In the last few months I’ve been busy working a lot.
In the Burglary unit, I’ve been instrumental in helping bring down two burglary rings which effectively stopped the majority of burglaries in my area.
I’m doing a great job and might be getting a Detective position in Auto Theft soon.
There isn’t a whole lot to mention outside of the fact that I really like my new area, its laid back and relaxing. Some of the supervisors are a little more strict then I’m used too but overall I have to say I’m happy with the move.
I have a pending suspension coming up for not handing up my old partner Batman. I did nothing wrong but because I refused to hand him up, I’m getting punished just as if I’d been the person who did the violation. So be it, I’m going to have a forced three day vacation. I’ll wear that as a badge of honor.
I had a little talk with my doctor and basically told him that I’m stuck on the desk and he should put me back to full duty.
He did.
Now, I’m not fully healed and really should be on Light Duty another few months, but I took a pay cut and lost my cruiser, which is too much for me.
On a brighter note, one of my interviews for another district went through and I finally got the official transfer memo in.
I’ll be going to General Investigations in two weeks.
The night prior to the test, I went to sleep at 9PM. Anxiety woke me up at 11PM that same night, merely two hours later.
I did not fall back asleep and on two hours of sleep, left my house at 6:45AM to head to the examination center.
Arriving there around 7:30AM, I was one of a few dozen marked police cars in the massive parking lot.
Around 8:30AM the lot was full. At least 450 Police cars filled the convention center parking lot. That was sure a lot of competition.
I’ve studied and studied and reviewed and studied until my eyes wanted to bleed but deep down I was still very nervous about this test. The results of the test; my performance on it, would decide my career path. To be frank, I put a lot of weight on the written Phase of the Sergeant exam knowing that a high score on that section would help me compete with the average score earned in the Phase 2 assessment portion of the test.
Lines were established based on last names and when my turn came to present ID to the lady at the counter, I was given an answer booklet, challenge form, 2 pencils and told my number to be seated at was “126”.
I walked into the massive convention center too a sea of tables which seemed to hold two people. Each table had 2 numbers on it.
I was dead in the middle off to the left side.
Sitting down I noticed just how cold it was inside. It literally felt 60 degrees in my seat and I’d begun to wish I’d brought a jacket.
After an hour everyone had taken their assigned seats and a lady stood at a podium at the very front. Using a microphone she dictated the rules of the test, which strikingly mimicked the rules given out during the old SAT school testing.
After being given the ‘go’ to start the test, we had 3 hours to complete it.
I cracked open my booklet and started reading the questions. Immediately, I saw the questions weren’t simple definition or even revamped sentences. The questions appeared as paragraphs and each had no correlation to the SOPs I’d been reading for months. The first few questions I honestly don’t think I got right. A few questions in though, I started seeing material I recognized and from then on, I flew through the questions.
Ever the attentive reader, I saw the double negatives and trick questions from a mile away.
125 Questions in and I was finished. I looked at the clock.
1 Hour and 10 Minutes to complete. I stood up with my materials and walked to the front to ‘check out’, turning my items in.
Exiting the building I saw a few familiar faces and started doing what test takers usually do. Long story short, I am confident I passed, I believe I got a competitive score but that could just be my perception.
I’ll find out in 12 days whether I officially passed the exam or not, but they won’t give me my exact score until the entire testing phases are complete.
With my luck, me thinking I ‘passed’ means I failed, but I’ll find out in a few days.
Here’s hoping…
A guy on my squad had a patrol car with serious issues. His car had 110,000 miles, always needed a jump and was generally a rolling heap of crap.
Finally, his car died last month and Fleet Management decided to give him a new cruiser. He was happy, as he should have been.
Fast forward to this afternoon:
He said to me when we got to work this morning, “Hey Dash, I gotta go to Fleet to get my new car. Drive me over there please?”.
No problem.
After a long drive we arrived and he picked up the keys to his fully decked out, brand new cruiser with all the bells and whistles, LED lights.. the whole nine.
I said to him, “Don’t get used to that new car smell, with your luck you’ll either wreck it leaving the lot or have someone die in the back seat”.
Well, sure as hell, later that day he arrested some guy with a fugitive warrant and was transporting him to headquarters for verification… when he started smelling something vile.
