re coming over next week right? Good job on this catch man.”
Then he looked at me, “You’re Dash right? We want you to start working some details with us on the weekends”.
Cool, only thing is, I work weekends.
We talked a bit more and then the RID LT I knew walked up to us. He talked to Arod a little about what was going on and then told me that there would be some spots opening up in the next few months and asked if I was interested. I told him, yes, in so many words.
Definitely a good thing that was going on here. All the hard work I do, my name was preceding me.
At the end of the night, the guy was charged with Carjacking, Fleeing/Eluding, Burglary to HUD housing and Resisting with violence. Some of those offenses were non-bondable so he was going to be sitting in the jail for quite a while.
The next day I was driving home from my Pops house when I got a phone call from the RID LT.
LT – “Hey Dash, You’re going to be coming over soon and I wanted to ask you if you could recommend any more people you know that can do the job.”
That was an unusual question, but I replied with, “Sure thing, my old partner Batman and Sosa”. He knew exactly who I was talking about and that was the phone call.
So, things may be changing rapidly, yet again. We’ll see where this all leads, but RID is a great unit with excellent Officers that do what needs to get done and catches the bad guys. Exactly the type of Police work I do.
I’ll keep you posted.
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