Where’s his foot?

Posted on November 18, 2015 by Badge415

_DSC4559-2 The other night I went to an injury traffic collision involving a motorcycle and a car. The first officer on scene got on the radio and said it was a possible fatality. He also needed more traffic control to shut down the street. I was on a car stop at the time and gave the driver a break because I had to go.

As I drove away with my lights and siren on, I thought how this guy got a huge break on an expensive ticket because the other guy crashed. Kind of weird how one person’s misfortune was another person’s luck.

When I got to the scene, I saw the rider down in the street with fire personnel around him. There was a large group of people standing on the sidewalk watching.

His femur was sticking out of the skin above the knee in wound that looked right out of a war movie. There was also a large piece of flesh in the middle of the intersection that looked like a slice of cheese pizza.

After looking at the injury, I walked around to where his head was. That’s when I did a double take at the victim’s leg. It didn’t look right. From my angle the end of his leg looked like a pointy stub. The first thing that came to mind was, “Where’s his foot?”

I then looked around the area for the missing foot. I didn’t want anyone to trip over it or kick it around. As I did that, I thought how bizarre it was to be looking around for something like that.

I walked around the victim again and guess what I saw? His foot!

Thank goodness it was still attached, but it didn’t look the way it was supposed to. His shoe was off to the side and his foot was pointed down in an unnatural angle. It’s kind of funny now. I just hadn’t seen it right the first time.

One this is for sure, it’s not every day you get to say, “Where’s his foot?” I’m glad the victim survived with both feet still attached.

Get a license

Posted on November 17, 2015 by Badge415

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I go to a lot of traffic collisions involving drivers who are unlicensed. You’d be shocked how often this happens. It happens so much, I’m amazed when I go to a call where all of the drivers have licenses. When that happens, I want to hug each driver just for following the damn rules.

This past weekend reached new lows when it comes to unlicensed driver crashes. On Friday night I went to a crash where a driver with a suspended license crashed into an unlicensed driver.

It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does I find it kind of ironic. Out of the thousands of cars on the street at that moment, what are the chances of those two finding each other and crashing?

Fast forward to Saturday night.

The night was very busy and I ended up handling six crash investigations. Of those six, three involved unlicensed drivers. On the first call, an unlicensed driver made a left turn in front of a woman with a suspended license. On the next crash, an unlicensed driver was involved in a street race when he lost control and hit another car. On the third crash, an unlicensed DUI driver rear ended an unlicensed woman.

The night left the tow truck companies happy because of all the money they’re going to make from the impounds. I wondered what was going on. Had the world turned upside down and all of the unlicensed drivers landed in my city to conduct a game of demolition derby?

After almost 6,000 collisions and over 15 years of working traffic, I have never seen that many crashes involving unlicensed driver in such a short time.

By the end of the night I just wanted to make it to the freeway in one piece and avoid being another unlicensed driver victim. That happened to me once while I was on-duty a long time ago, but that’s for another blog story.

“You look familiar”

Posted on November 16, 2015 by Badge415

_DSC7442 The other night I was on a three-car collision when I looked at one of the drivers and said, “You look familiar.”

He turned to me with DUI looking eyes and didn’t say anything.

“Have you crashed before?” I asked.

He nodded his head as he said, “Yes.”

“Do you remember me?”

He shook his head no.

There was a tremor in the force because my Jedi senses told me I had run into this guy before. Well, he actually ran into someone else to be more accurate. I spent the rest of the call trying to figure out how I knew him.

A little while later, the arresting officer told me our driver was in a 2014 DUI collision that I was on. I knew it. Later on I did some research and read the old report. Bingo. I knew exactly who that was.

Back in May of 2014, I was stopped for a red light when my partner and I heard a crash. I looked across the intersection and saw two cars that were involved in a rear end collision. I drove across the street and pulled in behind the cars. The striking vehicle had front end damage and smoke was coming out from under the hood.

That’s when the door popped open and the driver fell out of the car. It was as if all of his weight was against the door and he rolled out onto the street. Once on the street, he flopped around like a sea lion at Sea World begging for a treat after doing a trick. The only thing missing was a crowd, a bucket of fish and a large pool of water.

After a few moments of animal entertainment he rolled over and started doing a low crawl like a sniper was shooting at him from a clock tower. It surely would’ve won the grand prize on America’s Funniest Home Videos. In the end, he was arrested for DUI and went to jail.

It was funny to watch because it’s not every day you get to see a grown man fall out of his car because he’s so drunk. It’s also not every day you get to run into him again at another collision.

