My old car

I saw my old car the other day...

I pulled into the driveway to serve a trespass summons and there it was. The old grey mustang. It was battered, badly. I started to get out of my car when this rather large pit bull began barking wildly and running towards me. I could see that it was loosely tied to a tree and I was pretty sure it couldn't reach me. I walked past the slobbering dog to the steps of the trailer and knocked on the door.

As I waited I kept half an eye on the dog until I heard the thud thud thud of someone coming to the door. The door opened and this really overweight girl came to the door wearing a way too small pink bikini. My eyes instinctually darted away as I asked "Is your mother here?"

the girl just stared at me for what seemed like forever before looking back into the trailer and yelling "MOMMAAA, PO-LEEECE IS HERE!" The girl then disappeared into the trailer.

Finally momma comes to the door. Momma looks like an even fatter version of the girl. Momma is wearing a moo moo and missing several teeth. "Is Mr. such and such here?" I ask the woman, as I step into the trailer.

The trailer is grimy and the floor is littered with God knows what. There is some guy who looks to be in his fifties sleeping on the couch in a bundle of blankets. He looks as if he is in the process of dying.

"No sir, he lived at lot 2."

I look around and notice this is the only trailer on the property.
All I can think to say is "ummmm." as I'm still trying to get the frightening image of her daughter out of my head. Finally the woman points to a camper in the back yard. "He done been gone bout a week." She says.

"I told detective such and such that she better hurry or he'd be gone"
The detective she referred to is our sex crimes investigator and curiosity finally got the better of me.

"What was going on that you contacted her?" I ask.
The woman shoos her children away and leans in as if to tell me a secret.
"He done molested both my youngins." She says.

I try to change the subject by asking her about the car. "We bought that off'n a guy fer a thousand dollars." She says, as though it was the bargain of the century.

"Really?" I ask. "That used to be my car." I tell her.

"Yeah, she was a pretty good ole car bafore we wrecked her." The woman says while scratching in a place better not mentioned.

About this time her son, who looks to be about 7 years old, walks over to me and stands toe to toe with me. I'm not kidding this kids toes were literally touching the end of my shoes. He's staring up at me with this blank look on his face.

"How are you buddy?" I ask him. He just keeps staring, I don't think he was able to talk. I begin to feel awkward when suddenly the boy wraps both arms around my legs as tightly as he could and just buries his face into my leg. He continues to hug me for several seconds and finally lets go. Still standing toe to toe with me he looks up with this expression in his eyes, as if he is begging me to pleeeeaaaaaaase take him with me. His mother calls him back to the porch telling him that "he's lucky I didn't take him to jail fer assaultin' a officer."

The boy is still looking at me as I say "Nah, hugs aren't considered an assault. Everyone loves hugs." I wave to the woman and wish her good luck, and that I hope things work out for her.

I walk past my old car, and peek inside. The interior has been ruined and there is about a four foot deep stack of beer cans and other trash littering the floorboards and seats. The dash has been split open. And I have this strange feeling of sadness as I get back into my cruiser and pull off.

There are a lot of old memories attached to that car. My ex-wife and I picked it out about a year after we had gotten married. We drove it more than once from North Carolina to Indiana. When I was sick it took me to the hospital in Winston Salem without fail.

I picked my wife and son up from the hospital after his birth in that car. I can see them both in the car laughing and having a good time, him in the back being upset because he said he thought his "feet smelled like stinky vinegar pickles." Us sitting in the front seats laughing at him as he said that.

And it makes me sad, it was a time when things seemed new and exciting, the future was wide open with possibilities, and My son, ex-wife and I were all happy together.

Thank you sir...May I have another?

I pulled up just in time to see Tommy go into the trailer...
I parked my car along side the road and walked through the yard towards the trailer. There were five guys sitting on the steps and in the yard. They were all bleeding or had swollen eyes, one guy was holding his arm and moaning.

"You better get in there and help your partner" one of the guys says. "Jakes in there, been beating his girlfriend in the bathroom. We tried to stop him but he took us all out."

Jake must be one tough dude, I think as I enter the trailer.
The trailer stinks. There are beer cans and cigarette butts all over the floors. Some type of animal has crapped and urinated all over the carpet.

I navigate the narrow hall leading into the bathroom. I see Tommy standing in the doorway telling someone I can't see to come out and let the girl go.

I position myself so I can see what is going on without getting in the way, God this hall is narrow. In the bathroom I see a younger girl, maybe 19, standing against the wall, her head is lowered and she is holding her face.

Between her and Tommy stands Jake. He has part of the girls shirt clenched in one fist while he shakes the other at Tommy shouting profanities and telling us to get out of the house.

After talking to him for a few more seconds Tommy reaches in and grabs the guy pulling him out into the hallway and presses him against the wall with one hand. The girl sees her chance and runs from the trailer and out the door. Jake raises both fist at Tommy.

"Put your hands behind your back, you're under arrest." says Tommy.
Jake starts trying to twist free. I see Tommy unholster his tazer. I wonder if there is even enough room in the hall to taze the guy. "Put your hands behind your back." Tommy says calmly.

"Fuck you son of a bitch, fucking pig get out of my house and mind your business!" The guy yells pulling one of his fists back.

I hear a small pop followed by a sound I know all to well. cack cack cack.
The guy screams and falls to the ground kicking his legs wildly into everything in the hallway. I put one knee on the ground and the other across the guys mid section. He is laying face down screaming as I try to subdue him without getting myself tangled on the wires.

I begin telling the guy that this will last for five seconds and when it stops he needs to put his hands behind his back and calm down, but I doubt it registered with him.

