For whatever reason a parent put their 2 year old son in the backyard by himself. The child manages to crawl through the fence into the neighbor's yard which has a swimming pool. A clear recipe for disaster here. After about 20 minutes the neighbor notices there is a child by his pool so he calls for police who show up. Eventually the child's parents realize he's gone and go looking for him and do not seem all that concerned. As usual the DA's office sees nothing wrong and refuses charges.


A man leaves home and flies out of town to deliver a car. When he returns home he finds his wife dead in the bedroom. That's horrible!

Officer's get called to a suspicious vehicle. Inside it are three young men smoking marijuana. One of them is the son of a police officer. Oh well. Most cops have family members who have experienced the criminal justice system from the other side of the bars. I remember one night many years ago I was booking a prisoner into an annex jail. I was the only officer in there when suddenly a sergeant, and a chief burst in. Behind them was a tiny, skinny, blond hair young man who looked no more than 20 years old. He was a runt! I then found out he had tried to break into an off duty officer's home and got caught. He attacked the officer/homeowner and fled. When on duty units found him he fought them too! I was amazed. This little runt took on several police officers and he's still walking on his own? I would've figured out that his little ass would've gotten hurt! A while later one of our officers arrives in plain clothes and I figure out it's his son! He is clearly not happy. I wonder what became of that little punk.


In another case a man's house was peppered by shotgun blasts. My cynical side wonders what more to the story is there!

A man gets out of jail and needs money. So he goes to the light rail platform and approaches a man and tells him he needs money. So he offers to sell the man some bars (xanax). Too bad the man is a plainclothes officer who promptly arrests him. Someone with worse luck than me!

I stop a vehicle for driving without lights at night. As usual it's someone who has automatic front lights but cannot fathom that he has to turn on the rear lights at night. I figured I was going to cut him a warning and let him go. As I run him I get a surprise. I find a ten year old warrant for obstructing police. Now had it been a ten year old traffic warrant I wouldn't have even bothered with it. However obstructing police, no I can't let that go. What happened was he butted his nose into police business (more than likely on behalf of a friend or relative) and was told to back off and he refused and got arrested. He then failed to show up in court and a warrant was issued. I have him step out of the car and ask if he used to live where the warrant was issued and he said yes, but denied ever having had an encounter with police there. I speak to his wife who gives me enough information to convince me that it's him in the warrant. Finally he admits he was arrested (he lied initially). He claims he was looking for his then girl friend who was hit in a barfight. What that tells me it was a bar fight call and he butted in and was told to leave and refused. I can see that from how he kept acting when I showed him the warrant hit on my computer. The whole time he kept switching from arguing about the case was dismissed and his record was expunged (if that were the case there never would be a warrant hit). Then he would whine that he has a 6am flight and has important business meetings all over Asia and if I let him go he'd take care of it. I didn't believe him on both counts. The warrant was confirmed and his past had officially caught up with him. I see it as a reminder as the choices we make now can always come back to haunt us when we least expect it. I did let him speak to his wife to arrange to bond him out and maybe make his flight. However when he decided he wanted to run the scene he had to be dragged to the transport vehicle. I had lost my patience and wasn't going to explain his options again. He can figure it out downtown!

An officer is working an extra job. He's a young guy, wet behind the ears. He hears a disturbance. More specifically a woman screaming at some people. So he goes to see what's up and finds a school teacher screaming at the staff. This is a school teacher, by a bus full of students providing a fine example of how certain people act when they don't get their way. They throw a tantrum and act worse than a bratty child. The officer tries to calm her down but she isn't hearing it. Well she is actually because she responds that he can't do nothing and "ain't sh**!" Remember, students are watching their teacher act this way to a police officer. What kind of message does this send. The teacher then slaps the officer's hand. Now, the officer decides he is going to arrest her but encounters a small problem. He left his handcuffs in his car! My guess is he was in the mindset that on an extra job nothing is going to happen. He tells her to stay put and runs to his car. Guess what? By the time he gets back she has hopped on the bus and left! Needless to say this officer's supervisor was seriously upset by this and made him pursue the case. Now there is a school teacher with a felony warrant out for her arrest!


In another incident a drunk gets into a disturbance at a Latino club. He fights the security guards who plant his face into the concrete bloodying it. When police arrives he isn't done yet so he spits on the arresting officer. He had a bad night!

I noticed the accident on the side street. I saw the lights of the ambulance and other officers' cars working the scene. They looked like they had it well in hand so I kept going. About 20 yards right into another accident. A young woman hit another car from behind. Simple accident. Traffic was slowing, one car stopped and the vehicle behind him didn't. As I was gathering information for the report the woman who hit the man from behind said "this is what I get for lying." I asked "huh?" She tells me her boss asked her to work so she lied and told him she had to go out of town when in reality she was going to the airport to pick up her mother who had just returned from service in Iraq! Not only that, the vehicle was brand new! As I wrote her tickets for the accident I did feel sorry for her having to explain to her mother what happened.

The big news at the moment is the alleged video tape beating of a suspect by some officers that happened about two weeks ago. I remembered an incident about 10 years ago when I worked the night shift. I went to IHOP for what turned out to be a breakfast of runny eggs, cold sausage, and stale coffee. I saw another officer eating by himself. I approached him and asked if he minded if I joined him and he said no. So we introduce ourselves and get to talking. I was brand new and he was a ten (or something close to it) year veteran and he said he was burned out. I remember him saying he was considering getting out of law enforcement altogether. About a month later a group of two guys and two girls rob an all night restaurant. One of our officers spot the getaway car leaving the scene and the chase is on! The chase goes for about half an hour up three highways and ends in a wooded area. However by the time the vehicle chase ended news helicopters had shown up. It was even broadcasted that the media was overhead. Some of the robbers flee the car and the rest stay behind but they are all caught. I remember one woman laughing! Thinking this was all a big joke. I also remember the main robber getting caught and lead back to the cars. Well the very same officer I had breakfast with the month before, the one who was considering getting out of the field walks up to the crook and slaps him! On live TV! It didn't go well for him!

Walked into the usual end-of-week eatery and saw an old, familiar face. Ten years ago when I started he was the supervisor of the fugitive warrant division. I remember he had a tendency to roll up his sleeves to show his pumped up biceps. I imagine in his youth he was the muscle and the guy you wanted fighting alongside you. I shook his hand and told him I remember him and it's nice to see him again. I had dinner in the company of the 'old timers' (for lack of a better term-nothing against older people). I listened to their stories of antics done back in the day that would be near impossible to get away with nowadays. If I ever tell the stories I'll have to change a few things to protect the officers. And change the dates, times, places, and what actually happened. Well hell, perhaps I better wait for the statute of limitations to run out before those stories are told. He told some stories of some current people in charge about how they were like when they were street officers. All I can say is why am I not surprised! Some habits never change.