Maybe I Should Go Work For the Power Company...

Two interesting stories told in passing. We find an abandoned power truck in a neighborhood that is still without lights. While we're looking for the driver he comes walking out of the darkness. Turns out, one of the neighborhood ladies offered him sex to turn their power back on and sure as hell, he accepted. Damn!!!!!!!

One of my wife's friends did the same thing. Except the power guy declined. So, just how are men supposed to get their power back on? Just kidding.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

We ate dinner at a new BBQ place. It was pretty good. Plus it helped that the hostesses and the waitresses were HOT!!!! Anyhow, an interesting conversation popped up. One officer told of how his teenage daughter got a job. All of us drifted back to our first jobs. One officer talked about how his father was a pipe fitter and was upset that he became a cop. The reason being he had a bad experience with police a long time ago. Well, in rural east Texas, in the old days, if one mouthed off to a cop, he got his ass whooped and that is what happened. Another officer said he started off mowing lawns, then became a sacker at a grocery store. That is where I started. At 16 I got a job at local grocery store bagging groceries. It was there I developed the theory that if everybody had to spend at least two years working a job serving the public then it would make most people polite, humble, and respectful towards others. There is nothing like serving the public. You meet good people, you meet great people, and you meet people who aren't worth the air they breathe and whose parents really should have been sterilized. From the time I was 16, to the time I was 24, I worked in grocery stores either bagging groceries or tending a cash register. Then I became a cop. One hell of a resume. Later on today another officer has to arrest a fireman. He wasn't too thrilled about it, but you can't treat him different because he is a fireman. I had to call that fire department and notify a captain. That wasn't fun.

"Captain ****** I'm just notifying you we have one of your firemen under arrest."

"Aww damn!"

"I know sir, this isn't the phone call you want to get."

"Yep, but I appreciate you letting us know."

Friday, September 26, 2008

Slow day until later in the evening when calls starting coming in one after another. I ran a call at a nursing home. Turns out it was a medical call. There was a really pretty EMT there, but I kept professional and said a polite 'hello.' She ignored me. How do you like that? After that ran a call where a woman hit her husband. Okay, all the elements are here for a warrant on her. She wasn't there when I got there so I called her. She admitted she hit him and told me why. She said he used her to get into the country and become a citizen. She also tells me he would hit on her and her kids. Since she admitted to hitting him already why would she start lying now? Well, technically she did assault her husband in this case. Yet, if what she says is true then she is upset and her emotions got the best of her. Plus, with illegal immigrants, spousal abuse is very common (something La Raza or LULAC will never admit to). So, I decided to let our family violence detectives work with this one. I just didn't feel right filing a warrant on her this night.

Kudos to Mansfield PD

I read this story in the Houston chronicle about police from Mansfield helping out Houston police in their patrol duties. The officers in the picture are riding in south west Houston. I wonder if these guys have dealt with drug dealers on the scale HPD has. I wonder if they've dealt with the cross dressing prostitutes that litter that part of town. Anyway, God bless them for helping out and helping HPD patrol the streets. The city of Houston ought to be a little embarrassed about being the largest city in Texas and not having enough manpower to patrol its streets even without a hurricane.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

I was just damn tired today. Even though we're back on normal shifts I felt like a zombie. Needless to say I was also impatient although I tried to hide it. We get a call from an off duty detective to meet him a residence. He says someone is inside it. I recognize the name of the detective. We've butted heads with him before. We're told someone is in a house and we're needed to check it. Okay, fine. I get there and I recognize this house. It belongs to a woman who doesn't like us too much. She's a drunk, and a pill popper. Her husband was killed a few years back. One evening we had a call of a drunk driver. The license plate comes back to that house. In fact, I found the vehicle, but the drunk driver made it back to this house and was inside. The person who saw her driving was long gone. The woman comes running up to us yelling not to shoot her dogs. I yell at her to get the hell out of my way and to back off. In my mood, I'm not hearing it. The house turns up clean (well except for the massive turd in the toilet that was left unflushed). The detective says this is his girlfriend's house. I shake my head. So this self-absorbed detective is dating a drunk, pill popper. Oh well, it's not any of my business. Whoa be unto him if I do arrest his girl for driving drunk and he gets in my way.

