Law Enforcement Quote of the Week

"You've gotta be instrumental in thinking out of the box."

-A technical surveillance expert during a presentation I attended, in which he showed an audience of police officers the latest developments in CCTV cameras, night vision and tracking devices.

Power Rings and Coffee

Those aren't donuts.

Those are power rings.

This is how I started my day.

HOLY CRAP IT'S FRIDAY

When I realized it's the weekend already, and only 11 days to Christmas, I felt a lot like the kid in this picture.

HAY SUP indeed.

_____________________

You know, it seems like as good a time as any to get back into posting Friday Random Ten selections. So, here's mine for today:

Peace In The Valley—Elvis Presley

Bonaparte's Retreat—Willie Nelson

Rockin' & Rollin'—Curley Langley & His Western Allstars

Saving All My Love For You—Tom Waits

On The Road—Tom Waits

This Year's Girl—Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Done You Wrong—Danny Mote

Sleeping In—The Postal Service

Crawdad Song—Hal Moore

Swamp Fire—Martin Denny

I love this. The first song, appropriately enough, is from Elvis, and it's one of my favorite gospel tunes of his. Johnny Cash and June Carter do an awesome version too, but I think I lean toward Elvis'. Nice to hear at this time of year.

_____________________

Finally, a question for all my Canadian readers.

Do all Canadian cops assume cool names when they join the police service? Are the names assigned to them by the department, or do you have to have a cool name to begin with before you even apply for the job?

I saw this quote from an article about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arresting some middle school students for bullying (!?)

"In general, if there is an alternative solution to judicial action available we'll exercise that," said Sgt. Law Power. "But in this particular case arresting these males was in the best interest of the victim and the school."

I was just wondering, is all.

Law Enforcement Quote of the Week

"I was stupid and trying to impress three pretty girls who were paying attention to me."

--Muncie, Indiana police officer Jason Lyons, explaining to a supervisor how he crashed a squad car while taking three Ball State co-eds on a joy ride at one o'clock in the morning.

You can read more about the soon-to-be-former officer's antics here.

Hero cops reprimanded in gator incident

This story is from southside bureau chief Dena.

Two intrepid cops in Altamonte Springs, Florida, called on to confront a rogue alligator rampaging through an apartment complex, took quick and decisive action. They wrestled the gator into submission, saving God knows how many lives in the process.

Are they being feted like heroes? Commended for their actions?

No. They are being "counseled" which in police administrative jargon is the first step on the disciplinary ladder, right before verbal or written reprimand. That's right--instead of turning that gator into a 4-legged lead mine with whatever firepower they had handy, they went hands-on to neutralize the threat. No ricocheting bullets, no collateral damage. And now some police administrator, obviously soft on the issue of gator violence, wants to "counsel" them.

Sheesh. People wonder why cops burn out.

I can only hope that department's narcotics investigators take a close look at the residents of that apartment complex. Narcozoology tells us that, if alligators lurk in a residential area, so does the dope fiend.

My day with Antonia

Sometimes I think about how my job has changed me. We all change over time, no doubt about it. After almost 19 years of doing the same job it gets hard to tell if the changes you see in yourself are a result of time, or a result of how you’ve been living your life. MizBubs has stood guard over my mental health for many years now, and I promised her that if she ever saw me going over to the dark side and warned me, that I’d listen to her. She’s done it once or twice, and I’m grateful for it.

I don’t have any doubt that I’m a coarser person now than I was 20 years ago. Even if you don’t start out mistrustful and prone to angry outbursts, odds are you’ll end up that way to some extent. If you have some personal problems to begin with, before you become a cop—say, a bad temper, a bullying streak, some latent racism, you’re a skirt chaser or you like your booze a little too much, or you’re the kind of person who doesn’t really understand the difference between finding and stealing…well then. Those bad habits might take hold of you and flourish like mold in a wet basement.

One result of the popularity of fictional and “reality” TV shows is that almost everyone thinks he knows what it’s like to be a cop. Depending on your background and bias, there’s a cop show out there that reinforces whatever preexisting belief you might have about police work. Some of these stereotypes are true. We do like donuts (I like to refer to them as “power rings”), and I weigh 20 pounds more than I did when I got hired. We tend to have a certain look—if you’re ever talking with my youngest daughter, ask her to do her impression of me and the people I work with.

