Christmas eve, my day wasn’t going to be a busy one.
I brought a few nice Monte-Cristo White cigars to work with me in hopes of enjoying them with my squad and relaxing.
1030AM rolled around and everyone was doing their own thing, so I fired up one of my cigars, which now happen to cost $11.50. Sitting in my car with the windows down, the breeze was blowing through on this cool day, the sun was out without a cloud in sight.
Just an awesome day.
BEEP!!!! ATTENTION ALL UNITS, BURGLARY IN PROGRESS AT XXX NE XX AVE! TWO BLACK MALES INSIDE THE ADDRESS. ONE WEARING A YELLOW SHIRT WITH BLACK SHORTS AND THE OTHER WEARING A BLACK SHIRT WITH WHITE SHORTS.
Really? Seriously? I was right around the corner and not even 5 minutes into my cigar.
I drove over to the address and was the second guy to arrive on scene. The first cop was pointing north and yelled, “They went that way!”, so I moseyed on over that way.
Sure as hell, a block north, I saw 4 black males walking west bound about 4 blocks west of me. Two happened to be matching, so I started driving that way and got on the main channel, advising the dispatcher of what I saw.
A block away from them, another unmarked detective got behind me and we’d go ahead and stop them together.
Clenching my newly lit cigar in my teeth, I stopped directly behind them and grunted, “Gentlemen, lay down”.
The two on the left looked at me and threw themselves on the floor, the other two debated it for a second but as I approached them, they decided to take off running.
Damn it.
I grabbed my radio in my left hand and chased after them. They ran northwest through a backyard and I started advising through clenched teeth as there was no way in hell I was going to drop that cigar. We’re in a recession.
Holding down the mic on the radio, I said, “Alright, we’re coming up to a small fence, one second”. I hopped the fence jumping sideways using my right hand.
These kids kept looking back at me.
Another fence, “Now we’re coming up to a small white fence, still in the backyards, one second”. Like the first fence, no problem.
Then I saw the 4 foot spiked iron fence, “Damn it, we’re coming up on a blue spiked fence”. I jumped extra hard as to not catch the spikes, cigar still in place.
We ran across a street and out of all of the houses to run into, they ran into the Church conversion home.
Come on.
Entering the building I used my free right hand and drew my sidearm, “Police! Get down, hands up!”. No response, then I heard the rear door hit the outside wall. These kids weren’t going to stop running away from me. Grrr..
So I continued outside of the church and was met with a large 6 foot fence. I saw one jump west bound and one jump north bound.
Screw it.
“Dispatch, we cleared the church on the west side and theres a fence I’m just not getting over. I need perimeter points setup 2 by 2 from my current location”.
The points were filled and K9 / Aviation arrived.
I walked back to my car, cigar still lit. My LT was there.
“Hey Dash, did you seriously just chase those kids with that stogy in your mouth?”
“Well, Yea. That a problem LT?”
“No no man, do you have another?”
So I opened up my Humidor and gave it to him.
Later we’d find out that the 4 kids had committed 4 burglaries in that little section of town in the last 2 hours and they confessed to several more. The two that K9 found in the field just west of the church keep repeated, “Don’t put me near that white guy, he’s nuts, don’t”.
Something about a big white guy with a cigar spooked these kids, so now of course my squad mates are making all of the jokes you could think of, but at the end of the day, I wasn’t going to just let $11.50 burn on the side of the road.
Merry Christmas.
It was 10AM and my unit was working a 12 hour shift detail, from 10AM to 10PM.
I got to work on time and was just driving around waiting for the rest of my unit to show up.
Being that we normally all meet up once everyone straggles in, I wasn’t suited up in my vest because I wasn’t really doing much of anything except burning gas and putting miles on my car.
BEEP!!!!! ATTENTION ALL UNITS. 5 BLACK MALES ARMED WITH GUNS IN FRONT OF AN ABANDONED HOUSE AT XXST NW XXAVE!
You’ve got to be kidding me, I was half a block away, so I started hauling ass over there, figuring someone else in my unit or at least some road units would get there with me and back me up.
Upon arrival I saw 5 black males gambling in front of the address listed and had a feeling this was more a drug deal related call-in and someone thought they got ‘jipped’ so they were going to make the false 911 call to get the dealer screwed.
I pulled up to the group, most of whom I already knew from previous arrests and jumped out of my vehicle.
I drew my sidearm and pointed it at the crowd.
In a calm and somewhat quiet voice I said, “Everybody on the floor, now.”
Those that knew me already laid down immediately and the one that didn’t took his time until one of his buddies yelled at him to lay down for me.
Okay, backup should be arriving shortly… but I really needed to check for guns while I still had them in that initial shock.
“Gentle, I’m going to check you one at a time for weapons. First person to move will have a T-shirt made ‘In memory of’, are we clear?”
They all said some form of ‘yes’.
I started from left to right, patting them down. I found no weapons but one of them did have a small bomb (few bags of marijuana in a larger bag).
A few guys on my squad showed up just as I was getting to the last guy. They started doing their thing while I went to my car to toss the ‘evidence’ in.
All of the sudden, I heard some of our undercover units yelling on the tactical channel we operate off of that they were a block south of us and had a tall black male running north west from them reference drug sales.
I threw my evidence in my car and started running west to see if I could cut the guy off, while my squad mates (minus 1 who stayed to watch the guys I had stopped) took chase after me.
Coming up to the cross street, I looked south and saw a guy matching the description given running north directly towards me.
I started running at him.
We got about 10 feet apart from each other when I realized that he was not just tall… he was 6’5 and had at least thirty pounds on me.
Screw it. I went for a low body tackle.
As luck would have it, he decided he wanted to do the same thing to me.
We met shoulder to shoulder and I blanked out for a second.
As I realized what was happening, I had already gone up and over him, landing solidly on the ground, right on my left shoulder which was apparently already dislocated.
I looked down at my shoulder, which was now in front of my chest.
Damn it.
I rolled over, slamming my arm into the ground, forcing it back into place like I’d done several times before.
The adrenaline was pumping at that point and I don’t remember feeling any pain.
