Gotta Love Lawyers!!!

Lawyers can be funny when they find themselves on the wrong side of the law. I don't know if law school instills a sense of arrogant superiority but it never ceases to amaze me how lawyers think they are in charge of everything. See, for the most part, the justice system was designed by lawyers for lawyers. This is even more so when it comes to civil law. The system is designed so lay people have to hire lawyers to argue their client's position in front of another lawyer. When anyone finds themselves in court, they are in the lawyer's house playing by his rules. The lawyer controls the discussion any way he can to sway opinion to his side. I guess this sense of control carries outside of the courtroom.

Yesterday a woman calls and says her ex-husband has assaulted her. The first officers get there and detain the ex-hubby, who is an attorney. I talk to him. I open the door and he tries to get out. I tell him "oh no no no ain't nobody told you to get out!" He's 49 years old and dressing like a 30 year old. I get the feeling this guy is going through a mid life crises. He denies anything happened. So I ask him why did she call the police. His brilliant response was "what probable cause did she have to call the police?" Now that's a strange, and dumb question. Nobody needs probable cause to call the police. I ask what kind of lawyer he is and he says he's some property lawyer. Ahhh! Those are better! The lawyers other than criminal lawyers who think because they have the title 'lawyer' they know more than we do. I can smell alcohol on his breath. In fact he is currently on probation for his second drunk driving case and has a breath interlock on his car. I ask him how much he has had to drink. I want to see how truthful he is. He says "nothing." I pounce on him like a ninja attacking his credibility. If he is lying to me on whether or not he's been drinking how can I believe anything else he says. He winds up being arrested for assaulting his ex-wife. He tries to slip another one past me. When asking us to leave him at home doesn't work. He says he takes heart medication. The name of the medication, lipitor! Oh please!

Ghosts of Thanksgiving Past

I was actually off last year on Thanksgiving and that was because it fell on my regular day off. Well the previous three Thanksgivings I managed to put someone in jail. I briefly recalled each of those arrests.

Thanksgiving 2004:

It was around 5 in the morning when I was following a jeep that had a hard time staying in a single lane. I pulled it over and found a woman driving. She was returning from a bar. Well, I was supposed to go home in two hours. We were having family over so I wasn't really looking to stay late. Plus, I really wasn't looking to put anyone in jail on Thanksgiving Day. I kept asking the woman if she had anyone who could come get her. She was drunk. Yet, she kept playing games. I feel she figured if she could stall long enough I would let her go. She wanted to drive off. After about an hour, yes an hour of merry-go-around with her I said "f*** it" and arrested her.

Thanksgiving 2005:

I was now working day shift. I came in early enough and would sit up on a cantina in my district. This cantina was notorious for allowing underage drinking (they never checked for ID about 90% of the clientele were illegal aliens. It was also notorious for cocaine using and dealing. I loved arresting drunks out of there, but even more I loved arresting drunks with cocaine on them. I set up and pounced on the first car I saw leaving. I caught him and sure enough, he was drunk, and an illegal immigrant so I arrested him. I remember him complaining about missing his "turkey dinner." I think I said something to the effect of "oh boo hoo mother ****** you shouldn't be here to start with!"

Thanksgiving 2006:

It was a slow day and nothing happening. Then a call drops. A man got into an argument with his pregnant girlfriend. Her family didn't like him because he was a little punk. She wanted to see her family without him and he got mad and hit her. So, he went to jail.

Thanksgiving Day 2008

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving Day. My wife made a good turkey and had her family over. I ate my fill then got dressed for work. I walked into my phone booth to throw on my cape. Just kidding. I changed in the other room. When I came into the kitchen in uniform it's like someone else just arrived. Beforehand it was just 'Ole George' now in uniform people see another person. Their manner of speaking changed from casual to slightly nervous. It's natural. Most people don't know I'm very approachable, even on a bad day.