I’ve seen a lot of dead people over the years, and there’s no doubt I’ve seen some depressing stuff. I’ve been in three car crashes, one of which put me in the hospital. I broke my leg when I stepped into a gopher hole chasing a crack head up a railroad embankment. I went through a few months of HIV anxiety after getting stuck with a needle, and I’ve been exposed to tuberculosis 2 or 3 times. But I haven’t been in a car chase in about 10 years, and I haven’t been in a foot chase for nearly that long. I’ve never shot anyone, or been shot at; I've only been close to pulling the trigger twice.

Here’s reality. An average cop, assuming that he’s not working in some urban hellhole or other high-crime area, does not spend all that much time dealing with actual criminals. We spend a lot more time dealing with people who’ve ended up with us because some other, every other, system or safety net has broken. We are the de facto largest provider of mental health and substance abuse intervention. Not only are we the only government entity that will answer the phone 24 hours a day, we’re the only one that will send a representative to your house to talk with you about your problem!

And those problems can be mighty entertaining:

• The domestic disturbance involving an Italian couple in their late 70’s. She called 911 because her husband said that he was going to go to a prostitute. He yelled that he wanted to die because his wife would not perform oral sex on him.

• The resident at the SRO hotel who said she was “raped annually” by space aliens. She knew this happened because occasionally she woke up in the morning with intense pain in her rectum. She wanted our advice on how to deal with the problem.

• The naked woman standing on a basketball court, singing Romanian folk songs. When I approached her with a blanket, she announced that she was Wonder Woman and slapped me in the face.

• The angry old man who didn’t like his neighbor’s landscaping. He would stand out in his yard yelling at his neighbor. When we arrived, I went to talk to the man, but an older officer on the scene stopped me. He said he’d handle it. What he knew was that, every time he asked the man about “the bushes” the man would twitch, throw his arms up in the air and yell “AH, THEM GODDAM BUSHES, THEM GODDAM BUSHES!” The officer had been there before, and viewed this as powerful fun. It went something like this:

Officer: What about those bushes old man? Huh?

Man: BUSHES?! AH THEM GODDAM BUSHES! THEM GODDAM BUSHES!

Officer: Yeah, but what about those bushes? I asked you about the bushes!

Man: AH, THEM GODDAM BUSHES! SONSABITCHES! THEM GODDAM BUSHES!!

This went on for about 10 minutes.

____________________

Those were just the first stories that came to mind when I sat down to write this.

When I became a cop I was prepared to deal with dope fiends, criminals, and the occasional crazy person. I did not understand the extent to which I’d encounter seemingly normal people melting down and freaking out at any given moment, loads of people engaging in behaviors I had never dreamed of. What I discovered was, I had a knack for the work, and I enjoyed it. So, here I am today.

This brings me to the story I said I was going to tell.

Claybrains, one of our veteran patrol officers took a report titled Public Indecency. A witness saw a white or Hispanic female, about 30-40 years old, perform oral sex on an unknown male in his late teens. This happened at 4:45 in the afternoon, in a public park full of people. Now, you don’t see stuff like that every day out in the suburbs.

On Friday at about 10am, the witness called 911 and said she saw the female subject in the park again. An officer located the suspect sitting on a picnic bench drinking a beer. One of my detectives heard the radio traffic and contacted the officer. I was looking forward to finding out who the blowjob artist was. A couple minutes later we found out that the “woman” was a 42 year old guy, who was kind of in-between genders at the moment. I thought, ok, so a simple public indecency just got a little more interesting, no big deal.

Then it got better. The detective talked to the witness, and reviewed Claybrains’ report with her. The witness said that she did not describe the male participant as “in his late teens.” She said he was about 14 or 15 years old, and was obviously handicapped, either retarded or Down’s syndrome, and she definitely told this to Claybrains. What? Our public indecency just turned into a possible class 2 felony—Aggravated Criminal Sexual Assault, depending on the age and mental capacity of the as yet unknown male participant.

We had an offender, but no victim—assuming that the victim was an underage kid, or handicapped, and not a willing adult participant. We cut the witness loose and went to talk to “Antonia.”