HPD Officer Shoots Armed Kidnapper-Rescues Child

Houston Police Officer C. Sellers deserves huge kudos for his heroic actions. I'm sure he didn't want to have to shoot a kidnapper but he had no choice. The story is buried under an article about police making fewer arrests during power outages. Well duh! During disasters police usually only make arrests if they absolutely have to. When digging through the article we see this;

"A Houston police officer's fatal shooting of a kidnapping suspect last week also received scant public attention in the aftermath of the storm. Police on Wednesday were patrolling an apartment complex in the 5300 block of Hershe when officers heard a child screaming for help, HPD officials said.

Officer C. Sellers ran toward the sound. Turning a corner, he spotted Patrick Dante Mathis, 29, wielding a shotgun and dragging an 11-year-old boy behind him.

There was no relationship between Mathis and the boy, police said.

"He was just in the apartment complex and the guy grabbed him," said HPD officer Gabe Ortiz.

Sellers, assigned to HPD's northeast patrol division, ordered Mathis to drop the weapon and release the boy. He refused, police said, and began to raise the shotgun barrel to the child's head.

Sellers then fired, fatally striking Mathis. The child was not harmed. The case remains under investigation by Houston police and the Harris County District Attorney's Office.

Police have not determined the motive for the fatal shooting of a man in southeast Houston, hours after Hurricane Ike made landfall in Galveston."

Good job Officer Sellers. I know the media won't do it, but the public thanks you. Like my headline? That's the gist of the story. However had a hurricane not hit, it would have been something like 'officer shoots man holding child.' I hate the media.

Monday, September 22, 2008

It's an oven at the station. It's well over 90 degrees in there. Wearing a vest, oh hell no. I check up on some paperwork and I'm out of there. I imagine I'll do the same thing again today. I made another traffic stop at the same dead light. This time, a young girl almost 't-boned' an Impala. When I stopped her, she was terrified, and embarrassed. She knew what she did and she felt stupid for it. I felt it was genuine so I let her go. I saw no reason to write her a ticket. After all, nobody got hit, so it's all good.

A strange call came in. A woman picked up a guy in her neighborhood and drove him around. He masturbated in her car. She said she was scared to tell him to get out. She says she "kinda" knows him, but knows where he lived where we arrested him. He also had marijuana in his pocket. I suspect there is more to the story like she was going to buy some weed from him (or vice versa) and he decided to "crank one off."

In another call, a drunk kid was speeding through his neighborhood. He hit a truck, a parked trailer, and flew by a school bus (yes this is the early afternoon) unloading kids. Thank God he didn't hit any of them. He was a tall kid too, about 6' 07. One look at him and I said (in front of his parents too) "damn, he tore up from the floor up! It's been a long time since I've seen anyone this messed up!" I hope he sobered up on the jail floor realizing what a fool me made of himself and how much he embarrassed his parents.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

It's hotter than hell at the station. The power is back on, but the damn air conditioner is out. How is that for irony? It's mostly a slow day. I did stop one guy for blowing through an intersection with dead traffic lights. You're supposed to treat it like a 4-way stop. Yet this guy blew through almost hitting another car. When I stopped him he tries telling me he thought he saw green. There wasn't anything green around there except the trees and in no light you can't see it. He got three tickets. I see another officer stop a guy up the road from me. I check by and he has him handcuffed. It's a drunk (possibly illegal immigrant). He calls some buddies of his to handle it. They show up with a lady. Never seen these three before. The 2-man unit is two gay officers. Okay nobody has a problem with that. The officer and the lady ask me to figure out which is the 'girl' in the relationship. I'm not sure I want to walk in that minefield. I'm partly afraid of offending them but since they can hear the conversation I guess they're not too concerned. I make my selection because the other guy seems more dominant of the two. Well the lady officer wins the bet. They work on getting the drunk home. I shake my head. Some officers just get lazy. I don't tolerate drunks on the road. So, since this was their scene I leave and let them handle it. I want no part of it.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Not a bad day. I did accidentally rolled my window up on another officer's finger sending him to the emergency room. I felt terrible. I didn't see the damn hand to start with. We still keep getting annoying generator calls. People call in saying their neighbor's generator is too loud and demand we make them turn it off. I'd like to run those calls because I wouldn't actually run them. It's reasonable to run a generator when there is no power.

Friday, September 19, 2008

My one day off this week went by quick just as I knew it would. Word came from above that we're actually going to be paid for all this overtime. Woo hoo! A nice little bonus.