I got back up and chased the guy another block with my squad mates just behind me.
The guy jumped a chain link fence and I followed suit.
I ended the chase when I took out my pistol and told him to freeze. He didn’t and I gave him a pistol whip to what I thought was going to be his head and ended up being his eye ball.
He went down to the floor immediately and my guys jumped on him, effecting the arrest.
One of my guys turned to me, “Hey Dash… you need to get to the hospital man. Look at your shoulder”.
It was already swelling.
Crap.
I refused the hospital because that would put me on official light duty and instead went to the firehouse a few blocks away. They basically told me that I needed to ice it and take some Ibuprofen but if it didn’t go down in swelling in a few hours to go to the hospital… Then they gave me some of their freshly cooked hamburgers/fries and water for lunch.
I had my supervisor write the First Report of Injury paperwork and I wrote up my arrests with my functional hand, calling it a day. My partner for the day did her best to help me out and my wife took care of me when I got home. Long day and I’ll be babying my arm for a few weeks until it gets better. Hurts a whole damn lot.
Long story short, I need to work on my tackles.
I’m on unofficial Light Duty per my LT until the arm is healed. I can come to work and do my thing but he wants me laying low for a bit.
Also.. I’ve amassed too many complaints/uses of force/IA cases in my tenure in the unit and I was basically told it’s time to start looking for a new home.
I’m hoping one of these interviews that I did come to fruition soon, my personal jacket is getting too thick.
While I was away studying for the written part of the Sergeants exam, my squad acquired a new member. Fresh off probation, just a day over a year on the job and with no take home car.
None of us have ever heard of her and as a tight unit, we have no desire to just let anyone in simply because they were assigned by someone higher up to be placed in our unit.
She has to prove herself.
While I was away she’d ridden with each individual squad member in order to get an ‘overall’ feel for what we do and get more acquainted with us individually. Needless to say, each person she rode with treated her with respect but they didn’t operate with the unit that day. They instead ventured out on their own and purposely got into items that would stress/push her.
From what I heard when I got into the mini-station that morning wasn’t so great.
Long story short, she doesn’t seem to be fitting in very well and with good reason. You don’t take someone who just got on and has barely any experience into the senior jumpout unit. We don’t know her. For all we know, she could be a plant from higher up to find out exactly what we do as a unit daily to really get the bad guys we get. We know that as a rookie, you’re going to fold under pressure and when asked by Command staff about an item, you’re going to sing about everything from the shower you took in the morning to the smallest detail of what exactly happened to that last cig in the pack.
It’s not that we do anything illegal or anything of the sort, but we’re a hands on unit that does what needs to get done to keep our streets safe. The people I work with have been close friends for years.
So, today she rode with me.
She wasn’t on time and the Admin officer at our mini-station asked me for a ride to the south end of the County to pickup our Incident Command vehicle. No problem.
Two-hours later I got back to the mini-station and there she was, sitting in one of the chairs at our desks.
I looked her up and down.
Medium weight, medium length hair, tactical vest…
I said, “Alright, lets go”.
No apology for being late. If she was a soft cookie, she was going to get broken today. I needed to know what she was made of. My squad needed to know. It’s our safety out there. She could be the difference between my partners seeing their families at the end of the night or me having to explain to their wives and kids why they didn’t come home.
She started to say something and I walked out of the station and to my car. I saw her run out with a bag in her hand and I hit the trunk release. She tossed her bag inside and got in the passenger seat.
I didn’t say a word. Didn’t ask her name, and didn’t tell her mine.
Driving around I stopped a car near one of the project houses. I got out of the car immediately and the driver threw his door open. In the corner of my eye I saw her get out of the car.
I immediately drew my firearm and pointed it at the guy.
“HANDS UP! DON’T MOVE!”
He saw my barrel and threw his hands up. Any thought of running as I closed on him disappeared immediately.
I walked up to his door.
“Place your hands on the wheel. Okay, do you have ID on you? Oh. so your license isn’t good. Alright, I can work with that. Listen, I don’t write tickets and you trying to bail out is pretty stupid for just not having a license. Get out of here and park the car before someone arrests you”.
I walked back to the patrol car and got a glimpse of the look on her face. It was a mix of disbelief and shock.
I got back in the car and she sat down in the passenger seat.
“Why’d you draw your gun on him, Dash?”
She threw me off. I didn’t tell her my name yet but I simply replied with:
“Listen. You’re in a raid unit. People that open their doors as soon as they stop are doing one of two things. They’re either going to bailout or open fire on you. Don’t be afraid to draw your weapon. It’s a tool and just like a Plumber, you have to be proficient with your tools and know when to use them.”
She nodded.
I drove off to look for a bad guy.
I parked the cruiser behind an apartment complex known for high volume drug sales. We got out and started walking through a rear alley that lead to a break in the rear fence so we could sneak up on the dealers. Walking through the alley I spotted the manhole cover that they’d removed, closely followed by the open manhole. Walking past it I saw several 2×4 boards facing straight up and down inside.
Booby trap. Most dealers have them around so when they run, they can clear past them and hope that some cop not paying attention gets snagged.
Speaking of not paying attention, I said in a loud whisper, “Look Down”.
And that’s when I heard the, “Woah! That was close…”
Ugh.
Entering the back I saw a guy my partner had arrested before (Batman) for carrying a concealed firearm. He’d also been Trespass warned here before as this was the place he’d been arrested for the firearm and it was HUD housing. I snatched him up and cuffed him. He had nothing on him but he was up to no good so I gave him a citation for Trespass and told him to leave before I took him for the ride.
She watched but didn’t engage.
Back in the car I opened up conversation. I told her she was on a Unit probation and if she didn’t fit, she’d have a hard time finding us after roll call. She started talking about how she knew what she was getting into when she signed up for the unit and names of people she knows high up.
I stopped her there.
“Listen, you could braid the chiefs daughters hair. That isn’t going to save anyone in the unit if you fail to function properly. If one of my guys gets injured or killed because of your lack of action, no one is going to help you. It’s a unit policy: If you see us engaged in a fight and you don’t help, the next person to hit the floor is going to be you. That’s how it is. Understand? You’re not handling calls for service. You’re going to be dealing with criminals that wouldn’t think twice about killing you. Not even for a second. So sit back, watch how we operate and try to keep up.”
