Another Night in the 'Ville

I went in early to work yesterday, at noon, to help Day Watch out while there was some mandatory training going on. It was dead. I was dispatched to two calls, neither of which required a report.

Shortly after three o'clock, when my shift hit the street, the world went freakin' nuts! Before we grabbed our usual just-in-case-we-don't-get-to-have-dinner snack, Brandon and Chris wanted to serve a warrant real quick. They said they didn't' need me, but I moved over to the area anyway. Suddenly, they asked me to go ahead and come over there, as they had just had a guy duck back into the house as soon as he saw them. They thought it was another suspect that they had a warrant on.

So I get over there and we hold a perimeter, trying to get him to open the door. He didn't. A few minutes later, a car pulls up. The driver beeps the horn. Typical behavior for some of our fine citizens asking for directions. Brandon and I are standing there with our guns drawn and saying, "Seriously?" Well, the lady jumps out of the car and shouts, "He's in the car!" Now we're saying, "WTF?" So we go over there and get the guy on the ground. Cuff him up and put him in a patrol car.

Meanwhile, we still got the guy in the house. He might not be who we thought he was, but he obviously has something to hide. The lady in the car lives at that house, but she says that no one should be there. Okay. A burglar? And yet, she won't give us access to check. She calls her roommate and then she says oh, her roommate is home and everything is okay. She is acting very nervous and evasive. The roommate, who is female, still won't come open the door. We realize she must have something to hide, and we try to convince her to have her open the door so we can see for ourselves that someone is not holding a gun to her head. She continues to try to convince us that she's fine and we need to go away.

During all this, Brandon and Chris go over to the house they were originally headed for and arrest the person they were originally after.

So the Sgt. and I continue to knock on the door and finally the roommate opens it. There is a guy sitting there with her, but he doesn't match the clothing description of the guy who ducked. We check everyone for warrants, to no avail. Still not convinced that there is no one else in the house, we talk to them and they continue to deny. Brandon got back to the first house, and I said, "Come see if this is the guy you saw." He took one look and said this guy was too skinny. Finally, the woman says we can look around. So we do just that. The guy wearing the clothes described was found hiding in a closet. He had out-standing warrants, so we lock him up too. If it had been up to me, both of the females would have taken a ride.

Three down and it's only 4 o'clock.

I got take an attempted Fraud report, which I later manage to misplace the information for. (I have since found it.)

We head over to Chick Fil A for our "lunch". We had all finally gotten there and just managed to finish eating when Dispatch gave out a call of a woman holding a gun to her husband's head.

Other specialized units were closer than we were, so when we got there, they had everyone on the ground in the driveway and had recovered the gun. They turned it all over to us and left. Nice, huh?

Brandon had become the first one of us on the scene, and since it was technically my call, and since he was already three in the hole, I took the call. I ended up taking the woman to jail, and was originally going to charge her with Pointing a pistol at Another. A misdemeanor. I cuffed her and put her in my car. Turned away for a second and Brandon says, "Uh..." She's back there banging her head on my cage and screaming at the top of her lungs hysterically.

So we seat belted her in and I went on to take her to the jail. Eardrum-piercing screams. I coulda turned on my blue-lights and she coulda been my siren. She's screaming, "I shoulda killed him," and various other epitaphs.

I get her over to the jail and she gets out of the car for the deputies. They get her inside and she starts banging her head on the wall. So she goes straight into a restraint chair. And I head over to the Magistrate and get a warrant for Aggravated Assault and three for Cruelty to Children because they overheard the original argument. And, no bond.

Four down, it's now 7 o'clock.

I get done over there and head back in to the city. Piddle around, but don't write my reports. (Bad move in retrospect.) And we experience about an hour's worth of quiet.

Then it starts again. We received several calls, but they send Brandon and I to check a car in front of a nightclub that is supposedly got a bunch of drugs in it. These are usually bull-crap, disgruntled girlfriend, calls.

I get out there and Brandon has already spoken to the guys, and gotten their ID, and was running them. The passenger has a warrant so we get him out and cuffed. Brandon takes him back to his car to search him, and eventually finds a small baggie of marijuana. Meanwhile, a sergeant with Crime Suppression has arrived on scene. He sees "shake" on the floorboard of the car and asks the driver to step out. He does. He gets searched. He has a small amount of marijuana on him also. So the Sergeant turns back to the car to take a closer look and the guy starts shouting, "You need a warrant!" So the Sergeant cuffs him and I take him back to Brandon's car to secure him.

Well, Brandon's car is locked and he does not have remote entry. (I have added it to my car, at my own expense, for cases such as this.) He's still searching his guy so I need to wait a minute. The Sergeant reaches into the suspect car and comes out with what was later determined to be over 4 ounces of marijuana. I still had my hand on the cuffs of the guy I was dealing with, when he suddenly jerks away from me and takes off running. And I go after him.

The sergeant joins in, which is a good thing because I am so NOT fast. The guy runs behind the building but encounters a chain-link fence. I get out my taser thinking, "I'll get him on the fence." Duh! He's handcuffed in the rear. He ain't climbing no fence!

He makes a series of, as the Sergeant put it, "Heisman trophy winning maneuvers" and doubles back toward me. Doesn't take much to get ahead of me again, so I take aim and deploy the taser. One probe got him in the shoulder, the other barely missed his ear. DAMMIT!

So I head back to the front to get in my car and get over where he ran. Brandon sees me coming and says, "Watch him!" meaning his prisoner and takes off running. Fine with me!

They catch him pretty quickly when the Sergeant tackles him.

When the adrenaline wears off, I realize that when the guy pulled away, my left thumb got tangled in the handcuffs. It hurts like HELL!

When everyone else got there and realized what had happened.... well, let's just say he was lucky he didn't get tased for real.

Turned out that in addition to the marijuana, he also had crack. He was charged with Escape, Obstruction (for hurting me), Possession of Marijuana with Intent to Distribute, and Possession of Cocaine.

I spent the rest of the shift doing a drug screen, and then a couple hours at the E/R getting my thumb x-rayed, just to be safe. After all, my left hand is currently my "good" hand. Fortunately, it's just a minor sprain and I don't need it to type.