Let me describe Antonia. Antonia stank—body odor and stale beer. The wisps of underarm hair sticking out from under her tank top were distracting. She had some bad collagen lips and a messed up face--a combination of acne scars, botox shots and taking a few punches over the years. Picture a set of plastic Mister Potatohead lips, slapping them on a pineapple, and hanging a greasy blonde wig over the whole affair. That’s Antonia. She’s been pinched about 15 times for prostitution and related offenses, most recently along Splotchy’s beloved North Lincoln Avenue. Guess what she does for a living? She’s an in-home caregiver for an elderly woman with kidney problems. When we found her, Antonia was chilling in the park, drinking a beer, waiting to pick up her employer from a dialysis treatment.

Imagine making it to your 70’s or 80’s. Your health is starting to fail, and you need help. You wake up in your bed one morning, and look up, and some freak of nature like Antonia is hovering over your bed, waves of B.O. and beer breath rolling over you as you lie there wishing things had only worked out differently.

Antonia gave up a statement pretty quick, describing the event like the witness had. She described the recipient of her oral love as handicapped (“yaith, ah theen he wath a reethard”) and said he “deent comb”. Antonia then enthusiastically acted out, by holding her left hand in her right, left thumb extended, exactly how she performed on him, fluttering eyelashes and all. When I suggested to the detective that Antonia was attempting to flirt with him by showing him how good she was at her job he was not amused. “Fuck you” is what I think he said. Anyway, we had a statement from our bad guy. Gal. Whatever. Now the question was, who was the retard?

One of the guys remembered, from when he was a patrolman, a kid who lived across from the park who fit the description given by the witness. Believe it or not, we found him by mid-afternoon: an 18 year old with Down’s syndrome. We explained the situation to his family, and dad brought him in. The family is Assyrian, and the kid didn’t speak English, so we had to use dad as an interpreter, which sucks in a case like this. Getting an Assyrian interpreter wouldn’t have worked either, according to the kid’s family, because the family was used to how he talked, and an interpreter wouldn’t be.

Normally, when you’ve got an offender in custody for a felony, you have to do what’s called a warm-body lineup. That’s the kind you see on TV, 5 or 6 people lined up behind a 2-way mirror while the witness picks out the bad guy. So, where in the suburbs on a Friday afternoon do you find 5 transsexuals to stand in a lineup? Since the witness had already identified the suspect, and the victim was handicapped, I decided to do a photo lineup.

Let me stop here for a moment, with a word of advice for the ladies: watch your lifestyle, especially your drug and alcohol intake, and your skin care regimen. If you don’t, you could end up as filler in a photo lineup with a transsexual suspect. And I don’t think you want that.

We assembled a photo lineup consisting of our offender and 5 ugly women. It was really pretty good. Our victim picked out the offender instantly. He also described what happened in the same fashion as the offender had. The only difference was that Antonia said the blowjob started because the retard was horny and came on to her; the kid said that Antonia approached him, pushed him back onto a picnic bench and started unzipping his pants. Both of them described getting yelled at by a woman who was walking through the park, and both said that the act was not, eh, completed. Then, to make sure that our handicapped victim didn’t just pick out the wrong person, we had our offender identify a photo of the victim. So far, so good. Next step was to call Felony Review and have an Assistant State’s Attorney come out and interview everyone. I went and picked up our witness, and brought her in.

By now it was about 6:30 pm, and we’d been working on this since about 10:30 in the morning.

A few minutes later, waiting for the ASA to arrive, one of the detectives walked into my office with a funny look on his face. He told me that our witness, when showed a picture of the victim, said “that’s not the guy I saw in the park.” She identified the victim by name, said she knew the family (she’s also Assyrian) and added if she’d seen him in the park she’d have taken him home.

Did we have the wrong retard? I asked the detectives whether they had asked any leading questions that might have gotten him to state he received a hummer from Antonia, or to pick Antonia out of a lineup. They said no, but who knows how dad was translating their questions. They went back to Antonia and talked to her again, and her story remained unchanged.

