Minor Foot Pursuits?

Picture this: you are downtown....drunk, cop rolls by and tries to talk to some guy who takes off running. Said cop bails out of the car and chases after him, leaving car behind and unsecured.....I'm going to go ahead and say right now I would REALLY have to resist the urge to not hop in that car. I mean of all the crimes to go to jail for...that one might be worth it.

Okay, okay, truth is I'm too pretty for jail so I'll have to keep myself as a law abiding citizen but it's a good thing I wasn't there when this situation arose the other night in Gotham. Meanwhile I was in dispatch listening to the officer call "minor" foot pursuit while chasing drunken idiot. Fyi, there really is no such thing as a "minor" foot pursuit but that was this officers way of saying "Let's not create a scene now, I don't need the entire PD down here, just need somebody to make sure another drunkie doesn't steal my car." Pretty entertaining stuff. The suspect was apprehended quickly and car was retrieved.

We just had a class of rookies graduate from the academy last week and hit the streets with their FTO's [field training officers] so I am expecting some good entertainment out of that, although so far I've only seen a couple of our current guys on shift sign on with a rookie in the car, maybe once we get to the opposite shift next week there will be more of them, and hopefully fun stories to follow. I've heard good things about this class though, everyone seems to think we will get some good officers out of the bunch, congrats and hats off to them for making it through the academy. I've seen first hand the stuff they put those poor kids through and it is no picnic. Well, until next time, stay out of those cop cars! Drivers seat or behind the cage :)

Ride Along.

I've done several ride alongs now since I have started dispatching, two with tweedle dee and this last one with a female officer that works on the opposite shift from tweedle dee and tweedle dumb and is currently on days. Now there are a couple things I'd like to point out about this last ride along that might not readily occur to you: for some reason most people seem to think day shift would be better; Ladies and Gentlemen I am here to to tell you it is not. There are some officers and dispatchers that I know would disagree with me here but I really cannot fathom why I would EVER make a voluntary decision to be on day shift. First of all, it is fkn hot outside during the day in the summer. I was seriously melting out there, it was humid and nasty, I was sweating my face off and when you are getting in and out of the car every two minutes to stand outside and talk to morons about car keys, you never stay in the "air conditioning" of the patrol car long enough to cool off. And that's just me in civilian clothes, the poor officers in those horrrrrible bullet proof vests and the rest of the uniform have to be near dying. Now on top of that I feel as though the level of bullshit to be dealt with in the course of a regular day is a lot higher than a regular night. I mean you've got all sorts of brass listening to the radio, there to hear you if you slip up and say something funny or what have you, not to mention everyone in the city is awake and wants to call the police for EVERYTHING. I feel like at least some of the bullshit subsides at night when some of the citizens [aka the ones with jobs] go to bed. Then you get to deal with the hoodlums of the city who at least usually keep things interesting by doing illegal things that you actually want to arrest them for as opposed to the public service calls, the kids not listening to parents, the info calls, the general useless waste of time kinda calls. So in keeping with the theme, allow me to tell you a story:

The female officer and I roll up on scene and the tweedle dumb of her shift is already on scene, [I lovingly call this one funfetti, but he def has similarities to tweedle dumb I introduced ya'll to last post! haha but I love them both!] he's there with another officer I'll call Mom, since he's the mommy of the zone...really just the mommy for Funfetti because someone has to look after him, thank goodness Mom is there, he even carries an extra key of Funfetti's for him in case he loses his...or locks it in his car since apparently there has already been an incident with that lol. Anyway, guess what our call is about?? KEYS! Apparently these upstanding citizens we went to visit didn't have a mommy to keep a spare key for them and that led to some serious problems in their lives! Mommy and Funfetti inform us upon our arrival that the gentleman who is standing before us in oversized basketball jersey and matching nikes seems to be missing his keys...hmmmm what a terrible travesty.... and naturally since he is missing his keys he assumes the female, who is standing at a vehicle next to him, has taken them. So what do we do when we are grown adults and our keys are missing and we think our girlfriend took them? We take her keys and "dispose" of them, obviously! The answer was very clear to this man and that is exactly what he did. So here we are...3 officers and one dispatcher in a pink polo standing there watching these two winners of Gotham society whine at each other about keys with their peanut gallery sitting on the porch cheering them on. Now about this time Superwoman, which is what I'm going to call the female officer because that's what she has to be in order to deal with the other officers in her zone [haha jk lovvvve ya'll ;)] annnnd these upstanding citizens, asks Mr. Genius where the keys are. Conversation as follows:

"Where are the keys?"

"They ain't here"

"Right but where are they?"

"They ain't here"

"Okay, but where are they?"

