Police Officers, at least the good ones, are not lawyers with highly trained legal minds that can find, given enough time and billable hours; find tiny nuances in the law that can benefit their clients. As police officers we are required to make split second legal decisions that Oliver Wendell Homes would concur with, do it with the wisdom of Solomon, make sure we didn’t get anybody hurt as a result of our decision, arrest the perpetrator if need be, render and get aid for the victim if necessary, remember everything we did and said and everything everyone else did and said so that in eight or nine hours later we could sit and write it all down clearly, factually, and organized so that Corporal Jahns didn’t have to read our errors at tomorrow night’s role call and our patrol sergeant didn’t write a huge red X on the face sheet and make us rewrite it the next night. Now in my department like a number of other departments, new meat just out of the Academy, assigned to an FTO always worked the Fourth Watch (7:00PM to 3:00AM Wednesday through Sunday). Now once I made decisions that my buddy Oliver and Solomon would be proud of I normally found myself grabbing witness statements, scraps of paper, various pieces of equipment because in a hot division on the fourth watch business was always booming. I would more often than not have to jump in my seat while our car was moving because the Corporal grabbed a call to backup another unit or respond to a “hot tone” (an urgent, usually violent incident) requiring a code three response. Now during the short ride to the next call my mentor, the guy that held my very career in his hands was able to tell me about every mistake I just made on the last call, asked about my progress filling out the FBI job application and what he expected me to do on the current call. He would always add, try not to kill anybody and embarrass the department. And then he would ALWAYS add, try to be nice to the people and smile once in awhile. Now folks can you begin to see why my bother and sister officers might not always be as courteous and courtly as you expect us to be when we arrive? In my city every call seemed like a new adventure. Some guy that was built like a drawbridge was beating the hell out of his wife/girlfriend/bitch/cousin/or boyfriend while consuming very large quantities of beer/wine/or whiskey. You pick the variables and you would be identify any one of a number of radio calls we handled on fight nights i.e. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Not being members of the local bar association our first concern was keeping the little lady or occasionally little man alive and requiring as few as possible stitches and reconstructive surgeries as possible and yes we kicked down many doors, made more than a few entries through unlocked windows and handcuffed, maced, or batoned more than a few combatants before we had the situation calmly, carefully, and courteously explained to us and we had the opportunity to explain to Mike Tyson’s sparing partner why we just destroyed his front door. Unlike in a courtroom a police officer’s priorities are a little different than the mousey little public defender; First stay alive and try not to require a personal hospital stay, get the boys and girls in the big red trucks rolling so they can begin putting Ms. Mike Tyson Sparing Partner back together, try not to hurt the love of her life while rolling around on the floor with human Mt. Vesuvius then somehow get him out of the apartment, past twenty six of his best friends while helping him maintain his dignity in front of his five children who just realized that a nice lady from Child Protective Services is going to take them away to a strange place with strange people, because Mommy is in the hospital and Daddy is spending at least one night in jail. Oh and folks try to remember that even though we rolled as a backup unit my Mighty Muscular Mentor told the Reporting Unit that we would pull the incident number and I would be more than happy to write paper since by tomorrow morning, once the ER Staff puts our Homecoming Queen back together she will probably tell anyone tat will listen that Mr. Wonderful never hit her it was the rude, obnoxious, bastards wearing the dark blue uniforms that smacked her around and they better let her former All American husband out of jail or she would sue the department. Well I can’t worry about that now I gotta make sure I get every officer’s name and serial number for the report, then all I got to do is to remember in minute detail and the correct event sequence exactly what happened or the prosecutor will be really upset when he has to plea the evening down to a noise disturbing citation.