She had nothing to say. Was I being tough? Absolutely. I had to know just what she’s got in her. If she put a transfer in to go back to the road, then she didn’t belong here. If she stayed and proved herself, she’d earn her way in and get all of the privileges that come with the territory.
A few minutes later some units got on the radio, “We’ve got armed robbery subjects fleeing in car! It’s a White Altima headed into the ‘Pinks’!”
I was literally around the corner. I got there as the car smashed into the front of a police car trying to stop it inside an apartment complex. I saw four kids get out of the car and run into the complex and I stopped the car and started chasing after them.
The officers that lost the kids had no idea where they were at or what apartments here were empty, but that’s my job. I know my area and I know where they went.
Running to the last building I saw the door to the 2nd level apartment which was abandoned was cracked a bit and shades were not pulled. We leaves those shades open so we know when people are hiding out inside of them.
Running up to the door, I kicked it without stopping, gun in hand.
There they were, all four of em with no place to go.
I yelled, “GET DOWN! POLICE! GET DOWN!”
I knew half these kids..
They all flew to the floor. I yelled over my shoulder to my partner for the day, “Hey, Cuff them.”
…
“Cuff them”..
I turned my head around just enough to see behind me and I was alone.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
“Gentlemen, cross your legs and put your hands behind you head. First one to move gets shot. As far as I know, you’re armed. Understand?”
I got a unanimous “Ya”.
I keyed my mic.
“Guys, I’m upstairs in the pinks, last building, second floor.”
They got on, “We’re downstairs man, be up in 2”.
After they cuffed the guys we brought them all downstairs to the units they’d hit and transferred them over.
I walked back to my car and started her up. My rook came and got into the passenger seat.
First thing out of my mouth, “Where were you?”
She said she’d gotten lost. She said I got out so quickly she had no idea where I went so she went around the building but just got lost.
“Hey, if you don’t know what you’re doing, just follow your partner as best you can and keep up. If you can’t keep up, find another place to go. You left me alone during a building entry. We don’t have the luxury of sitting around and waiting to make entry as that gives these people time to setup and ambush us as we come in. You have to be dynamic and instantaneous.”
With that, I drove back to the mini-station.
I’d had my fill for the day. Maybe I was having a bad day but I’ve kicked people out of my car for that exact same thing before, and that person was a friend of mine. I gave her some slack as she’s new to this, but honestly, as far as I see it, she has no business here.
She’s got big shoes to fill and I want to see if she has what it takes to change our mind.
Friday was starting out fairly slow.
I showed up to our Mini-Station, met up with the squad and had a bite to eat.
The plan for the day? We were going to watch a drug hole. I didn’t bring a change of clothes so I was in my usual raid/jumpout getup. Not the most comfortable or concealable outfit, but its functional and I have all my gadgets on me.
This particular hole was a large apartment complex that had a large grassy field on one side and a train station on the other.
I normally lay down in the brush of the field with Binoculars and watch the back of the hole while another person on the squad sits at the train station and observes the other side. As a team, we’ll call out the buyers and sellers and the other units hidden around the area will snatch them up a few blocks away from the hole as to not alert our sellers until we’re ready to ‘jump’ the hole and grab them.
It was dark outside and I had my radio fairly low, set to the tactical channel my unit works off of. My Cruiser was parked half a block away in someones back yard. After calling out several buyers I started getting bored. Half way through calling out another buyer, my LT cut me off.
“Reference an Armed Robbery that just went out on Main, I see the subject running east bound on 79ST from NW 27AVE!!”
The LT drives an unmarked police car and has the luxury of two police radios. One, with the main channel so he can hear the normal calls for service and the other set to the tactical channel we operate off of.
I cussed to myself quietly as I stood up from my hidden spot in the field, effectively being spotted by the sellers who immediately grabbed their stashes and ran indoors. Burned another good spot.
I ran to my Cruiser and got in, hauling ass the few blocks over I needed to be.
By the time I got there, the bulk of my unit had a perimeter setup.
I knew this block. I’d caught a few people who ran through hidden breaks in fences here near a field between two houses on the south side of the block.
Male, wearing all black with a black firearm. That’s the description I got from the LT after talking to him on the length of the perimeter. K9 was not available and normally would be called out for something like this. Unfortunately, the bad guy had a gun so waiting for the Helicopter wasn’t really feasible. Basically, we had to grab him on our own.
The block we had him contained in had 10 plots of land with 9 houses. 5 plots on the north half of the block, sharing backyards with 9 houses and an empty field on the south. The empty field was in the middle of the row.
Each backyard was heavily entrenched with foliage and no lighting. Not even the street lights worked.
I walked up to one of the guys in my unit that wasn’t on a perimeter point and asked him to come with me and hand search the yards, he agreed and we started the search.
I had my firearm out, mounted light on, which to some may not be a good idea tactically, but in reality, the bad guy is hunkered down somewhere where he can see you and you can’t see him so the light is really a moot point. I need to see, because unlike the bad guy, I’m actually searching for someone who I have no idea where they could be.
My squad mate was behind me by 20 feet or so, just in case the guy had a good angle on me.
I got to a certain part in the fence line just east of the empty field when I heard the metal fence 15-20 feet away from me clank together. I immediately pointed my gun at the noise and saw the subject standing top of the fence, grasping at the top of a nearby shed. I ran towards him, holstering my firearm and as I got up to the fence, I saw him jump from the roof of that shed, over the fence of the backyard east of the house he was at.
Crap.
I followed suit. Rolling as I landed, when I regained my footing I saw him hoping the fence south of us and he started running back through that backyard, west.
The hell was this guy thinking?
I again, followed him, jumping the fence and going west.
I guess this guy was lost because he cleared the west fence of that house and then started north again, jumping on top of the first fence and back onto the roof.
We just made a complete square in these backyards… and this guy was going for lap 2.
