Curbchek, page 14
He pointed the gun first at the trooper, then at the other patrolman. Finally, he settled on me. We’d spoken just a few weeks earlier, friendly talking about the trouble he was drifting into. I don’t know if it was his interest in gangs or drugs that was driving him, or more likely that he just didn’t like going home before his virulent, alcoholic father passed out for the night. He was barely 18, but I think somehow in this fucked up world he found himself in, he wanted to die.
He was no longer just pointing the gun, but decidedly aiming at me. I fired four times, the other officers firing almost simultaneously. The shooting was strangely quiet for me; I only heard my gun go off. The patrol cars all had their sirens on, but I never heard any of that. I never heard the other guys’ guns go off, either. All I had in focus was Jack aiming at me, and that was what I concentrated on.
He dropped to the ground, and I started First Aid. The shoot bothered me only in that I knew where Jack was coming from and what his life was like. It still left me numb. Jack was looking for his way out - through me. I had no desire to kill or hurt him; I just wanted to live myself.
What was also burned into my consciousness from that night was my sergeant, Leeds again. He turned on me, fearing I had a leg up on him as he’d never had what he saw as the “macho romance” of a shootout. From that point on, he actively went after me every chance he got. He was one sick fuck, angry that his career ended years later without ever shooting anyone, leaving his trophy case apparently empty.
Jack lived. On the way home that night, I called the hospital and checked on him. Two of his fingers had been shot off, one round went into his chest, and another blew his dick off. At the hospital, they laughed that they’d roughly cleaned up the injured gangster without an anesthetic.
I hung up, no longer sure what planet I was on. Once healed, Jack was sent to prison.
A little later, one of the patrolmen contacted me to say that they were removing a bullet from an inmate I shot and wanted to know if I needed it as a memento. It wasn’t mine, and why would I want it if it were?
Chapter 32
The Chief and Parking
One day I came to work and, sitting in the afternoon briefing, heard this: we were told that under no circumstances would we be parking against traffic in the city from that day forward. We all looked at each other, puzzled at such a ridiculous statement. We asked why this was being brought up. There had to be a reason to contradict the state law that said we could violate any traffic law necessary to effect an arrest or come to the aid of a citizen or another officer - so what was up?
It turned out that the Chief had been chewed out by the city council for someone parking against traffic. He felt threatened by it and felt that his job was in jeopardy. We were told that his exact words were that he “would not go down for this alone.” If anyone was caught parking against traffic, they’d be given days off without pay and lose the privilege of the take-home patrol car. We were getting used to this from the Chief; everything that happened was about him, how it related to him, and how he was perceived in the press and by the city council. He didn’t look out for the best interests of the department; he just looked out for his own best interests. He’d been self-centered as a sergeant and a lieutenant, and now as a Chief he was unbearable.
So we left the briefing, and right out of the office I got a call; it was a woman and a man in a dispute over property in one of the poorer parts of the city. I headed out east bound, then arrived and saw a woman pushing a shopping cart full of her possessions. She was almost to the intersection of a main street, only one or two houses west of it, and she was in a heated argument with a large white male. He was extremely animated and shoved her a couple times, slamming her into her cart.
I caught a break in traffic, then cut across, parked against the traffic, got out, and interrupted the fight, stopping it before it really got out of hand. There was a crowd gathering to watch the possible fight, and I dispersed them.
I was busy dealing with the two people. The woman had called and wanted her things from the guy, who happened to be her landlord; it was a civil case, which is always a pain in the ass. She was basically going to be homeless because the landlord wanted his rent money and had legally evicted her. I was there as a mediator, trying to get the two upset adults back into “adult mode” thinking, back into reality, and I was just about finished when Sgt. Gus walked up. Looking upset, he said to me, “Are you almost done?” I said that I was. He said good and told me to meet him in the station when I was done. I had no idea why, but I could tell it wasn’t good.
Turned out, the Chief drove past the call while I was parked against traffic – and he was furious. He sent out orders to have both me and my Sgt. relieved of duty for not obeying his “order” about parking against traffic. I spent the rest of the shift writing and explaining to Sgt. Gus and the Duty Lieutenant why I did what I did. I didn’t do it to challenge the Chief; I did it to protect the woman from getting her ass kicked. I made sure that I quoted state law and explained what I did with the public’s well-being in mind.
When I left that day, I was relieved of duty, as was Sgt. Gus. The Sergeant and the Duty Lieutenant both said, though, that they thought that I’d acted correctly and that the Chief was really out of line.
By the next afternoon, I was back on duty and all punishment had been dropped for both Sgt. Gus and myself. Apparently, the senior staff had confronted the Chief and told him that they wouldn’t support his action. They also told him that he’d have a revolt from within the department if he continued to punish us for taking the correct action in protecting the public and doing our duty.
I heard that the final deciding factor for the Chief was that, if it got out to the press, it would be really hard to explain that one of the officers had put himself in danger to protect a citizen, driving against and parking against traffic due to the emergent nature of the situation and breaking up a fight in progress between a homeless woman and her landlord - only to have the Chief drive by afterward and second guess that decision. Once again, the Chief chose what was best for himself and dropped it. No apology, no explanation; it was just dropped.