After five seconds the tazer stops and I tell the again to put his hands behind his back. Instead he begins telling me he will kick our asses and he starts trying to get up.

"We will deploy the tazer again if you don't comply" I say.

"Fuck you guys!! Pussys!!!" He begins yelling.

"Give him five more." I tell Tommy.
The guy hears this and what he says goes something like this:
"Fuck you guys! Oh no Oh God I'AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"

cack cack cack cack "This will last for five seconds.." cack cack cack "When it stops you need to put your hands behind your back." cack cack cack.

He screams and kicks the whole five seconds. It sounds like a tornado in the trailer. The tazer ends its cycle and the guy immediately puts his hands behind his back. We handcuff him and take him out past all the guys who had their butts kicked by this guy and put him in Tommy's cruiser. I take the appropriate pictures and Tommy carts the guy off to the stoney lonesome.

I go back towards the trailer to get some of the AFID tags from the hallway floor and everyone stares at me silently. Finally one of the guys says "Thanks a lot sir. I don't know what you guys did to him in there but it sounded like the trailer was coming apart. He was just too much for us to handle."

He follows me inside and as I begin to collect the small pieces of colored paper to enter into evidence with the tazer cartridge, he gets a worried look on his face and says "Sir I swear to God I don't know where those things came from. I can tell you their not mine though." As if I had just found a kilo of cocaine or something.

"Have a good night." I tell them. I get in my patrol car and head towards the office to help Tommy with all the paperwork and entry of evidence.

Domestic violence court

What I saw in domestic violence court this week was both interesting and disturbing.

I saw a defense attorney follow the assistant district attorney around staring at her butt and salivating. I saw a 17 year old drug addict mouth the word mother fucker to his father while his father testified against him. The kid was stoned as he stood before the judge, his eyes half closed and bloodshot. He swayed crazily and could barely stand.

I saw a 48 year old man accused of assaulting a female request a court appointed lawyer to handle his case.

"Do you work?" asked the judge

"No sir" he said to the female judge

"How do you earn your living?" she inquired.

"I live with my mom." He said. Pointing her out as she sat in the peanut gallery

"What does your mom do for a living?" she asks.

"She's disabled" He replies

I saw a rather muscular young lad plead guilty to assault inflicting serious injury, only to have the judge tell him she wouldn't accept his plea.

WTF!!!! I think to myself. The man's attorney, a crotchety old guy who got irate and yelled at me one time when I started laughing at him as he tried to intimidate me on a dwi case (which he plead his client guilty to after "talking" to me in private) was overjoyed.

I waited for an explanation as to why the judge did this after the man's tiny very pregnant wife told a story of how her "loving" husband beat her so badly she was put in I.C.U. for three days. This girl was sooooo small and he was soooooo big, she had to be at least eight months pregnant.

"I did the protective order hearing on this case a few weeks ago and I've never seen a woman that had been beaten so badly before" Says the judge. "I don't feel I can be fair and impartial in sentencing the defendant." Declares the Judge.

"WHAT !?!?!?!?" I think to myself. "finally a judge sees first hand the monstrosities these guys inflict on someone. And she found the beating so repugnant she can't fairly sentence him?" Hello structured sentencing! You can sentence him to the max, the minimum, or the middle. "SEND THAT ASS TO PRISON FOR A WHILE" I think to myself. Not even a question of guilt or innocence he told you he's guilty.

Any way the judge recuses the guilty verdict and reschedules the case to be heard by another judge.

The crotchety old lawyer salivates as he lowers his yellow smile to the defendant's ear and whispers not so quietly "you need to fight this. You'll go to prison if your found guilty. Your wife and unborn child need you."

My skin crawls because I know next time he will plea 'not guilty.'

I wonder what would be said if I refused to go to a domestic, because "I had been there before and knew that the guy always beats her into a bloody mess and I don't think I can be impartial." Maybe he has been telling the truth about her running into his fists all this time after all.

Laughing hysterically inside at this point because I figure it's better than crying.

I can hear the dispatchers talking to this woman on the phone as her husband bludgeons her with a rolling pin..."I'm sorry ma'am, we can no longer send any officers out to help you. They've all been there too many times and we have determined that they can no longer be impartial. If someone other than your husband beats you please call and we can possibly assist you. Have a nice day ma'am."

I watched as another girl (also pregnant) begged the judge to the charge against her boyfriend and lift the protective order that she had placed on him. In her purse she has pictures of her black eyes, and her back covered entirely in bruises, from where she curled up over her infant child to protect it while her "man" punched and kicked her severely in the back and ribs. The judge will never see the pictures though, because she agrees to dismiss the criminal charge and lift the protective order.

The girls boyfriend stands behind the defendants table with his mouth gaping open and his tongue lazily hanging halfway down to his chin. I notice he is drooling slightly. He looks about as smart as a retarded tree sloth.

They leave the court room together. About 20 seconds later the sloth and his babies mommas momma are drug back into the court room by two bailiffs. It seems babies mommas momma was none to happy about this guy getting away with beating her daughter and commenced to layeth the smack down on sloth boy in the lobby. The judge lets the sloth go and sternly shakes her finger at babies mommas momma and lets her go as well.

The judge calls a ten minute recess. I go down stairs to stretch my legs. I see a long haired, face and neck tattooed freak from court who just had a protective issue ordered against him standing at the magistrates door. I don't know what he's up to but I' sure it involves some retaliatory abuse of the system. I try to get away before he can corner me and ask me some stupid question or tell me how I can help him. I'm too slow, crap, here he comes.

"Hey man." he says as he approaches me.