My squad mate couldn’t see us in the brush and just kept hearing fences rattle until finally the subject didn’t land so well from that shed on his third jump.
He hit the ground with a thud and my partner grabbed him. I landed and threw my cuffs on the guy.
I had no idea where the gun was, because it sure wasn’t on this fella.
Gah. I got on the tactical channel and advised we had the subject in custody and the Robbery Detective came out to the scene.
He talked to the Victim, did the showup and the Victim positively ID’d this subject as the man that robbed her at gun point.
The Subject even had her property in his pockets still.
I took him down to headquarters for questioning by the detective. Apparently, this guy did a number of armed robberies and was also wanted for homicide. The detectives at headquarters praised my ‘catch’ and its always good to hear from co-workers that you did a good job.
Then I had to transport my subject to the jail hospital, reference injuries he sustained while ‘running from the police’.
I got out a few hours late that night. I was covered in grass stains, my stainless steel gun had dirt packed everywhere, to include the barrel. I cleaned up and my wife made a great dinner.
The next day I showed up at work knowing it was our administrative day. The last day of our work week was mainly spent doing paperwork that we didn’t do the whole week. Reports, worksheets, ect.
I went back out to look for the gun that I didn’t find last night in the dark, while it was day light out. Even in full light, the foliage was just to much to see into. I didn’t find a thing, so I did what any good cop would do after being let down.
I ate at a little hole in the wall restaurant. It reminds me of some South American country. I had my favorite, a chicken steak with red beans, rice and plantains. To top it off, I had some excellent Columbian coffee with the owner. We were talking about things in general, as I eat there pretty much every day of the week or at least stop by for coffee.
A few hours later an Armed Robbery went out over the Main channel, exactly where I got the guy in custody the night prior.
This time, when one of my squad mates got to the scene, the victim was a guy in a car. The victim said a fat guy, at least 300lbs, robbed him in his car at gun point and told him to “drive off and don’t look back”.
The fat guy, standing on the side of the road, robbed someone in a car. Amazing.
I headed for the area and just as I arrived down the street the guy on my squad advised over the tactical channel that he saw the subject and was chasing him east bound into a house. The subject slammed the door on my squad mate as I pulled up.
The squad mate yelled to me, “Dash, he’s inside, lets grab him”.
I popped my trunk, grabbing my Benelli M4 Shotgun and rushed to the door of the house.
As I got to the door, two more guys on my unit showed up and we got into a 4 person ‘stack’ outside of the door.
I had the firepower, so I was lead.
The detective that saw the subject run into the house kicked the door in and moved to the side. He would end up at the rear of the stack.
I rushed in, immediately seeing a guy in the room we entered, which happened to be a kitchen. I ordered the guy to the floor and he dropped like a rock. The second detective in the stack took that guy into custody and the three of us remaining moved on through the house to clear it.
As I breached into the next room, which was the living room, the subject was sitting on the couch watching TV, pretending that we didn’t exist. Amazing.
He was massively fat, wearing exactly what the victim described and his fat body was not only dripping with sweet, but he was panting heavily as if out of breath.
I ordered him to the ground and upon his making eye contact with the opposite side of a 12 Gauge, he threw himself on the floor.
The other two detectives cuffed him and from where I was standing I could see his bedroom, or at least what looked like a bedroom.
The door was open and on the bed was a gun, jacket and a stack of money.
Bingo.
We called out the Robbery Detectives again, who came out and did their thing.
This time I didn’t have to take this guy down, as I only helped with the apprehension.
Apparently, the Fat guy was also lazy. He committed the Robbery 3 houses away so he could walk home and not jump any fences or have to run from the police. Motivated fella.
Two days, Two badguys, Same block.
Needless to say, we’re lucky none of us got hurt.
I had just arrived to work on the first day back from the weekend. Sitting at the mini-station with three of my units officers, we were all talking about our weekends and were waiting for the rest of the unit to arrive so we could start the day.
I acquired a new firearm the day prior and was fixing my gun belt to fit the new magazines and firearm. The gun-belt was off and on my desk, the keepers, which hold the belt in place, were off also. The issue was that the 3 pouch magazine holder I had have previously stored my 20 round magazines and I decided to downsize to the more reliable 15 round magazines, which were shorter, so the Velcro straps had to be adjusted. This procedure couldn’t be done with the belt on, so off it went. I was in the process of doing this when all of the sudden we heard the dispatcher get on the air…
BEEEEEP!!!!! ATTENTION ALL UNITS! CITY OF [CITY JUST WEST OF OUR DISTRICT] IS BEHIND AN ARMED ROBBERY VEHICLE! ITS CURRENTLY HEADED EAST BOUND TO [MAIN AVENUE] FROM [OFF MAIN STREET].
Oh man, that’s only 15 blocks away!
I grabbed my gun-belt and bolted out of the door with the other three officers. Running after one of them, I said, “Hey, let me hop in!” as we ran towards his car. I still had to get my gun belt on so driving wasn’t an option for me.
I hopped in as a passenger of his car and he started driving mach 3. I was trying as best I could to get my gun belt on within the crapped cruiser, and in the rush, I forgot to close my magazine pouches or put my keepers back on. Never a good thing when you forget either of those items.
Dispatch advised shortly after : ATTENTION ALL UNITS EN ROUTE TO BACKUP THE CITY UNITS, THE SUBJECT HAS BAILED OUT OF THE VEHICLE, REPEAT ALL UNITS, THE SUBJECT HAS BAILED OUT OF THE VEHICLE!
I heard another officer get on the main channel and he started giving a description and direction of travel.
It would just so happen that my partner and I were only 1 block south of the bail out, so he drove down the street and as we got to the first intersection in a residential block, I saw a female officer pointing at a guy. The thing is, she wasn’t just pointing at him. She was on one side of a chain link fence, he was on the other side, within 15 feet of her. He was walking away all calmly but I could see he was sweating and his cloths were already torn. Yea, that was him. The female officer was just standing there pointing and not actually going after him. Oh well, not everyone is cut out for this job.
She started yelling as I got out of the car, “That’s him! THAT’S HIM!!!!!”.