The police department really didn’t like our Chief; he constantly butted heads with everyone. He even refused to pay us during the Y2K scare.
We were required to be on call and had to make plans for our families to be taken care of should the power grids fail and civilization as we knew it fall; seriously, they really overreacted to this, and we were on 12-hour shifts and on call.
We were required to be reimbursed for being on call, as well as for the overtime for the 12-hour shifts, but the Chief refused to pay us out of his budget. He wanted it come out of the city’s budget.
He called a mandatory meeting - which we had to be paid for as well - and told us all point blank that he wouldn’t pay us for the extra time.
He said, “If you don’t like it, then sue me. I don’t care; I’m not paying.”
This was his idea of employee relations.
We did start a class action lawsuit, after which the city wisely decided to pay us.
To make matters worse between me and the Chief, I ran into another Chief that I knew from another department. The chiefs have a yearly meeting where they all get together, and in this meeting my Chief was bragging about how good shots his officers were. He asked me if it was true that one of the guys intentionally shot a guy’s dick off...I was speechless. I’d made that shot on purpose, yes. Being 60 feet away, I thought I was missing Jack Converse during the shooting; so, I lowered my weapon’s aim to the groin area, thinking that I was shooting high because that’s common at night. Jack had suffered the consequences.
To hear that the Chief was bragging about this in a Chief’s meeting somewhere, I was shocked, angry, and now disliked him even more. He never even so much as acknowledged me in the hallways at work, but he’d take credit for my work at Chiefs’ meetings as if he were in some way responsible for anything I did.
Chapter 33
Shoplifting a Rap Rag
One night, I was called to a large grocery store that was in the central part of the city. Store security had observed a man shoplifting and had detained him; they said they had a shoplifter in custody that had stolen a rap magazine. I arrived and contacted security, and they took me back to their office in the rear of the store. It was about 8 feet wide by 10 deep, just big enough for a desk and a couple chairs. They introduced me to a stocky muscular guy who identified himself as James Gray. I asked Gray for identification, and he said that he had none; he claimed that he had no identification at all. That was a problem for me because I couldn’t release him on a misdemeanor citation if I couldn’t positively identify him with legitimate identification. I wrote down all the necessary information from the security guards and Mr. Gray, then asked him to stand up and turn around. He stood up but didn’t turn around; instead, he said, “What the fuck is this?” I explained to him that without identification I couldn’t give him a citation and that I had to book him into jail for the $2 magazine. He said, “Fuck that. I ain’t going to jail, motherfucker.” I told him again to turn around and tried to turn him, but he refused - and the fight was on. He was really quite strong; I’d later find out that he’d just got out of prison and knew that this theft would violate his parole – and he was willing to do almost anything to avoid going back to prison. We fought pretty hard for some time. I slammed his head into the walls, destroying the drywall and really making a mess out of the security office. Finally, I managed to call for back up, and I heard a couple officers acknowledge and claim that they were en route. We were then back at it, fighting and wrestling, until finally I was able to get him cuffed. We were both covered with the white powder from the dry wall, and we looked like hell. The security officers had just backed out of the room when the fight broke out. They were scared of Gray; he was pretty buff and very intimidating. I cleaned up, and when I’d rested up enough I asked Gray what the hell the problem was, why the hell was he fighting so hard over a stupid shoplifting charge? He then told me that he was on paper and would violate his parole and most likely be sent back to prison. Then I understood at least why he acted the way he did. I talked to him for a few minutes and found out that his family was outside in the parking lot, waiting for him. Even though he was cuffed and had lost the fight, he was still combative, angry, and trying to get away. He kicked at me a couple times and tried to head butt me – and finally I had enough. I grabbed him by the head and slammed it into the wall a couple times - hard. This broke the drywall, punching a hole in it through the other side; his head was now sticking out in the storage area of the store. I pulled him back out of the hole and told him that he had a choice to make: he could either leave the store walking, or I’d drag him out like a fucking dog in front of his kids and everyone else. This struck him hard; he didn’t want his kids to see him that way, so he quit fighting and asked that I clean him up and let him say goodbye to his sons. I agreed but made it clear that if he changed his mind, I’d embarrass him as much as I could in front of his family. I cleaned him up as much as I could, and he did cooperate, so I let him say goodbye to his sons. When we got into the car, he thanked me and apologized for fighting me. He said that he thought that he could take me since it was just he and I fighting. No other cops had shown up and helped out. They’d shown up in the parking lot and signed out on the radio claiming that they were there, but they never got out of their cars; instead, they waited in the parking lot in their cars while I was fighting inside the building. Two units were in the parking lot...so much for the thin blue line.
