Wenesday 08-24-05
1800 hours. Clear from roll call load up the car. Talk to my brand new recruit, with zero time on the job, that I am now responsible for. Would like to take 20-30 minutes and discuss things like tactics and how to make sure we don’t get killed but can’t because a shooting goes down and we have to roll.
1810-1930 hours. Gang member shot in the head. Gang Officers say they were looking at him as a possible homicide suspect in another shooting. Looks like pay back from a rival gang. Assist with keeping the neighbors away from the crime scene. 60 minutes of verbal abuse from onlookers, “Fucking cops. You are good for nothing. Why don’t you go eat some donuts.” Of course nobody saw anything even though it was on the street during rush hour.
1930-1950 hours. The crime scene seems to be under control so I roll to a robbery alarm, code three. It is a false alarm like 98% of them are but we still have to roll. The owner seems to find it all very amusing when we come sneaking in. After making sure that everything is OK I explain to him that we spend 10% of our time responding to alarm call but only 98% of them are legitimate. I ask that he be more carefull with his alarm. Now he is no longer amused but pissed. “Listen young man, I pay your salary so don’t start lecturing me.” We clear the scene.
1950-2100 hours. We rush over to a battery in progress. A fight between homeless guys. Suspects are gone by the time we get there. I walk my recruit threw a battery investigation and report. Like most new recruits he is motivated but completely lost. There is so much information coming at him that he is overwhelmed. I tell him to hang in there, it will get better in about 6 months.
2100-2400 hours. A gang member gets shot. Paramedics pronounce him dead and cover him up with a sheet. A little while later somebody sees him move. It is unusually but not unheard of, the guy is in fact dead. Of course all the family members freak out. Paramedics load him up and transport him. Officers are left holding the crime scene with a highly beligerent crowd. Help call goes out and we respond. Another couple of hours of rocks, bottles and verbal abuse. A couple of NOI members get arrested. As we leave the scene a five year old flips me off and yells in his child like voice, “Fuck the po po.” His family member in the front yard laugh.
2400-0100 hours. I respond to the station to see a Sergeant. A citizen came in the previous day and accussed me of calling him racial slurs and yelling at him. The Sergeant is assigned the investigation. I play him my tape recording of the incident which shows that the citizen was the only one who yelled and called me racial slurs. The Sergeant takes a copy of the tape and tells me not to worry about it. He will spend approximately 40 hours on his investigation and while it will come back as an unfounded allegation it will still go in my permanent record.
0100-0200 hours. We are backed up on loud party radio calls so we run out and try to quickly shut down several parties. The party goers usually want to argue with us but I just don’t have the time to discuss it. The radio keeps blaring with high priority calls. We pull off of one call and respond to a backup. Another Officer fighting with a very large suspect under the influence. Fortunatley nobody gets injured but now that Officer and his partner wull be out of the field for the rest of the shift, along with a Sergeant, completing a Use of Force report as well as an arrest. At least his partner who is a recruit did OK. We have had instances where recruits freaked out and ran away or locked themselves in the car, leaving there partner to fight on his own.
0200-0215 hours. My partners eyes are starting to glaze over. Too much going on for him to absorb. I would like to get something to eat but there isn’t time. All we can afford to do is pull into a 7-11 and grab a quick cup of coffee. (At 2 in the morning there is not much open besides convenience stores and donut shops). I tell him again to hang in there, it will get better. He seems unsure but I don’t know whether it is because he is having second thoughts or he is just tired.
0215-0245 hours. Respond to a narcotics investigation. There is no call back number so the Supreme Court has ruled that I am very limited in what I can do. I can see the suspect standing on the corner but unless I see a hand to hand or something I can’t stop him. Of course he can see me also so he doesn’t do anything. While we are sitting there a citizen comes out of his house and comes over to talk to us. He complains that there is a lot of narcotics activity in the area and the police are not doing anything about it. I explain to him that that is why we are here but we need to be able to contact the person reporting if we are going to be able to take action. He goes back inside his house complaining about the good for nothing cops.
0245-0330 hours. Generic radio calls. Mostly disputes and loud radios. A pain in the neck but they have to be handled. If you call we come.
0330-0600 hours. Driver runs a stop sign at high speed and t-bones another car. Three people in the hospital including an eight year old. Clean up the collision scene, respond to the hospital for interviews and then to the station to complete the report. As I’m leaving the hospital the driver of the other car says, “You really need to enforce that stop sign. People are always running it.”
0600-0800 hours. Would like to go home but I have court at 0800. At least now I finally get a chance to eat.
0800-1200 hours. Sit in court while lawyers,judges and defendants argue and bargain. I talk to a burglary detective who is there on a case. He says that he spent some 200 hours putting together a multiple burlglary case on the defendant. Now none of his victims have shown up so they are probably going to release the suspect. 200 hours down the drain.
1200-1600 hours. My defendant takes a plea. I go home and sleep for four hours.
I head back to work for another twelve hours shift. The Captain comes to roll call and tells us, “Officer you are doing a great job. But the tickets have started to decrease. I need you to get out there and right more tickets.”
Any of you want to change jobs with the fucking, no good cops?