Instinctively I started running towards the subject. He must have heard the unsecured items on my gun-belt bouncing around and he turned around and saw me. I don’t know what went through his head, but he decided he could get away from me on foot.
He jumped the first fence, which was a 4 foot chain link fence that has those unfinished points at the top. Yea, as I jumped it I punctured both hands in several places but didn’t miss a beat. As I cleared that fence, he was just getting over the next one.
A 6 foot wood fence. These are fun to jump because unless you run up it, you’re not going to get over it. So, I did what I’ve done many times before and hit that fence without a problem.
It was the landing on the other side that threw me the curve ball. I saw the subject only 10-15 feet in front of me and he was stumbling. I found out why, as I landed in the large amount of piled sand, used in what appeared to be the construction of an addition to the house we were currently behind.
I lost my balance and fell to a knee. Getting right back up and back into the foot chase, this guy hit another 4 foot chain link fence.
From experience, fence jumpers usually don’t have the endurance to go more then a few fences and even if they do a few more, they usually lay down and try to hide.
This guy wasn’t that different. After I cleared the third fence I saw that he couldn’t get over the 4th fence. He turned around and squared up on me as I drew in closer. He took a bladed boxing stance, which was kind of silly to me as I had my gun drawn by this point and he was supposed to be armed with a handgun.
I said to him in a very firm but loud voice, “Lay down”.
His reply was an angry, “Fuck you”.
To preface what I did next.. I don’t have a taser and I don’t have an ASP (expendable baton). This situation is a subject who is possibly still armed with a gun but has instead taken a fighting stance. Within the law, I can use force to take him into custody. That force includes the use of a taser, baton, or any other weapons that I can get pain compliance out of using.
I got in close and whacked him in the head with my pistol. My brand new pistol. I later found out that I knocked the front sight off center and bent the rail mounted light screw, but it was a weapon of opportunity and I had to get compliance quickly.
This action obviously threw the subject off. I backed up and told him to “Lay down” again.
His reply once more was a big ole, “Fuck you, cracka”.
Alright. I was in a back yard by myself with the subject. Back up was God knows how far away. I holstered my gun and engaged the guy. He tossed out a punch and I saw it coming from a mile away. I snaked behind him and got him into my infamous ‘rear naked choke’. Within seconds I was laying on my back, his back was on my chest and he was very much unconscious. A few seconds later a different guy on my squad made it back to us and I rolled the guy over and my squad-mate took him into custody. I was tired and now I was all sweaty, covered in my own blood from the fence hopping and wanting a drink of water. My squad-mate said, “Hey Dash, you dropped these”, as he handed me all of my magazines, which had come out of my unsecured magazine holster…. Ugh.. “Thanks.” I told him with a smirk. I’d lost so many magazines in the past, I’d hate to lose more.
The news camera helicopters were up in the sky when I looked and I have no idea how much of that was caught on film. Its always fun to see yourself on the news, usually anyway.
We gave the subject to the city department that was chasing him and headed back to the mini-station.
Fun start to a day.
Saturday is pretty much my ‘Friday’, because its the last day of my normal shift work week.
On that day, the squad meets up and completes all of our paperwork for the week. We get the Over-time stubs out of the way and then as a squad, we go eat somewhere nice.
After an awesome lunch my partner and I drove to a little hole in the wall I visit daily for my coffee.
I wasn’t really in the mood to hustle because we did nothing but conduct surveillance / jump-outs on drug holes all week. I sat in bushes with binoculars, on top of train station platforms.. you name it.
Needless to say, it was a taxing week on the unit and we were all generally laying low.
By now, I’ve learned the days I want to lay low, are the days when I get some interesting happenings.
The LT came into the Mini-Station and saw me and my partner sitting down at our desks, sort of zoning off into paperwork.
LT : Hey, have you guys done anything today?
Me : Nope, not really. What’s up?
LT : Get out of the office and do something…
I looked at him for a second awkwardly because I thought he was joking. My unit doesn’t work on quotas and neither does the department, but we normally bring in a consistent amount of bodies/drugs/guns for serious/major crimes so we have unsaid standards to be met.
Me : Alrighty LT, give me 10 minutes and I’ll grab you a good collar.
I stood up and walked out of the mini-station and straight across the street to the project housing.
This housing is setup in a diamond formation with a large open court yard and open walk ways. They are two stories and have stairs that go up 1/2 a floor, hit an open, visible plateau and then turn 90 degrees to go up the other 1/2 floor.
I turned a corner at the south building and saw a guy I’ve arrested before for cocaine sale sitting on the stairs of the east building, looking around.
Now, I know he doesn’t live there and he was at such an angle he couldn’t see me yet, which of course was to my advantage..
So, in my most stealthy tiptoe, I got about 15 feet from him before he noticed me. He stood up, turned around and did what I can only describe as a free throw toss of 2 large bags of cocaine into the tall unkempt grass.
What was worse is he thought I didn’t just see this obvious occurrence and he proceeded to start a conversation with me.
Subject : Hey Dash, you don’t got to say nothin, I’m leaving. I know you told me I can’t be here no more and I was just visiting a friend.
Me : Yea? Have a seat for me.
Subject : Okay man, just don’t shoot me. I heard bout that thing down the street. Don’t shoot me Dash.
What the hell? I had no idea what he was talking about, but as with most of the stuff I do on the job, playing it by ear is always a good method.
Me : Then have a seat for me.
He sat down and I placed him into cuffs.
My partner came along and starting picking up the bags.
Yeap, one bag had powder cocaine and the other had rock cocaine ‘crack’.
I asked the guy what his name was, even though I already knew it. To my surprise he actually gave me a wrong name. Now, if you have been arrested by me before and know that I know your name, why on earth would you give me a fake name?
Oh.. thats why. He had a fugitive warrant out of the County to the north.
Oh boy.
I walked directly back to the station with my subject and the two bags and sat him down in the detention chairs right across from my desk. I walked up to the LT and said, “Check your watch LT.”, as I raised up the two bags of cocaine.
He looked at me for a second, laughed and then told me 8 minutes.
LT : So what did you bring me?