We found out, in talking some more with the witness, that Antonia is known as the neighborhood drunken prostitute who works the park. The victim’s dad also recognized her photo and said the same thing. Of course, no one ever called us to say anything about it—a result of lack of English and having moved from city neighborhoods where they’re used to seeing hookers and public drunkenness.

I came to the conclusion that, at some point, Antonia had indeed performed an act of oral copulation on our Assyrian handicapped kid. However, that wasn’t the incident described by the witness. Since Antonia is so busy, there must have been another retard, and we had to find him.

You see, a sex case isn’t complicated enough. A sex case with a smelly transsexual hooker isn’t complicated enough. A sex case with a smelly transsexual hooker and a non-English speaking handicapped kid isn’t complicated enough. Nope. We like ‘em challenging where I work! And since we like it complicated, we decided to visit some group homes.

There are two group homes, a total of 7 townhouse units, within walking distance of the park. I ended up visiting all of them after getting a more detailed description from the witness. We did not find a second victim, but I gave a lot of “high-fives” to some very special people, and eventually I was able to lose the smell of Pine-Sol and ass that clung to me when I left.

Ultimately we decided that, since the witness was the most credible person involved here, we couldn't charge Antonia with the felony. We charged her with one count of Public Indecency, a class A misdemeanor, and released her.

You get home after a day like this, and someone asks you how your day went. How do you describe it? What do you say?

“Yeah, we spent all day investigating some tranny blowing a retard in the park. We got the tranny and she copped out to it, but get a loada this—it turned out we had the wrong retard! We think he probably got a blowjob too, just not this time. Looks like the tranny’s been giving blowjobs all over the park for a while now. We visited all the group homes, but we never found the other retard, so we let the tranny go with a misdemeanor. Is there any beer left in the fridge?”

...and the horse you rode in on.

In alcohol-related news, this just in from Culpeper, Virginia:

...Police said two people now charged with public drunkenness did try to evade capture on horseback.

They were caught when one was knocked off his horse after riding into a utility wire and the other fell off her horse, police said.

Career tips for aspiring criminals

Here's a few tips if you're thinking about committing a robbery:

1) Don't get drunk before you commit your robbery

2) Don't use your victim's credit card to buy 3 cartons of cigarettes, less than a mile away from the robbery, and don't do it in a gas station that has a good security video system

3) Most important of all, don't crash your getaway car while you're driving drunk. The police will probably find the fake gun you used, and your victim's wallet, in the car when you get arrested for DUI.

I'm just saying.

Florida cops finally catch fugitive driver

Police were initially stumped by his disappearance, but they caught up with him eventually.

You can read about him here.

ILEETA Conference, Day 5: Time to self-medicate

There's nothing wrong with me that handfuls of ibuprofen, glasses of bourbon and 12 hours of sleep can't fix. And maybe some massage, and a few visits to my chiropractor.

Today was the last day of the ILEETA conference, and I spent the day (8 hours) attending a class taught by mixed martial arts fighter Frank Shamrock. What a nice guy! There were about 80 guys (and two or three gals) in the class, and Frank came around and personally talked to and coached every person in the room at least 6 or 7 times by the time the class ended. I was pleased and surprised to see not a hint of arrogance or ego. What an excellent coach.

The class was a distilled version of Frank's mixed martial arts for law enforcement program. It was a blast. We did lots of stuff that looked like this:



And now I'm paying for it. Oww. My balls got mashed, the insides of my thighs and my upper arms are covered in bruises, and my back and shoulders are all seized up. But God was it fun!

So now the conference is over.

I won a final raffle prize yesterday, a $50 gift certificate for a law enforcement book publisher. I need to go to their website and pick out some stimulating reading.

Tomorrow I return to work and start thinking of ways to apply my newfound knowledge to our training program there.

Good times!

ILEETA Conference, Day 3: Look ma, I'm an armorer

I am now a certified Glock pistol armorer. That's how I spent my day--disassembling and reassembling Glock pistols, and learning fixes for common problems. So, uh, if any of you readers need a Glock pistol cleaned and inspected, or need any simple repairs done, let me know.

ILEETA Conference, Day 2: defying stereotypes

What better way to defy police stereotypes than by hosting...a donut eating contest.

