The 12 year old who drives

Posted on October 30, 2015 by Badge415

The other day I gave two traffic presentations at a junior high school. The first class were eighth graders and the second were seventh graders. Before the first class started, the teacher told me the seventh graders were going to be a challenging audience compared to the eighth graders.

The first presentation went off without a problem. The kids had good questions and liked the crash pictures I showed them. When class ended, the kids clapped and most of them shook my hand as they walked out. Wow, what a group.

Then the next class came in. There were nice and attentive for a while, but the teacher was right. This group of kids were more challenging for sure.

During the second class there was this boy in the front row that was restless and talked a lot. I figured he was one of the people the teacher was talking about. At one point he held up his hand and said, “I’ve driven a car before.”

“Really? Where?” I asked.

“In the desert.”

I didn’t know what to say to him other than, “OK.”

He then said, “And on the street.”

“You mean the city street?”

“Yeah.”

As a joke I asked, “Where do you live?” but I didn’t expect anyone to get it.

The boy was about to answer when another boy in the front row started laughing. I looked at him and asked, “Did you get my joke?”

He nodded and said he had. I put my hand up in the air and said, “Give me a high five since you were the only one that got that.” The kid smiled and slapped my hand.

I looked back to the the unlicensed driver in the front row and asked, “How old are you?”

“Twelve.”

I stood there and shook my head because I knew the kid was telling the truth.

He then asked, “What would you do if you saw me driving?”

“I’d take your car away and give your dad a ticket.”

The kid give me a funny look at the same time some of the kids started laughing. I then told them a story about a 12 year from a long time ago that I caught driving. The kids were amazed and paid attention while I told it because they were all about the same age as the kid in my story.

At the end of the class I spoke to the teacher again. She told me the unlicensed driver in the front was one of her challenging kids, along with a few others in the class.

Something tells me I might be seeing that kid again. Let’s just hope it’s not on a car stop when he’s 12 years old. If i do, I’ll be writing an impound report that night…..

“Is your license really valid?”

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Badge415

The other night I decided to watch a stop sign in a neighborhood because of a complaint. I parked at an L shaped intersection in plain view for all to see. I was parked along the curb in the dark when this car passed me on the left as it approached the stop sign. The car rolled through the stop and made its turn like I wasn’t there. I threw my lights on and stopped the car, wondering what the heck the driver was thinking.

I walked up to the car and asked the driver why she didn’t stop for the stop sign and if she saw the police car. At first, the driver told me she stopped. After further questioning and a Jedi Mind Trick, she admitted to not stopping. I next asked her if she had a license.

“Not with me,” she replied.

“Where is it at?”

“It broke in half two days ago.”

That was one of the dumbest excuses I had ever heard. Now I was sure her license was either suspended or she was never issued one.

“Is your license valid?”

“Yes.”

I walked back to my car and entered her name into the computer. I knew it was a waste of time because there was no way her license was valid after the “broke in half” excuse. Call me skeptical, but it was a gut feeling.

Of course, it wasn’t valid. Her license expired in 2009 and she had two prior convictions for driving on a suspended license. Her license wasn’t just barely expired. It was really, really expired.

I couldn’t believe she tried telling me it was valid, but it was a nice try. I went back up to the driver and asked her about her license. She again told me it was valid. When do these people give up?

She next said it was set to be renewed in December of 2015. She was getting nervous at this point and started talking more and more. She then said something about failing the written test.

I asked her how many times she had failed the written test in the last year. She said, “Six times.”

“You know, they don’t make you take the test six times if you already have a valid driver’s license?”

“I have to take the test to renew it.”

That’s when she threw out one more excuse, hoping it would stick on the wall somewhere.

“I have a permit.”

“Ok. Show it to me.”

“It’s in storage,” she said.

“That doesn’t make sense. No one would put their permit in storage when they need it to drive,” I said.

Now she needed a diversion. She raised her voice and told me cops make her nervous because of all the things that happen on the news.

“Have I done anything wrong?” I asked.

“No.”