Today I decided to drive around and tell the officers what a good job they are doing. They've been working their butts off with these 12 hour shifts for a week now. They need to know someone notices their hard work and appreciates it. I don't think the brass will do that. They are usually preoccupied with looking for someone to get in trouble. I kept thinking today was Monday for some odd reason. It just didn't seem like Friday and it didn't seem like just one week ago that damn storm was pounding us. I stopped one guy on traffic. I'm cruising up the road when he came out of nowhere and cut me off. I will admit, it's nice when someone does that while I'm in a patrol car because then I can do something about it. I stop him and explain to him why I stopped him. He says he didn't do it. I ask him if he didn't cut me off then how did I end up behind him. Uh huh! He can't answer that one.

Later on a call drops. A guy calls us saying he got jumped by about 20 juveniles. We get there and I see an old man in the street bleeding. He's also drunk as hell. He says he asked the kids to turn the music down and they all assaulted him. The kids, and a neighbor says the guy cussed at a girl who lived at the house and slapped her. That's when he got jumped. Just like another old, drunk fool who got into an argument with a black woman who tried to ignore him, but he was too stupid to stop. He went on and used the 'N' word and caught a beat down in the middle of Walgreens. Just like that guy, this guy deserved it. You don't slap a young girl in the middle of the street. We then discover damage to his car. We walked the road and found damage on a parked truck. So this clown drove drunk from his house to the noisy house hitting a parked truck along the way. I then learn he has problems. He is supposedly dying from AIDS. Yet he goes to the neighborhood pool and throws out kids without parents. I do feel bad for his condition, but his behavior is "straight up stank" as they say in the hood. Oh well.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Power came back on at the station today. Thank God. Was an easy day up until the evening time when a strange call came in over the radio. Someone called saying a neighbor kid fell down the stairs severing his head. We all had to do a double take on that one. Was it one of those dumb SAW movies? What the hell was going on? By the time I arrive the parents are in the front yard screaming. Obviously upset and in shock that their son is dead. Well, the mother was still in denial. She was screaming at us. She didn't need us, she needed an ambulance. One of the first responders whispered to me "he's dead! He didn't fall down any stairs neither!" I walk into the house and see a dead teenager with the top half of his head gone. Fell down the stairs my ass. We separate the family, start working like it's a homicide. Both parents deny there are any guns in the house. I go upstairs and into a bedroom where I find brain matter, a large pool of blood, and a shotgun! Just as I suspected, the kid ate a shotgun. The father blamed their power outage. I sensed I wasn't getting the whole story. I asked if his son had been acting unusual, depressed, etc. Later on the father admitted the son announced he was thinking of killing himself, but the family dismissed it as crazy talk. He also acknowledged that there was a shotgun in the house that the kid had access to. I wonder if the detective will try to do something with that. I don't think the parents were outright neglectful, I think they were ostriches. Their method of dealing with problems was to stick their heads in the sand. Good Lord!

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Still no power at the stations. Some restaurants are open, but lines are literally going out the door. Hell, Schlotzkey's is open, but people are waiting in line. It looks like there was a free concert going on or something. Again, I fuel up early. Never know when the gas pumps will go down or dry up. As the sun sets things are smooth. Then an urgent call comes in. A kid with a gun to his head. Dammit! I get there behind another officer. He points to the garage. Sitting inside is a teenager with a rifle under his chin. I was hoping this wouldn't be the case. I grab my shotgun and take up a position where I can see him, yet get out of the way should he decide the level the rifle at me. I try to talk to him. He won't even tell me his name. I had to get it from his distraught mother. I'm trying every psychological trick I know to get him to talk; "talk to me tell me what's wrong! I want to understand what you're feeling, help me! Whatever this is it can be overcome!" He kept shouting for me to talk to his parents. He would stick the barrel in his mouth and his hand go for the trigger. I mentally prepared myself for the vision of the top of his skull popping off from the bullet. Yet he did not shoot. I was wondering how long we'd be out here with him putting the barrel in his mouth and taking it out and not really talking. I started to wonder if he just wanted attention. He had plenty of chances to do it if he was serious. He then loads the rifle and fires it. He had it pointing up so the round went into the roof. I had my shotgun ready thinking "please God I really do not want to shoot this kid!" He then threw the rifle down. I charged him before he could change his mind and pick it back up and we got him. I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Today all the stations have lost power. Gas is a little hard to come by. I fill up my patrol car at the start of the shift. By the end of the shift officers are scrambling looking for gas. One officer gets on the radio saying he's found gas. Then he says the gas card doesn't work and everyone stops going. Then he says the readers are working again. Officers scramble back that way. Then he gets back on the radio, the damn readers aren't working again. Good Lord! No restaurants are open. My dinner that evening is coke and crackers. All the food we brought yesterday has been eaten.