Here’s the sad thing. This is the second time this year where I’ve contacted a previous DUI customer of mine at a crash where they were DUI again.

When are these people ever going to learn?

“I gotta pee too”

Posted on November 14, 2015 by Badge415

When people don’t stop for red lights or stop signs they give all sort of excuses from “I didn’t see it” to “I stopped real fast.” Some will just lie about it and simply say, “I stopped.”

This past week an old favorite has come up again. A few women have tried using the old “I have to pee” excuse. I haven’t heard that one in a long time, but apparently there’s a reemergence of people relying on their large and small intestines to try and get them out of a ticket.

I applaud them for trying because it just gives me a reason to write a blog story. In fact, two women told me the “I have to pee” excuse while running the same stop sign on two separate days.

That excuse always reminds me of the movie Forrest Gump when he told the president, “I gotta pee” after drinking 15 bottles of Dr Pepper while at the White House.

Whenever I hear someone say, “I have to pee,” I simply reply back, “I gotta pee too.”

The look on their face is priceless. They always pause for a moment as if they’re thinking, “Did that cop just tell me he had to pee?” That’s the best part because they all have the same look. It never gets old. To show them I was reading their mind I’ve always wanted to say, “Yeah, I just said I gotta pee.”

The all time best is when a woman said, “I have to poop” after running a stop sign.

Even though I didn’t say it, I fought the urge to reply, “I gotta poop too,” but it would’ve made everything feel awkward if I had.

You never know when “number one” or “number two” is going to come up in a conversation. This is police work and people say the funniest things.

Who doesn’t love the 80’s?

Posted on November 11, 2015 by Badge415

I spent my teen years in the 1980s, which was a good thing. That decade brought us movies like Top Gun, Back to The Future and Rambo. On TV you had Miami Vice, Cheers and The A Team, just to name a few. And who could forget the music? I could go on an on about that one subject forever.

Luckily I have satellite radio and the 80’s live on inside my car. Even though the radio station in primarily on the “80’s on 8” I do switch it around once in a while depending on my mood.

We’ve listened to so much 80’s music my kids know the lyrics to some songs better than I do. They have even discovered 80’s movies, along with old TV shows because of Netflix.

What can I say? They have good taste.

Today, I was driving with my son when I noticed the radio station was on the “90’s on 9.” I looked at him and asked, “Did you change the station?”

“No, I thought you did,” He replied. “I was going to ask to put it back on the 80’s on 8.”

I thought it was cool to hear my son say that. He then said something even better.

“Listening to the 90’s on 9 is like being part of the Lewis and Clark expedition. You don’t know what to expect.”

That’s my boy. Only he could associate the Lewis and Clark expedition to the unknown of listening to 90’s music.

He gets a freebee the next time he gets in trouble.

“I have an ID card.”

Posted on November 10, 2015 by Badge415

The other night I went to a call that was a little different. When I got there I saw two crashed cars at a three-way intersection in an industrial area. It was actually an unusual spot for a collision because of its out of the way location.

There was a witness driving westbound and saw a vehicle approaching from the opposite direction with no lights on. The witness was going to flash his high beams at the car to get its attention, but decided against it in case the car was full of gang members. The witness kept going and passed the car with no lights on. He then looked in his mirror and watched the crash happen as a car pulled out from a side street.

I next spoke to the driver and asked, “Were your lights on?”

“They were dim.”

That was a new excuse I had never heard before. He probably meant they were so dim you couldn’t see them on.

After that I went to speak to the woman, who made the left turn from the stop sign. She also said the other vehicle did not have its lights on. At the end of the interview, the translator asked if she had a license.

The woman replied, “I have an ID card.”

“Do you have a license?”

“No.”

“Have you ever taken the test? I asked.

She replied she had, but failed it.

“When did you fail it?”

The woman said, “In 1989.”

After hearing that, I told the translator I was impounding the car. The driver heard this and asked, “Why?”

Her husband then interrupted and said, “But she has an ID card.”

Was I missing something here? I thought it was pretty self explanatory. She last took the test and failed it 26 years ago! Since she failed the test, we’ve had four different presidents in office, the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended.

In my head I wondered why I was even here. An unlicensed driver crashed into a car with no lights. Then the unlicensed driver had the nerve to ask why when her vehicle was going to get impounded?

The only thing missing on this call were clowns and a monkey playing with a jack in the box on the corner.