Good, I wanted that for my body worn camera in case she tried to complain about me. I went back to my car and started writing her the ticket. I also called for a tow truck.

When I went back up to the driver door she was upset. She signed the ticket and asked to keep the car. I told her it was getting impounded because her license expired 6 years ago.

She exited the car and said, “I bet you’d let me keep the car if I was white.”

I almost laughed when I heard that since the driver and I were both Hispanic. I wanted so bad to say, “Nope, I’d take the car if you were white too,” but I held my tongue.

Then with a mean and sarcastic tone she said, “Thank you for protecting and serving,”

“Your welcome,” I replied.

She turned toward me with all the evilness she could muster. She even threw some imaginary darts my way with her eyes. Who cares? She lied and I was just doing my job. She could’ve stopped for the stop sign and made things easier for both of us.

After she left I told the tow truck driver what she said. He laughed as he said, “You take everybody’s car. It doesn’t matter if they’re white, black, Asian or Hispanic. If they’re wrong you take the car.”

At least the tow truck driver knew I was fair!

A few days letter there was a note in my mailbox at work from the driver. She left it after getting a release for the impound. The note said she was sorry for being rude at the end of the stop. It also said she was lagging and she finally got her license back.

She wasn’t such a bad person after all. She was just really mad because her car was impounded and that remark was the best she could come up with. At least she has her license now. I bet she stops the next time she comes up to that stop sign.

It’s not every day you get an apology from someone. I actually appreciated the note because she didn’t have to write it. Just another happy ending in police work.

The story about “My” tree

Posted on October 27, 2015 by Badge415

On Saturday night I started my shift by responding to an injury collision after a child ran into the street and was struck by a car. The investigation was simple and we were finished pretty fast. After I was done, I stood in the street and thought how it looked exactly the same way it did over 20 years ago when I was a new cop.

The apartment buildings were still old and tired looking. Some apartment courtyards had overgrown grass and others were dirt. There were vending trucks parked in front of red curbs with children standing around with no one watching them. There were also males in baggy clothes and shaved heads walking around in the shadows on a reconnaissance mission to see when the cops were going to leave.

The street was lined with cars as far as the eye could see in both directions. The cars had scratched and scuffed bumpers from the parallel parking wars that were fought here every night. There was even trash in the gutters just like the “old days.”

It was as if time had stood still on this little street since 1995. Everything was the same except for one thing. That was the tree I helped plant at the end of my field officer training.

On the last week of training I had to ride with an officer from the community policing team. This particular neighborhood was part of his area. One Saturday morning I reported to work ready to plant trees that were bought by the city.

There were people of all ages out there that morning with shovels and picks as dirt as hard as rock was broken up for the new trees. For hours people worked as a team in the hot July sun until all of the trees were planted.

After we were done, I made it a point to memorize which address “my” tree went in front of. According to my wife, I don’t remember certain things, but I still remember that tree was in front of address 175.

I knew back then I would be able to look back at that tree and remember I was part of why it was there.

As I left the collision scene that night, I stopped in front of 175 and looked at it. My son was with me on a ride along and I told him the story from long ago. I remembered digging the hole and dragging the tree to it with the help of others. We put it the hole and filled it with dirt as we packed it down with our feet. A garden hose was then pulled out and we watered it afterward. When we were done, I stood there and admired the tree with the people I had worked with to plant it.

The tree, like me, is different now after all these years. The tree looks nothing like it did when it was planted. It is taller now and its trunk is strong looking with branches reaching up to the sky. That tree, along with the others that were planted that day, have witnessed car accidents, shootings and stabbings. They have withstood the test of time just like we, as officers have.

To the people around there, it’s just a tree that no one pays attention to. To me, the size of that tree is a symbol of the years I’ve been around. It has grown and gotten stronger, just like I have grown as a cop and as a person.

As we drove away my son said, “That would make a good blog story.” I laughed a little and thought he was right.

The silent man

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Badge415

One of the best parts of this job is the people you meet on this journey we call police work.