"Man?" I think. "since when am I this guys drinking buddy. In the words of the famous luda "git back! git back! You don't know me like that!" I think. I smile inside. I'm due back in court in like two minutes.

"My wife just took a protective order out against me. She stole my xanax like two months ago. I tried to get a warrant but the magistrate said I had to talk to an officer and have it investigated"

His mommy is with him. He's a grown man and his mommy has to come to court with him.

"Well" says I "If you go to that window over there and tell that woman what you need someone will come to help you. I have to get back to court." I finish.

"k" he says as he and his mommy slime off and around the corner. I go back to court and sit for three more hours watching the idiocy and drama play out. I watch a woman argue with her husband about what they were arguing about the fifteenth of the prior month, in open court. The peanut gallery is laughing at the couple. Every one but them can see how ridiculous they are.

finally the A.D.A. tells me they will have to reschedule my case. They put it on a day I work night shift. "Buety" I think.

I make my get away as the judge and A.D.A. apologize for making me sit in court for the last six hours. At least the court room is air conditioned I think as I leave.

I get to my car and before I can leave I catch the eye of a guy I can only describe as a maggot. He is obviously irate over some form of perceived injustice. He strides over aggressively. Fists balled, chest sticking out, brow furrowed to the point his eyebrows have disappeared. He was in d.v. court and had a protective order issued against him. By looking at him He needs to have one out against him.

"Hey man I was just in court and my girl had a protective order issued against me!"

"O.k." I say.

"And she brought this other guy to court with her!" he says enraged.

"O.k." I say

"Why the fuck isn't he in jail?!?" the maggot demands to know.

"He was making faces at me an' shit the whole time we were in court. Tryin to punk me out!" He blares.

"O.k." I say

"Why the FUCK isn't he in jail!" maggot asks again.

"What did he do to go to jail?" I ask

"He grows weed man, fucking weed!"

"where at?" I inquire

"At his house man but the fuckin cops already came and took the shit" says maggot.

"Oooooaaaky, and they didn't arrest him?" I ask

"No man they can't fuckin find him" reports maggot

"Are there warrants on him?" I ask

"Yeah" states maggot

I refer him to the same window as mommas boy and tell him to tell her what he needs help with.

I then go to arbys with big red machine thinking I am away from the consolidated weirdos and will at least eat in peace. I get my food and sit down. Adjacent to me sits an older woman.

She looks at me and informs me that "she's been arrested for assault before, but it was all bologna. A big mistake. A mis-justice."

"That's unfortunate " I say. As I begin to choke down my dry roast beef sandwich. I can barely hear her as she continues on, telling me the specifics of her case, and what REALLY happened instead of the lies that were told about her in court.

"Neato" I think as I eat as fast as I can.

Put me in the middle of a disorderly mob duking it out.

Fun!!

Tell me about your drama

Nyet.

Crack Addict

It had been a long hot day, But thankfully the sun was going down and the high temperatures were giving way to a more tolerable climate as night was descending. I had jsut cleared a vehicle stop and was headed to the truck stop via dixon school road. As I crossed the overpass spanning
I-85 I saw a woman walking in the opposite direction. She was wearing blue jeans and a black shirt. She was carrying a tan backpack with a water bottle poking out of the top. She had blonde hair that looked as though it hadn't been washed in this decade.
Her face was wrinkled, creased and unattractive. She was so skinny her clothes looked as if they were about to fall off of her body. I didn't know who she was but I could tell by her appearance she was a crack addict probably looking for a truck driver to pimp herself out to for drug money.

As I passed her she would not look at me, instead she looked over the bridge almost as if she was considering jumping. I drove on to the truck stop and turned around to give her time to cross the bridge onto more stable ground. I pulled up behind her. She stopped and as I got out of my car to talk to her I could see in her face that she desperately hated the way she lived. Her life was one of desperation. In her world crack cocaine was God and all men cared about was having their dick's sucked. I imagine she has been beaten down one way or another her entire life.
"Hi, how are you?" I asked.
"GODDAMNIT!!" She yells at me.
"WHY ARE YOU FUCKERS ALWAYS STOPPING ME?!?" She ranted.
"ALL I'M DOIN' IS WALKIN' UP THE FUCKIN' ROAD!!"
"Ma'am, I don't know you, I've never met you before. We get a lot of complaints about prostitution in this area, at the truck stop in particular and it's a little odd to see a woman walking down this road alone. Are you o.k.?" I ask.
"I don't need no fuckin' ride." She replied, even though I hadn't offered her one.
"Besides, I'm more concerned with murderers and child molestors!" She said inferring that I should be bothering them instead of her.
"Yes ma'am, so am I." I said.
"I can't fuckin' tell." She chortled while glaring at me.
"You're not afraid of someone getting you into their car and killing you?" I asked.
"I don't give a fuck!" she replied.

"Well I do, I don't want to find you dead in a ditch two days from now. Just because you don't think your life is worth anything doesn't mean that's the case."
She softened a bit and looked at the ground, but just for a flicker of a moment.
"Where are you headed?" I ask.
"Up the road." she said coldly.
"Where are you coming from?" I ask.
"Down the road." She said, nodding towards the truck stop.
"Do you have any I.D. on you?" I ask.
She digs in her pocket and thrusts an I.D. card at me.
"Yeah I got fuckin' I.D." she says, adding "I aint got no fuckin' 29's on me either!"

I recognize her name immediately. She has been checked for warrants by officers in other agencies nearly every night this week. I know she isn't wanted.
"If you say you don't have any warrants I'll take your word for it and not waste our time checking." I say.
"Here's your I.D." I say holding it out to her.
She snatches it away and stuffs it back in her pocket, bellowing out one last"GODDAMN!!"
"Thanks for talking with me, have a good night." I say.
She turns and walks into the encroaching darkness. I return to my car and have her logged in the area as a suspicious person.

