First Day Back

Today was my first day back on the streets, and it's a Saturday night to boot. The doctor told me to be careful, to take it easy, to keep the compression sleeve in such a way, and to alternate so my knee doesn't overheat and start swelling and etc, etc, etc. I should have picked up on that as it's impossible to adjust the sleeve without taking off my pants. And I can't just quickly undo them in the car when nobody's looking as I have to take off my gigantic batman-belt of goodies first. So the sleeve stayed on and curled and furled and I just had to deal with it.

So I get to work and the first call of the day is a citizen concerned about the thermonuclear explosion nearby, and could we please investigate. Assuming that the dispatcher and the 911 operator were having a communication error/prank war I went out thinking this was either a head case, or a transformer did explode nearby. After jumping over a fence, after the doc told me to be careful and tender and all with my knee (it hurt), what I found was a schizo-affective woman who believed that Germany was going to invade the United States and had deployed atomic strikes across the US. Having pointed to the sky and noted the lack of mushroom clouds we left her to her imaginary war and her demands for K Rations (does the Army still even use those?).

It was the usual array of family squabbling and car thefts for a saturday and we ended the evening pushing a large SUV up a hill. Apparently the driver didn't want us scuffing up her car with our push bumpers so we had to manually push (my knee was so happy) this vehicle back up a hill into a parking lot. Why we couldn't just let the stupid thing roll down the hill and coast until she found another lot is beyond me.

Some lessons: Children are greedy evil monsters. A grown woman will refuse to allow her cancer stricken mother access to her medical caretaker for vital breathing treatments in order to collect on an inheritance. Luckily we got rid of the daughter and the mother got her treatments. She was a very nice lady. Children will physically assault the mentally ill, and frankly I don't fault them when the mentally ill is making a pass at a 15 year old. Mandated to adult supervision there. Grown men will move in with bipolar people and then get upset that they're bipolar. That one ended without our intervention as the local management was fed up and simply evicted everybody.

Fun day. I'm glad it's the weekend now.

A Polite Request

So a buddy of mine has asked, politely, that I review this video.

Well, it appears to be about someone getting choked out by some ripped fabric. And nobody seems to care really. Fat Tony goes off. So yeah. Not wild about the music either. But I'll say it was well shot. Cinematography work was quite well done so hire that guy. The rest.... eh.

Answering the Phone

I've been stuck on desk duty for a long time thanks to the knee injury from the last post. I got to have surgery and am recuperating well, thanks for asking. Back to the desk, there are some things that I tend to deal with while answering the phone. You see, most people don't know how to call me. I'm grateful for this. The ones who call saying "It's not an emergency, but I need police to stop by", that's fine. I can accept and forgive that you didn't know that I don't dispatch officers, and I will happily refer you to 911 to get an officer. It's the other ones. The ones that 911 hangs up on. That 311 just won't pick up for. The ones who call about squirrels eating acorns or whatever out in the yard. Yes, it's a squirrel. I understand that it's weird because it's staring at you, but I assure you it will run away if you do literally anything but stare back. Wave. Sneeze. Think really really hard at it. Squirrels can almost sense hostility and know how to run. Honest. While we're talking about squirrels, there are no ninja stick wielding squirrels, and they aren't levering your windows open at night. And they're certainly not doing it at the behest of invisible stealth suit wearing burglars who want to steal your intellectual property. If you can afford invisible stealth suits, you probably don't need to commit petty theft just to get by. If your wife wants to complain to me that you got pulled over "for no reason" even though you just told me 4 different reasons why you should get pulled over, I feel for you, but put your wife on the line. I'm more than happy to put her on speaker phone so my coworkers can have a nice laugh, and she can vent, and everyone feels better.

Okay, that's enough. Next update when I'm back on the street.

Long Absence and Explanation

So, I've been gone for a while. They say a picture is worth a thousand words so I'll be brief. This is why:

I won't go into what happened, other than a "client" decided that the physical relocation service I provided was not to his liking. For obvious reasons I can't go into the background regarding this particular shit stain upon the adult diaper that passes for my particular clientele, nor the consequences of his.... lack of impulse control, but needless to say he regrets his decision.

For stuff I can discuss, the leg should heal. There is a tear in the right lateral mensicus, with a possibility for another tear to form in there. The swords in the background are a gift from a good friend of mine who is currently stationed in Okinawa. I think they add a bit of class to the look of the room.