Anyway, I go to work, finish my paperwork and head out on the streets. Nobody is doing anything (other than the once-in-a-while call dropping). Sometimes I like to show the new people how it's done. I go find a few people to stop. Of course nobody gets a ticket. On Thanksgiving you really have to work hard to get a ticket out of me. At the end of the night I hear a major accident drop. I arrive to find some fool hit a light pole head on. The fool was flying down the street, lost control and went onto a sidewalk (thank God nobody was on it) and hit a light pole. The front of his utility was a nice V shape now. They carted him off to the hospital. I heard murmurs of bags of marijuana in the vehicle. If so, then oh well, I won't lose any sleep.

Whine Whine Whine

We get a call about a man passed out in a vehicle in a parking lot. That usually means one thing, a damned drunk! I've had this call probably 100 times in my career. I get there behind the primary officer. Since I can tell people what to do I 'suggest' the officer arrest him for public intoxication. The officer whines about having an extra job after work. I reply that I'm sorry, but this job comes first. Plus, there is still three hours I know that officer should be able to do all this by then. I heard the officer leave the prisoner at the jail with an hour before the extra job starts. Okay, at the most should only be a half-hour late. I remember when I worked night shift, I had an extra job at 9 in the morning, and at 7 would get a late arrest, typically a drunk driver. I had to book it to make it on time and I was only a few minutes late because I knew what to do, and what all had to be done and knew during which intervals I could accomplish certain tasks and be out of there sooner. Apparently this officer doesn't. I was reading a quiz on the officer's myspace page (we're myspace friends too) and I smirked with all of the officer's whining about missing an extra job. Can't wait until our next discussion.

I Should Write the Sheriff

The day is already starting out. There are two emergency calls working when my cell phone rings. I answer and it's my alarm company. My house alarm is going off. Just fu**** great! I call my wife and she's on her way home, so is the sheriff's dept in the adjacent county (where I live). I thought they would be there because I see them patrolling all the time. Of course I should have known, with us, we're there when we're not needed and not there when we are. My wife calls from the driveway, nobody is there and all looks okay. Well, I surely don't want her walking into the house to check. So, I ask my Lt. if I can run over to my house real quick (I don't far from work). I make it there in 20 minutes. I wonder what the neighbors thought when they saw a patrol car from the adjacent county pulling up. I check the outside, all clear. I then go inside and clear my own house. When I saw my cats running around like normal and my dog lazily sleeping, I knew all was well. We called the alarm company to cancel. However they were slow in cancelling the sheriff's dept. They arrived as I was leaving the house. Part of me wanted to chide him in coming from the next county and beating him to his own call. Maybe I should write the sheriff and make that point.

A Slight Change

I've been doing some thinking. I am just one person. Plus, I'm always hearing tales and 'war stories' from other officers. So, I decided to make George Parsons a story teller. My experiences aren't enough to fill up this blog or even make it interesting. So, from here on, 'George' will be telling the tales of other officers as well. George will appear to be a police 'jack of all trades.' So, the stories are true, just George will replace the main character to protect anonymity.

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!

Three of us were in plainclothes at a bus stop. We were working a detail enforcing bus safety on the transit routes. A lot of people take public transportation and a good number of them are scum. I look up and see this 'queen' (male transvestite prostitute, there are a lot of them in this part of town) literally skipping down the sidewalk. I nudge my partners and point him out. Amazingly, the queen sashays right up to us! He starts running his mouth. We casually ask him what he is up to. He says he is off to some guy's house for a $5 handjob. We quickly glance at each other. We may have something here. We try to get more details out of him, act like we're intrigued. He then says he'd give me a blowjob for $20. I wasn't expecting this. Now he's just solicited an undercover officer. The queen looks at one of the other officers and quotes the same price. So I suggest we go behind the bus stop and queen hops along. I whip it out! No you pervert, my badge and tell him he is under arrest. He starts claiming he did nothing wrong. We later learned he has been arrested twice for the same thing and once for assaulting a public servant. What an idiot!

"Because she's a girl!"