Several hours later we get a call from the truck stop to check out a woman loitering for prostitution in the truck staging area. She is described as a white female, blonde hair, wearing blue jeans, a black shirt and carrying a tan bag.

The suicide machine churns on...

As long as there are people on earth, suicide will be a reality...

I was on my was to a suicide attempt call. We respond to a lot of these. The call comes in initially for an ambulance, usually from a family member or a friend, but we have to make sure things are safe at the scene before E.M.S can enter. Suicidal people often don't want to go alone. Supposedly this woman had cut herself. I didn't imagine it was anything serious, as nine times out of ten it seems to be over dramatized and when you get there you find someone who has scratched the top of their arm to gain attention from their family. I had never been to this house before and that concerned me. This was possibly going to be a new set of players. I would adapt to the situation as it unfolded though.
It didn't take me long to get there and I passed the area the ambulance was standing by at before I pulled into the driveway. It was a neat little home with a well coifed yard. There was a large wooden deck leading to the front door. Several people, all older than me were standing on the porch. As I pulled into the driveway they all ran to my car. All they would say over and over is "She's in the kitchen, she's in the kitchen." They were frantic but I did manage to get one of them to answer the most pressing question on my mind. "Does she still have the knife?" They told me she did. I went into the house and saw a women in her late fifties standing in the kitchen staring blankly at a wall. I could only see her face as she was very short. "Are you alright?" I asked. No response. It was as if this woman was made of stone. She did not speak nor did she move. She wasn't even blinking. My skin began to break out in goosebumps just looking at the face of this woman. I wasn't sure where she was but I could tell she wasn't in this house anymore.
I began to slowly walk towards her and around the counter so I could get a better view of her hands. I didn't want her to snap to, holding a butcher knife and go crazy on me. It was hot that day. I was sweating under my vest, due to the heat and my nervousness. As I rounded the corner I saw that she did indeed still have the knife, and it was a large butcher knife, but it wasn't in her hand, I stood for a split second marveling over what I was seeing.
The knife was stuck all the way up to the handle in the center of her chest. "Hey lady." I said. "You need some help....Are you going to let me help you?" No response just that blank stare. I walked closer and touched her arm hoping that would snap her out of whatever daze she was in. I was really wishing for backup at that moment but knew they wouldn't be there for several more minutes. I was beginning to wonder if she hadn't been stabbed by someone else, and whether or not that someone might be creeping up on me from some other room. I couldn't imagine someone doing that to themselves. It looked as though the knife had actually gone through the bone in the center of her chest. I wondered how badly she was bleeding internally. I knew time was of the essence and I certainly didn't want this woman dying in front of me. The moment my arm made contact with hers, she jerked violently and looked at me. She then looked down quizzically at the knife handle protruding from her chest with an expression on her face that said, how did that get there? She then looked at me holding her head at an angle seeming to ask if I knew.
There was a kitchen chair next to us. "Why don't you sit down here and wait for E.M.S. with me ma'am." She turned her gaze slowly to see the chair. I stepped back and began to move the chair for her. She reached for the handle of the knife. "No!" I said "You need to..." Before I could finish my sentence she had pulled the knife back out of her chest and dropped it on the floor. It landed in a small pool of blood on the tile. Satisfied with what she had just done she came to me and sat down on the chair, going back into her dazed state. I secured the knife in a plastic bag, and radioed for E.M.S. To get there fast. I told them what happened and they began treating the wound, secured her to a gurney and transported her to the hospital. My backup arrived as the ambulance was leaving and we interviewed the family. The woman had been diagnosed as schizophrenic, and was in early stages of alzheimers disease. She hadn't taken her medication in several months and the family had moved her in so they could take care of her. The woman's daughter said she was in the bedroom making the woman's bed. When she finished she went into the kitchen and saw her mother with the knife against her chest. She said she became fearful and called 911, just as the woman had stabbed herself.
I followed up on this and talked to her treating physician to tie up loose ends and make sure the angle of the knifes entry supported a suicide attempt. He said it did and that the woman had, amazingly enough, missed every vital organ in the chest cavity, and would be released in the next few days. I never saw this woman or her family again.

The Basement

The Basement

The world is like a tall building. One layer atop another. There are no stairs, but there is a single elevator that sits in an empty marble tiled lobby. The majority of people live on the first few floors. They go about their lives oblivious to the basement. They know there are a select few that live in the penthouses above them. They break their backs trying to work their way into one of the penthouses. The people that live in the penthouses are vaguely aware of the basement and the people who reside there. They see the basement dwellers as poor creatures who need to be helped, but they never venture into the hellish depths of the basement.
The people in the basement are evil creatures who feed on each other. They were born in its' acrid oily depths, and for them the only way to get to the penthouse is to kill its' owner and take it. These loathsome creatures live on a diet of drugs and alcohol. Occasionally they will persuade the youth of the people on the other floors to meet them in the lobby. They will introduce these young people to a life of mind altering substances and crime, then drag them back to the basement where they will remain. Sometimes they make it back to the floors they came from long enough to eat and steal from the people that care about them. The people who toil in their back breaking jobs. The parents hearts break as they watch their children self destruct and die.
There are a few of us who have a key to the elevator that grants us access from the top to the bottom. The elevator, it sometimes seems, is the only thing in the building that isn't broken. I imagine it's that way because it is a heartless piece of machinery who's only purpose in existing is to transport people.
I have gone from the first floor to the penthouse when I am called to do so. As you ride the elevator you can hear the whining of the pulleys and the steady drone of its mechanical engine. Most of the time it is drowned out by the silent screams and shattering of lives as it passes between floors.
As I traverse the levels going up I am certain of only one thing. Whoever I talk to and whatever their situation I will find the solution by going into the basement.
After a while you get to know the basement down to its every darkened corner. You know its inhabitants by name and you know where they hide. I know that every trip to the basement brings resolution to someone. I know that to protect the rest of the people in the building you often have to remove the dangerous creature from the sub-level, taking them out of the building entirely and locking them in a cage.
Some of us die in the basement while trying to help the people in the building, but when one is killed thirty more go down and light the whole place up. After we get our man, we will grieve, at least, until we to succumb to the basement.