Friday, September 12, 2008

The day Hurricane Ike was scheduled come crashing at our doors, and walls, and windows. I arrive with what I could scrounge up at two grocery stores. I wasn't planning for an overnight stay but I packed for it just in case. The evening started off easy enough until dinner time. As I was waiting on my food a shooting call drops. Some guy pushed his way into the wrong house and got his ass shot. Well, actually his abdomen was shot. While going to that call an officer crashes and has to go to the hospital (he's okay though). We work the shooting scene as the winds pick up and get stronger and stronger. My wife sends me a message that my house has lost power. The night is already off to a great start. Around midnight was when things started getting hairy. Some of us hunkered down in a substation watching news coverage of the storm. Outside the rain began. We could feel the wind pushing against the glass. Fortunately it died down. Come the end of the shift I decided to go home where my wife was sitting in candle light without power. That was difficult because of how we take electricity for granted. Even sleeping in boxer shorts didn't make it any easier. Fortunately we never lost water. So at least I could take a shower and not go back to work smelling like crap.

September 17, 2008

Today was a long day, but not a bad one. I had no armed disturbances which was excellent. More businesses are open and finding gas isn't such a chore anymore. My side of the world is getting back on its feet. Of course farther east and south it's a different story. Many people are still without power. My supervisor doesn't have power, poor man. I want to invite him to use my guest bedroom however my wife is antsy about guests other than people she knows. We're still on 12 hour shifts. We will get one day off. Mine is tomorrow but I'll be spending it catching up on household chores and restocking my refrigerator and freezer. On my way home I caught an oldie but goody on my radio. I had to turn the volume up loud for this one.

September 16, 2008

This is roughly day 4 of the post Hurricane schedule. I'm tired for the most part. I keep reflecting on the past two days (those stories for another post). I was hoping for a relatively quiet day today. I knew I couldn't be so lucky. A man calls saying his neighbor pointed a gun at him. Other units get there long before me. They shut off the street and surround the house because the guy had gone back inside and he has a arsenal. Great! I have an arsenal at my house, but I'm not the kind of person who gets drunk and makes an ass of himself and points guns at neighbors. Anyway, I'm thinking of a plan when I get there. Everyone is waiting on me to get there before they make a move. I arrive and get the phone number of the suspect. One officer is covering the front door with his shotgun. I left mine in the car. I figured I needed two hands. I call the suspect and simply say "hey man, we're outside. Your neighbor said you pointed a gun at him can you come out and talk?" Sure enough, he walked out with his hands up and we cuffed him. I flat out asked him if he pointed a gun at someone. He just stared at me. His eyes said 'yes.' All he would say is he was defending his house. Yet when I asked what happened with his neighbor he complained we were cutting into his beer drinking time. Okay, that told me he was guilty.

Later on that night a bipolar, 26 year old son beat up his father and broke his nose. The father didn't want to press charges. Thankfully in Texas you can still arrest someone for family violence if the victim refuses to cooperate. He went to jail. I'm sick of the bipolar excuse. Nowadays people (especially suburbanites) think bipolar is an excuse for criminal behavior.

Anyway, society is slowly coming back. East Houston, and Galveston have a lot of hurricane damage. More businesses are opening back up, gas is becoming more available. The damn lines are still long during the day. However in the late night/early morning just drive in, gas up, and drive out in under 5 minutes.

A Tenderfoot in Tombstone

George Parsons was a banker in California when he decided he was bored with his life. He wanted something different. So, he came to Tombstone, Arizona where he met and became friends with Wyatt Earp. Parsons kept a diary that has been used by historians to keep an accurate record for history. This is my encouragement. As a police officer on the Gulf Coast of Texas I decided to keep a trail for history for follow. It may not be crucial, must-learn history, but it all did happen. Don't let the name fool you. I'm no tenderfoot. I just happen to like the book title.