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Headhunter?
The last day of the week for our unit was a rainy one. From the very start of the shift, the rain was pouring down and pretty much halting any progress that we’d have made for a few reasons.
A) Bad guys don’t go out in the rain.
B) A good Cop never gets wet.
So, for those very reasons, not much Police work was getting done.
A few hours prior to the end of the shift the LT asked me to come over to the Mini-Station and do him a favor. I wasn’t doing anything else so I headed straight on over.
He and my SGT were in his Office and as I walked in, the LT put on a sly smile and handed me a piece of paper. It was a PC to Arrest flyer (Probably Cause to arrest) which had a picture, name, DOB and last known address and read “Burglary to an unoccupied dwelling”. The LT said to me, “I need you to find this guy before the rest of the County does”. Looking a the picture, the guy had a unique shaped head that I just couldn’t believe. It literally looked like an egg. A dark, hairless Egg.
I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but I assumed that there were more people looking for this fellow then just myself or anyone else in our district. I didn’t ask any questions and took the Flyer on my way out of his Office.
If the LT wanted this to be a big show he would have asked the unit to go, but he asked me in somewhat privacy so I headed on out to the guys last known address without the unit.
Arriving at the address, it was not only out of my District, it was some project housing. A huge complex of project apartments, two stories tall.
The rain had left a few minutes prior to my arrival so now the air was moist and the overcast gave a gloomy feel to the place. I walked up to the apartment on the second floor to start my hunt.
Knocking on the door, I expected no response but was surprised when a younger gentlemen answered the door. I said to him, “Hey, I need to talk to you but don’t want these people out here to think you’re snitching on anyone, can I come inside to talk to you?”
He walked me into the small government apartment and I asked him to have a seat.
“Partner, I’m looking for Tony. He got involved in some serious stuff and I need to locate him immediately. I know this is his listed address and I’m sure he isn’t going to be here because there are a lot of people looking for him.”
The guy replied back with, “Ya I know. Some cops already came by yesterday looking for him. He’s my sisters Boyfriend, you wanna talk to her?”
He called her up and handed me the phone. “Afternoon mam, this is Deputy Dash. I am trying to locate Tony, he got involved in some serious stuff and if you or your brother get caught by him when he’s arrested, you could possibly lose your government apartment. Is there any information you have that could help me track him down?”
She told me that she had no idea where he was. She said that when the police first started coming by he wasn’t home but later on he came home, grabbed a few sets of clothes and some shoes and left. The woman on the phone told me that maybe he’d gone to stay at another girls house in the same apartment complex named, “Ms. Jackson”, but she didn’t know which apartment Ms. Jackson lived in.
With that, I thanked her for her time and hung up. The guy in the apartment I was in had no idea who Ms. Jackson was, so I had to find out from people walking around outside.
Now, normally, when people in project housing see police, they go inside or walk away. No one wants to be seen near a Cop. I found a lady sitting outside with her three children only a few apartments down from where the subject was supposed to live. I walked up to her and said, “Afternoon mam, there’s a guy lose in the complex and is wanted in connection with the rape of a little girl. His name is Tony and he’s supposed to be staying with Ms. Jackson. Can you point me to where I can find her?”.
She looked at me crazy for a second.
People in the hood don’t care about crimes committed against adults, they won’t snitch out robbers or burglars, but no one, not even other bad guys, can tolerate a child rapist. So, when I look for someone, that’s the crime I tell people the person committed and they sing like a bird. As sick or twisted as lying about that may sound, its a tactic that works and gets the job done. I personally don’t like to use it but you have to use all of the tools at your disposal to get the information you need to catch people that don’t want to be caught.
The woman finally said me to, “Tony raped a little girl? He dun needs to get arrested. Ms. Jackson lives four houses down”.
I thanked her and walked over to Ms. Jacksons apartment. She was just exiting her doorway as I approached. I walked up to her and started with the same line, “Afternoon mam. I was told you could help me find Tony. He got involved in some serious crap and I need to locate him.”
She told me she didn’t know who I was talking about. I snapped back, “He raped a little girl two days ago and I need to find him.”
She contorted her face and said to me, “I knew that motha fucka did something stupid. He was acting all strange and I kicked his ass out last night. I think he went over to the ‘Blues’.”
I had no idea where or what the ‘Blues’ was, but she told me I could find it a few blocks away.
I drove around for a few minutes with the windows down asking several people where the ‘Blues’ were. I learned that it was another set of project housing, even larger then the one I just left and then someone pointed it out directly to me.
Okay, so far, luck has been working for me and I have followed the leads past the point where the Flyer had to offer.
Entering the ‘Blues’, I saw about 13 different buildings, three stories tall and immediately had second thoughts about my ability to find this guy. That’s just too much space to search.
