Photo courtesy of nytix.com

On Monday, I was dispatched to follow up an officer who had a person stopped on the freeway offramp. When I got there, the officer told me to stand by with the suspect while he called her parole agent.

He went to use the phone while I engaged  her in small talk. Some of the best stories at work have come from small talk with people. Plus, it’s better to talk than just staring at each other.

She was homeless and in her late twenties. She had tattoos on her face and neck. She also had bad teeth and was wearing dirty clothes. She was super nice and probably had some mental issues.  She told me she and her mother were drug addicts and she hadn’t seen her in about a year.

“Why are you on parole?” I asked.

“DUI,” she replied.

“Did you crash and hurt someone?”

“Yes. It was DUI with GBI, but I wasn’t driving.” She meant great bodily injury.

“How much time did you get?”

“Six years.”

“What happened?”

“I was sitting in the front passenger seat and my boyfriend was driving when my mom started choking me from the backseat. After she stopped choking me I hit my boyfriend. That’s when he crashed.”

“Wait a minute. Why was your mom choking you?”

“She was mad at me.”

“Why did you hit your boyfriend?”

“I don’t know. I just hit him.”

“Why didn’t you hit your mom for choking you?”

She gave me a serious look as she said, “It was my mom.”

I guess in the drug addict world, mom still holds a certain level of respect even when she’s trying to choke you out from the backseat.

After hearing that story a friend said, “Wow. Are they looking for the Jerry Springer set?”

You just can’t make this stuff up….