Say Cheeto

Posted on May 13, 2017 by Badge415

On Sunday afternoon, I was dispatched to a “check the welfare” call in a run down and densely populated neighborhood that has more cars than space to park them.

The call indicated that a male was sleeping inside a yellow truck for the last three hours with the engine running. As I responded to the call I hoped he wasn’t dead because it was time for lunch.

I turned left onto the street from the main highway and saw the yellow truck parked along the curb. Its color was like a banana in a pile of apples at a farmers market.

I got out of my patrol car and walked up to the driver side, spying empty beer cans in the truck bed. The engine was running and a man was in the driver seat with his eyes closed.

From the look of the empty beer cans I figured he was dreaming of splashing in a Modelo beer pond with a boozy smile on his face.

I knocked on the window, but he didn’t wake up. Since he didn’t move I tried the door handle and was relieved to find it unlocked. I opened up the driver door at the same time the other officer opened the passenger door.

This guy was a heavy sleeper because he didn’t budge. I looked at his right hand and saw what looked like dried blood on it. I looked around the truck, but I didn’t see any blood on his clothes or in the truck.

I nudged his arm and told him it was the police and to wake up. He woke up with the disoriented look of a 3 year old who had a rough night.

After he woke up the other cop spoke to him in Spanish because he didn’t speak English. It turned out he worked all night and then drove here to drink with friends. He was tired and went to sleep in his truck.

When we were done I asked what happened to his hand. The other cop translated my question and the male replied back in Spanish.

It turned out it wasn’t blood…… He devoured a bag of Cheetos before going to sleep. It must’ve been the hot Cheetos because his hand looked more red than orange.

I wanted a picture of his Cheeto conquest, but he smeared the evidence as he rubbed his hands. I got him to stop and asked if I could get the pic.

I almost said, “Say Cheeto,” as I took the picture.

Tore up from the floor up

Posted on November 8, 2016 by Badge415

The call went out as a fight on the fifth floor of a hotel involving numerous subjects in a room. A two-man car was dispatched and went on scene. I happened to be driving by and decided to stop.

I took the elevator up and turned left when the doors opened up. There was an officer standing outside the room with a male, who was a hotel guest with five other people.

After talking with him for a few minutes, I learned his friend was a mean drunk and all-around party buzzkill. He told me she was out of control and yelling.

I could tell his shirt was stretched from being pulled on, so I asked him about it. He looked down at the stretch marks and told me the party buzzkill drunk had done that when they tried calming her down.

She sounded like a keeper.

We stood by while the other officer went to speak to the hotel management about the room. It turned out there were so many complaints about the room the hotel wanted them out. The officer came back and gave them the bad news.

The group heard this and started gathering their belongings while the drunk buzzkill was still on the floor. After everything was packed they tried to get her up.

I was still in the hallway when one of the female friends said, “She’s still swinging. You guys are going to have to get her.”

We walked into the room just in time to see her get up from the floor. Her hair was like she stuck her finger in the light socket. Her clothes were disheveled and she looked like a hot mess. In short, she was tore up from the floor up.

I walked into the hallway to get out of the way of “tore up from the floor up.” I stood against the wall as the group walked by. She then started walking down the hall like the floor shifted for her.

It was like she was a piece of metal and I was a magnet as a 170lbs hot mess went toward me in slow motion. There was nowhere for me to go as her head and body bounced off of my chest like we were a in a pinball machine.

The friends grabbed her as they looked at me and said, “Sorry!”

The party buzzkill next walked up to the fire door in the hallway and punched it. The door started to close as her friends said, “Calm down. They’re going to arrest you.”

When they got to the car she wouldn’t get in. She put her arms on top of the roof and leaned on the car as they tried to push her in. After a few tries they got her in.

The entire scene was hilarious. Too bad I didn’t get a picture of her hair. That would’ve made this story perfect.

