So I'm at work last night riding a two man car with my partner, who also happens to be my best friend. James and I have been through some real crap togther. We've been in fights, had a guy try to rob us when we were in plain clothes, had a bum try to carve us up with a box cutter, and even once had to disarm and subdue a suicidal police officer with a gun to his head. Last night was our latest adventure, and could well have been out last. We get a shots fired call at a local apartment complex. For those of you who aren't police officers in the city of Memphis, shots fired in the area with no complainant is considered a routine call in the hood. 99.9% of the time it will be some fool who goes out on his front porch, caps a couple of rounds into the air, and then goes back inside long before police arrive. Without a complainant to tell us where the shots came from all we can do literally is to drive down the street and look for bodies. Familiarity builds complacency, even when gunfire is involved. Thats precisely how this call came out. Shots fired in the general area, no complainant, no description, no specific location that they came from. We pull through the complex full expecting not to see anything, as has happened at least twice a night for as long as I've worked this precinct. Well, this was aparently that 0.1% of a time that it was different.
As we are cruising through the complex we come up behind a group of Hispanics, one of whom produces a pistol from his pocket and fires a round up into the air. Well then, I guess we should do something about that, us being police and all. I go to bail out of the car and make a remarkable discovery. Its really hard to open a door and draw a pistol at the same time. After an appropriate curse I succeed my multitasking and produce my pistol and announce our presence and order Mr. Mexico to drop his weapon or face dire consequences, nearly exhausting my knowledge of the Spanish language. Mr. Mexico was not impressed with either my pistol or my linguistic skills and chose rather to flee on foot into a narrow stairwell between two apartments. A brief description of the layout of these apartments. Each building has four apartments. Two downstairs and two upstairs. There are three doors on the ground floor. Two for the apartments, the third opens into an enclosed stair that goes up to the other two doors. It is a narrow hallway aprox 15 feet long with no turns, branches, or cover. This is what Mr. Mexico fled into, no doubt expecting to be able to be inside one of the upstairs apartments before we could get to him. Sadly for Mr. Mexico, both upstairs doors were aparently locked by residents who were more than willing to help drug dealers hide from the police (we've chased people up these stairs before) but active shooters with police hot on their heels are a different story. I'm a moron with no common sense so I chase this fool into the narrow hall way of doom, with James hot on my heels.
Picture the scene. Two rather large police officers at the base of the stair expecting to see a door slamming shut in their face. An armed hispanic gang member at the top of the stairs suprised to find he is trapped and turning to point his gun at the police officers. Two other male hispanics who also fled into the stairwell with their friend who are now caught in the middle. You would not be mistaken to believe that the next 5 seconds or so would be a bit tense for everyone involved. Bystander one makes a brilliant tactical decision and throws himself face down onto the stairs, clearing himself from the line of fire. Bystander two was nice enough to stand directly in front of me with a terrified look on his face, providing cover for me until I grabbed him with one hand and tossed him down the stairs behind me to get him out of the line of fire while I take aim at Mr. Mexico with the other hand and start to pull the trigger. Fortunately for everyone involved the delay in tossing bystander 2 gave me time to notice that there was a problem with Mr. Mexico's weapon. The slide was out of battery. Stove pipe jam. Thank you Lorcin for making such remarkably crappy weapons. While James deals with Bystander 2 I charge Mr. Mexico before he can figure out why his pistol doesn't work and smack him square in the head with my pistol. Not a departmentally approved technique, but hey its better that getting shot. He drops his gun and goes down and I holster and pin him. But the fun isn't over yet! As he hits the ground (remember, we are on stairs) a SECOND pistol comes flying out of his waistband. What is this, a friggin Die Hard movie? Is the pistol fairy going around just dropping guns off? Jeez. He looks as suprised as me by this development, shakes off being stunned from the bonk on the noggin, and the fight is on. I'm now fighting with a small wiry construction worker on a flight of stairs with two pistols on the ground under us. Fortunately, he wasn't very good at it. First order of business, get away from the weapons. According to James, the first he knew that the struggle had ensued was when he turned from securing the second bystander (don't want "bystanders" to shoot you while you cuff their buddy) and saw me riding Mr. Mexico down the stairs like a sled. Not in the mood to wait for a third pistol to appear, I elected that the wiser course would be to agressively subdue our new friend. A few knees and elbows later and James makes it down the stairs to join in, electing to open up his can of spray in the process. Our spray is a mixture of OC and CS. A lot of CS. In an enclosed hallway. Imagine the fun. Between the spray, the pummeling, and the addition of James's assistance Mr. Mexico was finally subdued and cuffed. As is usually the case, our requested backup (looked like the whole precinct, God bless em all) pulled up as we were stuffing our new friend into the back of a car. The second pistol turned out the be a Marksman BB pistol. You know the one, looks just like a 45. The POS he pointed at us was a Lorcin 25, 6 in the magazine and an empty lodged in the ejector port. We ended up releasing the "bystanders" without charge and charging Mr. Mexico with Agg. Assault x2, Unlawful Possession of a weapon, evading, resisting, and reckless endangerment. He'll probably plead guilty and serve a weekend in jail or something. Remarkably no one was hurt, with the possible exception of Mr. Mexico's ribs and left elbow (dont try to twist out of an arm bar). Best part of the story, he crapped his pants. Police work isn't like the movies. 99% of the time it is boring, routine, and primarily involves driving around in circles, taking reports that no one will ever read, and playing referee and babysitter. Then you have something like this. Then you go back to boring routine. No wonder we tend to die young of heart problems. I just felt a need to vent and decompress a bit.
