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Easy decisions are overated and hard made.
I’ve had the same guy riding with me for the last few months. He’s been on about three years, give or take and has worked in this district for the last two of those years.
As an officer that’s been in a raid/jumpout unit for the last several years and fairly experienced at that specialty, I was teaching him what I knew and I’d like to think I’ve been successful at that endeavor.
However, as much as I teach him, there are certain things you just can’t teach someone. One of those things is judgment and the other is being cognitive of someone other then your own safety.
We’ve had discussions about his personal fear threshold and how I thought that he was too timid at times, even though he’s a fairly muscular guy with all sorts of tattoo’s which boast his personal confidence and aggression. Tree takes his energy vitamins and supplemental diet items which I couldn’t even begin to name. He works out quite often and if you looked at him or spoke to him, you’d think he was some bad ass.
In the last few months little errors in judgment with my partner, Tree, have been occurring. After each incident I tell him exactly what I think he did wrong and try to hold back my personal feelings in the matter. Sometimes the screw ups are small and no one gets hurt. Other times, the screw ups are overbearing and I find myself in a house with possibly armed subjects, alone, while he is no where to be found and not answering the radio.
Today the unit decided that we were going to hit a HUD apartment complex that’s fairly left to its own means. It’s yet another high crime area, filled with drug dealers and guns. The complex itself is setup in a manner that its entirety is all encompassed in a box about half a city block wide, inside 6 foot straight vertical white steel fencing. The apartments themselves are setup in a four box formation with a large central parking/courtyard area. Each individual apartment building is two stories with exposed balconies, walk ways, stairs and painted a peach color that was probably once a royal tint of orange.
Prior to the jump our unit talked about who was going to be responsible for what as to avoid any confusion. As usual, I was responsible for the main area and any runners that were in the center. This means that my partner, Tree and I we’re going to rush in the center and the other four units were going to hit the four corners to cut off avenues of escape and help with containment. Tree knew what the drill was and he hopped in my cruiser as passenger.
Upon arrival at the HUD apartment complex, we parked right on the main street and I got out of the car running towards my designation. Tree was behind me and immediately I saw a group of three males spot us, drop a bomb (bag of drugs) and they started to run west bound. I got on the air, advising what I saw and then I started to run after the group of guys.
The other units had also advised over the Tac channel on the hand-held radio of people they either had in custody or where also chasing after.
I was closing in on my group of guys, all the while I was yelling,“Stop, police!”. I knew it was of no use but legally and obviously so they had no question in their minds what I wanted them to do, I was still yelling those words repeatedly towards them.
They didn’t stop and instead they ran into an apartment, slamming the door behind them. I had a felony which occurred in my presence (tampering with evidence), so I had the law on my side and fresh pursuit applied. I advised of the apartment and still in a full run made contact with the door with my right foot, just to the side of the handle assembly. Thankfully, the door gave on the first kick. I drew my firearm as I made entry, expecting my partner to be directly behind me and I saw the three males as soon as I entered the living room.
“GET DOWN ON THE GROUND! NOW! GET DOWN!”
Two of them dropped immediately and one tried to bolt to the back room of the apartment. I grabbed him with my free hand by the shirt and swung him around, throwing him into the wall next to me. With that same arm, I then pushed him into the wall and he decided he wasn’t going to offer up any more resistance.
That’s when I realized I was in this apartment alone.
Where was Tree?
I ordered the guy I had on the wall to lay down on the floor next to his two friends.
I held them at gun point, because I still hadn’t patted them down for weapons and wasn’t able too because I had three people on the ground and only one of me.
Loosing my temper doesn’t happen often, but it happens.
I keyed my hand-held mic with my free hand, “TREE, where are you?”
Silence.
“Hey Tree, I’m in this apartment, where are you?”
Silence.
“TREE! WHERE ARE YOU?”
No reply.
I poked my head out of the door of the apartment and I saw Tree about 80 feet away from me. He had some crack head sitting on the ground in the parking lot and was just looking around.