Ok at least Corporal Courageous thinks the blood on his uniform makes him look unprofessional, but I put us out of service back to the station so he can change his shirt. I have got to get my eyes checked, because I can’t see any blood, but I better remember everything that happened during these last two calls or my ass is in a sling. Just then an armed robbery with shots fired is kicked out, but thankfully we’re not going and the description of the shooter and his car is so far off that we will never see it. What the hell, how many chopped black Chevrolets could there possibly be in this city and even if we saw a car like that no self-respecting Hispanic male would own one and even if he did he would never have his buddy along for the ride, hell that seat would belong to his girlfriend. Just as I could imagine the soap and hot water on my hands and face back at the station as I washed the male version of the London Bridge’s sweat and stale beer smell off my skin C.C. yells at me (I decided that Corporal Courageous was the perfect name for my new pal, but C.C. was my own little pet name for the guy.) “What do you see? And what is our exact location?” I wasn’t paying attention and C.C. somehow knew it. Yup we were behind a shiny black Chevrolet chopped and I couldn’t make out the features, but that wasn’t some guys girlfriend riding shotgun. Then C.C. said, “why don’t you let the Chief know what we are doing and where we are doing it while we’re still young, but don’t tell dispatch it’s a felony stop just ask for a slow roll”. OK I’m tired, I’m pumped, I feel really stupid, and I’m riding with an idiot who’s going to stop a car with two guys in it that just shot a convenience store clerk during a beer run. Sonofabitch, where is the FBI when you need them? C.C. lights them up and as I’m about to get out of the car he tells me not to point my gun at anybody just hold it along and beside my leg just in case. Then he reminds me to be sure and smile, try not to embarrass the department and for god sake be courteous. As I walked up to the passenger side of the car I was beginning to gain a new respect for old C.C. The passenger was indeed a male Hispanic and it looked like he had passed out. Too much stolen beer, hey this job is alright I’m gonna get my first two armed robbers. C.C. wasn’t asking for any license or registration information and he was smiling and calling the driver Doc. A moment later I was told not to disturb the passenger and come over and meet Doc. He was a male Hispanic alright, but C.C. knew him. Doc was the head Trauma Room Resident at County Hospital, he passenger was his roommate, another County Hospital Resident, they had just finished a thirty six hour shift, were driving home in Doc Driver’s fiancée’s kid brother’s car and obviously had not had a beer in the last three or four years. Were the Doctors upset, absolutely not, emergency room doctors understand police work better than most people and have had to put more than a few cops back together again. Did we make illegal, racists, profile stop, you bet we did. If it happened today could those two young men file a complaint with the department? Yes they could and we would be sitting with a couple of IA Detectives trying to explain why we just didn’t go back to the station. Would those two young doctors file a complaint today? I don’t think so. Why you ask? Because even though they were both not yet thirty they knew a lot about the world. They knew that cops were not lawyers, or clergymen, or slick salesmen always smiling, or a couple of “good ole boys” from down at the Legion Hall. No they knew that these two cops stopped them because they were driving a car that remotely looked like the car driven in an armed robbery by a couple of local gangbangers who parents came from he same small town in a country south of San Diego. They further understood that some young men that share their Hispanic background join gangs, sell dope, and kill convenience store clerks, but some go to medical school, law school, and god help us become Special Agents with the FBI. They were just glad that a green as grass, former Marine who knew absolutely nothing at the time about being a good cop and an older caring, superbly trained senior patrol officer were on the street that night trying to stay alive, doing a job, and trying to catch a scumbag that killed an innocent convenience store clerk that hadn’t even had time to learn English. If in their attempts to catch the creeps they had to stop a few cars of first class, productive, honest people that were illegally delayed a couple minutes on their way home that was just fine with them.
Every word in the story I just told you is true. It happened to me. I survived and actually managed to, first be called a Rookie and not just a Recruit and after about six months, literally to the day I heard C.C. tell a citizen as he was pointing at me, “Go over there and tell that Police Officer what happened”. That day was almost, but not quit as good as a morning a few years before when an NCO, a Drill Instructor, at Quantico, pointed at me and said, “Good morning sir, how does it feel to be a United States Marine?”