Me : Dealer that also happens to have a Fugitive warrant. 45 bags of rock and 14 backs of powder cocaine. Total amount is around 13 grams.
LT : Outstanding work there. Good job man.
It’s somewhat upsetting to me to know that no matter how often I grab bad guys, the very next day another one is out there replacing them. As a unit we do nothing but hit drug holes and chase robbery guys and they are still there, day after day. Different faces sometimes, but its usually the same people..
The legal system is just not what it should be. We do all this footwork and then it gets reduced or tossed out in court due merely to case loads. Solid tight cases are plead out to make the process cheaper for the County and quicker… which does nothing but create a revolving door for these criminals..
So at the end of the day, my end result was a drug dealer off the street and 59 bags (totaling 13.5 Grams) of cocaine out of circulation.
Challenging me because I’m having an off day works, because I like challenges.
The work is in my blood, no matter my mood.
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.
My partner and I were responding to the area of a call that came in about a possible armed robbery subject inside a black nissan driving in the area.
Our unit of course went and saturated the area and after a few minutes, Droopy got on the Tac channel.
“Hey guys, I have a car matching the description south bound on 23ave… we’re approaching the stop sign…. and he took it. Okay, now he’s fleeing. Anyone in the area?”
I happened to be on the same street as Droopy was but on 22ave, 1 block over.
I got on the Tac channel, “Droopy, just keep up with him, Skippy is going to call the chase man”.
Skippy is my new partner and he was passenger in our car (his marked unit).
After driving south another 4 blocks the Subject made a right turn and was now headed towards me.
I stopped my car just before the intersection and allowed the Subject and Droopy to fly by me and I pulled behind them as Skippy was still calling the chase.
This guy wasn’t driving too fast, around 45 mph and he went straight across 22ave and kept on going east until he hit 17th avenue.
He decided he didn’t like the way the chase was going because there were now a few more cars behind me.
The Subject turned his vehicle south bound on 17ave and started driving into on coming traffic lanes.
We of course followed and eventually he pulled onto a side street. On the turn Droopy lost control of his car and slid onto the shoulder and I took up position directly behind the car.
The driver made another right and then a left and one of the other guys in the unit ended up directly in front of this guy.
I got on the Tac channel, “Yo Preacher, containment containment”.
With that, Preacher slammed on his brakes and the subject drove right into the back of Preachers Cruiser. This chase was already at a dangerous point and letting it go on would only endanger the public but this was a violent robbery subject in a stolen car, he didn’t care who he hurt.
I slowed down and started my attempt at locking my front bumper to the Subjects rear bumper, but the subject nailed the gas and forced Preachers car over.
The subject then tried to drive around Preachers car but Preacher clipped the back of the subjects car, causing him to go into a spin.
The subjects car was now facing mine and I rammed straight into the front of it, trying to lock him in place and force him backwards so his transmission would stall the car. It worked and my partner and I jumped out of our cruiser, walking up to the car, guns drawn.
“GET YOUR HANDS UP!!”
I heard the car ignition cycle on and then the car floored it in reverse. Preacher was still in his car and saw this, driving his vehicle into the back side of the Subjects car, locking the wheel.
Skippy and I approached the car and as we got to the door, a massive 6’2 250lbs man got out, holding a Crack pipe up to his lips.
He made direct eye contact with me and took a deep breath of crack into his lungs. His eyes widened up and he started running.
I have to say, I’ve never seen a subject who was about to run ever stop to take a hit of crack straight out of the pipe, during a situation like this..
So this guy had taken his “Gummy Bear Juice”, I was now running after this guy, Skippy close behind me. We weren’t really running that fast either, this guy was pretty slow, but he was a truck and we both knew that we’d better wait for backup before trying to take this guy down. Skippy yelled to me, “Imma taz him! Move over!”, but I couldn’t, there just wasn’t enough room.
About 3 blocks later, this guy tried to jump a fence at a house. The fence was maybe 4 feet tall and as he got on his belly to roll over it, I grabbed him by the shirt.
Skippy came up behind me and screamed “CLEAR!!!!”, which I knew meant a Taser was about to be deployed. I backed off the guy just as the 2 probes found there mark, zapping this guy mid-fence.
I hopped the fence just as the first 5 second cycle wore off and tried to get this guys arm behind his back.
That wasn’t going to happen.
So here I was, half on this guy who was face down in the grass and had now ripped the Taser cords out of his body with his hands, trying to get him into custody. He practically started lifting me off the floor, and try as I might, I just couldn’t hold him down.
Skippy then jumped onto him, followed by 4 more backup units. This guy was totally high on Coke and wasn’t feeling anything and had super human strength. All 6 of us could barely hold this guy down, let alone get his hands into cuffs.
He had now crawled 10 feet with 6 cops on him. 10 feet. 6 cops on him. I couldn’t believe it.
Just when I thought I’d seen everything, Droopy, still at the fence line (opposite side from us) screamed out, “CLEAR!!!!”.
We all looked up as Droopy fired his Taser into the group of Cops trying to get this guy into custody.
I watched in slow motion as the probes flew through the air, striking one of the Cops in the side of the head. That cop spun around, catching his foot on a piece of cement and then I heard the crack as his ankle snapped.
Out of all the luck… you have to be kidding me.
To top that off, this guy was still fighting like a horse. Five officers on him now and one pulled out their Taser and started to Drive stun him (using the taser without the cartridge), which I knew wasn’t going to work.
Finally, 4-5 minutes later exhaustion set in and this guy was able to be taken into custody. That didn’t matter to me though, one of my Officers just broke his ankle because of another Officers stupidity.
After getting this guy into someones car, I stormed over to Droopy and exchanged some heated words. He knew he screwed up, but this wasn’t one of the screw up that you chalk up, another Officer was hurt and could have been blinded (lost his career) because under stress, Droopy didn’t react correctly. Several units followed our Officer to the hospital as several more followed our Subject to the hospital.
I had paperwork to write and I went to the station and started writing it. I helped the Sarge do the after action memos.
Of course, we made the local news, which got the entire story wrong.
As I was getting off shift, I was told that the Officer was out of Surgery and was going to be A-ok.