Here’s the best part. This isn’t unusual for me. Something like this happens almost every night at work. Well, except the clowns. But one day that will change when a clown crashes on the way to a birthday party. It just has to happen because this is police work and anything goes. Even clowns.

What is it like to have the helicopter looking for you?

Posted on November 9, 2015 by Badge415

The other night a call went out about suspicious subjects and a car behind a business at 2AM. When officers got there they went in foot pursuit and requested additional cops to assist.

Based on the radio traffic it sounded like the officers interrupted a burglary in progress. I was close by and raced to the area. I took a perimeter spot and parked in a neighborhood southeast of where one of the suspects was last seen. I pointed my spot lights in the direction where he might pop out and left my lightbar on so the red and blue lights would bounce off the houses.

Everything was quiet outside with the exception of the radio traffic and the idling engine of my patrol car.. That’s when the sound of our helicopter could be heard in the distance. I looked to the northwest and saw it coming our way. The sound got louder and louder as it approached the sea of police lights below.

A calm and familiar voice came on the radio as a friend of mine broadcasted from above. He told us our perimeter looked good and asked where the suspects were last seen. Officers on the ground gave a description and a direction of travel.

The helicopter then went to work circling overheard as I stood next to my car watching it fly by. The only sound in the night were the rotors making their familiar and comforting noise.

While the sound of the helicopter was comforting to me, it must’ve been horrifying to the person hiding. I never gave it much thought until that night. I wondered what was going through the guy’s head as his heart pounded inside his chest like an 9.0 earthquake. His mouth must’ve been as dry as the Mohave desert during the summer on the way to Vegas. What was it like to know it would only be a matter of minutes until the inevitable happened?

That’s when a homeowner flagged an officer down about someone being in their backyard. The officer gave the address and a moment later the observer came on the air saying, “”He just jumped over the fence into the next backyard going eastbound.”

The suspect was now in the backyard of a house on a cul-de-sac one street behind where I was. A few moments later three patrol cars drove by on their way to the cul-de-sac. One of the cars was a K-9.

The officers advised over the radio they were on scene of the house a moment later. The sound of the K-9 must have been deafening to the suspect as the dog got out of the car. The sound from the K-9 and the helicopter must’ve been too much because the guy just gave up.

The search continued for about an hour and eventually everyone was caught. It was great team work setting up the perimeter so fast. The dispatcher also did a good job on the radio keeping everything in order. It was a great example of good police work that people never hear about.

When a Big Mac hurts

Posted on November 8, 2015 by Badge415

One night I responded to the McDonald’s drive thru for an injury traffic collision. When I got there I saw a woman with an injured leg being treated by fire personnel. I thought she was a pedestrian that somehow got hit by a car. The drive thru was also blocked by a car with no driver.

I started asking around and found out the injured woman was the driver of the car at the window. Now I was confused. How the heck did this happen?

In turned out the woman, who was in her late 50s, was in the drive thru when she pulled up to the window. She gave the cashier money and waited for her change. The cashier handed money to the driver, but some coins dropped to the ground.

The driver opened her door, stuck her foot out and…….Wait. Can you see where this is going? Did you cringe yet?

She opened the driver door, stuck her foot out and reached for the change while her right foot was still on the brake. Of course, her foot came off the brake and the car rolled forward. The door hit the McDonald’s drive thru wall and closed on the woman’s leg. It didn’t close all the way, but just enough for her to never want McDonald’s again for the rest of her life.

Just the thought of her leg getting smashed by the door makes me say ouch still.

Not too long after that I was in a drive thru when a cashier dropped change as she handed me money. I opened the driver door and looked at the change. That’s when I repeated the famous line, “It’s Déjà vu all over again,” by legendary Yankee Yogi Berra.

I had already seen this before and it wasn’t pretty. I took my food and left the change on the floor. I didn’t need it that much. Just a little food for thought if you ever drop change in the drive thru. Leave it. If you’re not careful, it might be the most painful hamburger you have had with a super sized injury.

Do you have a license?

Posted on November 4, 2015 by Badge415

The excuses people tell me never get old. Sometimes it seems like the excuses are the same every time, but every once in a while you get to hear a new one.

The other night I was watching a stop sign when an SUV drove through it at approximately 15 miles per hour. I went after the car and stopped it. I walked up to the car and waited for the driver to lower the window. The window was broken so she opened the door. The fact that the driver side window was broken was probably a hint of things to come.

I asked, “Why didn’t you stop for the stop sign?”

The woman, who was in her mid-twenties said, “I made a fast stop,”

I pointed to her car and asked, “Is your car stopped right now?”

