In my relatively brief 6 years as a police officer I could always point to one fact that I was proud of. I had never lost a fight with a suspect. A few were close, but I was able to hold in the fight until help arrived. This changed last night. My help, in theory at least, should have been right there with me. I will now begin to rant. Be warned, incoherent venting may follow.
So I'm cruising around in a beat up old Caprice last night (probably the last one still rolling in the city) when I see this little red Volvo come flying off of the Burger King lot sideways. Hmmmmm, say I, perhaps I should speak with yonder fellow about his driving habits and lack of taillights. Upon activating my handy blue lights the fine young man in the volvo decides he doesn't want to hear my advice and goes hauling down the street. Katie bar the door, the chase is on. After the first hard turn he makes he blows a tire and I know the end is near. I glance at my training partner, whom I will refer to as Bobo the Wonder Rookie, and say "he's gonna wreck out. When he does be ready to run." Bobo nods and tightens his seatbelt while trying to suck peices of the seat up with his sphincter muscles.
Sure enough, the guy wrecks out. He bails out and gets hung up in a thick row of hedges in the nice people's yard that he drove through. I make my dramatic leap from my car door and tackle the fellow. Through the hedges we go and the fight is on. "Bobo! He's fighting! Get your tail over here!" I yell while getting dragged though the bush and pummeled about the head and shoulders while trying to simoultaneously hold onto the jerk offs leg and get my feet back under me in the mud. No Bobo. So we fight some more and I drag him down into the mud with me. Thats when he starts trying to pull my gun out of my hoster. Not good. Not good at all. So we are rolling around fighting over my gun now. "Bobo!!" I scream, "He's got my gun! SHOOT THIS <expletive of your choice>!!!!" Again, no Bobo. So we fight some more with me now just trying to pin his arms so he can't get a better grip on my gun and shoot me with it. All the while I'm thinking, my partner is right here. I just have to hold on and he'll either shoot this bastard, or at least jump in the fight and as soon as my weapon is secure we are going to dance on this guys head. Oddly, Bobo still doesn't step in. So after what had to be at least two minutes of fighting (felt like 20) I regain full control of my weapon. This is good. Unfortunately it involved me taking both hands off of the suspect to do it. While doing the inner happy dance about not being shot I am brought back to Earth by the suspects fist crashing into the bridge of my nose, ruining my movie star good looks. Remember Roy Jones getting knocked out? It wasnt that bad, but I know how he feels now. I drop to my knees for a second and the suspect, seeing that I now have my pistol back, and deciding that I might just be crazy enough to shoot him on general principles at this point does A FRIGGIN BACKFLIP over the fence we were fighting against, landing on his head in the process. By the time I secured my weapon and got back to my feet he had apparently beamed back up to the mothership, because he had vanished from the material plane. Since my radio had not survived the initial impact with the ground I began moving towards my car to use its radio to ask for more cars, a helocopter, and a nuclear strike if I could get one.
Thats when I found Bobo.
Bobo the Wonder Rookie was standing on the passenger side of the empty friggin car that we had been chasing WITH HIS GUN OUT AND POINTED OUT THE EMPTY PASSENGER SEAT. Nice to know I was safe from the invisible man, but I really would have prefered help with the guy kicking my ass in the bushes. I didn't hear you calling, he says. I'm 20 feet away, screaming for help, and he didn't hear me. I didn't see where you went, he says. Its not rocket science. The car door is open. My driver door is open. The suspects door opens into a bush. What are the odds that we are on the other side of the bush? I politely ask Bobo to wait in the car while I use a water bottle supplied by the nice people who own the Bush of Doom to clean the blood and mud from my face while my merry band of fellow officers beat the bushes and start checking the 12 foot deep drainage ditch that the suspect apparently jumped into and fled down.
So here I sit, with a bag of frozen peas on my face (Don't knock it till you try it) debating whether I'm more angry at the jack off who got away (though we talked to his mother later, he's a habitual motor vehicle offender, its a felony for him to drive) or my rookie, who I plan to send back to the academy if I can remember where I put the reciept. Of course there is a silver lining. I can use the broken nose as an excuse to take Thanksgiving week off.
My rookie feels terrible. He knows he screwed up badly. I almost feel sorry for him. Then I remember how much I like doing things like, oh I don't know,
like BREATHING, and I'm ready to beat him to death with his own arm. I'm not sure how much he's going to enjoy work from here on in.