As we are cruising through the complex we come up behind a group of Hispanics, one of whom produces a pistol from his pocket and fires a round up into the air. Well then, I guess we should do something about that, us being police and all. I go to bail out of the car and make a remarkable discovery. Its really hard to open a door and draw a pistol at the same time. After an appropriate curse I succeed my multitasking and produce my pistol and announce our presence and order Mr. Mexico to drop his weapon or face dire consequences, nearly exhausting my knowledge of the Spanish language. Mr. Mexico was not impressed with either my pistol or my linguistic skills and chose rather to flee on foot into a narrow stairwell between two apartments. A brief description of the layout of these apartments. Each building has four apartments. Two downstairs and two upstairs. There are three doors on the ground floor. Two for the apartments, the third opens into an enclosed stair that goes up to the other two doors. It is a narrow hallway aprox 15 feet long with no turns, branches, or cover. This is what Mr. Mexico fled into, no doubt expecting to be able to be inside one of the upstairs apartments before we could get to him. Sadly for Mr. Mexico, both upstairs doors were aparently locked by residents who were more than willing to help drug dealers hide from the police (we've chased people up these stairs before) but active shooters with police hot on their heels are a different story. I'm a moron with no common sense so I chase this fool into the narrow hall way of doom, with James hot on my heels.
Picture the scene. Two rather large police officers at the base of the stair expecting to see a door slamming shut in their face. An armed hispanic gang member at the top of the stairs suprised to find he is trapped and turning to point his gun at the police officers. Two other male hispanics who also fled into the stairwell with their friend who are now caught in the middle. You would not be mistaken to believe that the next 5 seconds or so would be a bit tense for everyone involved. Bystander one makes a brilliant tactical decision and throws himself face down onto the stairs, clearing himself from the line of fire. Bystander two was nice enough to stand directly in front of me with a terrified look on his face, providing cover for me until I grabbed him with one hand and tossed him down the stairs behind me to get him out of the line of fire while I take aim at Mr. Mexico with the other hand and start to pull the trigger. Fortunately for everyone involved the delay in tossing bystander 2 gave me time to notice that there was a problem with Mr. Mexico's weapon. The slide was out of battery. Stove pipe jam. Thank you Lorcin for making such remarkably crappy weapons. While James deals with Bystander 2 I charge Mr. Mexico before he can figure out why his pistol doesn't work and smack him square in the head with my pistol. Not a departmentally approved technique, but hey its better that getting shot. He drops his gun and goes down and I holster and pin him. But the fun isn't over yet! As he hits the ground (remember, we are on stairs) a SECOND pistol comes flying out of his waistband. What is this, a friggin Die Hard movie? Is the pistol fairy going around just dropping guns off? Jeez. He looks as suprised as me by this development, shakes off being stunned from the bonk on the noggin, and the fight is on. I'm now fighting with a small wiry construction worker on a flight of stairs with two pistols on the ground under us. Fortunately, he wasn't very good at it. First order of business, get away from the weapons. According to James, the first he knew that the struggle had ensued was when he turned from securing the second bystander (don't want "bystanders" to shoot you while you cuff their buddy) and saw me riding Mr. Mexico down the stairs like a sled. Not in the mood to wait for a third pistol to appear, I elected that the wiser course would be to agressively subdue our new friend. A few knees and elbows later and James makes it down the stairs to join in, electing to open up his can of spray in the process. Our spray is a mixture of OC and CS. A lot of CS. In an enclosed hallway. Imagine the fun. Between the spray, the pummeling, and the addition of James's assistance Mr. Mexico was finally subdued and cuffed. As is usually the case, our requested backup (looked like the whole precinct, God bless em all) pulled up as we were stuffing our new friend into the back of a car. The second pistol turned out the be a Marksman BB pistol. You know the one, looks just like a 45. The POS he pointed at us was a Lorcin 25, 6 in the magazine and an empty lodged in the ejector port. We ended up releasing the "bystanders" without charge and charging Mr. Mexico with Agg. Assault x2, Unlawful Possession of a weapon, evading, resisting, and reckless endangerment. He'll probably plead guilty and serve a weekend in jail or something. Remarkably no one was hurt, with the possible exception of Mr. Mexico's ribs and left elbow (dont try to twist out of an arm bar). Best part of the story, he crapped his pants. Police work isn't like the movies. 99% of the time it is boring, routine, and primarily involves driving around in circles, taking reports that no one will ever read, and playing referee and babysitter. Then you have something like this. Then you go back to boring routine. No wonder we tend to die young of heart problems. I just felt a need to vent and decompress a bit.
(and I mean that in a respectful way sir) Great job by you and your partner, glad nobody got hurt too bad. Thanks for doing what you do. :thumbup: