The Stick Figure Guy

Posted on October 22, 2015 by Badge415

Anyone who has ever worked this job knows you joke around a lot. Some call it a defense mechanism to all of the things you see and hear at work. That being said, there are certain things that I find funny that the regular person wouldn’t. It’s not that I’m uncaring. It’s just part of this job.

I’ve always joked saying the Heisman Trophy looks like a pedestrian right before a collision occurs. Since I can’t put the Heisman in the drawing I have to use a Stick Figure Guy.

Last night I was finishing up a report involving a pedestrian who was hit by a car. The pedestrians in my drawings are always stick figure guys with their hands in the up position. There’s no particular reason why their hands are in the up position. That’s just the way I’ve always done it.

When the drawing was done, I looked at the computer screen and I wondered what the stick figure guy would look like with his hands down. But in reality, what pedestrian has their hands down when a car is about to hit them.

The hands in the up position as the pedestrian says, “Oh shit” was more believable to me.

Then I thought about turning in the report with the hands in a different position, like one up and one down. I clicked on the hands and it reminded me of John Travolta in the movie Saturday Night Fever. A Bee Gees song from the movie flashed in my head as my stick figure guy’s arms assumed the disco position.

Of course, this was funny to me for no other reason that just because. I guess some things are funnier at 2AM.

After that I wondered what other ways I could draw the stick figure guy in my report. That’s when I came up with the last stick man with his legs and arms bent in different positions.

I actually laughed when I saw it. That stick figure guy was probably closer to what we see at collisions when people look like human pretzels. Maybe after almost 6,000 crashes I’ve become a little twisted. Like I said, I find humor in stuff the regular person wouldn’t.

Be safe out there and don’t become the stick figure guy in a drawing. Watch for cars when you cross the street.

He just doesn’t get it

Posted on October 8, 2015 by Badge415

It’s amazing how some people can’t accept responsibility for their actions. You can see that anywhere, but you really see it in police work. People want to whine and complain when you do your job, but never realize they were the ones who brought the attention to themselves.

The other night I was working a stop sign in a residential neighborhood because of a complaint. I was there less than 2 minutes before someone ran it.

I stopped the car and asked the driver for his license. He gave me the look I’ve seen many times. The shoulders sagged at the same time the chin touched his chest with heavy breathing. It was the look of a person with a suspended license. I’d seen it so many times I could just tell.

He started looking through his wallet as he said, “I hope I have it.”

“I hope you have it too,” I replied with a laugh.

After digging for some time he gave me a mutilated California identification card. It was in three pieces and had been taped back together. I thought how I’ve seen broken legs at crashes that looked better than his identification card.

At first he told me he didn’t have his license with him. After further questioning he finally admitted it was suspended for not paying a ticket. I asked him about the stop sign and he said he stopped. After further questions he finally admitted to running it.

I checked his license status and confirmed what I thought. His driving record looked as bad as his identification card.

I wrote him a ticket for the stop sign and the suspended license. He signed it and I told him the car was being impounded.

At this point most people accept their fate and get out. They might not be happy, but they get out because there is nothing they can do about it. For the most part, they’re still easy to deal with after that.

Not this guy. He was an 18 years old cry baby who said, “Give me a chance” over and over. He just wouldn’t accept no for an answer.

I pointed out to him all the bad choices he made to get to this point, but he didn’t get it. The whining continued as he asked if someone could pick up the car for him. I told him no. He asked for another chance. Again, the answer was no. He said, “I’m begging.” Again, the answer was no. He went on and on. He just wouldn’t stop. It got to the point where he reminded me a 4 year old when they don’t get their way.

That’s when I figured out he was used to getting his way. This was how he got people to give in. He was a whiner and a cry baby. Plain and simple.

By this point my patience were running out about as fast as an Olympic sprinter going for the gold medal. This guy refused to accept responsibility for any of his actions and still thought he was going to keep the car.

I finally said, “Get out of the car. Nothing you say or do is going to change anything.”