His prisoner, despite the back windows being down and driving on the highway, decided the back of my partners new police cruiser would be the best place to re-examine his jerk chicken lunch.
The prisoner re-examined his lunch all over the door, seat, floor and Plexiglas.
Long story short, Hazmat cleaned out a cruiser with less then 100 miles on it and my partners new car smell was replaced with a new ar air freshener.
At least he got the first Dent/Scratch/Hazmat call for his car out of the way early on…
On a related note, my car has $15,000 in repairs needed as of yesterday, along with 100,000 miles.. I might get a new car shortly as well.
I was asked to interview for the Jumpout unit in my new district and actually had the interview a few days ago.
Now, I’m passed the point in being nervous about stuff like interviews. In fact, I was so relaxed about it I showed up to it in Jeans and a Polo shirt with a neat but thrown together resume.
It so happens that my former LT is the new LT for this unit and not one, but both of the SGTs under him I’ve worked for in the past.
Oh boy, this interview was going to rock.
The three of them sat me down in an office and started the questioning.
1) What is the definition of Probable Cause?
When the LT asked me that, I looked at him and said, “Do you want the book definition of the jist of it?”
He replied with a smile, book. He knows I remember law items as well as people remember their phone numbers.
I closed my eyes for a second and then read out the definition from memory verbatim.
The LT and both SGTs looked at me for a second then started laughing. One of the SGTs finally said, “Man, you’re the first person to actually recite the exact definition..”
Oh boy. This was going to be more like chocolate cake then easy as pie.
2) Name 18 Misdemeanor exceptions
I repeated the process for question 1, reciting all 18.
They were still laughing, harder this time.
The questions they have to ask for these things are by the book, but they already know how you work before you even interview. They all knew me so this was formality, hence them laughing at me actually answering the questions.
Finally, they asked me the last question.
Dash, would you mind wearing the McGruff costume when we go visit schools?
Now I thought it was a joke. McGruff is that Dog that you see on TV sometimes that is wearing the coat and holding the magnifying glass saying, “Take a BITE outta crime!”.
I smiled and said, “Sure, as long as you promise me I can do the Two-Step in it.”
One of the SGTs said, “Dash, we’re serious man, if we asked you, would you wear it?”
…. I came back with, “Well, if it’s a requirement for being in the unit, I’d rather wear it then not.”
Then they asked me the shoe-in question, “would you mind waiving your two-week notice period?”
Awesome, that’s a good thing to hear. What they’re asking me is if picked, would I be able to start the next day and not wait the optional 14 days to adjust.
I of course told them, “Nope, I can start tomorrow.”
Now, I need to wait to have everyone else interview and then see if I get a call. We shall see.
So after getting my Sarge with a small prank, I thought everything was even.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
One of the guys on my squad said they needed some backup on a stop they had, so I pulled my cruiser behind theirs and got out of my car.
Walking up to my partner I started talking about some nonsense when I turned around and saw that Muscle had parked behind my car and was now running to the passenger side door with a Fire extinguisher in hand.
Crap.
I ran to the Driver side door to hopefully lock the doors before he had the chance to open the passenger side door and fill my car with extinguisher stuff…
This is where being a creature of habit has its down falls.
I opened my door, and of course, got in the car. Out of habit, closing the door behind me and THEN hitting the door locks…
Well, the second I closed my door and was sitting inside the car was the same second Muscle opened my passenger side door and needless to say, the entire interior of my cruiser was covered in a white layer of pay back, including myself.
Great. I just had the car washed from the Fish, and now I need to have it done again.
It took the cleaning guy an hour with four people to clean the inside of that car and even then it was still in the cracks here and there… grrr.
The next day Batman rode with me during the shift, Muscle got on the Tac channel…
Muscle : “Hey Batman, where’s your car? I didn’t see it at the station.. you may want to check the Walmart parking lot.”
… I looked at Batman who was baffled.. How’d they manage to move his car?
We went to the station and looked around for his car but didn’t see it.. so we drove to Walmart. It wasn’t in that parking lot either..
We went back to the station again and looked a little harder.
Finding it, we were puzzled in more ways then one.
Muscle somehow managed to not only start Batmans car, but he drove it between a fence and the very back of the car shop in the station. To paint a picture, there was maybe 6 feet total between the fence and the wall of this shop with no way to leave going forwards due to other parked cars and no way to back up due to a huge dumpster.