I started working the 5PM to 3AM shift in January of 2000. Back in the day the traffic officers used meet at a donut shop for a cup of coffee at 9:30PM. It was a great time and I look back at it fondly because of all the laughs we shared.

There used to be a unique group of people that hung out in front of the donut shop in those days. The group included wannabe punk rocking teens and a group of older men who used to sit on the planters drinking coffee. Throw in a runaway or two and you had a melting pot of lifestyles. There was also a male who couldn’t speak.

The male was in his early 20s and carried a laminated paper in his back pocket with the alphabet typed on it. Whenever he wanted to “speak” he pulled out his paper and pointed to the letters as he spelled out words. He could hear if you asked a question and nodded if it was yes or no. He always had a smile on his face and I wondered what his story was, but I never asked.

After a few years the donut shop closed and moved to another location. We were like stranded tourist with nowhere to go after our cruise ship sailed away without us. The punk rockers, runaways and the cops all moved on to different spots. Even though things changed, there was one person who remained in the area. It was the guy with the laminated alphabet in his pocket.

Over the years I’d see him driving around the area. He always waved and smiled at me in his silent world. There was always a mystery about him. What was his story? Why was he always out here at night?

On Wednesday night I was on a crash in the downtown area about a half mile from the old donut shop. I was standing there waiting for the tow truck drivers to clean up when I noticed someone leaning against a pole. The person had been there for a while and I assumed he was just watching because he had nothing better to do.

I looked over and guess who it was? It was him. I decided I was going to find out his story.

I first asked if he still had his laminated paper. He nodded and pulled it out to show me. It was bent and had seen better days. I wondered if that was the same one from all those years ago.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

With a fast moving index finger he spelled out, “Jose.”

“Where do you live?”

“Homeless.”

“Where do you sleep?”

“In my car.”

“What happened? Were you able to speak before?”

“Yes. Accident.”

“You were in a car accident?”

He went on to tell me he was in a traffic collision in 1991 when he was 17 years old. His injuries were so severe it affected his ability to speak. The collision occurred on the 5 Freeway and he was a passenger at the time. I asked him where he slept at night. Jose told me he slept in the same parking lot where the donut shop was. I asked him about his parents. He said his mother lived in the area, but they didn’t get along. I asked him about where he got money to live. He replied he receives $800 a month from the state. After hearing all of this, I asked him if he was hungry. I wanted to buy him food, but he said he was fine.

After the tow truck drivers were done it was time to leave. Jose and I said goodbye and we went our separate ways. I wondered how many people had tried to speak to Jose today. I hoped I had made a small difference by taking the time to “talk” with him.

A 14 year mystery was finally solved. I finally knew Jose’s name and story. It’s tragic if you think about it. He’s 41 years old now and has suffered in silence since he was 17 years old. He only goes to his mother’s house to shower. Other than that, he’s alone with his car in silence in a world that is very loud around him.

The next time I see Jose I’m going to stop and make sure I spend a couple of minutes with him. It’s the least I can for a person who doesn’t have that much.

The thank you that meant a lot

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Badge415

You never know who you’re going to run into on this job.

On Saturday night, I got to work and headed straight to Starbucks to type reports and to get my daily drink. I walked in and headed to my usual table. I glanced over to the right and saw a man and a woman sitting at separate tables. Both were facing the door and looked up at the same time. I made eye contact with both and said hi as I dropped my computer off at the table.

After I got my drink, I walked back to my table and I noticed the woman looking at me. I nodded at her and sat down. About a minute later, the woman got up and stopped at my table. I looked up at her and said hello. She said, “You were the first responder that came to my mom’s house.”

“Which call?” I asked because I didn’t recognize her.

“You did CPR on my mom.”

I instantly knew who she was talking about. Her mother was my third attempt at CPR in less than a year.

She smiled and said, “I just wanted to say thank you.”

The words “You did CPR on my mom” instantly triggered the memory from that night. In fast forward motion, I remembered the call coming out over the radio about a woman who wasn’t breathing. I was there within a minute and arrived before the paramedics.