With a hurt look he told me I wasn’t being cool. He finally gave up and exited the car. He gathered his things and acted like the victim. All I could do was shake my head and wonder how he was going to handle life when curve balls were thrown his way.

I’m guessing not well and there will probably being some whining involved too.

“Do I have to die now?”

Posted on October 4, 2015 by Badge415

On Thursday night one of our police units was rear ended by a new driver, who just got his license issued a month ago. The damage was minor and there were no injuries, which was good.

The driver was understandably nervous while I did the interview. After I was done I wrote the report number on a card and told him to call his insurance company.

He said, “What do I do now?”

“Call your insurance company and tell them what happened. Give them the report number and let them worry about it.”

“OK, but what do I do now?”

“Call you insurance company and let them know what happened,” I said again.

“But I have so many questions.”

“It was just an accident. Don’t worry,” I said.

I explained to him a couple of times that his insurance company would handle everything from here on out.

The male, who was from Saudi Arabia asked, “Am I going to jail?”

“No, it’s an accident. You can leave now. Just call you insurance company.”

“Do I have to die now?”

Where did that come from? It was something from way out in left field and I never saw it coming. Apparently this guy was really stressed out over this. After some reassuring words and some jokes he started to relax. I then wondered how they handled traffic collisions where he was from.

I told someone, “They must be really take traffic enforcement seriously over there.”

In the end, we shook hands and he actually started to smile. He went up to the officer and apologized for hitting him. That’s when I said, “Since you hit him, you need to give the officer knuckles.”

The officer and the driver gave each other a weird look at first like they weren’t sure what to do. With some encouragement from me, they held up their hands and did a fist bump. It was worth watching because it was awkward and downright funny.

Sometimes you just have to have fun out here.

When two DUI drivers crash into each other

Posted on September 6, 2015 by Badge415

A photo I took at one of our DUI check points.

A common theme of the blog is, “You just can’t make this stuff up.” The other night we had such a call. In fact, the cops on the call were still talking about it tonight.

The story starts out with two friends. We’ll call them Tom and Frank to make it easier. Tom went to visit Frank at his house. Tom and Frank decided to get drunk at the house, which was fine. But rather than stay at Frank’s house where they were safe, they decided to leave and drive in separate cars. You can probably see where this is going already.

Of course, it didn’t matter that they didn’t have driver’s licenses even though they have lived in California for over 10 years.

As they left the house, Frank was in front of Tom. Frank approached a stop sign at a major cross street and stopped. Unfortunately for Tom, he was drunk and his driving ability was about as good as a snake trying to play a piano.

Disaster was moments away for Tom as he was about to achieve Badge415 blog status. He rear ended Frank and rolled over onto his roof, sending glass all over the street. But wait, there’s more……

After the collision, Frank made a U-turn and stopped at Tom’s car. Tom crawled out and jumped into Frank’s car so they could get out of there before the cops showed up.

Frank drove 100 yards down the street to his house and pulled into the driveway. He made a clean get away except for one thing. Frank somehow felt the need to achieve Badge415 blog status also. As he pulled into his driveway he sideswiped his roommate’s truck. Frank was now at fault for the second collision after being the “victim” of the first. Tom was the suspect of the first collision and a passenger in the second.

DUI investigations were conducted on both drivers and they were arrested for driving while under the influence. They went from one house to the Big House all because they chose poorly.

You couldn’t make this story up even if you tried. It was a lot of extra work, but it was worth it. It wouldn’t be a “normal” police shift without some type of craziness to shake things up.

What do you say to a driver with a blind person’s cane?

Posted on August 24, 2015 by Badge415

The other night I responded to an injury collision involving three cars. When I arrived, I saw the usual sight of crashed cars and a fire truck on scene. One of the vehicles was in the middle of the intersection. The other car was up against a traffic signal pole and a third car was parked off to the side.