“Yes.”

“Did your car ever get like this at the stop sign?”

“No,” she said as she lowered her head.

“So, how fast were you going when you went through the stop sign?”

“Maybe 15 to 20 miles per hour.”

I asked, “How come you didn’t stop?”

“I stopped last time I went through.”

At least we can count on her stopping 50% of the time. Since she was being honest I decided to let her go with a warning, assuming she had all of the correct and current paperwork. But you know what they say when you “assume” something?

In the Badge415 world, you at least need a driver’s license to get a break from me. It’s not too much to ask for a person to have a driver’s license and current insurance. Call me crazy, but those are basic laws people are supposed to follow. A person should have those instead of excuses when I stop them.

The moment of truth came for the crucial question of the evening. I threw all caution to the wind and asked, “Do you have a license?”

“No. It’s expired.”

I just laughed inside. It always seems to happen like this. The person was so close to driving away with a warning, but instead they’re the subject of a blog story. Oh well, I tried to give her a break. It just didn’t work out.

I asked, “Why is your license expired?”

“I renewed my identification card by accident thinking it was my license.”

What?

Now, that was a new excuse I had never heard. The funny thing was her identification card was issued in 2014 and her license expired in May of 2015. Either way the math didn’t add up, but I applauded her creativity.

In the end she got a ticket for being unlicensed and I gave her a break on the stop sign. She also had to wait for her brother to show up and take the car. If she had only stopped, I would’ve never found out about her expired license.

Until the next time I stop someone. Maybe they’ll have a driver’s license…… I hope.

“Was he in the crosswalk?”

Posted on November 2, 2015 by Badge415

There’s a certain detachment that I have about my job as a traffic cop. It’s simple. A crash goes out and I go. Whether it’s a minor fender bender or a fatal traffic collision, you go and do what needs to be done.

Once at the call we handle it, clear and move on to the next. There’s no time to get emotionally invested because of the nature of the job. I’m like a band-aide. Just a temporarily fix on the wound.

Later on I finish the report and staple the pages together. I walk over to the inbox in the traffic office and I toss it in. My role in that particular collision is over.

I never see the physical or emotional scars that were inflicted by the collision after I clear the scene. I’m not there for the pain and suffering, nor am I there for the funerals or physical therapy the injured have to go through.

I don’t remember their names or their license plate numbers. My memory only gets jogged about a crash when I drive down the street and pass certain locations. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s just better to keep an emotionally safe distance away from the injuries and death that happens every night.

It’s how I can keep doing this job and still feel like a normal person when I’m at home, away from the madness. That’s what works for me.

A few weeks ago I took a major injury collision involving a pedestrian on the west end of the city. He had already been transported to the hospital before I arrived. The only thing left in the street were his shoes, clothes and a lot of blood.

Once I cleared the scene, I moved on and wrote the report just like I always do. There was no attachment because I never saw the victim and I didn’t know anything about him, other than what was on my paper work.

On Friday, I had to call the victim’s daughter because she was trying to track down her father’s identification card. Part of me didn’t want to call because that would put a human voice to the report I had already turned in.

I spoke to her and explained that her father did not have an identification card in his wallet at the scene. The family couldn’t find it and she had no idea where it could be. She then said, “I don’t even know what happened.”

I instantly felt bad for her because he was in the hospital with life threatening injuries and she had no idea what happened.

I then told her how the collision occurred and what the witness said that night. I felt bad telling her he ran out in front of the car because I’m sure it gave her a visual to go with what her father looked like in the hospital.

When I was done explaining what happened she asked, “Was he in the crosswalk?”

“No.”

The word hung in the air like a thick fog that swallowed up everything around it as she took in what I just said.

I broke the silence by asking how her father was doing. I knew the injuries were major that night, but I didn’t have any further information about him. She started crying and told me the doctors suggested they pull the plug because he was in a vegetative state.

She sobbed and took a deep breath as she said, “I can’t do that to my father. God is good and I’m praying for a miracle.”

Her words were hard to hear because of the emotion and deep pain behind them. Even though she was a stranger, I still felt for the family. He was someone’s father.

I wished her luck and we concluded our call. There wasn’t much to say after that.

Before the phone call, the collision was another in a long list of fatal and major injury traffic accidents that I’ve handled. It was report, a piece of paper that I prepared and turned in. It was nothing personal. I was business.

After the phone call, it was different. Now there was a voice of pain and sadness attached to it. That’s just part of the job.