Ok at least Corporal Courageous thinks the blood on his uniform makes him look unprofessional, but I put us out of service back to the station so he can change his shirt. I have got to get my eyes checked, because I can’t see any blood, but I better remember everything that happened during these last two calls or my ass is in a sling. Just then an armed robbery with shots fired is kicked out, but thankfully we’re not going and the description of the shooter and his car is so far off that we will never see it. What the hell, how many chopped black Chevrolets could there possibly be in this city and even if we saw a car like that no self-respecting Hispanic male would own one and even if he did he would never have his buddy along for the ride, hell that seat would belong to his girlfriend. Just as I could imagine the soap and hot water on my hands and face back at the station as I washed the male version of the London Bridge’s sweat and stale beer smell off my skin C.C. yells at me (I decided that Corporal Courageous was the perfect name for my new pal, but C.C. was my own little pet name for the guy.) “What do you see? And what is our exact location?” I wasn’t paying attention and C.C. somehow knew it. Yup we were behind a shiny black Chevrolet chopped and I couldn’t make out the features, but that wasn’t some guys girlfriend riding shotgun. Then C.C. said, “why don’t you let the Chief know what we are doing and where we are doing it while we’re still young, but don’t tell dispatch it’s a felony stop just ask for a slow roll”. OK I’m tired, I’m pumped, I feel really stupid, and I’m riding with an idiot who’s going to stop a car with two guys in it that just shot a convenience store clerk during a beer run. Sonofabitch, where is the FBI when you need them? C.C. lights them up and as I’m about to get out of the car he tells me not to point my gun at anybody just hold it along and beside my leg just in case. Then he reminds me to be sure and smile, try not to embarrass the department and for god sake be courteous. As I walked up to the passenger side of the car I was beginning to gain a new respect for old C.C. The passenger was indeed a male Hispanic and it looked like he had passed out. Too much stolen beer, hey this job is alright I’m gonna get my first two armed robbers. C.C. wasn’t asking for any license or registration information and he was smiling and calling the driver Doc. A moment later I was told not to disturb the passenger and come over and meet Doc. He was a male Hispanic alright, but C.C. knew him. Doc was the head Trauma Room Resident at County Hospital, he passenger was his roommate, another County Hospital Resident, they had just finished a thirty six hour shift, were driving home in Doc Driver’s fiancée’s kid brother’s car and obviously had not had a beer in the last three or four years. Were the Doctors upset, absolutely not, emergency room doctors understand police work better than most people and have had to put more than a few cops back together again. Did we make illegal, racists, profile stop, you bet we did. If it happened today could those two young men file a complaint with the department? Yes they could and we would be sitting with a couple of IA Detectives trying to explain why we just didn’t go back to the station. Would those two young doctors file a complaint today? I don’t think so. Why you ask? Because even though they were both not yet thirty they knew a lot about the world. They knew that cops were not lawyers, or clergymen, or slick salesmen always smiling, or a couple of “good ole boys” from down at the Legion Hall. No they knew that these two cops stopped them because they were driving a car that remotely looked like the car driven in an armed robbery by a couple of local gangbangers who parents came from he same small town in a country south of San Diego. They further understood that some young men that share their Hispanic background join gangs, sell dope, and kill convenience store clerks, but some go to medical school, law school, and god help us become Special Agents with the FBI. They were just glad that a green as grass, former Marine who knew absolutely nothing at the time about being a good cop and an older caring, superbly trained senior patrol officer were on the street that night trying to stay alive, doing a job, and trying to catch a scumbag that killed an innocent convenience store clerk that hadn’t even had time to learn English. If in their attempts to catch the creeps they had to stop a few cars of first class, productive, honest people that were illegally delayed a couple minutes on their way home that was just fine with them.
Every word in the story I just told you is true. It happened to me. I survived and actually managed to, first be called a Rookie and not just a Recruit and after about six months, literally to the day I heard C.C. tell a citizen as he was pointing at me, “Go over there and tell that Police Officer what happened”. That day was almost, but not quit as good as a morning a few years before when an NCO, a Drill Instructor, at Quantico, pointed at me and said, “Good morning sir, how does it feel to be a United States Marine?”