The car in the middle of the intersection had two women in it. The driver was in her late 60s to early 70s and the passenger was at least ten years older. They both had a frail look. I stood at the door and spoke to the driver through the window as fire personnel worked on the passenger. After I was done I went to speak to the other drivers.

One of the other drivers told me how she had made a left turn when she was hit by a car. The collision caused her to spin around and hit a third car and then a pole.

After I was done speaking to all three drivers, I noticed the woman from the first car was still in the driver seat. I walked up to her and asked if she wanted a tow truck. She told me she was waiting for another ambulance to take her to the hospital. The firefighters were standing off to the side and I didn’t know they had called for another ambulance.

I was standing at the driver door when I noticed she was folding up a blind person’s cane. It’s not every day that you see a driver with a blind person’s cane. It kind of raised a red flag.

“Is that your cane,” I asked as I tried not to laugh.

“No. it’s hers,” as she pointed to the passenger seat. “Mine is the walker in the backseat.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. I wasn’t expecting that answer.

It goes to show that you never know what you’re going to hear at a traffic collision. After all these years, that was the first time I ever asked a driver if they owned a blind person’s cane.

“Why didn’t you stop for the red light?”

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Badge415

People are funny because they tend to all say the same thing in similar situations when the police catch them doing something wrong. There are some answers that you can bet on to be the same every time.

These common answers can be fun to work with because you can see them coming a mile away. Of course, it depends on the situation, but there are times when I can be two questions ahead of someone because I’ve already been in that particular situation thousands of times before.

“I paused” is one such answer when it comes to failing to stop for a stop sign or a red light.

I recently stopped a man for making a right turn against a red light at an intersection without stopping. He did it right in front of me, so I pulled him over. After he stopped, I walked up on the driver side and asked him for his driver’s license. I then asked him about the violation while he looked through his wallet.

“Why didn’t you stop for the red light?” I asked.

“I paused.”

“You paused?”

“Yes, I paused.”

“Do you have a DVR at home?” I asked.

“Yes,” the man answered with a confused look on his face.

“When you’re watching a movie and you press the pause button what happens to the movie?”

“It stops.”

“So, why didn’t you stop for the red light then?

It was like the wheels were turning in his head as he squinted, trying to figure out what just happened. The look on his face was great because he wasn’t expecting that question. That might have been the first time he heard that question, but it was probably my one hundredth time asking it. This then set up my next question.

“So, you really didn’t stop, right?”

“No,” he said with a defeated look.

“She has brain matter coming out of her head.”

Posted on August 20, 2015 by Badge415

I pulled up to the accident scene and saw a car that looked like the Incredible Hulk had just torn it open and tossed it into a pole like an empty Coke can. Half the car was crushed beyond recognition was headed to car heaven.

My first thought was to check on the victim to see if this was going to be a fatal collision. As I walked up to the ambulance an officer spotted me and said, “She’s has a major head injury.”

That didn’t surprise me after looking at the car. The same officer then said, “She has brain matter coming out of her head.”

The words “brain matter” and “car accident” are never a good combination under any circumstances.

I decided to peek into the ambulance just to see if I could learn some more information about the injuries. I expected to see the paramedics franticly trying to save her life, but instead they were talking to victim in a normal voices.

Looking at the scene and then inside the ambulance was like turning the radio from a heavy metal station to a classical music station. One was chaotic and the other was peaceful.

Something didn’t look right here. People with brain matter coming out of their head usually don’t look that good. I could see her blood socked hair, but she looked remarkably well given the circumstances.

I looked back at the officer and said, “She’s talking.”

“But it’s a bad injury,” the officer replied.

I stuck my head back in the ambulance again and saw the victim having a normal conversation with the paramedics. I pulled my head back out and said, “But she’s talking.”

The fire captain then got out of the ambulance and smiled at me like he usually does when we see each other. We shook hands as I asked, “How bad is she?”

“She might have a punctured lung,” he said.

No hint of death and no mention of brain matter coming out of her head. I asked him about the head injury. The captain told me she had a large laceration, but she was going to survive. Now I was really confused.