So that was my fun night at work. I feel better now after a nice cathartic rant. I think its the injury to my pride that hurts worse than the nose. I really hate it when people get away. Be careful.
So I'm cruising around in a beat up old Caprice last night (probably the last one still rolling in the city) when I see this little red Volvo come flying off of the Burger King lot sideways. Hmmmmm, say I, perhaps I should speak with yonder fellow about his driving habits and lack of taillights. Upon activating my handy blue lights the fine young man in the volvo decides he doesn't want to hear my advice and goes hauling down the street. Katie bar the door, the chase is on. After the first hard turn he makes he blows a tire and I know the end is near. I glance at my training partner, whom I will refer to as Bobo the Wonder Rookie, and say "he's gonna wreck out. When he does be ready to run." Bobo nods and tightens his seatbelt while trying to suck peices of the seat up with his sphincter muscles.
Sure enough, the guy wrecks out. He bails out and gets hung up in a thick row of hedges in the nice people's yard that he drove through. I make my dramatic leap from my car door and tackle the fellow. Through the hedges we go and the fight is on. "Bobo! He's fighting! Get your tail over here!" I yell while getting dragged though the bush and pummeled about the head and shoulders while trying to simoultaneously hold onto the jerk offs leg and get my feet back under me in the mud. No Bobo. So we fight some more and I drag him down into the mud with me. Thats when he starts trying to pull my gun out of my hoster. Not good. Not good at all. So we are rolling around fighting over my gun now. "Bobo!!" I scream, "He's got my gun! SHOOT THIS <expletive of your choice>!!!!" Again, no Bobo. So we fight some more with me now just trying to pin his arms so he can't get a better grip on my gun and shoot me with it. All the while I'm thinking, my partner is right here. I just have to hold on and he'll either shoot this bastard, or at least jump in the fight and as soon as my weapon is secure we are going to dance on this guys head. Oddly, Bobo still doesn't step in. So after what had to be at least two minutes of fighting (felt like 20) I regain full control of my weapon. This is good. Unfortunately it involved me taking both hands off of the suspect to do it. While doing the inner happy dance about not being shot I am brought back to Earth by the suspects fist crashing into the bridge of my nose, ruining my movie star good looks. Remember Roy Jones getting knocked out? It wasnt that bad, but I know how he feels now. I drop to my knees for a second and the suspect, seeing that I now have my pistol back, and deciding that I might just be crazy enough to shoot him on general principles at this point does A FRIGGIN BACKFLIP over the fence we were fighting against, landing on his head in the process. By the time I secured my weapon and got back to my feet he had apparently beamed back up to the mothership, because he had vanished from the material plane. Since my radio had not survived the initial impact with the ground I began moving towards my car to use its radio to ask for more cars, a helocopter, and a nuclear strike if I could get one.
Thats when I found Bobo.
Bobo the Wonder Rookie was standing on the passenger side of the empty friggin car that we had been chasing WITH HIS GUN OUT AND POINTED OUT THE EMPTY PASSENGER SEAT. Nice to know I was safe from the invisible man, but I really would have prefered help with the guy kicking my ass in the bushes. I didn't hear you calling, he says. I'm 20 feet away, screaming for help, and he didn't hear me. I didn't see where you went, he says. Its not rocket science. The car door is open. My driver door is open. The suspects door opens into a bush. What are the odds that we are on the other side of the bush? I politely ask Bobo to wait in the car while I use a water bottle supplied by the nice people who own the Bush of Doom to clean the blood and mud from my face while my merry band of fellow officers beat the bushes and start checking the 12 foot deep drainage ditch that the suspect apparently jumped into and fled down.
So here I sit, with a bag of frozen peas on my face (Don't knock it till you try it) debating whether I'm more angry at the jack off who got away (though we talked to his mother later, he's a habitual motor vehicle offender, its a felony for him to drive) or my rookie, who I plan to send back to the academy if I can remember where I put the reciept. Of course there is a silver lining. I can use the broken nose as an excuse to take Thanksgiving week off.
My rookie feels terrible. He knows he screwed up badly. I almost feel sorry for him. Then I remember how much I like doing things like, oh I don't know,
like BREATHING, and I'm ready to beat him to death with his own arm. I'm not sure how much he's going to enjoy work from here on in.
So that was my fun night at work. I feel better now after a nice cathartic rant. I think its the injury to my pride that hurts worse than the nose. I really hate it when people get away. Be careful.
) 
...I think I'd have also had the Dept. K-9 "train" with him for "awhile" (without the padded "bite" suit on).