Nobody likes to hear when a fellow officer announces they've been involved in an on-duty accident. When I heard her say she was in a crash my ears perked up. She was okay and so what the other driver. Hell, it was just a tap, but since there was damage to the patrol car it has to be worked as a regular accident anyway. One thing I noticed, as she was giving details on the radio her voice was cracking up.

"Oh God!" I thought to myself. "Please don't let her start crying on the radio!"

I made the scene and sure enough, she was crying. She wasn't hurt! The whole thing wasn't that big of a deal. She just got overly emotional. When I talked to the driver of the other car that clipped her he was sympathetic. He felt bad that the officer was crying. I kept a straight face, but inside I was thinking "dammit!" Later on someone asked me;

"Hey George, was Cyn crying on the radio?"

"Yeah, she was!"

"Was she hurt?"

"Nope, not at all!"

"Why was she crying?"

I sighed. I had to think of a way to put this delicately. I thought long and hard. I can't think of any other female officer who would have cried over a tap. Most women I know would be kicking and cursing so hard I'd be blushing. Then it came to me.

"Because she's a girl!"

He Really Didn't Want to Go to the Hospital

A guy and his girlfriend were arguing in his car in front of her house. Well, he gets mad and punches his windshield, cutting his hand open (he later claims she hit him but he didn't want to hit her back). She gets out and goes into her house. He decides to put the car in gear and do the "pissed off drive off." Well, sadly for him, he puts it in the wrong gear and drives his car straight into a tree! When we get there, we're not sure if his arm is broken or not. Yet he refuses to go to the hospital. His license in suspended so the plan is to get him to the hospital and file a warrant on him later on. Well, he refuses to go to the hospital. He's told it's either hospital or jail. He says "take me to jail!" Okay, he goes to jail. I guess he likes jailers more than he does doctors.

In another crash related story. A woman was involved in a hit & run. She claims a truck pushed her into a barrier wall from a block away. Come to find out, the woman was leaving her boyfriend's house going home to her husband. Ouch! That's got to be a nightmare for the woman. How is she going to explain being on the wrong side of town and involved in an accident?

Oops I did it again!

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Okay enough Brittany. No, I'm not a fan, well, she is kinda cute even though she is a messed up flake. No, I mean I got to slap cuffs on another wife beater. See, the night previous we went to his house. His wife was pleading for us to get mental help for her husband. They got into an argument and he put a hole in the wall with his head and walked out of the house. Three others were responding to the call. Two of them were heading to the bar the wife said he was at. We learned that he has shoved her, and made threats to her in the past. Of course she never reported it because she loves him and only wants him to get counseling. This particular night he didn't do anything that would give us reason to pick him up. Two of the other officers went to the bar about to go in and grab him. I knew I needed to get the full story first. Last thing we need is a fight and to justify why we were going in there and grabbing him up to begin with. His wife was adamant that we go find him and get him counseling. Since all he did that night was throw a tamper we couldn't do that. She then suggested I drive her to the bar to look for her husband. I flat out said no. Because if she showed up, she would have stirred him up to the point where another disturbance would break out. I told her if I, or any other officer have to go to a bar disturbance, someone is going to jail (hint hint her husband because he'd more than likely be intoxicated). Better left him calm down and come home on his own. I don't think she liked me very much.

The next day I'm coming into the station and I talk to the guy I'm relieving. He is tagging photos from a domestic disturbance that morning. I didn't find out later on that this was the same couple. A warrant had been filed on him. We get a call that he's home. Since I like to be a part of the exciting conclusion I jumped in my car and went to his house. The wife was watching from her friend's house across the street. Apparently she still thought we were going to take him to a counselor. He answered the door and knew what was up. He surrendered which is always good. When we led him out of the house in handcuffs here comes the wife running to his aid. I knew this was coming so I asked another officer to stop her from coming over. I consider myself a pretty sympathetic person but this woman really did get on my nerves. She kept saying "he needs counseling not jail!" I said "ma'am he pulled you out of a truck and tossed you on concrete! He needs to realize there are consequences and perhaps this will be the wake up call he needs!" Again "he's not a criminal!" I just shook my head. Nothing I could say was going to satisfy this woman who wanted her ill tempered abusive husband home. Some days I just want to get in these women's' faces and shout "listen up! He just beat your ass and if you think he's gonna stop you're seriously naive!" But I know that's not the proper way to go about it.

