Full Moon, a Day Early

I got up on Tuesday morning and went to my Driver's Training class. I did okay. Not as well as I would have liked. My best time was 4:05, and he said I touched one cone. But he gave it to me. The fastest so far for the department is 3:10, but the guy is a car-nut. Didn't really matter as I went back yesterday, just for the practice.


My time yesterday was 3:48, a clean run. The Captain said he doesn't think I'll have any problems with EVOC next month, but I have one more practice date this month.


I also got to thinking about the high failure rate for the EVOC class, and was wondering if it may also have something to do with the fact that most people going through it have ZERO road experience. Meanwhile, I drive my car every day.


On Tuesday, the moon might as well have been full. My first call was a "24" who had escaped from Hospital Security. The security guard on duty was a girl that worked for us for about 6 weeks before it became apparent that she wasn't police officer material. That told me a lot right there. The committal papers had been signed, but he walked out, and she let him.

As soon as I got there, I saw him walking up the street. I drove up to him, and told him I wanted to talk to him for a second. We had already been advised that he might fight, and I knew my back-up was pretty far out. As soon as I spoke to him, he said, "You aren't touching me," and moved to the other side of the street. So I got out of the car to approach him, and he uttered a few choice words and took off. "Radio, he's Signal 80 on foot!" I took about four running steps and said to myself, "Screw this!" and ran back to my car. I looked up to see one of the motorcycle units headed my way and thought, "He can go places I can't." Well, the guy headed for the wood line near the railroad tracks. So we had a perimeter set up, and had been looking for him for about 10 minutes, when he came down out of the woods. The guys he came to handcuffed him, and they put him in the back of Milan's car. THEN the guy wanted to fight. So we drove him back over to the hospital and fought him into the E/R, where they strapped him down and gave him good drugs.

Later, Milan started teasing me about getting excited on the radio. I told him, not for the first time, that I am ALLOWED to sound like a girl on the radio, because I AM one. He, on the other hand, is not. He shut up then.

Then, I was still over near the hospital when I was given a car-jacking call. It was right at 5 o'clock, and completely on the other side of town. So this counts as my first "code run" by myself. And I don't think I did badly. I didn't hit anything and that is the goal. Right? Got there, but the perp was already 10-8, with the Army recruiter's government-issued car and laptop. Nice, huh? Nearest I know, it hasn't turned up yet...

Last night, I laid low so I couldn't get suckered into working. Came home and decompressed. It's back to work tonight!