All the murderers I know

All the murderers I know

I was recently reflecting on how many murderers I have known and dealt with before they murdered someone. I can't remember the number I came up with but it was more than I can count on one hand. There are a couple that stand out in my mind though. One was a young man who's family I had dealt with many times. I used to arrest this guys dad all the time. I was always catching him driving drunk or with a revoked license. A few times I caught him passed out in his car at the side of the road with his marijuana and pipes either sitting in his lap or in the passenger seat. I remember I used to tell him he was going to wreck and kill himself or someone else, but he never seemed to believe me. He ended up driving a motorcycle while he was drunk wearing a bicycle helmet and wrecked. The accident paralyzed him from the neck down and he now lives in a health care facility. I saw him and his wife at the mall one day when I was off and stopped to talk to him. Before I left he became teary eyed and told me that he wished he had listened to me all those times. Anyway, back to his son. I used to have fatherly talks with him when I would deal with him. He had been arrested a few times for breaking into homes and stealing things. I used to talk to him about going to college and moving away from the area. I really hoped as young as he was he would do it, he always acted like he wanted to. I remember one time he was accused by one of his criminal buddies of shooting up their house. I caught up with him shortly after taking the report (I could find no shell casings or see anything that had actually been shot at the scene). I stopped his truck and saw a pistol lying in the passenger seat, I removed and unloaded the weapon, then checked to make sure it wasn't stolen. I talked to him about the incident and that he was being investigated. I told him to sell the gun before he killed somebody or himself. He assured me that wasn't going to happen. He kept out of trouble for several months and then he, his mother and one of his friends murdered a man, stuffed his body into the man's car and drove it just over our county line into the adjoining county.
All three were convicted of the murder. The irony is that the victim hadn't been shot, but rather had been beaten to death with a set of golf clubs. I wonder what the scene was like. How they could beat him repeatedly while he screamed in agony. Blood spewing out onto everything with every swing of the club, until finally the frenzy was over and the man lie dead. The three of them sitting down to figure out what to do with the body. One of them actually driving the car with the body in it to the spot where they left it to be found. Then going on about their lives the next day as if nothing had happened.
There is another that springs to mind also. I had arrested a drunk man one night who was in the road threatening people. He cussed at me, urinated on himself and the back seat of my car. A very nasty man. I charged him with disorderly conduct. He served eighteen days in the jail pre-trial and at court the judge gave him time served and let him go. He left the courthouse, went to a house that was in the same area I had arrested him at and murdered an elderly man in his home. The suspect fled the area and it took several weeks to find him and bring him to justice. There are more, but these two seem to jump to mind for some reason I can't explain. Sometimes I think about these guys while I am on night shift stopping cars or patrolling high crime areas and I wonder if that car I'm about to stop for not having a tag light is being driven by someone transporting the body of a person they have just murdered and I get nervous for a moment. It all passes.

"DO YOU KNOW C.P.R.?!?

"DO YOU KNOW C.P.R.?!?"

I had just picked up a stack of arrest warrants at the office and was on my way to serve one. The guy I was looking for had been in trouble on several occasions, but not for anything very serious. A few minor drug possession charges, as well as some driving charges. I knew he drove a blue pickup truck and as I pulled in to the driveway of the trailer he was supposed to be staying at I saw his truck parked behind the residence.
I walked through the yard to the front steps and knocked on the door. I heard someone rustling around inside and finally an older man answered the door. It was this man's son I was looking for. I asked the man if his son was home (I was already sure he was because his truck was there). The man told me that he wasn't, I asked if he would mind if I came in and looked around just to be sure. The man became very nervous and told me that he didn't want me to search his house. I tried again, but he was very adamant about not letting me in, which just furthered my suspicion that he was indeed hiding inside. I told the man that I had a warrant for arrest and to tell his son to get in touch with me. The man assured me that he would let his son know.
I left the residence feeling a little bit duped but knew I would eventually catch the guy I was looking for. I drove about half a mile up the road when I got a call to do a death investigation at the house I had just left. I turned my car around and headed back to the trailer. When I pulled in the driveway a large older woman was standing on the porch yelling at me "DO YOU KNOW C.P.R?!?" I told her I did and she just said "He's in the bedroom!"
I went into the bedroom and saw the man I was looking for a few moments ago laying on the bed, his father standing over him looking helpless, "Please help him, he's so cold." he said never taking his eyes off his dead son. I knew immediately that he had been dead for several hours. The dead have a certain facial expression, that only the dead seem to be able to make. His eyes were wide open and blindly staring at the ceiling, there was mucous running from his nose to his mouth. His mouth was fully open and frozen in a silent, violent looking yawn. The man was laying on his back and from the middle of his body down he was purple, from his non flowing blood settling where gravity had left it. I felt the man's neck for a pulse knowing there would be none. This guy was stiff, so stiff you couldn't even move his arms or fingers. I looked at his father and called E.M.S. on the radio. "Please help him." his father pleaded, as several tears had begun flowing down his cheeks. "I'll do the chest compressions if you do the breaths" I told his father. I knew this would do no good, but it would make the parents feel better and less helpless than just staring at their son. I began to give the compressions, and when I finished a cycle I instructed the father on how many breaths to give, and to make sure that air wasn't escaping through his son's nose.
As he gave the breaths I saw the air go straight into the man's stomach as the belly of the dead man began to swell. I knew that air was going to come back out in a fetid way and was glad I wasn't giving the breaths. I began another cycle of compressions and felt two of the man's ribs break under my hands, it made a sickening sound and a bad feeling to my touch, it felt very unnatural, and I prayed that his father hadn't heard it.
E.M.S. arrived and pronounced the man dead. His mother begged and pleaded with them to do anything to help her son. I was glad not to be them at that moment. I did my report and took the required pictures, while waiting for the funeral home to transprt the body.
After everything was finished the man's father pulled me to the side and told me he appreciated everything I had done, and that a part of him realized that his son had been dead too long for help. He said that after I had left he went to wake his son up to take him to the court house to take care of the warrant and found him lying in the bed. He said he was sorry for lying to me about his son being there. He told me that his son had recently gotten divorced and wasn't allowed to see his children, and was very depressed as well as having a drug problem. He said his son had actually made several comments about ending his life the night before, but that was not uncommon for him. I told him that there was nothing he could have done to help his son. That his son had already made up his mind about dying. I returned the warrant unserved.

