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!