In the car that the subject bailed out of were several ounces of cocaine and the car was the car taken in the armed robbery.
At least no one was killed, but damn it, the officer who was hurt will be out for several months and he’s a damn good cop not to have around.
Last Wednesday the Unit decided we do some jumps a little differently.
Half of the Unit came in a modified Bike uniform and the rest came in the usual raid gear (IE: Raid Jacket, BDUs, boots,ect.) and we planned out a path basically having the guys on Bike ride south bound from the Mini-Station that is our personal Unit headquarters and they’d scout each Project development as they passed, calling out the dealers or any Robbery subjects we were currently looking for. The rest of the unit would follow the Bike guys a few blocks back to jump anyone these guys called out over the radio or any runners that spotted the Bike guys and fled.
We went through 3 Projects, grabbing a few bodies and finally those of us that didn’t have subjects in custody yet went to the last Project just before the south border of our District.
This particular Project was setup so that two long squad 2 story buildings faced each other with enough space between them to park cars on the sides of the small roadway that divided the north and south buildings. The floors were ‘open’ style floors where you could walk around the perimeter of the buildings on both the top and bottom floor, which also meant the bad guys could see us as well as us being able to see them. This made jumping this spot a little harder because people on the second floor have the advantage.
The Bike cops rode through the outskirts when someone 9’d them (called them out) screaming, “POLICE ON BIKES! POLICE POLICE!”, giving good warning to whoever was inside the Project complex that we were en route and that they should probably run inside an apartment or drive away.
Obviously, that man’s cries were heard as one of the Robbery subjects we were looking for started to bolt towards some housing. One of the guys in the unit that was in a Cruiser picked up the guy that 9’d the unit, arresting him for Obstruction as the rest of us chased after the Subject.
On foot and running through the complex, over fences, dumped trash cans and finally back out into a side street, we got the guy in Custody.
An Officer in the unit put the guy into FlexCuffs, which are plastic cuffs normally used for Transport and while placing the guy into her car, the Subject was able to get a hand free of the FlexCuffs and tried to get away.
Not about to let that happen, myself and one of the Bike cops struggled with the guy, getting him back into some real handcuffs. We transported him to the Mini-Station to write the reports. During the transport the guy just wouldn’t shut up. He was spouting out stuff like, “I can’t wait for you to take these cuffs off me. I’mma mess you crackas up”. Nothing new to us but the guy just kept talking. To me, all that meant was this guy was one of the inmates and not a convict.
Inmates talk a big game but generally don’t act on it. They tout their arrests as badges of honor and they have never spent any real time in Prison, only jails. They normally will snitch on their fellow evil-doers as long as it’ll save their own hide. They show out trying to build themselves up to look like convicts with tattoos of tear drops (right side of the face means they’ve killed someone, blue filled tears means it was a LEO) and other identifiers in attempts to fool their friends and other inmates.
Convicts on the other hand are very quiet. They won’t say a word outside of Yes sir and No sir. They’ve done Prison time and they know how the game is played. They take their lumps and don’t complain about it. If they’re going to fight you, they won’t even mention it until they start to throw down.
Arriving at the Mini-Station, we opened the door and sat this guy just inside of it, locking the door behind us. The Mini-Station is a small Office. One story in height and it has 5 rooms. As you walk in, the main area is 25×25. There are rows of desks for us Detectives and on the left wall are three doors, leading to 3 rooms that are 8×8 for the 2 Sergeants and the LT. If you’re standing in the entrance you’ll also see 3 green chairs immediately as you step in on the left side wall, this is where we sit our prisoners as we write up the volumes of paperwork associated with each and every arrest.
Needless to say, I was writing the Arrest affidavit for this fine upstanding citizen while my partner, Braves, watched the Subject. About 20 minutes into my writing it seemed as though the subject had calmed down and Braves decided to change out this guys cuffs for FlexCuffs again so he could be transported to the main jail facility by Uniform Officers.
Braves took off cuffs.
Now, both guys were standing up with Braves behind the subject directly in front of me with a desk between us. Braves is about 5’9 at 190lbs and the Subject was around 5’11 at 230lbs. They were both standing directly in front of the desk I chose to sit in to write the A-Form since its directly in front of the subject seating.
Braves then leaned over to grab the pair of FlexCuffs and as soon as he did, the Subject turned around and sucker punched him in the face.
Oh boy.
I stood up and ran around the desk, as I did that, Braves and the Subject were already in a full fist fight. Exchanging blow after blow within a 3-4 second period. I rushed the Subject, grabbing the tops of his arms as he was focused on my partner, running him straight into the corner of the door jam that was only 2 feet behind him. I got hit once or twice as I entered the Melee but now that I had this guy pinned in a corner I was focused on controlling his arms, which were a lot bigger then mine. I took a wide base stance and was debating the next best move to get this guy into cuffs quickly.
That’s when he grabbed my Radio out of the holster and threw it under the desk so I couldn’t call for backup. Not a smart move as he started to upset my calm. He then started giving me some knee strikes which I’ll have to say hurt and took me out of my calm mood.
Braves was trying to help out but at this point I had this guy pretty contained in the corner and I didn’t have many options.
The guy kneed me one more time and started screaming, “I’ll kill you cracka mother fuckas!!”.
Oh really?
Since I was already holding the tops of his arms against my chest, I quickly grabbed his left shoulder and wrist with both hands and executed an arm bar to the floor with all my mustered might. Unfortunately, those three green plastic chairs where in the way and the Subject ended up crashing through them and with such force, he didn’t stop until his head hit the corner of my Sergeants open door 5 feet away, effectively cutting this guys head open and knocking him out cold.
I gathered myself and asked Braves if he was alright. He had some bruising already on his face and some scratches but he was A-Ok.
Taking in the scene I noticed that there was blood everywhere. From the entrance all the way to where the subject was now laid out on his stomach. The walls.. floor.. and our Raid Uniforms were all covered in blood.
I went over to the guy and tossed on some real handcuffs again, this time we’d have to transport him ourselves..