"It will if you hit it hard enough!"

"It will if you hit it hard enough!"

It had been snowing all day and all night, in all we had gotten several inches, and the stuff was still falling. The roads hadn't been plowed and it was hard to tell where the pavement was. We were riding two to a car that night for safety reasons, it's hard to get to someone who needs help in inclimate weather. At shift change the Lt. had told my partner and I about a man who had made threats to his girlfriend and told her he was coming to take her car. We looked this guy up in the system and found he had warrants outstanding for assault on a female. We took the warrants and left the office to patrol our assigned area.
I remember how bright out it was with the moon reflecting off the snow, it was almost like mid morning. My partner and I checked a few buildings and rode through the crack-hood to see if there was anyone there we could lock up, but everything was dead. My partner T. asked if I wanted to go and check on that warrant and I said sure. We slowly meandered our way through the snow and finally arrived at the address this guy was supposed to be going to. The driveway was exceptionally long and we saw a black truck leaving the trailer and heading towards us. We thought it might be our man so we waited for it to get to the end of the driveway. The truck pulled up and it turned out not to be the guy we were looking for, but after talking to him for a moment he told us he had just dropped the guy off at the trailer. We let him leave and the car that was supposed to be stolen by our wanted fellow started up and headed our way. As the car approached I recognized him as the man we were looking for. I turned on the blue lights and got out of the car. The other car stopped and the man rolled down his window. I told him to turn the car off and get out, that he was under arrest. "I can't do that " he said matter of factly as he rolled the window back up. I started towards him eager to yank him out of the car, when his back tires began to spin crazily in the snow as he laid down on the gas pedal. The car was headed straight towards me. I was in a bad position, he was about to crush me between the two cars.
I began to run to the front of my car and managed to make it to the front quarter panel and dive to the side just before he hit me. As he passed the side view mirror of his car hit me in the elbow, his car was about to pin me in, so I punched out the drivers side window of his car, knowing that when the glass shattered he would jerk the wheel in the other direction, and steer away from me.
I felt no pain as my hand hit his glass and broke through, coming within inches of his face. He continued to drive wildly and nearly wrecked as he spun onto the snow covered road. I looked over at T. and he just looked at me in amazement and said "man, I didn't know a car window would shatter like that." "It will if you hit it hard enough" I replied.
I threw T. the keys and said "let's get this guy." As I was going to the passenger side I noticed that my hand felt like it was soaking wet and sticky. I looked down and saw that my hand had been cut pretty badly. I remember seeing my blood in the snow at my feet and being strangely fascinated by the stark contrast of my blood on the pristine white of the snow. I got in the car and wrapped my hand in a sock hat, to keep any more blood from getting on the interior of the car. I don't know how much good that did as the door was already covered with my blood. T. spun the car around and began to chase the offender. The Lt. called us on the radio and told us to stop the prusuit due to the weather. I called him on the phone and told him what happened and that we were going to see if the guy didn't crash somewhere down the road. We didn't see him anywhere which amazed me, because the guy was driving so badly when he fled the scene. T. asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital and I told him yeah, but I wanted to take out warrants on the jerk first for trying to run me down with his car. Another guy from the shift got a lead on where the maniac had fled to, a house in the next county over. We called that jurisdiction and they had no trouble identifying either him or the vehicle.
I went to the hospital and recieved several stitches, which I ended up taking out myself a couple of weeks later. When the case went to court I remember testifying and the whole time this cat was sitting next to his lawyer just smiling at me saying he was going to get away with it. His smile turned into a frown when he was convicted and sent to prison for a term of several years. I remember the D.A. in this case asked me about letting the guy plea to a lesser offense, but I stuck to my guns and we convicted him of the felony. I don't always win, but it is sweet when I do.

The ones we love the most.

The ones we love the most.