A Ranger's Secret Revealed

Last night at dinner an old-timer revealed a Texas Ranger's secret. Years ago he was investigating the disappearance of two women. The Ranger secretly consulted a psychic. She described some landscape and saw a long haired man saying "I have to run along now!" The ranger called the old-timer (he wasn't old then) because he knew that country well. I guess the psychic said something really general like "I see a tree, a tree with leaves on it," because he had no idea what the hell she was talking about. Well, about ten years go by and a pond drains out to where a farmer sees a car roof. The car is recovered and inside it are the two decomposed bodies of women. Turns out, ten years earlier they drove off into the pond and that's where they sat. Needless to say, the psychic was wrong. The old-timer turned to look at me and said the Ranger made him swear never to tell anyone he consulted a psychic. I wonder if that Ranger is around today.

"Did ya whoop his ass?"

I hear a lot of stories from my boss. Sometimes I've heard them more than once but that is okay. I've told him he needs to write these down one day. Would be a shame to lose these to time. He was telling me about his old boss, friend, and mentor G. G had a son who drank, smoked dope, and got into trouble. From what I gathered from the story, the son didn't actually go to jail for his misdeeds. Now, before anyone says "pays to be the son of a cop," let me stop you there. For him, jail would have been safer. His dad would come pick him up, and beat the hell out of him. After the second incident G instructed my boss that if he had to pick his son up for any reason, he was to beat his son's ass before he was notified. My boss would express his reluctance because of his respect for the kid's mom, G's wife.

"But chief, the Mrs. might not love me anymore!"

"Who are you more afraid of, her or me?"

"You sir!"

A while later the son messes up again. He's drunk and he drives through a couple of yards. So the police get there and bring him to the station. My boss calls G at home and informs him. He is on his way.

"Did you whoop his ass like I told you?"

My boss sighs. "No sir!"

"Why not?"

"I'm afraid the Mrs. won't love me anymore!"

Then came a big incident. The son and a friend went home with two women from a bar. Well the women said they were divorced. Turns out, at least one was lying because her husband knocked on the door. She answered it and he put a bullet through her head. He then ended his own life. The rest ran out of the apartment leaving a baby behind. The son called my boss, who called G. In the end, the returned to give detectives a statement. In the end G asked my boss;

"So, did you whoop his ass?"

My boss hung his head and sighed.

She Was Afraid

An officer got called to the station. A woman had walked in the lobby to ask a question. Since I was upstairs doing paperwork I didn't feel it necessary to have a unit waste gas to answer a question. So I went down there expecting a simple 'question and answer' conversation. I was wrong. I met the two women. The other was a friend there for support. She said she had some questions about domestic violence. She told me about her husband who had been abusing her for the past three years. I asked if she ever reported him before and she had not. She said she had hoped it would get better on its own. A classic symptom of an abuse victim. Not one to beat around the bush I told her if he hasn't changed in three years he isn't going to change by now. I asked her when was the last incident which was the night before. A plan began forming in my head. I had her tell me about how he hit her and choked her. She comes from a culture where women are traditionally subservient to men (which isn't necessarily a bad thing-just kidding!!!!). Anyway, I took her statement. I gave her some information for victims and recommended a group that helps victims of domestic violence. This group is run by women who have been victims themselves. She was only expecting friendly advice. She was surprised, and overwhelmed when she realized I was filing charges on him. Normally we'd have to do more investigation since this is a previous occurrence. However, she showed me some really hateful text messages he had sent her (i.e. "wait till ur ass gets home"). That was enough convince me he was an abuser and all my training and experience dealing with these scenarios showed classic signs of the abuser/victim mentality. Her lip started trembling as I filed the charges on her behalf. She started making comments like "how much is this going to cost him" and "what about his family" and "he has to work." All signs of a victim taking the blame for what is about to happen. No matter how delicately I put it I couldn't convince her not to feel guilty and that was because I'm a man. Sure I have all this training and experience dealing with abuse victims. Yet still, I cannot make that one on one connection because I have not been in her shoes. That's why I recommended the organization run by women because I know they can find the right words. It's better a woman who has been down that road counsel a woman currently in a abusive relationship.