Batman and I sat there for a good while trying to figure out how Muscle had even gotten into or out of the car, let alone out of the spot..
Long story short, it took us 15 minutes to move the huge dumpster and another 20 3 point type turns to get his car out.
Har har.
So, Batman went to a local hobby store and got “Fart Spray”.
The next week, while Muscle was eating lunch inside a restaurant, Batman slim jim’d Muscles car and emptied the can into it. He sprayed the seats, vents, ceiling, you name it… it was bad.
We parked across the street so we could see his reaction…
When he opened his car door, he turned bright red and just sat there for almost 30 minutes.. not saying a word. We sped off, laughing the whole way.
The same day Muscle called Batman and said, “Hey, you know you left your car unguarded at the station. You might want to go fix your rear view mirror”, and hung up.
Ugh, the jokes are funny but don’t damage the cars…
We got back to the station and Batman and I got out to inspect Batmans car for foul play.
Batman took a seat on the drivers side, started the car and rolled down his windows. I was standing outside of the passenger side door looking at Batman.
He was checking the rear view mirror and didn’t see anything done to it. Then I saw him look down.
The look on his went to sheer terror. I followed his eyes to the center console where the speaker box was.
A small white mouse was poking his head out from behind the box, almost waving and saying, “Hello!”
Well, thats all it took. Batman started screaming like he was on fire and in his hysteria, couldn’t get out of the car door.. so he went through the window, screaming the whole way.
I started laughing so badly that I think I cried a little. After calming Batman down we learned that Muscle had put 6 mice into Batmans car and I was only able to fish out 4…
So I have been dropping/picking up Batman for work daily until we can find those two unaccounted for mice..
I have to say though, the look on his face was priceless.
Batman and I decided after sitting in my Fish smelling car for several days, after several thorough cleanings inside by both us and the professionals, that we shouldn’t let this prank stand unchallenged.
This was war and we don’t lose!
The Sarge gave us a tip while we were heading into work that day. He said to us, “Hey listen, the New Guys vehicle got back from the body shop and its sitting out by the shop, unlocked.”
The New guy had an accident a while ago and his car was back, without his knowledge, the perfect time to strike!
So, while on patrol Batman and I stopped at the local Bait and Tackle shop.
Now, being smarter then the average bear, we figured we’d skip the middle man and just get to the guts of the prank.
Batman said to the worker in the store, “We need about… a pound of Chum”.
Chum, is basically everything left that you “can’t” eat of a Fish. All of the gross smelly most nasty parts of the fish are ground up into a paste and put in frozen storage for bait use.
The man brought us a frozen pound of Chum, cost us $7.00 for the block.
This thing smelled so bad we bagged it 5 times and it still seeped through..
Arriving at the station we located the New guys car in the parking lot and sure enough, it was most definitely unlocked and waiting for sweet revenge.
We took the block of Chum out and put it on the floor next to his open car doors, debating where to put it.
First, I shaved the top off into ‘scraps’ and threw bits of it into each air vent. Then we just tossed the entire brick under the back seat of the car since it was still a frozen solid brick.
About 4 hours later we decided that we REALLY needed to get him back since our car still smelled like rotten fish and he went above and beyond our initial prank.
When we went to grab the Chum block under the back seat it had most definitely thawed. It was now a gooey chunk of pure nasty fish.
Batman started putting it under the floor mats, seats, head liner, interior lights and other fun places while I went to work on the engine bay. I placed large chunks on the vents which lead into the cabin for the AC, some on the manifold and some on the handle to open the engines hood.
Laughing like school kids we ran back to our car and speed off.
This was on Friday and it was now Sunday. A full 3 days of baking in the sun we expected the New guy to call us yelling any minute.
He never called.
We started to feel guilty so we called him several times, each time he didn’t pickup.
Finally, arriving at work on Sunday afternoon Batman and I decided to ‘check’ the car out.
It was still sitting exactly how we left it. Opening the door we were hit with a toxic wave of death that was so foul it took everything in me not to throw up.
We went upstairs to turn in some paperwork at the station when we saw the New guy talking to Sarge.
I walked up to the New guy, “Hey man, we tried calling you. We felt bad about getting you back. You might want to go get your car cleaned before the smell of fish gets any worse then it already is man”.