The family was upstairs when I entered the house. The sound of my boots jogging up the wood stairs told them that I was coming to help. I then saw a man bent over a hospital bed doing chest compressions on his wife. I went around to the other side and took over, hoping the paramedics would get there soon.

Then there was her mother’s lifeless face two feet away from mine as I started chest compressions. Of course, the two other CPR attempts went through my mind for the next two minutes before the paramedics arrived. She was pronounced dead a minute later.

I was in the hallway when the man made a phone call. The first words into the phone were, “Mom’s dead.”

All of this flashed through my head as I shook her hand and said thank you for stopping to talk with me.

“How long ago was that?”

“It was 6 months ago.”

She stood there and told me some stories about her parents and her mother’s illness. After a few minutes I pointed to the chair across from me and said, “Do you want to sit down?”

She smiled and took a seat. She told me about a trip she recently took and how she was her mother’s caregiver for years. She thanked me a few more times and finally went back to her seat.

A few minutes later I was dispatched to a call. I gathered my things and walked over to her table to say goodbye. Even though her mother died, she appreciated that I had tried to help. Her thank you went a long way that night and meant a lot.

Police work isn’t always about catching the bad guy and car chases. It’s about the people we meet and emotionally touch throughout our careers. That’s where the real satisfaction of the job comes.

I got to watch ignorance from a front row seat

Posted on October 1, 2015 by Badge415

Tonight I got to see ignorance in its purist form. Just when I thought I’d seen it all, something else comes up. I always joke around that I keep going back to work just to see what’s going to happen next. As usual, I wasn’t disappointed.

I was sent to a traffic collision involving two vehicles on the west side of the city. When we arrived, my partner spoke to both drivers while I helped out with the paperwork. The victim driver was a Korean male in his 70s, who spoke little English. The driver who rear ended him was a Caucasian female in her early 20s.

Through translation, the male told my partner he was making a right turn into the driveway when he was rear ended. The female driver said the vehicle in front of her was stopped and she never saw it slow down. I asked her what she was doing inside the car at the time to prevent her from seeing the vehicle slow down. She replied she was just driving down the street.

It didn’t take a first grader to know she wasn’t paying attention when the vehicle slowed down in front of her. The points of rest and damage supported the victim’s version of the story.

While I was filling out paperwork she kept telling someone that the vehicle was stopped in front of her. She said it over and over to a point where I wanted to say, “You just can’t go around crashing into people.” I just held my tongue as she whined and didn’t accept responsibility for what she had done.

That’s when the man, who I assumed was her father said, “Asian drivers.”

The woman replied, “Do I have permission to be slightly racist now?”

All I could say to myself was “wow” because I was only 7-10 feet away from them when they said this. It was as if I was invisible. Who would say that in front of a cop investigating their collision?

I couldn’t believe this ignorant knucklehead was actually mad at the old guy she had just crashed into. Never mind the 100 feet of pre-impact locked wheel skid marks her vehicle left before the crash. I just stood there and shook my head as I watched pure ignorance in action.

This was the perfect example of the common theme of the blog, which is, “You just can’t make this stuff up.”

Be safe out there.

How deep did I stick my foot in my mouth?

Posted on September 29, 2015 by Badge415

One night I responded to an injury collision at a freeway off ramp. When I got there, I saw two crashed cars in the intersection and the southbound lanes of the street were blocked.

There was something in the street I had never seen before. One of the drivers was sitting in a lawn chair. I’d seen a lot of things in my time as an officer, but never a chair in the street with an injured person sitting in it. I later found out the witness had taken a chair out of her trunk and gave it to the driver to sit in.

The woman looked to be about 60 years old. She had a frail look about her by the way she sat in the chair. She was leaning to the side and looked to be in lot of pain.

I asked her what happened while she was still sitting in the chair. She answered my questions in a way that made it look like she was older than she appeared. She was either very frail or had a pre-existing condition that was aggravated by the collision.

There was a man standing next to the woman the entire time. He looked to be in his mid-30s. When I was done with the interview I wrote the report number down on a card. I decided to hand the card to the male because I assumed he was the woman’s son.

