Challenge

I love being a cop because it challenges me.  It challenges me physically.  It challenges me mentally.  It challenges my patience.  It challenges my sarcasm filter.  It challenges my ability to stay awake on a Tuesday night in the middle of January.  Without challenges I don’t grow.  I don’t become a better cop.  I don’t become a better person.

With that being said, every once in a while I appreciate being thrown a bone.  I appreciate a guy leaving his credit card on the bar when he runs out on an unpaid tab.  I appreciate a drunk telling me they couldn’t even pass sorbriety tests if they were sober.  I appreciate a crack head admitting she’s wearing her own pants.

What I’m trying to say is that I appreciate you breaking into cars after two inches of fresh snow.  As much as I like running with the K-9 (remember I enjoy physical challenges), I barely had to engage my brain to follow the footprints.  You did make me climb a fence, but that’s why I do pull-ups.  Leaving the cardboard box you were hiding in open wasn’t even the icing on the cake.  The proverbial icing was the footprints leading up to every car you broke into.

Thanks for the…uh…challenge.

Crash

You failed to negotiate a turn and drove your $35,000 ultimate driving machine through a residential brick wall.  If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought the Kool-Aid Man escaped from the back yard.

You didn’t get out of the car to assess the damage to your German enginerred vehicle or the wall, but you were planning on talking to the homeowner in the morning.

You sped off down the road, leaving a trail of car parts behind.  The parts included the headlight assembly mixed in with the bricks strewn across the sidewalk, the side-view mirror 30 feet down the road, part of the undercarriage two blocks further than that, and the front passenger wheel (suspension included) four blocks past the undercarriage. 

You drove the last block on three wheels.

You went inside the house and straight to bed, falling into such a deep sleep in the 20 minutes it took us to find your house that you couldn’t be roused by three cops banging on your door until our knuckles hurt.

Did I miss anything?  Oh, you’ve never been in a crash before, so you didn’t know what to do?  Children that don’t even have complete control of their bowels yet would know what to do.  

Guess what?  I know what to do.  Turn around and put your hands behind your back.  We’re going for a little drive.  If I happen to drive through a wall, I’ll show you what you should have done.

Math

That was embarrassing…for you. Take your age, multiply by two, add two, and you get me. Take my weight, add more than 30 lbs of cumbersome gear, and what do you get? Still me, keeping up with you.

Math is fun. Let’s do some more. Let’s try a word problem.

Q: You’re running at a speed of “I just committed a felony,” and you reach a six foot chain link fence. You scale the fence in just under “My dad’s gonna kill me” time and sprint toward the tall grass that’s concealing X. You quickly determine that X = a five foot deep, toad loving pond, but not until you’re up to your waist in stagnant filth. Note the amount of time it takes you to get chest deep, subtract the amount of time I saved by leaping from the bank instead of wading in, wonder if I yelled “cannonball” to distract you, or just out of pure enjoyment, and spend three seconds looking for your shoe. What do you get?

A: A very cold hour sitting handcuffed on metal bleachers while I process the crime scene.

That’s not what you got? Let me see your work. Oh, I see what you did. You forgot to carry the one, and factor in my rigorous workout schedule. Try again.

Boom

I understand people are setting off fireworks.  It’s kind of the in thing this weekend.  Believe it or not, it’s happening in a couple of different neighborhoods right now.  I’d be lying if I said it was high on my priority list, but it is on the list.  Thank you for being so specific about where they’re coming from though.  Somewhere near your house really narrows it down.

Have you ever tried to find a cricket in your house?  You wait for it to chirp and you turn and face it; maybe you take a step or two.  It chirps again and you move in that direction.  As soon as you think you’ve figured out where the little bastard is, Jiminy chirps again, and you realize you’re not anywhere near him.  Eventually, you’ve heard so much chirping you start to understand what he’s saying.  He’s mocking you.  He saw your bald spot when you looked under the couch.  He knows you’ll eventually give up and have a sandwich.  Trying to find someone launching arial fireworks is like that, mocking included.

We know people are setting off fireworks.  It’s probably the most overt activity anyone does all year.  We’ll get to it when we have a chance.  If you could specify a house, a street, a direction, or even a zip code where they’re coming from, that would help.

Response

Thank you for keeping tabs on my driving habits.  You’re absolutely right to take eight seconds of my 10 hour shift and extrapolate that to mean I’m a hypocrite, above the law, and careless.  I’m only sorry you can’t spend more of your precious time examining my work routine with a microscope.

The problem with a microscope is its narrow perspective.  Staring intently at my tires doesn’t afford you the chance to see the car prowler duck behind the office building.  I saw him.  I made a split second decision that it was in the public’s best interest that I greet him rather than make sure there was a complete cessation of movement from my wheels before proceeding through the intersection.

Watching only my car’s lights means you might see me make a turn without signaling at least 100 feet prior.  It also means you won’t see the abusive husband driving through the neighborhood in an attempt to flee a crime scene.  I didn’t see him either, until I was already nosed into the intersection.  I guess I could have proceeded, found an appropriate place to legally turn around, and signaled before driving to where I saw him last.  Crap, he’s gone.  Oh well, at least I can sleep at night (day) knowing I didn’t commit any traffic violations.

It’s possible you could find me double-parked, partially blocking a driveway, parked within an intersection, or a no-parking zone, against a red curb, or even (gasp appropriately) within ten feet of a fire hydrant.  Whatever you do, make sure you first assume it’s because I’m lazy.  If you want to humor thoughts that it might have been important that I respond to a critical situation as quickly as possible, make sure to do so after reporting my behavior to my supervisor.

