The Paddy Wagon is a large van used for transporting a large number (in our case ten) of prisoners, usually for misdemeanor arrests such as public intoxication or outstanding warrants, due to the fact that felony suspects must be brought before a magistrate as soon as possible (and thus shouldn't wait around in a van for four hours) and that the paddy wagon operators can't actually testify to anything involving the arrest and so cannot file offense reports for other misdemeanor arrests. That run-on sentence out of the way, we can move on to the story.
I was assigned to the paddy wagon tonight, and usually that's fine as it's a simple shift with an almost guaranteed chance of going home on time. I was partnered with an officer who had only recently been transferred to my area, and since I'm still not allowed to drive, I was the navigator giving directions. I anticipated running out the the armory to replace my gun sights, going to Comms to return their stuff, and visiting the Quartermaster to return his stuff; all things I'd missed doing since I was gone for the last several months. Instead we were immediately dispatched to collect a prisoner from the Adult Probation Office down south. That's fine. Just because I anticipated a quiet start doesn't mean I don't have a job to do, and it's rare that they have anyone for us anyway so I chalked it up to bad luck. Immediately after that we were sent to collect a shoplifter from the far north corner of the channel. But before we could even get there, a woman turned herself in at the substation, so we stopped to collect her. As we're leaving the substation, a detective calls and says he has three burglars that need to go downtown. I'd like to digress here.
These three burglars were born between 1986 and 1993. They broke into a home on the same street as one of my problem halfway houses and were caught almost immediately because one of them is so incredibly stupid he doesn't know how to shut his mouth, even while hiding from the police. They're not just burglars, but they're terrible burglars as they're caught almost every time they go out, to go by their records. I only wish they broke into the crazy-man halfway house and were clubbed to death by various bits of furniture and footwear. Never underestimate an insane Korean man with a flip flop.
So having collected six people now, we decided to go to jail to turn them over, and we're notified that holdover has three more prisoners for transfer and that we can't go to jail without them. So we drive down to hold over and I go inside to collect the prisoners while my partner moves one of our male prisoners to a patrol officer's vehicle to make room for a rather heavy transfer prisoner. I go upstairs and meet a rather drunk, smelly, and horribly tempered tiny woman. The first thing she decides to do upon finding out that I'm there to take her to county jail is to try and fight.
Personally, I'm not fighting. My right leg is still smaller than my left, and it hurts every day so I'm not risking it in a knock-down, drag-out brawl. Luckily this lady is about five feet tall and about 120 pounds so I simply pick her up by the arms and pin her against the wall while the corrections officer helps me restrain her with cuffs. She made the poor decision to try and fight again at county jail, though I wasn't present (I was collecting various warrants) and she was soundly brought to the floor.
All this took about 5 and a half hours to sort out, though luckily the rest of the day was spent prepping the van for turn over to 1st watch. Not a terrible day.
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