I shrugged it off and went about my business as I handled the scene. I had dispatch send an officer to the hospital to check on the victim’s status just in case.

Later on, the officer from before walked up to me and said she wanted to show me something. She had taken a closer look at the car and saw something that explained the “brain matter” she had seen coming out of the victim’s head.

She pointed to a pizza box in the twisted wreckage and all of our questions were answered as if a giant light came down on us from the pizza gods in the sky.

It turned out the “brain matter” had been pizza that flew out of the box after the car had been broadsided, spun around and struck a pole. It explained everything and it was truly one of the funniest things ever from a collision scene.

The victim not only survived a nasty car accident, but also the flying pizza.

In my experience, brain matter usually looks like tapioca pudding. But in the officer’s defense, flying pizza could’ve also looked like brain matter if it was mixed in with blood soaked hair.

I’m just glad there wasn’t pineapple on the pizza. That would’ve just confused everyone even more.

You just can’t make this stuff up.

This job is sometimes like the Twilight Zone

Posted on August 13, 2015 by Badge415

During the opening credits of the Twilight Zone TV show, Rod Serling says, “You’ve just crossed over into… the Twilight Zone.”

It sometimes feels like I cross over into the Twilight Zone as soon as I put my uniform on. That’s part of the fun of the job because you never know what you’re going to see while on the street.

The other night there was a truck in the parking lot of a city park that wasn’t able to start. The truck had a camper shell on the back where its owners, a husband and wife, slept at night. The truck was basically a 3,000lbs tent on wheels.

When the park closed they needed to move the truck to avoid a parking ticket. Their plan was to push the trunk onto the street so they could sleep in it for the night.

One transient sat in the driver seat and two others got behind the truck to push. They then started pushing the truck through the parking lot toward the street. It was like an urban bobsled team at this point.

The truck went down the driveway as the driver made a right turn onto the street. She then made another right turn to where they wanted to park. The new bobsled team was doing such a great job they ran into a parked car.

Of course, it wasn’t just any parked vehicle. It was a parked car with two transients inside, who were sleeping. After the collision, they jumped out and saw the “driver” run away, as she left her bobsled teammates behind.

The victims were upset and started arguing with the vehicle’s owners.

When I got there we separated everyone to try and figure out what happened. Out of nowhere, one of the owners pointed to one of the victims and said, “He ran over my cat.”

“What cat?” I asked.

“My cat. He hit my cat.”

“When?”

“A while ago. I had the cat since she was 3 days old.”

“Did he run it over on purpose?”

“It was under his car when he drove away,” she replied.

How did I go from talking about a hit and run crash to talking about a cat? Then I remembered this was police work. Anyone who has put the badge on knows it can be as random as a pin ball game at the arcade.

After I was done speaking with the owners, I walked over to the front of their truck and saw a chain holding the hood down to the front bumper. It just looked weird, but then again, everything about this call was odd.

The call was finally resolved when the victims said they wanted to find another place to sleep for the night. They got into their vehicle and drove away.

It was just one of those calls that you can’t make up. The only thing missing were circus animals and a big tent.

Don’t forget to be thankful for what you have

Posted on August 12, 2015 by Badge415

Every night at work I’m reminded why I’m thankful for what I have.

The other night I responded to a single vehicle traffic collision call where a pole was struck. When I arrived, I saw the driver and his vehicle in a parking lot with a flat front tire and a damaged fender. There was a pole with minor damage not far away.

The driver, who was in his 30’s, was with his 5 year old daughter. It was after midnight and she was sleeping in the backseat. There was a spare tire on the ground next to the vehicle.

The driver was wearing baggy jeans, a white tank top, had a shaved head, tattoos, and a mustache. The top of his head had a large number 13 tattooed on it.

While we were talking I found out his driver’s license was suspended and he had just spent a little over 3 years in state prison for a felony DUI. That got me interested because you really have to try to end up in state prison.

“Did you kill someone?” I asked.