She was a train wreck

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Badge415

It’s always entertaining to see a person make a complete fool of themselves after drinking too much. The other night, I pulled up to a single vehicle collision on a residential street. The driver, who had been drinking, was speaking with officers. His girlfriend was standing off to the side with another officer.

As I walked up, there was one thing that stood out about them. Their emotions were like night and day. He was calm and respectful. She on the other hand, was a bloody hot mess that reminded me of a train wreck.

I’m not talking about a regular train wreck. I’m talking about a multi-casualty train wreck with hazardous materials and farm animals on board.

The woman was wearing a dress and had dried blood covering her left leg from her toes all the way up the thigh. It wasn’t just a little bit of blood. It was a lot of blood.

Her right leg was also covered in blood, but not as bad as the “Friday the 13th” thing that she had going on with her left leg. She looked straight out of a 1980s horror movie.

She had blood smeared across her neck with a small flap of skin peeled back and hanging just under her chin. She had a ton of snot running out of her nose onto her upper lip. This look was completed by 20 minutes of non-stop crying as she asked to stand next to her boyfriend.

At first she claimed she had fallen, but she later admitted to being in a fight with her sister. That explained the flap of skin on her neck where she must’ve been clawed during the fight. She also told us she wasn’t in the vehicle when the crash occurred, but we learned that was a lie too.

Just in case, I asked the woman if her boyfriend had done this to her. Her face turned serious as she looked over at him and said, “I’d tell you if that motherfucker did this to me.” I almost laughed at the way she said it.

She then went back to crying and sobbing as she said, “I want to stand next to him.” Talk about a mood swing. At one point, she told an officer she needed a hug. She looked like Frankenstein with her arms sticking straight out as she walked toward the cop for her hug.

I wondered if her boyfriend secretly hoped he’d get arrested just to get a night away from her. Later on she said, “I’m not drunk.”

There’s one thing for sure about this particular call. You just can’t beat watching a drunk and bloody woman trying to get a hug from a cop at 2:30AM. It was priceless.

By the way, she refused help from the fire department.

Two different types of drunks

Posted on November 17, 2015 by Badge415

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The other night we were in the 7-Eleven parking lot on a DUI crash. When I first got there, I saw a male standing in front and didn’t pay much attention to him. Where I work, it’s not uncommon to see people hanging around 7-Eleven with nothing to do. I figured he was just one of those guys.

I did my interviews and the DUI driver was arrested. He was a happy drunk and was very cooperative. He was a carefree guy and was handcuffed with no problems. After he was arrested the driver smiled and said, “Come on. Let me go.” The patrol officer then took him to the car and had him sit in the backseat.

That’s when the guy from in front of 7-Eleven started walking toward us with his hands out like a drunk zombie as he said, “Arrest me instead.”

What a guy, right? It was out of the ordinary for a stranger to act like this on a collision call, but then again, nothing is too weird at work.

We told the guy to step back and go away, but he wouldn’t listen. He kept coming closer and closer. He eventually got arrested and became a bigger idiot after he was handcuffed. The officers took him to the car so he could get a ride with the DUI driver.

Well, he didn’t want to get into the car. The officers took the DUI out and asked me to standby with him. During this time, the other drunk was yelling, screaming and telling everyone what he really thought of cops in his best Rated R language.

That’s when the DUI guy said, “Look at this guy. He’s full of shit. I’m not like that. Let me go.”

I told him, “We appreciate it, but we just can’t let you go. We have to do our jobs.”

“Come on. Let me go.”

“You were DUI and you crashed into that woman. Plus, you don’t even have a license.”

“I know, but look at him. I’m not like that.”

It was funny to listen to nice suspect while the other guy was being such an ass. It almost made me want to give the guy a freebie. Not really. I was kidding. It was amazing to see how a regular call could go downhill in a matter of seconds because of a drunk knucklehead who wasn’t even involved.

That’s police work for you though.

“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?