I was sent to a house to take an assault report. A woman had called and stated that she had been attacked by her husband. She said she had left the home to call us, so I was the only one responding (typically we send two officers to a domestic or fight type call). I thought this would be a simple enough call and I would probably end up telling the woman to take out a warrant on her attacker, as well as a protective order.
I get to the house and am greeted by the callers brother, he tells me that his sister is inside and has her come out to see me. When she comes out I am shocked by what I see. This woman is bleeding from nearly every orifice of her face, her mouth, nose, ears, she even has blood coming down her face from her hairline. Her face is streaked with blood and tears, and her eye is purple and swollen shut already. I ask her what happened.
She told me that her husband had been drinking and began arguing with her, she said he threatened her with a baseball bat, and when she tried to leave he began punching her in the face. She said she managed to get out of the house and into the yard, but he pursued her, caught her and drug her back inside the house by the hair. She said her brother heard the commotion and came to the house and helped her leave. While at her brothers house she was laying in bed in a back room, with the window above her head open. She said suddenly hands came in through the window, and grabbed her by the hair, and her husband actually drug her through the window by the hair and started back across the yard towing her behind him. As I talk to her she continues to swell and bleed, I notice large clumps of her hair are starting to fall out by the roots from where he had been pulling on them. "Where is he now?" I asked. "Next door." she answered, "Does he have a gun?" "No but he has a ball bat, I think he has it on the couch next to him." I start to the house next door expecting he will try to assault me also. I walk into his yard and come up to the front steps, I am about to enter his territory and his comfort zone. My heart begins to speed up.
I walk up the narrow wooden steps, the door is a cheap trailer door, with a diamond shaped window in it. There are no lights on in the house and I don't hear any movement. In the dark through the small window I can make out a shape lying on the couch. I bang on the door as hard as I can. I see the guy sit up, reach underneath the couch and pull out a baseball bat. "WHO IS IT!" He yells drunkenly and a little to aggressively for me. He gets up and starts to the door readying his bat. I take a good position and steel myself for the probable attack.
"SHERIFFS DEPARTMENT!" I yell back "IF YOU BRING THAT BAT TO THE DOOR WITH YOU IT WILL BE THE WORST DAY OF YOUR LIFE!" I yell through the door. All the neighbors in the trailer park have come into their yards to enjoy the show. He slowly returns to the couch and puts the bat back underneath it. He opens the door and staggers onto the porch. "What happened tonight?" I ask him. "That bitch won't leave me alone so I sent her to her brothers." I told him to put his hands behind his back that he is under arrest. His drunken mind pauses as he sizes me up. He decides I will probably make a short day of him and complies. I handcuff him and put him in the back of my car.
I go back next door and begin the arduous task of paperwork, and evidence collection. The whole time every time he thinks I'm not paying attention I hear the jerk kicking my car window. I don't care though If he kicks it out he will just get more charges, his attempts must have been half hearted because he never could get it out.
While transporting this jerk to the jail, he cussed me and told me how many ways he was going to hurt me when I took the cuffs off. I just told him that is fine, they will be off shortly. When I got him to the jail, I told him now was his chance I was taking the cuffs off. I told him he could either fight me or shut his mouth sit down and not say another word. I put the key in and unlocked the cuffs.
The cuffs were off and before I could even get them put up he sat on the bench and stared at the floor. What a little punk, but I always had the opinion if you beat a woman you are not a man. He just proved me right.
For the rest of the evening I pondered relationships and marriage. I wondered how you could do that to someone you had sworn before God to honor, cherish and take care of, in sickness and in health.
conversely this "gentlemen" came to court with a plea of not guilty, and his wife wanted to have the charges dropped. The D.A. informed her that we would not drop the charges and when they showed the defense attorney the evidence I had collected he changed his plea to guilty. Sometimes the good guys do win.

"PUT THE KNIVES DOWN AND TURN OFF THE MUSIC!"

"PUT THE KNIVES DOWN AND TURN OFF THE MUSIC!"

I was on my way to a home in which a deranged man had cut himself several times and then fled to a bedroom and locked himself inside. While his wife was on the phone with 911 the man could be heard in the background yelling that "when the cops get here I'm gonna kill them and myself!"
So here I was again driving to situation that most people would run from. while I'm driving I'm running scenarios through my head. Most of them are worst case. It's my way of mentally preparing to deal with these situations. I am someone who is deathly afraid of knives and being stabbed. There is something dreadful about the thought of someone being close enough to drive the steel into your body and then turn it this way and that, or even to eviscerate you. It's to personal, if I had the choice I would rather be shot.
I get within two miles of the house and my nerves start to tingle, I begin to get nervous, I am suddenly on edge and keenly aware of everything around me, it's like the world goes into slow motion for a moment. I can see a caterpillar in the road in front of my car, a bug flies past my windshield followed by a handful of leaves blowing this way and that, it's so slow it becomes bizarre. I am now just a few hundred yards from the driveway and it occurs to me that I don't know whether this guy has a gun or not. I realize that I am most vulnerable to gunfire while sitting in my car. I know that once I pull into the driveway I'm going to have to hit it hard. Out of the car and to the door in just a few seconds. I'm now at the end of the drive and pulling up to the house quickly, watching every window as I get out of the car and run towards the door.
I get to the door and am immediately overwhelmed by the sound of music blaring so loudly it makes my ears feel like they will start bleeding, some horrible tune, I think it was highway to hell by ac/dc. I bang on the door as hard as I can and almost immediately this enormous troll of a woman opens the door and starts yelling at me "He's in the bedroom and he's cut pretty bad!" "which bedroom?" I ask. She leads me to the room where the music is coming from, I can't stand this music. "Tell him to come out." I tell her, hoping he doesn't know I'm there yet and can catch him by surprise. She bangs on the door and calls his name and tells him to come out. No response. She looks at me and shrugs and goes back into the living room. I get my taser out and suddenly the bedroom door flies open.
There standing about ten feet from me is a thin white guy, he is holding two of the biggest knives I have ever seen out to either side. his head is angled down but he is looking right at me with crazy just spiraling in those eyes of his. He has long scraggly hair which is hanging down in his face, He is not wearing a shirt and I can see that not only has he been cutting his arms, but he has also carved several strange shapes into his chest and he was bleeding rampantly. The music is killing me, "Put down the knives turn off the music, come out and talk to me!" I scream at him. he doesn't respond so I give the order again, the red dot from my taser is on his chest. He breaks my stare and looks quickly at something in the general direction of whatever machine is churning out this awful music, he looks back at me, he starts slobbering and long strands of drool trail behind him as he points both knives at me and charges.
Everything goes back into that bizarre slow state I yell at him to stop then I pull the trigger on my taser. It doesn't deploy, he is now five feet away, I pull the trigger again, nothing, he is now four feet away and coming fast. I lower my taser and reach for my gun, my gun clears the holster he is now three feet away, I raise my weapon and he kicks the door shut. I try to catch it with my foot before it closes but I don't make it and he locks the door. I wonder if he was looking at a gun earlier and decide not to kick in the door, I can play the waiting game, and there is no one in the room he can harm other than himself. I decide to back away and ask the troll if he has any guns in the room. I make it about ten feet into the kitchen when the music stops and the bedroom door opens. He comes towards me with his hands hidden behind his back. This time instead of slowing down things move really fast. I decide to try my taser again, it's pointed at him, "Stop and show me your hands!" I order. He keeps advancing on me, hiding his hands. I give the order one more time but he keeps coming at me. I pull the tasers trigger, and hear a pop. The probes deploy and find their mark on his chest, I watch the barbed hooks dig into him, and I hear the electricity surging. He stiffens like a board and falls flat on his back, and stays that way the entire five seconds the electricity pulses through him. I get him handcuffed and have EMS come to treat the self inflicted wounds, fortunately none of them were life threatening, I took him to the hospital for mental evaluation and he was ultimately committed to a mental institution for several days. To my knowledge we have never had another call at that house again.