“No. I hurt someone bad.”

“How bad?”

“I don’t know. I used to drink until I blacked out.”

“How long ago did you get out?” I asked.

“A year ago.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m 34.”

“How many years of your life have you been in custody?”

“Over half,” he replied.

“How old were you when you first got arrested?”

“I was 9.”

“You were 9?”

“I stole a pair of pants from JC Penny.”

“Where were your parents during this time?” Were they gangsters too?”

“I never knew my dad. I know nothing about him. My mom was a doper. They took us away from her and put us in an orphanage.”

“Really?”

“I never had a chance.”

There were two DUI convictions on his driving record and one for driving on a suspended license. He didn’t have car insurance either. He wasn’t the guy you wanted driving around you in case there was a crash.

I told him his car was going to get impounded because his license was suspended and I asked if someone could pick him up. He told me his aunt could, but she lived in Riverside.

“Go ahead and call her.”

“My phone died. I don’t have a charger.”

“Do you have any money for a cab?”

“No.”

“Do you want to call Uber?” I asked.

“What’s Uber? Is it free?”.

Oh geez…..

My dispatch called his aunt and gave her the message to pick him up. I didn’t want the little girl to be stranded any more than she was, so I said I would drop them off at a 24-hour Subway.

He went to the car and woke her up. She got out of the car with a blanket and a sleepy look on her face. I sat on my rear bumper and her asked questions about school and the Frozen shirt she was wearing. She told me she went to Disneyland today and how she was starting school soon. After we were done talking I asked her if she wanted to ride in a police car. She nodded, but she didn’t seem so sure.

I moved my stuff and then had them sit in the backseat. My patrol car has a regular backseat, so it’s more comfortable. I’m sure the dad had a Beverly Hills Cop moment like when Eddie Murphy said, “This is the cleanest and nicest police car I’ve ever been in.”

I dropped them off at Subway and told the clerk they were in a traffic accident and were waiting for a ride. I then bought the little girl some cookies. As I handed her the cookies I said, “Remember, the police are there to help you. You can come to us when you need help.”

She nodded and took her bag of cookies. The driver thanked me and I left.

Two minutes later, I was standing next to a vehicle that was completely destroyed by a DUI driver at another collision scene.

After everything calmed down at the next crash, I was able to reflect on the previous call and think how lucky I was to grow up the way I did.

Here was a perfect example of the nightly reminders at work that make me grateful for what I have and where I came from. Everyone needs a reminder from time to time.

This job cracks me up

Posted on July 24, 2015 by Badge415

Every night there always seems to be some type of comedy going on. You can go from one call to the next with crazy things happening that you could never think of. Those are the calls that make this job fun and make up for the bad experiences.

Tonight a pedestrian ran across the street against a red light. There was cross traffic at the time and a car almost hit him. After the near miss, the pedestrian turned toward that car and gave the driver the middle finger as he threw out F-bombs.

That when he was then struck by another car……That by itself was funny. You can’t make that up, but the comedy continued.

Luckily the pedestrian wasn’t hurt and there was no damage to the car. The driver was shaken from the experience and we sent her on her way with a report number. We then had to deal with the pedestrian, who was under age.

He didn’t know his address, despite living in the same location for the last year, so we gave him a ride home. When we arrived at his home we spoke to his sister because his mother was at work.

She looked at him and said, “Really? You can’t obey a light?”

“I thought I was going to make it, but I didn’t make it at the end,” the pedestrian said as he laughed.

“You can’t even wait for the little man to light up so you can walk?” she said.

She then made me laugh when she told him, “Even if you’re blind you can see it.” She looked at us and said, “Give him a ticket.”

She was great with the way she spoke to her brother, but she might as well have been talking to a wall. Everything was going in one ear and out the other. After she was done giving him a tongue lashing, we walked back to our patrol cars with a good story to tell for later.

Here’s the best part. It turned out the pedestrian’s name was Angel and the witness was Moses.

There’s no way you can make this stuff up.