Again, I tried to raise my partner on the radio.
“Hey Tree, I’m behind you, turn around.”
Nothing.
I decided that wasn’t going to work and yelled out of the door.
“YO TREE! I’M OVER HERE”.
To my amazement, he still didn’t hear me.
That’s when another guy (Scooby) from my unit found me and took point. He looked at me and then he tossed a look over at Tree, who was still clueless. Scooby looked at me, rolled his eyes and gave me a look that just said, “Useless”.
Long story short, I quickly let two of the three guys go and took the other one out into the hall way. I told Scooby to watch him in haste as I laid the subject face down on the ground and then I started to back track where he ran so I could find the bomb I saw him drop. Tree finally saw me and I merely pointed over to Scooby and Tree walked over to Scooby.
A ninja apparently took the bomb from its resting place because it was no longer there. I was expecting that, its a common occurrence. The dealers actually have people that not only look out for cops, but when the dealer drops the bomb and takes off, the look outs usually grab the bomb and then hide so we have no physical evidence to charge the dealer with except for the usual, resisting without violence and tampering, which usually get tossed out by assistant state attorney’s before they even see a court due to case loads.
By the time I got back to the apartment, my unit had converged just in front of the apartment, in the parking lot. Tree was now standing over the subject I took out of the house, who was still laying face down on the ground.
I walked up to my unit and put my back to Tree. I was visibly upset. Infuriated just doesn’t quite put it in perspective. Yet again, my partner let me down, twice in the same day (first was the same exact incident in a different drug hole on that same day). He once again caused a serious safety hazard for me once again, I was lucky I didn’t get hurt.
My sarge saw my face and knew just what happened. Then asked me a question he knew the answer too but wanted to see what I was going to say, “Hey, is that guy over there under arrest?”.
I told him that he was indeed under arrest.
That’s when he told me that the guy wasn’t in handcuffs yet. I looked over and sure as the day is long, he was still laying face down, uncuffed, with Tree standing over him.
I called out to Tree and got his attention. I then made the prearranged signal that someone was to be placed into custody, I made a cat Meow. Yes, a MEOW. Why you ask? Because the bad guys know our codes, they know our lingo and they also don’t like being placed into cuffs. So, to avoid their pre-knowledge that they were about to lose their freedoms, even momentarily, we’ve adapted and use some completely odd sounds to indicate certain actions. The sound my partner and I decided on was a cat’s Meow.
Tree looked at me funny for a second.
I did it again, “Meeeow”.
Instead of hand-cuffing this guy like I expected, he shouted back to me, “I didn’t run the guy for warrants yet”.
What the….?
In front of my entire unit, I stormed over to Tree, leaned down, pulled out my cuffs and did it myself.
Without so much as a word I tossed the guy into the closest cruiser and then walked back to my cruiser. Tree ran behind me and jumped in the passenger seat. Not a single word was said on the way back to the station.
I got to the station and started writing the paperwork. I didn’t look at Tree and he knew he screwed up again. This was nothing personal but on the rare moments when I get upset, I stop myself from venting and instead focus on the task at hand.
I decided then and there that he would no longer be riding with me. I told my sarge and that was that. I’d rather ride solo then have a partner I can’t trust. My life depends on his actions or inaction and I need to know that the person I call my partner is capable of safe guarding my life, just as I do his.
As of tomorrow, my new partner is a guy in the unit that I used to work with back when I was in my last districts jump-out unit, Navy. He’s a great cop and I trust him with my life. We’ve already been through our share of crap together and I know he’ll have my back. I didn’t ride with him previously because of his shift, which starts later then mine, but I decided that the hour wait is worth my life.
I know as a reader of this blog, this post may seem like non-sense or over-reacting, but keep in mind that I do not post routine events such as daily jumps and catches that aren’t really note-worthy. These issues are persistent and this problem has been in the over-flow process for a while. I’ll keep you updated.
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