As I walked up to the first building, which happened to be in the rear of the complex because I entered through a hole in the back fence, a majority of the people outside started walking in their apartments as I expected.
One guy stayed outside. He was an older gentlemen and had a cast on his right arm. I mossed on over to him, “Hey man, you broke your arm?”.
He smiled and said, “Ya, I play football and I didn’t train over the break…. its almost better”.
I took out the Flyer in my rear pocket and folded it up into a square so that only the face on the Flyer was showing. I showed the gentlemen the picture and told him the story about the little girl.
He immediately had a look on his face that threw red flags, whistles and bells all over the place.
The guy said to me, “This dude is in this complex man, I can’t show you where cause these cats kill snitches, but he’s here. Look around that way”. As he finished that statement, he shifted his eyes to his left.
I thanked him and proceeded onwards, to the east side of the complex.
Going into the main part of that building I saw a bunch of people on the second floor balcony. It looked to be 4 older women with a bunch of kids ranging from four years old to teenagers. To my amazement, word had already spread from the time I talked to the gentlemen, to the time that I approached this group of people. They already knew what I had to say.
I showed them the picture and all of them had a pale look strike their faces. No one wanted to say anything but finally the oldest woman whispered to me, “Honey, I can’t tell you where he is exactly, but I can tell you that he’s on this floor. Just look around. He’s around here.” So, I did just that. I walked around on the second floor until I saw another woman standing in her doorway. I walked up to her with the picture and told her my story. She actually told me that Tony had just left her apartment after getting a cigarette from her and walked towards where I had just left the older women.
I walked back over the the ladies and asked the oldest one whom told me he was on the same floor to go inside her apartment and talk to me for a second.
She brought me inside and I whispered to her, “Listen, I know he’s around here and I promise no one will know who told me where he was. I need to get this guy off the street for the safety of everyone here. I saw all those kids outside…. none of them are safe as long as this guys around.”
After some hard thinking, she finally said what I needed to hear.
“He is in the apartment directly next door to mine. He’s in there right now, you go get his ass”.
At first I was amazed I had even gotten this information.. but then as I exited her apartment word had spread like wild fire to the entire complex. There were now 50 or so people just outside her apartment, in the hall ways and in the lower levels… all yelling for me to get him.
Everyone knew where this guy was and apparently, they didn’t want to harbor him anymore.
So, I mustered my best Official face and knocked on the door next to the womans apartment. To my amazement, Tony opened the door expecting to see someone else I’m assuming, because he immediately tried to close that same door on my face.
In front of all those people, I pushed Tony back inside the apartment, slamming the door behind me.
The inside of the apartment was barren, dark and had only a radio playing very loud rap music. I couldn’t make out what was actually playing because I was focused on Tony.
He was about 5’8 and 160lbs and of course, had that unmistakable Egg shaped head.
Long story short, I got him in custody and as I was still squatting over his now cuffed and prone body, I keyed my Radio, “Hey LT, are you on?”
The LT chimed up.
“Hey LT… In Custody”.
Silence…
He got on the air and said to me, “Where are you at man? I’m gonna have units en route to you right now”.
I told him I didn’t know the exact address and that I’d get it to him when I got back to my cruiser.
Walking Tony out of the apartment, the huge crowd followed us. They were screaming things at Tony and asking me to basically give some street justice to them.
I ignored it walked him faster to my car.
I advised the LT of the apartment address and the whole unit came screaming over to me, lights, sirens and all…
Apparently, the guy I had in my backseat… was a very Wanted person. The LT didn’t give me all the details when I initially asked, but I should have known better.
The Director is the top ranking official for our department. The head honcho.
This guy had broken into the Director’s Family Home, not once, but THREE times in the same week. He’d stolen the keys to the Director’s Families Car and I did in 60 minutes of work what detectives from the entire county didn’t do in 2 days after positively Identifying the guy from fingerprints.
I drove the guy back to the main station for questioning by detectives in investigations, who were all amazed I followed leads and actually tracked this guy down. My SGT and LT were in a state of expressionless awe and I was uncomfortable with the attention.
The LT gave me a sly smile and left me upstairs to write my supplement report to the master case and my SGT came by, said he was writing up some paperwork for me reference this ‘catch’.
Later on I found out they closed another 8 burglary cases with this guy as the subject and they recovered the keys to the Directors house and car from his person.
On a side note, I was told a few days ago I’ll be going to RID in the next week or so. Starting from scratch again.
I’ve worked my way up the totem pole as far as Jumpout units are concerned. I started in a small 5 man unit in my second district and moved up to a 30 man unit in my current district, the next and final step is RID, which is the elite of elite Jumpout units and is for the entire County.
So, in short, going to RID is sort of like hitting a ceiling for me. I’m not sure on my thoughts about it yet. I hope I enjoy it. I really like where I’m at currently, but I also would be a fool to pass up moving up and into the RID unit.
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