Today ended with the annual World Cop Donut Eating Championship. Each contestant was assigned a donut deputy to monitor the number of donuts he consumed within the three minute time limit. The proceeds go to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

It's true. We love donuts, or as some of us refer to them, "power rings."

_______________________________

While donut-eating brought the day to a rollicking close, the day started on a somber note--a minute of silence for the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting. I know I haven't said anything about the killings before now. Honestly, I find the immensity of it too much to deal with, and I know I don't have the ability to even begin to address it. So I'll stick to stories about alligators and perverts, subjects with which I'm more comfortable. I was hoping that I'd find out more about the shootings--at least about the police response and investigation--from someone at the conference. There are a number of cops and vendors from Virginia there I think, but no one has any information beyond what's been in the news. In the meantime I'll just hug my wife and my children tight, be thankful for what I have, and pray for strength and comfort for all the people affected by this horror.

The opening speech was given by Ukiah, California police sergeant Marcus Young. In March 2003, while making a shoplifting arrest, Sgt. Young was attacked by a white supremacist who was with the person arrested by Sgt. Young. Sgt. Young was shot multiple times; his wounds included having his gun hand totally disabled. A police cadet ride-along came to Sgt. Young's aid, placing Sgt. Young's duty firearm in his left hand, allowing Sgt. Young to shoot the attacker 4 times, killing him.

Thinking about those kids in Virginia, and being in the presence of someone like Marcus Young, was humbling beyond words.

ILEETA Conference, Day 1: high on swag

Well, day one is over, and I'm sitting here looking over my swag from today. The conference organizers really outdid themselves this year. Here's the haul so far:

-2 ILEETA logo polo shirts

-An ILEETA sweatshirt

-An ILEETA hooded sweatshirt

-A laptop computer briefcase (this saved me some money, because I was about to buy one this week.)

-A black nylon gym bag with the ILEETA logo tastefully displayed on the side, containing:
-A Princeton Tec mini flashlight
-A 1gig flash drive
-2 pepper sprays
-A notebook/binder
-A whole bunch of free pens, carabiners, mini-lights, stress balls and assorted brochures and publications.

Then, while going around the vendors, I picked up a Magnum Claw. The Magnum Claw is a cool tire spike contraption that you can place under the wheel of a parked car; the car drives over the spikes and is deflated. Good times! I also got some more flash drives, a little stress ball shaped like a hand grenade, a canvass tote bag and some gun cleaning supplies from OTIS and a bunch more stuff than I can remember. Finally, I won a coupon for half off the price of a groundfighting class I'm interested in.

Oh, man, I bought some stuff too. Two new KA-BAR knives: a TDI law enforcement knife, and a new product called a TDI-LDK, that's a small knife that can be worn around the neck, or laced into a boot. I also picked up some new neoprene shooting gloves.

Cross your fingers for me, or chant nam myoho renge kyo, or something, because they have a kick-ass raffle later this week. The Bubs family arsenal could really expand if I get lucky.

TRAINING, SIR!

This is going to be a good week.

Starting later this morning I will be attending the ILEETA International Training Conference and Expo in Wheeling. ILEETA stands for International Law Enforcement Educators And Trainers Association. The conference runs 5 days, and it's the best variety of workshops, classes and instructor certification courses assembled in one place that I've ever seen. I've been a police defensive tactics instructor for about 10 years, and it's really good to have programs like this to help stay sharp.

As an added bonus there's an expo that runs the first two days where you can check out lots of cool new equipment; maybe I'll even get to pick up one of those cool rubber slappers. Oh, did I mention the goody bag? ILEETA, without a doubt, gives out the best swag of any conference I've been to. I can't wait to see what I get today.

Here's what my schedule looks like:

Tuesday-attend the vendor expo in the morning, then an afternoon presentation titled "Characteristics of the Armed Individual."

Wednesday-official opening ceremonies. The guest speaker is Officer Marcus Young. You can read his amazing story here. In the afternoon I'll attend a presentation by Bill Lewinski of the Force Science Research Center.

Thursday-I'll be attending the Glock pistol armorer's course. At the end of the day I'll be a "factory-trained armorer capable of servicing all models of GLOCK pistols."