Years later, I was training a new guy on the midnight shift. He told me that he was a security guard at that same grocery store in central city and that he’d “seen it all” working there. He then started to tell me this incredible story about a shoplifter that had refused to submit to arrest. He said that the cop was smaller than the shoplifter and that he destroyed their store’s security office arresting him. He said they talked about it for months, about how it had happened and how the guy’s head went into the drywall. He told me the whole story from his point of view, recalling how terrified he was of the shoplifter, then later how afraid he was of the cop. I never told him it was me. It never ceased to amaze me how others saw the things that were just a normal part of the job for me.
Chapter 34
Burning House Entry
One night, I was advised by dispatch that there was a report of a house fire in my area. Dispatch would often give us a heads-up on medicals and house fires so that we could help out with traffic control and securing the scene before medical arrived. Usually, we were too busy to help out unless it was really bad; however, this night had been slow. When I arrived, there were a couple cars already there. The cops were out of their cars, watching the fire. The building was a house that had been remodeled, and it was now a duplex, one apartment up and one apartment down. The downstairs apartment was fully engulfed by the fire. Everyone knew the upstairs was occupied by a group of 10 to 12 Mexicans, most likely illegal immigrants working to support their families in Mexico; we’d been to that apartment several times on loud parties. I got out and asked the group of cops that were there if anyone had exited the upstairs apartment. They said that no one had come out since they’d been there.
I was a bit anxious; I wasn’t going to sit back and watch while a bunch of people burned to death. I asked, “Well are we going in?” They said that they “weren’t going in to rescue a bunch of Mexicans.” I started towards the house, and they yelled “we aren’t gonna save your ass for a bunch of Mexicans either...you’re going alone.” I kept going. Another officer ran up to me and said, “What the hell are you doing? You’re gonna die in there!” I turned to him and said, “I’m not gonna sit out here and watch while they burn to death when I could have done something. I won’t live like that; I won’t have this shit on my conscience.” He grabbed my arm and said, “They’re just Mexicans.” I broke free from him and started up the stairs to the apartment above the fire, and he started to cry. He was scared to death but said, “Wait! Then...OK...I’ll go with you.” We went in and got the people out long before the fire department arrived. I was really scared that the fire had burned out enough of the floor in the top apartment that once we entered, we’d fall through to the fire below. He cursed me the whole time we were in the burning house; it was hot and smoky and really hard to see, and we were coughing hard while we searched on our hands and knees to make sure they were all out.
When we finally got back outside, I left. The other officers shook their heads, watching us exit the house; they weren’t impressed at all at what they felt was my stupidity. Later, the guy that went in with me would approach me. He was still mad, and he said to me, “You are fucking crazy. I heard this about you - that you do this stupid shit! You could have gotten us killed!”
It was days like this that made me feel like I lived in a different universe.
Chapter 35
Joe’s Perfect Camaro
There was a guy named Joe in the inner city that had a really sweet ‘68 Camaro. He’d put a lot of work into it, and it was amazingly nice. I used to stop and talk to him while he worked on it. He was married and had a couple kids. His wife wasn’t as excited about the car as I was, and she didn’t like me showing up and praising the work he did.
One day, I caught a call for a car that had driven through the front porch of a house, then crashed into a tree. I arrived, and there was Joe’s Camaro wrapped around a tree - completely totaled. It was a sad thing to see. I started to interview people and found out that the driver had been Joe. I couldn’t believe it.
Witnesses said that he’d come out of his apartment, got into the car, and started it, revving the motor. Then he drove it through the front porch of a neighbor’s house. He continued down the driveway and across the street into the tree, then got out and ran back to his apartment.
I went to the apartment and knocked on the door. His wife answered. She was beaten up and just pointed into the apartment and said, “He’s in there. Get him the fuck out of here.” I went into the apartment and found Joe. He was covered in sweat and drooling. I’d never seen him that way. I put him in handcuffs and walked him out of the door.
His wife denied medical treatment for her injuries; she just wanted him out of their apartment. I took him to jail, and on the way he started to hallucinate. While in jail, he started seeing bugs crawling on the walls and screamed that they were on him; I couldn’t complete the paperwork with him wigging out next to me. The other officers in the booking area were really uncomfortable with him acting this way as well, so I decided to put him into a holding cell and asked the booking officers to open one up. I put him in the cell as he ranted and raved about the bugs on him, then closed the door, sat back down, and went back to work on the paperwork. About 10 minutes passed, and I was almost done - when it became really quiet in the holding cell. I looked up, and the other officers also stopped and we all looked at each other, waiting, listening. After a few seconds, I got up and went to check on Joe. I looked through the holding cell door window, and there was Joe. He was on his knees, his head in the steel toilet, hands still cuffed behind his back. I thought that he was trying to kill himself.
What I did not know was that the holding cell plumbing had been inoperable for several days. Someone on one of the floors above the cell had flushed rolls of toilet paper down the toilet. It is a way that inmates try to fight back against the system (minor passive aggressive actions that cause disruption for the correctional officers). Anyway, the toilet had stopped working for several days. It had filled up with shit, piss, and vomit during those three days and Joe had his head buried in it.