"They ain't here"

About this point I seriously consider punching this dude in the throat just for being so fking annoying. Superwoman I suppose is more tolerant of irritating men, being as she is a female officer, and decides to just stop bothering to ask him. The story gets even better when Superwoman, in her all knowing ways, says do either of you even have a license? No, no. Of course not. You don't need one of those to drive in Gotham City do you?? C'MON people! This shit is completely absurd. Needless to say there's nothing the police can/want to do for you when you are that stupid and want to bicker like children over car keys. I spent that particular 20 minutes baking in the sun and poor little Funfetti had to stand out there too with his hair gel melting down his face for absolutely. NO. reason. This my friends is why I appreciate my bat cave aka dispatch with it's climate controlled environment.

BBQ Chicken

So last night was fun. The police platoons have rotated again so I'm back with the officers I have worked with the most and there are several favorites on that shift we are extra nice to. We had a bunch of food in dispatch last night that we all brought in so we shared with a select few. 2 of my personal favorites I'll lovingly call tweedle dee and tweedle dumb, are never separated very long, everyone jokes that if they get to far apart it stretches the embilical cord. I swear it's like they have radar on each other. Anywho, they came in to eat and visit for a hot minute last night and after a couple minutes we got a breaking and entering call in progress in their zone. Of course tweedle dee was right in the middle of pulling out a piece of chicken to eat. Now don't worry, this skilled veteran officer still got his chicken and ran down the hall to his car chowing down, and both tweedles headed out of our lot lights and sirens to make it to the call. I found out later to my glee and entertainment that once they arrived on scene our boys went in foot pursuit of the suspect, tweedle dee bailed out of the car still chewing. Of course they caught their guy and had him in custody in no time, these officers know how to multi-task ; ).

Gotham has been busy the past few nights, all sorts of craziness going on. We had a young adult commit a violent crime on a family member and no sooner had the officers arrived on scene and started looking for the suspect than I took a call from a court employee that had the suspect and his mom in her office where he had come to turn himself in and had the weapon in the car. It was surprising to say the least. Good tho because the last time we had an incident like that happen on my shift I lost all my officers but 3 to the investigation out looking for the suspect and trying to control the crowd so I was stuck running a ton of other calls city-wide with 3 officers running the city...less than fun.

"Get somebody out here I'm being A HOE'D!" [no one I've encountered yet knows what that means but apparently it's happening in Gotham]

Here is a word to the stupid: if you call the police, keep in mind calls are sorted by priority, aka if you are not in immediate danger, the cops are going to the calls where someone is first and you might have to wait a few minutes or more sometimes a few hours. There are only so many officers to go around and if what you're calling about can wait, sometimes it will have to, what will not help is if when the police don't come fast enough for you, calling back and lying and reporting shots fired or some other nonsense that isn't happening...that my friends is illegal.

First Two Days of a Long Week Rotation.....

I really love having to explain common sense to people. Sometimes I really wonder what percentage of the population still has any. For instance, "No ma'mm, the officers cannot force your 40yoa cousin to leave her house and come live with you just because you think she'd be better off with you." I mean there's probably a reason she doesn't want to come with you, I'm thinking you're probably pretty annoying since you openly admit she's not a threat to herself and perfectly capable of taking care of herself, you just want her to come live with you because her mom died and now she's alone....maybe she wants some time alone to GRIEVE! Either way it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know the police can't make a grown woman go somewhere she doesn't want to for no real reason at all. 

Also, if there are bunnies in your yard and you have a dog, 2 perfectly normal things are going to happen: the dog is going to chase the bunnies: that's called instinct. 2, if you try to catch the bunnies they are going to try and bite you. duh. DO NOT CALL 911.

And another thing while I am ranting, if you are going to be rude and trashy to the police, and then you are going to try and run from them/fight with them, then it should not come as a shock to you when you get pepper sprayed/your ass beat. This is not a valid reason to start screaming police brutality. Bet you aren't screaming about how much you hate the police when you get into one of the million situations you want them to come fix now are you? Oh no, then you want them there yesterday and you want someone arrested NOW. right. 

Let me leave you with this:

"Gotham City 911"

"Someone broke into my house and turned my heat up"

sure they did sir. we'll have the police there faster than you can say "I'm a looney!"

Opps.....

Do you know what is really awesome about my job? The fact that I am not face to face with the idiots on the phone or to the officers when they are testing my nerves. (The firefighters/medics rarely have reason to test my nerves.) This way you see, I can say all sorts of smart-ass things to/about them and they nevvvver know and no one is the wiser.....up until your transmit button sticks and you have what they call an "open mic". 