I get the warrant filed and I choose three other officers to go get him. I knocked on the door and he answered. She had told me there was a gun in the house. He invited us in. The plan was to tell him we need to talk about an incident and get up to him and grab him. However he backed up because I guess the way I was focused on him he could tell I was coming for him. Not knowing where the gun was and in case things were about to go to hell and I had to justify my actions later. I flat out told him I had a warrant for his arrest. So, I'm covered now. He tensed up, his eyes widened, he was trying to process the information and was debating "fight or flight." So we grabbed his arms and had to wrestle with him to handcuff him. He wanted to debate the issue. We got him in custody then I explained it all to him. So, he went to jail. I sure hope that woman calls the domestic violence organization for help. This is her chance to break free. I sure hope she takes it. If she does, then regardless of what the future holds, at least I made a difference in someone's life.

Some Fortune Cookie

Last week we ate dinner at a Chinese restaurant. The fortune cookie read "something unusual will happen at work next week!" Well, unusual things always happen to police officers. Normally I wouldn't worry about it except we were all pondering the upcoming election. So, I held onto the fortune and left it in the patrol car. Well, today I heard our chief abruptly resigned. Nobody expected that. I'd like to know why, but not being in the loop nobody will tell me. Perhaps someone who is in the loop will fill me in if I ask nicely.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

I heard an interesting story today. I was discussing domestic violence with my Lieutenant. He told me in the old days before Texas changed the family violence laws that the police would have to see the assault or the victim (usually the woman) would have to press charges. Of course often times the victims do not want to press charges usually because she loves him, he's the bread winner, she's afraid of what he'll do when he comes home. He told me of one couple in rural Texas where he used to work. The man would go out to a country bar, get drunk, come home and beat up his wife. She would set off the house alarm and when help arrived she never wanted to press charges. The law being what it was the police couldn't help her and were getting sick of going out there if she didn't want to help herself. So, they came up with a plan, the next time she pulled the alarm and didn't want to file charges, they were going to arrest her for false alarm. The next day, she pulls the alarm. The police go out there and the drunk husband is standing in the doorway. My Lt. walks up to the husband telling him to get out of the way. The husband talks smack and gets his foot stepped on. He shoves my Lt. and that's all he needed. The drunk husband goes down and goes to jail. I imagine in those days if you wanted to help a woman you'd have to subtly provoke the man into doing something stupid with the police and take him down.

I'm glad my Lt. has changed his mind about retiring. We didn't want to see him go.

Election Day 2008

Mad scrambles everywhere. I drove by some polling places just to check it out. I saw one of the district attorney candidates (who won). I get to work and it's a fairly quiet day. We do get a road rage call. Two vehicles' drivers get mad at each other and point stuff at each other. The other swears the other had a gun, but neither one says they had a gun. One of the guys is a drama queen and has us call an ambulance for a panic attack. We do our report and leave. Later on that night he sees a black truck drive by and freaks out and calls us back. This time he's being a real girl about this. He wants a 'restraining order' which we have nothing to do with. He then says his heart is racing again. I guess I made no effort to hide my annoyance.

I will admit I was disappointed with the election. Hey, life will go on. A lot of people are going to expect a lot of things and will be sorely disappointed.