You’re right, this will be a much safer place to live when the police aren’t hiding behind their badges.  Make sure you identify yourself when you need us to respond for an emergency so we can proceed accordingly.

Guests

If I want someone to leave my house, I like to start by ignoring them.  I move subtly into excessive yawning sprinkled with eye rubs and an occasional head-nod.  I might grab their drink and pour it out, or even turn all the lights off.  If they really aren’t getting the hint, I could go so far as to actually ask them to leave.  If these people are in my house at my invitation, I probably wouldn’t resort to pointing a gun at them, especially if I didn’t first try the above mentioned tactics.  I understand it was very effective in your case, but it was also very illegal.

If I were to point a gun at a group of fellow human beings, I would make sure I knew how to use it.  Everyone appreciates your attempt to safely menace your company, but if you can’t figure out how to make the slide move forward so the gun appears loaded, putting one round in the chamber isn’t the best option.  That makes the gun what we in the industry like to call, “Loaded.”

We’ll lock up the house you were taking care of for your friends so no one can get in and damage it…any more.  We couldn’t get ahold of the owners, so we left a note; it’s the least we could do.  We’ll let you explain why the wife’s delicates are all over the floor.

Mother

I know it’s a holiday.  I still write citations on Christmas.  Do you want to know the secret to avoiding a citation on the most wonderful day of the year?  Don’t speed on December 25th.

I know it’s a holiday.  I still arrest people on Thanksgiving.  I’ll let you in on a little trick to avoid getting arrested and missing out on Grandma’s famous yams.  Don’t punch your brother-in-law in the face on the fourth Thursday in November.

I know it’s a holiday.  While you’re looking up the definition of “self-centered,” let me point out the fact that I WORK ON HOLIDAYS!  Thousands of other people managed to go about their business and enjoy their holiday without having negative police contact because they followed the rules.  Now, make your kid sit down and wear a seatbelt.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Mudding

Your license is suspended, but it doesn’t stop there.  Not only did you drive, but you drove deep into a 20,000 acre state forrest with over 50 miles of off-road lovin’.  I’m sure your girlfriend and three children, including the one year old, had a blast.  I’m sure they had a blast until you got stuck, at night, after everyone with any sense was already home drinking hot chocolate by a fire.

Do you know why they were able to get home?  They were driving off-road vehicles.  Just because you can rotate a dial on the dashboard that turns on a 4X4 light that doesn’t mean you’re driving an off-road vehicle.  Your car isn’t qualified to drive through my front yard, much less that mud that looked like so much fun SIX HOURS AGO.

Oh, you noticed I was already pretty dirty when I found you.  Yeah.  Have you ever changed a flat tire on an F-350 4X4 in the middle of an OHV road at 3:00 am while it was raining?  I have.  Considering the tires on your “off-road” vehicle aren’t rated for anything more challenging than a steep Safeway parking lot, I’m going to say you haven’t.

I’m glad to see you bought a state park permit for you car though.  You know what else you should think about paying for?  Insurance.  It’s kind of important.  Important like, Oh, I don’t know, having a cellphone that’s capable of receiving calls and not just dialing 911.  I could have called you and asked you to be more specific about your location than, “About 20 feet past a couple of white signs on a post.”

By the way, one of those white signs was the name of the road you were on, and the number identified the specific segment of that road.  That might be helpful next time.  I’m going home now, and I’m gonna have some hot chocolate.

Slow

Either by your choice or mine, you’re going in the car.  I win either way.  If you decide to sit down, we get to the jail faster and I get back on the road.  If you make me put you in the car, I get to practice my choice of compliance techniques, and you get to learn something.

Do you honestly think I’m going to arrest you for a felony level domestic violence charge and just let you go because you say you’re not getting in the car?  How well does that conversation with my sergeant go?  Sorry sir, I had to let him go because he said I couldn’t take him to jail.  You want me to turn my badge in where?

The only choice you have is to get in the car or not.  After that, all the options are mine.  My bad.  I guess I forgot you could choose to kick me.  No problem.  You just allowed me to dig deeper into my bag of tricks.  Hey, look at that; you’re in the car.

I’ll have the nurse look at your hip when we get to the jail.  Did you say I’m not going to be able to get you out of the car when we get to the jail.  You’re a slow learner.

Guess

Don’t guess; tell dispatch what you know.

Do say:  There are three people living in the apartment.  The suspect’s bedroom is the second door on the left down the hall.  He keeps a bat between his bed and the wall.  Don’t say:  There might be weapons in the house.  We go into every house thinking there’s a knife in every drawer, a gun under every pillow, and a homicidal maniac behind every door.

Do say:  I’m concerned about the welfare of my neighbor’s daughter.  She spends a lot of time in my house, always has new bruises, and doesn’t like to go home.  Don’t say:  I’m pretty sure my neighbor beats her kid.  My kids are always hurt.  They have their own room in the ER.  Jumping off the roof on to a mini trampoline that’s in the middle of a big trampoline was the safest thing they did all day.  Six more trips to the hospital and we get a wing named after us.

Do say:  I saw a man looking into car windows in the parking lot and I don’t recognize him.  He had something in his hand.  Don’t say:  He might have a gun.  He also might have a screwdriver, or a cell phone, or a mackerel.  I’m not going to stroll up to him with my hands in my pockets, blowing a world record bubble because you failed to mention he might be dangerous.

We couldn’t do our job as effectively without a lot of help from concerned citizens.  Don’t stop being suspicious, don’t stop peeking through the blinds, and don’t stop calling for help.  Just tell us what you saw and what you know.  Let us make the assumptions, and let us do the investigation.

When I say don’t stop peeking through the blinds, I mean your blinds.