The New guy looked at me and then looked at Batman. He said, “My car? No man, that car got Reassigned to Batman on Thursday since his car is still in the shop”.
I looked at Batman and almost peed myself laughing so hard. He turned dark shades of purple and then we looked at Sarge who gave us Doe eyes.
Long story short, we basically got tricked into… pranking ourselves.
Sarge is now on the list for destruction. We’ll get him the last day before we ‘transfer’ to our new district.
Although his might be so bad they’ll need to scrap the car.
Our Sarge left his car running while he went in the station to do some paper work.
We cranked his AC’s heat to FULL, set the air to MAX and the Blower to MAX, then removed all of the nobs so he couldn’t turn it off or down.
He was sweating like a pig the last time we saw him.
Cops are many things, one of which are Pranksters.
About 2 weeks ago our unit was forced to take several people for ‘ride alongs’. This meant that someone we didn’t know was going to be riding with someone on the squad for the duration of the shift. Normally, that person doesn’t know police work and when we do some things my unit does, they start getting uncomfortable because it just isn’t normal to say… run at armed subjects.
Well, as we got to the station to pick up our respective ‘ride alongs’ the newer guys on the squad rushed there and got to choose which ones they’d be taking, leaving only two left for me and Batman to choose from.
The choice wasn’t hard because the LT told my partner to take the female and I took the remaining male.
None stop throughout the day Batman kept telling me that this chick in his car smelled funky, like old fish. Totally gross and he had to have her in the car all day because the new guys screwed us with her.
And so the pranks started.
The very next day Batman and I were riding two man and he told me to stop by a gas station really quick. He got back to the car with a can of Sardines.
Oh boy, I see war looming on the horizons.
On the very next scene we went too, Muscle and the New guy had left their vehicle unlocked. He went into their cruiser and put an entire fish from the can under Muscles seat.
Laughing like a kid he ran back to my car and we drove off, Muscle and the New guy, totally clueless.
Over the next week they started smelling something funky in the car and we’d see them spraying deodorizer all over the place. I suppose they thought they had some smelly arrestee’s because they didn’t ever bother looking for anything in their car.
At some point Muscle knew ‘something’ was up but couldn’t put his finger on it.
After leaving a restaurant a week later I heard the sounds of cans bouncing under my car. Me and Batman looked at each other with guilty faces and I stopped the car.
We looked under the carriage and didn’t see any cans.. hmm.
I drove some more and Batman told me to stop because we still heard the sounds.
This time we got out and looked all over the place.
Now, my car normally never gets washed. I’m talking, the last time I washed it, was about a year ago. The dirt keeps me stealthy at night, I tell myself.
Batman noticed that one of my hubcaps had clean streaks on it. Those bastards had taken off each hubcap and put rocks inside of them so that each time the wheel turned, the rocks would move making that sound. We start laughing so hard that traffic passing stopped to ask if we were okay.
Thats when Muscle and the New guy rolled up behind us and we could see them in tears laughing so hard inside their car.
Muscle got out and said, I don’t know what you guys did to my car but thats what you get!
Fair is Fair.
The joke was that he still had no idea exactly ‘what’ it was that we did to his car.
We all went home for the weekend and on Monday while me and Batman were upstairs writing an arrest for 240 grams of Marijuana our Sarge came up and started talking to us out of the blue.
I knew something was up. I ran downstairs to my car and saw a Cheese cake smeared all over my window. Pshh, juvenile antics at best. I opened my car door and immediately smelled raw fish.
Damn, they slimjimmed my car. I started looking everywhere and when I found what they did I got so pissed I must have turned 5 shades of red.
They took entire CANS of sardines and put them under the plastic floor covers, diced up and covering the floor of the car on both sides. It’s one thing for a joke, its another to make it entirely impossible to clean up.
I keyed my Mic and asked the dispatcher for the number to Hazmat, the people that come and clean out the cars.
The dispatcher started to ask me to call the shift commander for the number when I saw Batman run out of the station screaming, “NO!!! DASH DONT CALL HAZMAT!!!!!!!”
…
I told the dispatcher to Disregard and then I went into a rant about not cleaning that crap out of the car. Batman said he’d do it and he got most of it out. Now, the car I had to drive everywhere in smelled like fish and it wasn’t an easy fix like Muscles car. They went up and over. Payback is best served cold.
