Friday, June 26, 2009

Administrative Walls

Aside from the general public, the crook on the street, the inept justice system that puts repeat bad guys back on the street who do even more damage, the most infuriating aspects of our jobs are our own administration. There is a saying that the higher up the ladder one climbs the less backbone (or schlong if your mind works that way) one gets. A friend of mine was telling me a story. He works for a transit authority police department. He told me of a bus driver who picked up two teenage girls. We're talking about 13 years old. The girls don't have the bus fare but he lets them on anyhow. Okay, so far so good he's being generous. However during the bus ride he eyes her in the mirror and tells her how pretty she is. Uh oh! Trouble brewing! He then tells her she looks like she could suck a mean ****! Uhmmm, you don't tell a 13-year old girl that. He gets her phone number (I bet he pressured her) and makes several calls to the house. Not surprisingly her parents find out and make a complaint. The bus driver gets charged with something, solicitation of a minor I think. The officers want to run on his house but their administration tells them no! They are dumbfounded. They have a felony warrant but their chief won't let them serve it. They employ a ruse to call him in to give a statement for his job and that's how they got him. Reminded me of a story.

I came to work one night to find a flyer with a guy's photo and information. He lived smack dab in the middle of my district. Unbeknownst to me, the previous shift had learned he was living there and had a felony warrant. A friend of mine wanted to serve the warrant but the watch commander wouldn't allow it. His reasoning was that he was afraid if something went wrong (i.e. a shoot out) he didn't want to explain to the chief what they were doing there. Talk about cowardly in my opinion. Anyhow, I pick three guys and we go serve the warrant. I don't ask my watch commander for permission, I tell him what I'm doing and he says "be careful!" I knock on the door and low and behold the fugitive opens the door. So I say I need to speak to him as I'm grabbing him and pulling him out of the house. When I left work that day, I proudly wrote on the flyer "Arrested by Parsons!" Yeah, I admit I was sort of bragging. When my friend saw it he was pissed again. Not at me, but because his watch commander lacked the balls to let them serve a felony warrant in the middle of our district while I went and did it.

2 comments:

Beat And Release said...

See my recent post about lack of administration support. I am fortunate in that I have a watch commander that backs his troops. Whoever heard of having a warrant in hand and being told NOT to serve it? Sheesh!!

Jealous Bitch said...

I could have told from the moment you wrote "let them on the bus without fare", that he was up to know good. This is typical predatory behavior...be it via an act of kindness, allowing a potential victim to "break the rules" or "not telling on them" when they get in trouble.

It forces the victim into a situation where they feel they "owe" the violator something. And that's when they get abused.

Guys, teach your girls about this about this kind of stuff!! Let your daughters know to look out for faux generosity, and to never be afraid to speak up when someone behaves like this.