I looked at the man and asked, “Are you her son?”

“She’s my wife,” he replied with a funny look.

“Oh, you look good for your age.” I said as I tried to turn a negative into a positive.

That’s when the woman in the chair said, “Are you saying I look old?”

Oops

The witness started laughing in the background as she put her hand up to her mouth. I turned toward the woman in the chair and said the first thing that popped into my head.

“Wow, that got awkward. Here’s the report number and call your insurance company.”

There wasn’t much left for me to do or say after that so I walked over to the officer who was helping me with the paperwork and asked, “How old is she?”

I found out the woman was only in her early-40s. I stood there and asked one of the firefighters how old he thought the woman was. He estimated she was about 60 years old. I then asked another firefighter and he gave the same answer. Now I didn’t feel so bad.

Of course, I told them what happened to me and they laughed at how I put my foot in my mouth.

You never know what’s going to happen out on the street.

The Star Wars couple

Posted on September 19, 2015 by Badge415

Last night I went to a call in which two parked cars were hit. When I arrived, I saw a man standing there with a Darth Vader t-shirt on. His wife’s shirt had a Storm Trooper shooting a blaster with a laser coming out of it with the words “Pew Pew.” It’s not every day you get to meet a Star Wars couple at a crash.

The driver, who we will call Frank, told me he was tired and spent the entire day at Disneyland. His wife was driving in front of him at the time in another vehicle with their kids. He dozed off and never saw the parked cars before the crash. His wife didn’t know about the collision until he called her with the bad news.

His wife was both upset and hilarious at the same time. She couldn’t believe he had crashed into the parked cars. Their car suffered major damage and she said, “I’m getting the new car. He can have mine.” At one point Frank was banished to the other vehicle as she said, “Go wait over there.”

We talked with her as we waited for the tow truck. Of course, the subject of Star Wars came up and we learned she was a huge fan. We also found out Frank didn’t become a Star Wars fan until he met his wife. From that point on, he was young Jedi in training.

As the tow truck picked up the car, it got closer for Frank to meet his fate on the drive home with his Master Jedi. When it was time to leave, Frank walked up to us and said goodbye as he held out his hand. Something told me he was going to need Yoda, Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi on his side at the same time. I shook his hand as I said, “May the force be with you.” He laughed after hearing that.

That’s when his wife said, “When he gets home I’m going to Pew Pew him.” That just made us laugh even more because of the shirt she was wearing. After all these years, I never thought I would hear the words “Pew Pew” at a collision scene.

In the end I asked if I could take pictures of their shirts. They proudly posed for the photos and shook our hands when they left.

That’s when one of the officers said, “Why can’t they all be like that?” I totally agreed. It always makes the job easier and fun when you run into super nice people.

Frank, I hope the “Pew Pew” wasn’t that bad when you got home.

Hitting the jackpot on September 11

Posted on September 16, 2015 by Badge415

Photo courtesy of Flickr

One of the fun parts of this job is the reactions that kids give when they see you walking around in uniform or sitting in the police car. Whenever I see a child waving at me, I make sure to wave back. The smile on their face and the wave back is always worth it.

On September 11, I was sitting in my car in a parking lot when a family walked by. The mother and father told their 5 year old son to wave at me, which he did. I said hi back at the same time I put my emergency lights on for him. He was surprised to see the lights come on and had the “wow” look on his face.

I got out of the car and said, “Do you want to sit in the police car?”

The boy’s face lit up as he turned toward his parents. His mom and dad told him to go ahead. He started to climb into the car when he spotted a penny that was near the seat. He grabbed the penny and tried to give it to me. I waved my hand at him as I said, “Keep it. It’s yours.”

With a surprised look he shoved the penny into his shorts pocket as fast as he could. He then sat down in the driver seat with a satisfied look on his face as I closed the door for him.

His mother took out her phone and told him to smile so she could take a picture. After the photo was taken I opened the door so he could get out. As he started to get out of the car I pointed to the area on the door where I put spare change as I said, “What’s in there?”