No problem, later on when we met with them they admitted to the fish caper and then Muscle told us a little story.
He said, “Man, for weeks me and Junior were smelling some sort of fish in the car and I kept spraying deodorizer but it kept coming back. I thought it was just smelly people we were arresting or something. Then, over the weekend I didn’t use the car at all and when I opened the door monday morning I almost threw up everywhere. I said to my self, screw this, and I looked all over the car. I ended up finding a rotting fish tail under my seat and I knew it was one of you fucking guys!”
Me and Batman were laughing so hard I think we almost pee’d ourselves. We couldn’t even get a response out for a minute.
Batman finally said, “Hey, remember when you made me take that female ride along that smelled nasty? Yea, I gave you a fish for making me drive around a fish.”
And with that, we all were laughing beyond hearing the radio.
The kicker is, that Batman and I were laughing because we’d already plotted out revenge. The bait and tackle store down the street said they’d sell us Chum, which is basically ground up fish guts / bones / grossness for $1.00 a gallon.
Needless to say, we’re going to pour the Chum under the entire floorboard of their car and put a big pile directly ON the floor where Muscles feet go, so he’ll think that’s the only spot and won’t figure out that we also put some in his air filter and air vents.
War means War!
Victory will be ours and we know its a dish best served Cold.
We’re planning on doing it at the very end of the week.
Who needs enemies when you work with Cops?
A call went out during the course of my shift.
Armed robbery in progress, male wearing all black fled east bound…
Later on at the station I was writing an Arrest Affidavit for a guy I arrested for sale cocaine/marijuana. I was sitting at the front desk when an Officer that handled the robbery came walking up and told me about it.
Apparently the kid, 10-13 years old, went to an old lady’s house and knocked on the door.
She opened up expecting a trick or treater and saw a kid wearing a bandanna on his head and dressed in all black.
He held out his bag and said, “Give me all your candy”.
She looked at him perplexed and said “excuse me”?
He lifted up a flap on his shirt to show a toy gun (orange tip and all), and restated, “Give me all your candy”.
She handed him the bag of candy she was holding and he ran off to the next house…
I almost died laughing.
Was the kid pretending to be a robbery subject or just happened to be walking around like one.. That takes the cake for my night.
I was sitting at the front desk today doing much of nothing. The front desk is separated from the main lobby of the station by a ceiling to floor series of bullet proof glass with small ‘talking’ holes in front of the three main desks that people walk up to in order to file a report, talk about the weather or more likely file a complaint.
I’m sort of enjoying my small vacation, it’s giving my body time to catch up and heal from the past several months of constant wear.
I’ve been answering phones in between staring at the ceiling wishing I was home with my wife, day dreaming of her cooking me some nice meal and whatnot.
My Sergeant who avoids the station like the plague, walked up to the side of the front desk which is basically a counter Officers walk up to while inside the station to impound property, request a Line-Up or see the Subpoena log.
Sarge : “Hey man, how are you feeling?”
Me : “Like a hundred bucks spent on surplus ammo, I’ll try to work but I probably won’t.”
Sarge : “Good to hear, since you’re already sitting down, you want to hear the bad news now or tomorrow so you can sleep happy?”
Me : “Since I know the bad news is coming, no point in making me boil over it for the night, whats up?”
Sarge : “Two things, first, since your on the desk from your LASIK, your spot in the upcoming Robbery Intervention course was given to Egg head.”
Me : “You’re kidding.. man I’ve been waiting for that to open up for months…”
Sarge : “It gets better. You know that new Burglary squad the Captain was thinking about making?”
Me : I replied while rolling my eyes, “Yea, sounds like oodles of fun.”
Sarge : “Good, you’re being transfered to it. They wanted a junior guy. You’re it.”
…. You’ve got to be kidding me. I stared at him blank faced for a few seconds before replying..
Me : “You’ve got to be kidding me. That’s going to be a crappy detail.. They want us sitting around waiting for a guy to walk up to a house and try to break in and stop them.. what are the chances of that happening?”
Sarge : “Not really good but you’re gonna have to make it work.”
Then he gave me a half smile and walked away.
As of June 4th, I’m going to be on a different specialized unit that does nothing of what I’m used too and I’m going to be expected to work a miracle. I’ll fill you in when I have more details, as of now I’ve only got what I’ve been told.