"Do they really play dead when their scared?"

"Do they really play dead when they're scared?"

A guy from my squad and I were way out in the middle of the boon-docks one night while nothing was really going on, when two possums came ambling out of the woods and were just hanging out nearby. I watched them curiously for a few minutes and asked my buddy "Do those things really play dead when they get scared?" "I don't know" he replied. "do you want to get out and chase them to see if it works?" I asked. "Sure".

We got out of our patrol cars and ran at the two animals as fast as we could, one of the forest creatures shimmied up a tree, leaving the two of us in hot pursuit of the other. We chased him into a corner of sorts, it had nowhere else to run. We've got him now I thought to myself. Now I'm a big guy I stand 6 feet 5 inches barefoot and weigh about 225 pounds and this little rodent really should be no match for me. The possum turned to face us and in short order opened it's mouth and let out this god awful hiss, and began running straight at the two of us. Of course like the brave men we both are we screamed like ten year old girls and ran the other way. I thought I was going to pull a Duke Brothers and slide across the hood of my car to get away from it, when it found a small culvert running under the road and went inside.

We both got into our cars faster than I would have thought possible and sat there feeling stupid for several moments. Finally I looked over at him and said "Man did you see the teeth on that thing?" Trying to save some face from having just been run into a car by a creature just slightly larger than my foot. I did feel ridiculous, I was carrying a gun at the time, it just didn't seem right to hurt the brave little guy though. I guess it can't all be guts and glory all the time.

"What color were the sheets?"

"What color were the sheets?"

"What?" "what color were the sheets?" I asked him again. "I don't know." so I asked "which side of the room was the closet on?" Again "I don't know." I didn't expect he would. Though Frank was several years my senior in age it was my task to train him how to do the job, and part of the job is being aware of your surroundings. It was his first death investigation and I have to say it was a good one for him to see. This very obese woman had decided she no longer wanted to be a part of this world so she lay down in her bed put a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger.

It was a fairly gruesome scene. I remember walking into the house and being amazed at how clean it was, I guess the victim knew how many people would be tromping through her house so she had spent the day cleaning it. She was in a back bedroom laying in bed, the top of her head had a large hole in it and there was blood spattered up the wall along with several large chunks of brain, in fact it was so forceful that bits of the gray substance were also congealing on her nightstand and a large chunk was on the pillow next to her head. Frank didn't want to go in but he knew I wouldn't leave until he had. We stood in the room for several minutes not talking just looking around. Finally we left the residence and I began quizzing him. He couldn't tell me anything about the room other than all he saw was blood and brains.

"They were pink, and it was on the right" I said finally. He learns quickly because at the next similar incident he was stumping me with things he saw that I had missed.

Blood, violence and shell casings

This Blog is not who I really am. It is a part of me that I have to keep to myself. The things I see and deal with every day and can't talk to about with anyone else. This is the Grim part of me. My world consists of guns, shell casings, blood and violence. After seeing this day in and day out it has to go somewhere, so why not here.

I have had my hand broken in two places, I have had a number of stictches in my hand at one point from some maniac trying to run over me with his car. I punched the window out to steer him away, all because he had beaten some woman I didn't know and to this day have not met. I have had several people try to stab me, and a few that have hidden in the woods after running from me, debating whether or not they should kill me. I get cussed at every day because I can't solve peoples family members drug problems. I have sent 50,000 volts of electricity through at least five people and have had it shot through me twice.I have had a wife divorce me in the midst of a terrible illness when I couldn't see to fend for myself. I wouldn't trade any of these experiences for anything in the world because they have made me grow stronger. I live in a world of black and white, right and wrong, there isn't much middle ground. So there you have it, that is "blog" me and this is my first post.