While home with this Christmas Break (I will not follow PC protocol and say it's a "Winter" or "Holiday" break) I plan to spend most of the time with family. One night it was all about my bro-in-law and me. He is a police officer for a local Police Department. It was the third time or so that I got to do a "ride along" with him. This is where you get to sit in the front seat for a change! Believe me, after you see what kind of societal detriments they throw in the back, you'd never want to so much as breathe the air from back there.
A sad fact about my ride along’s is that they usually all fall on nights where nothing exciting happens. Part of that is because I have gone on week nights as my schedule permits. This time I wanted to see action. I wanted to see blood, guts and COPS style action as it is portrayed on TV. At the least I wanted to see some guy get thrown to the ground and tazed. In my mind I pictured it looking like an episode of Itchy and Scratchy from The Simpsons. I was imagining that if you look real close you can see their skeleton flashing off and on while the electricity goes through them. Again, my expectations were all led by television.
I suited up in my jeans and had to borrow a moderately respectable looking shirt from Rmy brother-in-law. We then drove to the police department for briefing. This is an interesting thing to watch. Again mislead by television misconceptions, it was more like kids gossiping before class starts. The latest was about the previous nights shooting. This night was particularly juicy as one of the best videos known to cops nation-wide was making it’s way around the force via e-mail. In this video a person had been arrested for killing a cop. He was brought into a holding cell and given a bottle of water. The officer then left the guy alone for a minute. The perpetrator then took a good swig of water, screwed the cap back on calmly and then pulled a pistol out of the front of his pants. I don't know how a 9mm gun sticking out of some dude's pants is over looked by cops but that does not make me want to get a Summer home in that neighborhood. Instead of going Terminator-like on the cops, he takes in a breath of air, puts the gun to his temple and gives the trigger a squeeze. Then a little burst of blood and what I can only imagine would be what was left of his logic center of his brain make a dash out of the new cavity in his head. The cop comes in casually, looks at the scene and walks back out of the room. This is all as seen from the security camera that was mounted in the top corner of this cell. The video was appended with a warning to screen your perps better. Apparently sage advice.
The officers in the briefing room were all crowding around a monitor cheering more than drunken Irish at a winning soccer game. Then they all e-mailed the video to all their other friends. Even the female officers on the force were getting into it. Well, ok, to be honest, I'm imbellishing the reaction of the officers watching the video. But you could tell they had an almost child-like facination with it.
It was at this point that it finally sunk in. This fine blue line of ours is nothing more than a fraternity. It's a boys club. It was reminiscent of my childhood where my friend John and I would take our toy guns, put on the blue shirt that looked most like a police color and ran around the neighborhood righting imaginary wrongs. Today's police force is not that different.
Instead of toy guns they get real ones. Instead of t-shirts they get uniforms. Instead of walkie-talkies that only work when you can see the person (and hear them anyway), they have the real things (with cool shoulder accessories). Instead of bikes with playing cards in the spokes they have cars with a light bar on the top. And the cool part is they all get to play the good guy.
For the rest of the night I got to see how Officer Brother-in-Law (he was still just my bro-in-law to me, but I thought it would be nice to show some respect in public) would drive around the city at any speed desired and obey any street laws he felt like. Some of the time he did this on purpose. Others I think were caused because he was too busy using the police car computers to send instant messages to each other about where to eat or what's going on this weekend. I am confident that he felt safe from prosecution. After all; who polices the police?
When there was a call that was "cool" there were a number of cars on the scene. I used to think the barrage of cars at these things was for some purpose. The truth is that it was fun for the cops to come to each other’s calls. Then they get to hang out and swap war stories that have already been grossly embellished in 15 minutes.
This time I was expecting to see more action as it was a Saturday night. It seemed to be slow at the get-go. My sister's old boyfriend came to say hi. Officer Brother-in-Law did some paper work. We ate diner. Then we got some calls and things picked up. Officer Brother-in-Law got to show off his new toy, a palm pilot with a digital camera. He exchanged pics and contacts with another cop who had the same toy. One fun episode was about two hours before his shift ended, about 1am or so.