The little boy peeked at the door handle and saw nickels, dimes and a quarter. He looked at me as I said, “Go ahead. You can have them.”

His eyes got huge and then looked back at the coins because he had just hit the lottery. His huge jackpot eyes then looked back at me to be sure.

“Go ahead.”

He grabbed at the change like his hands were miniature Pac Mans gobbling up everything he could find. He had the biggest smile as he put the change into his pockets as deep as he could to make sure none would come out. His parents then told him, “What do you say?”

With a quick turn of the head he said, “Thank you.”

Before the boy left, I said, “Keep the coins so you will always remember that today was September 11th.”

A once in a lifetime moment in my police career

Posted on September 10, 2015 by Badge415

Everyone knows what happened on September 11, 2001, but does anyone remember the candle light vigil that was planned a few days later?

Back in September of 2001, I was on my way to work when I heard on the radio about a national candle light vigil that was planned at dusk. I didn’t think anything of it because I was working.

During that time, a new officer named Steve came to the traffic detail from patrol. He was going to ride with me for three weeks before going on his own as an accident investigator.

When we loaded up the patrol car that night I had no idea what Steve had planned for me. I thought it was going to be a regular night, but it turned out to be something much more.

Before we left the back lot of the police station Steve said, “I brought candles. We’re going to stand on the street and light them.”

I wasn’t sure about his idea. I couldn’t see myself standing on the side of the road while holding a candle. Steve seemed pretty passionate about it so I figured I would just roll with it.

As dusk approached it was time for the candle light vigil. We stopped on a small street and Steve pulled out two huge candles. The candles were so big I figured Steve was planning on staying for a while. We lit them and stood there on the sidewalk next to our patrol car.

I felt a little self-conscious just standing there by ourselves. I wasn’t sure how long we were going to stay, but Steve was in this for the long haul. There was plenty of wax on those candles so we weren’t leaving any time soon.

As cars passed, I wondered what they were thinking. I wondered if they had ever seen two officers standing on the side of the road with large candles in their hands. The answer was probably not.

That’s when something amazing happened. The moment was like the sound of a bat knocking a baseball out of the park for a home run. A little girl, her younger brother and her mother walked up to us with candles. The girl, who was about 10 years said, “Can we pray with you?”

It’s a sentence I’ve never forgotten. Out of the tens of thousands of people I’ve met on this job, she’s one of the people I’ll never forget.

“Of course,” we said.

Now we were five. We lit their candles and stood with them. We couldn’t communicate with her mother because she only spoke Spanish, so we stood there and just smiled at each other.

Then it happened again and again. More people came up and stood with us. They all had candles in their hands. Our group that started out as two had now grown to fifteen. I never expected this. Who would’ve thought this was possible?

And it continued to happen as more people came out and stood with us. They all had candles in their hands also. Before we knew it, our group had grown to 30 people.

I was amazed that these people wanted to stand with us. We had never met, but it didn’t matter. We weren’t cops and citizens at that moment. We were just people who were touched by what happened on 9/11.

Over half of the group didn’t speak English, but that didn’t matter to them or us. Our hearts and minds spoke RED, WHITE and BLUE, which was the only language that mattered at that moment.

The United States of America was attacked and they were there to stand with us and show their support. The destruction and death was at such a large scale, they felt compelled to come out.

After a while the candles started to go out and it was time to leave. The moment was over as quickly as it took to blow out a flame. The group broke apart and everyone walked back to their homes, never to be seen again.

I often wonder if any of those people look at that spot and remember how great of a moment it really was for us to come together like that. There are a lot of street corners in the city that have stories that I’ve been part of. Each corner has a unique story, but this patch of sidewalk has a story that will never be seen again. It was on moment in time that will stay with Steve and I forever.

After we left, there were people all over the streets waving American flags and cheering at the police car as we went by. It was one of those nights where it was great to be out there to witness so many people united as Americans.

It was a once in a life time moment and I’m glad I was part of it.