Friday- Another 8-hour class, this one from Phil Messina, on takedown techniques and "how to better adapt and adjust to unexpected environments, weapons and extra assailants, as well as the chaos of a violent confrontation." That should be fun.

Saturday- If Phil Messina doesn't beat me up good enough, this should finish me off. Frank Shamrock is presenting an 8 hour class titled "Mixed Martial Arts for Law Enforcement."

So, my week in a nutshell--two days of shmoozing and free stuff, followed by one day in a classroom, followed by two days of rolling around on the mats. I hope everyone has a week as fun as mine!

Mister Donut Cosplay Dance Party

Yes, this is a group of Japanese cosplay enthusiasts forming a dance party flash mob in front of a Tokyo Mister Donut. The party is broken up by two cops on their way for a coffee break.

Here's a link to the original story, courtesy of Southside bureau chief Dena.

Cops 1, Killer Weasel 0

A killer weasel attacked a Glenville, NY woman as she took out the garbage. The woman, thinking fast, beat the weasel off with a fire extinguisher after it sank its inch-long fangs into her foot.

Two intrepid cops responded to the scene as the weasel fled, resulting in a half-mile long chase through the snow. The weasel was shot and killed when he refused to show his hands.

Can I retire yet?

Rent a cop

OK, I promise that one of these days I'll sit down and actually write something, and maybe look up some interesting stories to try and entertain you.

The thing is, I took advantage of the last two "days off" to pick up some corporate security work. I ended up spending 9 hours in a parking lot making sure an executive who'd just been fired didn't come back to the office. Turns out the guy was a total fraud and a nutcase. So, now that I'm done fattening my wallet by taking a break from representing the armed might of the state, and instead representing the armed might of corporate America, I can return to blogging. I started by letting the pod in the basement open up, and I switched over to new Blogger, promptly dehumanizing several commenters and rendering them anonymous. Sorry.

I know there's lots of newsworthy events out there that need my attention. Newsworthy stories like this:

People getting arrested in stolen cars because their girlfriends like to stand up through the sunroof, topless

and this:

Middle-aged Cialis freaks going wild in Myrtle Beach.

The Bears won their first playoff game. I was going to write tons of thoughtful sports commentary. Really.

I was near apoplectic after watching Bush's speech on his "new" plan for Iraq. Fortunately, Johnny Yen said most of what I would've said, only better, here, here, and here. Briefly, here's what really pisses me off about the Iraq "surge": according to the US Army's own Counterinsurgency Field Manual, (written by Lt Gen David Petraeus, newly-appointed Iraq commander) the desirable ratio of soldiers to civilians in a counterinsurgency campaign should be about 20 per 1,000. According to the CIA World Factbook, the population of Iraq is approximately 26,700,000. The population of Baghdad is approximately 5,700,000. By those numbers, then, an ideal counterinsurgency campaign in Baghdad would require about 114,000 soldiers. The ideal figure for the entire nation of Iraq would be about 534,000 soldiers. And Eric Shinseki got shit-canned for having the nerve to suggest as much to a Senate committee before the war started. For any of you military history buffs out there, here's an interesting article on "Force Requirements for Stability Operations" from the US Army War College.

So, in a nutshell, Bush's 20,000-soldier "surge" is just more bullshit.

Ok, what else. I got tagged by Katie Schwartz and I'm terrified that I'll look like a poor sport for not responding. Is it ok to wait a week or so before doing one of those things, or is there some expiration date?

Speaking of not responding, my procrastination seems to get worse lately. I have boxes of documents that I need to get rid of (one box of documents from a failed union organizing drive and another of old travel brochures and law enforcement magazines) and two other boxes of documents I desperately need to sort out. SOON. Because a lot of my 2006 tax records are in there, and got thrown in and mixed up with a lot of other crap during a round of frantic pre-holiday-let's-get-the-house-ready-for-company housecleaning. I plan on running in the Chicago Marathon again this year, but I haven't run since Thanksgiving and I'm now tipping the scales at 215 pounds. Did you know that the Chicago Area Runners Association has a category for runners like me? They call us Clydesdales.

I'm chock-full of vaguely formed big plans, yes indeed. Maybe I'll start working on them tomorrow.