The guy didn’t come to for another minute and when he did, his mood was completely different. In fact, the guy was so far out into space I’m not sure if he knew what time of day it was. I think he hit that door jam a little hard.
Now, the LT happened to be sitting in his office when this went down and he opened his closed door to see the carnage that was now inside of his Mini-Station. He turned all sorts of white followed by red and had to start making the appropriate phone calls. The Haz-mat had to come out to clean up the blood and our Uniforms were removed due to the amount of blood on them. Rescue came and checked out both my partner and the subject. Both had to be transported via Rescue to their respective hospitals.
I followed Braves to his hospital of choice while someone else on my unit followed our Zombie to which ever hospital Rescue decided to take him too. After a few hours my partner was released and we drove back to the Mini-Station to finish the A-Form and paperwork. Another Officer transported the A-Form down the the County Hospital for this guy and at the end of the night, I found out he needed 15 stitches.
The very next day I decided to ride with the gal that had the subject break out of her FlexCuffs the previous day.
I wasn’t really in a mood to do much and that’s exactly what we planned on doing.
The squad ate at a nice restaurant and we were all pretty much relaxing for the first half of the shift.
Driving around aimlessly after that I heard a call go out over the radio.
Dispatch : “Gun violation in progress. Man wearing all Camo standing next to a cooler in front of [market] with a gun in the cooler”.
I looked at my partner with a face that said, “Sorry” in all kinds of ways and I keyed the mic, asking for the call.
Now, we don’t normally handle calls, but I wasn’t going to let a road unit get the call and mess up getting one of these criminals off the street.
Heading over to the market my partner decided to drive right into the parking lot instead of parking around a corner and walking up, which would have been my preferred method.
Immediately I saw the guy. He was standing directly next to the cooler. This man towered at 6’3 and around 240lbs. He saw me and immediately took flight, running towards the entrance of the store.
Of course, I chased after him, following him into the store.
We ran down several aisles and he finally turned down a long aisle.
Running after him, the Subject reached the end of the aisle and turned around. At this point I was about 15 feet behind him and he reached into his waist band, pulling out a Silver Beretta 92F.
I drew out my sidearm and brought it to bear on this mans chest.
Now, in situations like this, adrenaline does some odd things. It’s different for everyone but normally with me I see very clearly and get extremely calm, almost a zen type state.
As I started pulling the trigger of my firearm I noticed the inner tip of this mans gun had scrapped orange in it and then I noticed that the bore of the gun was inconsistent with any caliber that model is actually made in.
It was a BB gun. This moron pulled a BB gun on an armed Officer.
My partner was still outside for some reason but I holstered my firearm and charged at the guy.
I’m not really sure what he was expecting to happen. I think he was either stupid or trying to do the famous, ‘suicide by cop’ bit. Either way, once I got to him, disarmed him and tried taking him into custody, he decided he didn’t want to play nice.
So now we were in the narrow aisle, I’d already used a technique to disarm him that I learned in one of the many many CQB courses I’ve taken through the department and this guy then put his set up.
I’m not a great boxer by any means. My forte is grappling so my aim was to get this guy on the ground as quickly as possible.
He threw a punch which I blocked but it knocked me into the shelves on the left side of the aisle. It knocked me into it hard, collapsing the entire shelf. The cans of food came tumbling down off the broken rack.
I put my best set up and started trying to get around to his back side. We fought for what seemed like minutes when my partner finally showed up. She took his attention when she grabbed his left arm as I was keeping his focus. I was able to worm my way around to his backside at which point I put him in a standing rear naked choke, without the hooks. He was now trying to throw me off of his back before he passed out, which didn’t happen and when he blacked out I cuffed him really quick and took a breather.
So, now I’m basically resting with one knee across this mans shoulders and my other leg far out as to have a good base. The guy came too and we went to pick him up.
He was obviously very upset with me so, once I stood him up he shoulder rushed me into the other side of the aisle, which wasn’t messed up yet.
I hit it pretty hard as the aisles were only mere feet across.. so I was visibly upset.
There were people watching this go on so I couldn’t outright just slap this guy, he was already cuffed and even though he wasn’t under control, public perception would see me hitting a cuffed guy as ‘abusive’.
I did the next best thing. I grabbed on of his cuffed hands and took his pinky in my hand. I bent it far back enough to it was just near the ‘breaking’ point and whispered to him, “Try that again and I’m breaking it”.
He got the point.
Back at the Mini-Station we sat him down in the new Green chairs (har har) and I started writing the A-Form as my partner did the impound on the fake gun.
This guy kept yelling out non sense such as, “You arrested another nigga, you racist crackas. I got a law suit on yo ass for this brutality”. Blah blah. Blah. He wouldn’t shut up.
Finally, I stopped writing and looked him square in the eyes.
“Partner, listen here. The fact that you can still talk is a blessing. I almost ended your life back there. You’re lucky I saw the orange tip on that gun and I couldn’t shoot you in good conscience after seeing it. The next time you pull a gun on me, you won’t have the luxury of mouthing off about racism because you’ll be dead and I’ll have three days off again. Now, if you’ll shut the hell up I’m almost done with the paperwork”.
With that, the Subject stood up out of his seat, and took a piss.
He peed right there, standing up, looking straight at me.
Just then, the front door of the Mini-Station opened up, and of all the people to walk in at all the opportune times.. the LT’s first sight for the day was a guy taking a piss in his Mini-Station.
He looked at me, I looked at him… he turned white… then red.. and stormed off to his Office to call out Haz-mat again.
I couldn’t contain my laughter anymore.
My partner and I took this guy down to the jail. At the jail, while we were booking this guy in, the guy from Yesterday, the one that we put in the hospital, was standing in one of the cells with his head in full bandages, staring off into space. Totally zoned out. I eventually caught his attention and waved a hearty Hello, he didn’t think it was too funny as he went back off into outer space again.
Once we got back to the Mini-Station at the end of the shift, I had some presents sitting on desk.
The Haz-mat people left pens with their number on it and the other people in the unit made me a make shift ‘punch card’ for Haz-mat, where at the 10th use I get a free day off.
Har har. Har har. Har har.
My vacation is coming up soon.
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.