A resident in an apartment complex noticed some drunken men loitering and drinking alcohol behind her place. She called it in. The first officer did not notice anything. Officer Brother-in-Law thought we might as well get out and look around as we had nothing else at that moment to do. While walking around we ran into a dirty guy with a 40oz of booze on him. Officer Brother-in-Law asked him to step closer. His reply was, "Why?"
"I just want to talk to you."
"Why?"
"I just want to know what's going on."
And with that he bolted like a horse let go at Kentucky. Officer Brother-in-Law was off after him, I took another route to save running and catch them where they were headed. My bro-in-law does not fit the typical stereotype of fat doughnut loving cops, but he was loosing this guy who looked as malnourished as those pot-bellied kids from those annoying commercials that only want $.37 a day. As the perp was rounding a corner he slid on the gravel and ate it. Officer Brother-in-law jumped on top of the guy. I was just out of eye shot, but heard the commands as they were very loud.
"Put your hands behind your back, now! (pause) Put your hands behind your back or I will use the tazer! (pause) Put your hands behind your back right now or you will get tazed!"
Just then I came around the corner and saw the guy face down in the rocks, hands being cuffed and a tazer going back into its holster. I assume that he dug the gun so hard in the guys back that you couldn't hear the usual sparks and clicks that usually accompany the jolt of electricity. I didn’t see the taze. For all I know I missed a show of flashing light and hair sticking up on end. Oh well, there is always next time. My bro-in-law seemed all too eager to give me a chance to experience it first hand, albeit in jest. I declined.
With the news of an actual chase 4 cars came quickly. Scruffy McGee's pockets were checked and found to be full of bars of soap, Axe body spray and razors. It seemed that he had been out shoplifting, which would explain why he was as jittery as a jackrabbit on coffee at the sight of us. He never said a word after that second "Why?". We took him to the station. That was when I realized how gross the back of a cop car can be.
At the station this joker really knew how to exercise his right to remain silent; this included such information as his name. We finger printed him. After that he did say his name to another cop. He seemed to hold a grudge against Officer Brother-in-Law for tazing him. If this other officer asked direct questions he could get something out of him. Low and behold, our man had a warrant for his arrest in another state. He must have had a few reasons to run from the cops. He refused to be cooperative so he was booked. If this idiot had just told us he was sorry for loitering and left the premises he probably would have spent the night in whatever brand refrigerator box he called home instead of that holding cell he made camp in. Then again, maybe he preferred that. I would.
While in the lockup other cops came and went spreading new gossip and stories. One I thought that was amusing was from some motorcycle cops. Three of them went into a convince mart to get some coffee. The first one gets his coffee, pays, says "thank you" to the turban wrapped employee and waits at the door for the others. The next guy has the exact same thing. The turban asks if that was all. That was. Then the last cop comes. He is the larger of the three. He places down his stuff which is the same as the last two. The turban looks at the stuff, up at the cop, then back at his coffee. He pulls his head up and looks at him and asks, "Did you want any doughnuts with that?" The cop interpreted it as, "You look like a fat pig. I bet you are wondering where our treats are for you." He took it personally, but laughed it off.
After putting away evidence and finishing paperwork, we returned the police department’s car and sluggishly headed home in my brother-on-law's car as the sun came up. On the back of his rear window he has stickers for a fraternity of cops that he belongs to. I though it was an honorary kind of thing at first. After spending a few nights with our boys in blue I came to realize that this really is a gaggle of frat boys having fun. As much as I have made fun of them and somewhat demeaned our thin blue line I do have to admit that regardless of personalities and methods, they do get the job done. It's nice to know that we have men and women who will risk personal safety for us. They are an unusual breed of people, but we do forget sometimes that they are just people too.
They are people that kids look up to. The kids that never fully grow up become them.
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