Since my injury I've been stuck on desk duty. Mostly it's been boring until I got reassigned back to my substation desk, where I get to deal with people too neurotic for 911 to deal with, and those are some jaded people. There has been a never ending waterfall of failed parenthood cascading upon my desk and one gentlemen even called to request a "surprise officer" so that he could make a man implicate himself in a crime, and then (I can't make this up) have the officer "spring out" and arrest the man for being involved in a crime. I can't wait to get out into the field again.

One of those days

At a normal job things usually start with coffee. Or checking email. Or catching up on watercooler gossip (this is a 50's office sitcom right?). My day started with "Naked B/F sprinting down [the street]". Well, either the Flash has developed some kind of superfan, or this is another case of "you done had too much PCP". So, first thing's first. We pursue the lady (from the comfort of a vehicle, no sense in getting all sweaty) until she collapses. Then the ambulance wraps her up. Whatever shall I do for entertainment now? Oh look, a known prostitute right across the street, and she's got a parole violation. Come back from that arrest. Grab some dinner? Nope, robbery in progress! Run, we can still catch the bad guys! What's that? You called your roommate to complain about being robbed but didn't even think to call 911? And it's your roommate who called in the "in progress robbery" 20+ minutes after the fact, only after he finally got you to quit bitching over the phone about it? Okay, you're an idiot, good luck getting your stuff back and call the police next time. Maybe I have time to go try to eat dinner again? Oh no, a security officer is being attacked by five juveniles! Better go help him out. Chase the kids off. Maybe now I can OFFICER ASSIST!!! OMG!!! RUN ACROSS THE ENTIRE CHANNEL AND RUN INTO THE WOODS AFTER THEM!! A schizophrenic escaped the hospital and ran off into the woods in a state of excited delirium. We catch him, haul him (literally) back to the hospital and wrestle him into what appears to be a giant fishing net with a pimp's fur collar. Okay, it's almost the end of shift. I better just take it easy and grab a drink. Drive over to the gas station and lo and behold a drunken asshole harassing the clerk and the customers. Son of a bitch.

The Officer Assist

Among officers there is a certain understanding, a code if you will. Regardless of race, gender, creed, we are brothers and we are blue. If trouble befalls one of our brothers then we shall befall that trouble. On one occasion we were setting up for a rather massive raid. 40 vehicles were brought in to raid a single apartment complex with the end goal of nabbing a violent offender. All 40 vehicles met at one location prior to initiating the raid, and just then an assist comes out. A university police officer was fighting four suspects about six blocks up the road. 40 vehicles and their officers immediately forgot about the raid. We'll get that guy later. Right now a brother is in need. We shut down the entire area through sheer saturation. There was absolutely no chance for the suspects to escape and all were caught. The officer was mildly injured but was amazed at the sheer tonnage of help that came for him. And we're not even on the same dept.

And then there's the other side. The ones who abuse, or try to abuse, this code among brothers. There's nothing criminally illegal about having an affair. A marriage, in the eyes of the state, is a civil contract. So an officer sleeping with someone else's wife isn't a criminal act, but it is an immoral one and will likely result in administrative discipline. An officer sleeping with another's wife, and then having the husband come home to catch them will be in a tricky situation. An officer who leaves all his uniform parts and weapons in another room, which the husband finds before catching his wife and the officer will likely lead to a fight or just tragedy. Now if the officer does all that, he should take his lumps, or dish them out, retrieve his equipment and take the punishment he's going to get. What he should not do is call for an assist and attract every officer within 20 miles, as well as helicopters and press, to his location because he was entirely unable to keep his dick inside of his pants, as well as deal with the consequences. That's how you lose your job. Don't do that.

Credibility Issues

There are some things I am prepared to believe. The universe is expanding at a given rate flinging the very stars themselves further apart. I can't observe it, but I trust the astrophysicists when they tell me that this is true. I believe them because I trust their ability to outperform my own ability to measure stellar light and all that. I am willing to believe that Jesus, or Gesua of Nazareth, was crucified sometime around 33AD. I can't prove it, but I am willing to accept that this happened as it is well known that ridiculous numbers of people were nailed to bits of wood in various configurations at the time. What I am not prepared to believe is that you, a man with his pants undone and a condom mounted upon his dick and a known prostitute in the passenger seat, were not about to have sex in your car. I have yet to find the fast food chicken place that requires a condom to go through the drive through. Don't bullshit me.