That open mic thing is soooo not my friend. I've had many of these occurrences since I started dispatching, one when I first started and was still in training that was pretty funny. I was talking to a detective on channel 2 and I listened to every word he said, wrote it down, gave him a 10-4 and then said "I have no idea what he is talking about". All kinds of on the air for everyone to hear. Luckily that was on channel 2 which is not listened to as much as channel 1. Still pretty funny tho. Now I've said allllot of smart-ass things to officers thru my computer monitor, most of the time simply in a joking manner, sometimes in a "i really wish he were standing right in front of me so I could smack him upside the head" manner. But it goes both ways, the officers do it to us too, it's a love/hate relationship. However, last week I said it right to him....all over channel one....completely accidentally.....

Now keep in mind there is a certain unit of officers, who do not take regular calls, they sort of run around on their own looking for people up to no good, doing their own thing. We'll call them Secret Squirrel unit since dispatch never has any idea what they are doing. Now these are mostly really good cops on this unit, they get stuff done...however, God love 'em, they can be extreeeeeemely annoying at times. They usually stay on a different channel doing whatever it is they are doing and then they pop up on one and create havoc when they are right in the middle of some craziness and we have no idea what's going on. It's just the nature of the beast I guess, not really their fault, but all sorts of a pain in the ass. So naturally, I was all kinds of excited last week to know they were on special assignment and had their very own channel with their very own dispatcher to bother so I would not have to worry about them.....wrong. AS SOON as I sat down at my console one of them keys up. Really?? So I answer the officer, "Go ahead" and then...release my transmit button.......guess what gets stuck and I don't realize it...that f&%*ing transmit button, that's what. So guess what I say all over the air for alllll the officers and sgts and goodness knows who all to hear? 

"Go ahead....WHY IS HE ON MY CHANNEL ISNT HE SUPPOSED TO BE YOUR PROBLEM TODAY???" 

yeaaaaaaaa big opps. I couldn't help but laugh...hysterically actually. It was pretty funny. Luckily the officer must have been capable of sharing in the hilarity of the situation because he just moved right along without saying a wordddd. HAHA! For the record, it was simply a joke because I am a smart-ass like that but yeaaa. Let's say I used my mouse to click the button for the rest of the night and NOT the button attached to my wireless that likes to stick........

Naked People and Bears.

So you know its going to be a fun day when you receive a call about a naked guy jacking off 4.5 minutes from your house. Yup, that's what happened to me today. Then 6-7ish officers proceeded to try and catch naked guy and get him to put some clothes on and get a girlfriend or something. Yea...he's still at large.....my doors are locked and I'm going over to Daddy's later to pick up the shotgun. 

New call. Neighbor gets in fight with other neighbor about neighbor b playing loud music at 4am, neighbor a and neighbor b begin to fight and fall down stairs, neighbor b is naked. So clothed and pissed neighbor rolls down stairs and fights with another naked man[clearly these were men women just do not fight other naked women unless there is a man invovled] what a great day in Gotham.

BOLO[be on lookout for] Bear in ******area....use caution and if located do not feed the bear. Yea. That really happened and yea it had the part about feeding the bear in it.

Foot Pursuits. Gotta love 'em. Love them even more when the officer keys up on his radio to say "subject in custody" and doesn't let go of the button before yelling "don't freaking move!".

Me: District 6 did you want me to leave you on this call or free you and mark you at your current location?

District 6: 10-4

...........i mean really????

Parental Discretion Is Advised.

Now, let me start this by saying, I have just 2 days ago vowed to stop cursing. I will fail at that task for this blog: [there will be lots of offensive language so either love it, don't read it, or get the hell over it :) ]

Caller: OMG OMG OMG GET THE POOLICE OVER HERE  MIKE IS BEATING THE FUCK OUT SHANAYNAY

Dispatcher: Ok ma'mm what is the address?

Caller: It's over here at *insert location* HURRY UP JUST GET THA POOLICE OUT HERE OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

Dispatcher: Ok ma'mm what apt?

Caller: I mean I dunno shiiiit. JUST GET THE POOLICE OVA HERE FUCK HURRY UP I MEAN SHIT

Dispatcher: Ma'mm I need to know the apt number, does he have any weapons?

Caller: I DONT KNOW, SHIIIIT FUCK HE IS BEATING HER ASS I TOLD YOU SHIIIIT

Dispatcher: Ma'mm can you see them?

Caller: SHIIIT FUCKKK JUST GET THEM OUT HERE

Dispatcher: Ma'mm I can do two things at once, they are coming I need to know the apt and I need to know if he has any weapons.

Caller: SHHIIIIIT I DON'T KNOW! JUST GET THEM OUT HERE FUCCCKK

[this continues for several moments, we'll fast-forward to the good part, also I am paraphrasing but this is really how this woman was talking, and this next part is a direct quote]

 

Dispatch: Ok ma'mm I need you to answer my questions, is she going to need rescue?

Caller:We'll what am I calling you for? SHIIIIT FUCKKK *best part* I THOUGHT YOU WAS A 911 LADY?? SHIIIII FUCKKKK