November 01, 2008

I love finding out things at the last minute. Two weeks ago I went to a class on how our new reporting system works. I thought everyone was scheduled to go. A week later I find out we're supposed to be teaching others. Oops! Nobody told me that. So, I get to figure out how to use power point and basically talk. I like to run my mouth anyhow. Of course as with anything else I do, the first time is a dry run. The next couple of times I remember something and add it in. I feel a little bad because the previous group didn't get that instruction. Oh well, it's like when we all started writing reports. The more we use it, the more we become accustomed to it. When I went through the class I went and found a report to take so I could play with the system myself. I know I don't have to. However, how can I review and grade reports if I can't keep up with the trend and do them myself?

Then later into the evening a call comes in about three black males walking around the area looking into cars. While going to the area they call back and say they just broke into a car. The first guy gets there and finds the three males. A few minutes later I get there. Come to find out, one of them lifted the door latch on the car trying to open the door and set off the alarm. Now, that's not breaking into a car. However, why the hell is he trying to open the car door to begin with? Plus, the car belonged a captain in the fire department and all of her gear was in the back. Plus, there is a hand and forehead print on the back glass (the car was dusty) indicating someone had been peaking inside it. All in all, these little creeps were about to do something they ought not to be doing. Their mother comes by. I already knew she was looking to play the "black victim" card. I'm so sick of this mentality. This mentality says nothing is your fault, it's because of racism and other people you can't act right. It's ingrained into kids and they grow up to believe it's okay to steal, use/sell drugs, even hurt or kill people. However it's society's fault, not yours. Anyway, I pull the mother to side and let her in on everything. I want her to know why her kids are detained and what people saw them do. Fortunately this woman had sense enough to realize that we weren't making this up. We were not detaining her kids for being black in a "mostly white" neighborhood (the fire captain is Hispanic by the way). She said it was sad this happened in a "mostly white" neighborhood. I calmly told her "ma'am you know as well as I do that people make decisions that get our attention and nobody but themselves are to blame!" I wish there was someway to bust through that mentality but it will persist. As long as certain people want to follow and be lead they will hang onto whatever suits them best. I'm not trying to be controversial, but perhaps the black community ought to listen to people on the outside like this man here.

Halloween

Halloween came and went. I mostly strolled the streets, waving to trick or treaters, trying to be careful. Some of these neighborhoods don't have working street lights and families are walking in the middle of the road. If you go too fast you could hit someone. I can only shudder at that headline 'officers runs down trick-or-treaters.' As if the chief doesn't have enough notoriety already. I did goof up though. I was in a left turn lane with a red light. Well, my cell phone rings and I turn my head to read who is calling me (I have a bluetooth so I don't have to handle the phone). In my peripheral vision I see a light turn green. I go through the intersection only to realize it was the other light, not mine! Uh oh! People are watching me. I remember a story my daddy told me years ago when he missed a lane and found himself heading the wrong way on a one-way street. So, I hit my emergency lights and siren, rush through the intersection and find the first turn off. I then hide for a few minutes praying a captain or chief wasn't off duty with his family and just happened to be there. I dreaded the radio "This is the chief! What unit ran through 'such and such' intersection code traffic?" A few minutes later I feel it's safe to come out. I'm driving down the street when a kid on a bicycle comes flying out of nowhere across four lanes of traffic. I stop him and find it's a teenager whose friends were ragging on him so he got upset and took off. I gave him some friendly advice from one who has been there. I said "young man, don't get yourself run over because of dumb friends. In fact, next time they rag on you, tell them they're just mad because their mother was a man!" His eyes lit up and he said "oh I'm gonna use that!" He turns around and goes back to his friends. The voice of experience!

The night was about to wrap up when an officer calls me. He's out investigating a hit and run in a restaurant parking lot where the manager is stonewalling him. Long story short, whomever hit the car worked in that restaurant and the manager was very secretive about her staff. Obviously she's employing illegal immigrants. Then, she calls an officer from another department who comes out and while trying not to interfere starts questioning. I get highly pissed off. I go out there to confront that officer from another agency. I find out later on that officer eats in that restaurant. Okay, fine! I don't care. That officer can drag his happy ass across the street to whataburger and eat. I'll just sit back and wait for the complaint to come in.