Not wanting to derail another thread, I thought I'd start this one. In the other thread, the merit of unloading a pistol each time you take it off was being discussed. A poster asked what LEO's did with their gun going into a correctional facility. I made the comment that they take the gun off and put it in the lock box with their car keys (to keep them from driving off and forgetting their pistol because, well, they're cops). Member 10round posted that we police a far distance away from one another, but he has the same problems with his cops that I see.

It's worth a laugh. Being the po-leece is the worst job in the world. It's also the best job in the world. It's full of funny stories that only other cops will probably understand. Kinda the way that IT understand the pains of other IT guys, and most of the rest of us wouldn't get the joke.

I thought I'd start a thread for laughs about some of the stuff that the cops on the board have seen, some truisms of passing the torch on the younger kids. The more I teach classes around the country and coast to coast, I'm sure that policing varies only slightly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but the problems and the laughs are the same. My first FTO told me that the three B's get cops in trouble, booze, broads, and bills. 23 years into the job, yeah, he was right. 100 percent of the guys that I have seen fired have been fired for lying.

He also told me-

At some point in your career, someone will forget to put their car in park. Yeah. I had just started my second year. We got into a vehicle pursuit late one night. The pursuit terminated when the guy wrecked out. I bailed out of my car and thought I had it all the way in park. Turns out, I didn't. I watched my car backing across a field without me in it.

At some point, someone will get out of the car with their campaign cover on backwards. Yeah, we wear those stupid things. And that happened to me more than a couple of times.

At some point in your career, someone will have a "desk pop". Well, he didn't call it a desk pop. Many years ago, a guy I worked with was in the office and picked up a shotgun was hidden from public view, but my old boss kept it around in case he needed it in the office. The officer picked up the gun, aimed in at a filing cabinet full of paperwork, and smoothly pulled the trigger. I woke up the next morning and my brick of a cell phone was flashing. There were four voicemails. Each one more desperate, and the first one starting at about 3:30 AM. "Hey Jones, I need you to call me". "Hey Jones, I really need you to call me". "Dammit, fucking call me". So, I called him the next morning and he told me about what he'd foolishly did. Then he covered up the hole with a piece of paper. I told him to own up to what he did, to which he did when the boss showed up to work, and to this day, I still ask him what buckshot load is best if attacked by filing cabinets.

The whole gun in the lockbox thing? Back in the late 90's, I was dealing with a dude at the office who was mentally ill. I had taken my Smith and Wesson 1076 off and put it in a box. I was waiting for a transport officer to pick him up to take him for a mental evaluation. About two blocks away, an armed robbery in progress call came out. I grabbed a secretary and told her to check on the dude occasionally. Out the door I ran. Once I got on scene, I reached for my pistol only to come to the realization that it was still in a lockbox at the office. I grabbed the Walther PPK that I carried for a back up and rolled on. I always wondered if I looked like James Bond on that call.

So, let's keep it funny. Enjoy. Laugh and hopefully the other cops will share their funny/embarrassing stories.

We've done the forgot to put the car in park quite a few times at my agency. Two memorable ones were:

Mine: Picked up an officer working a side job and was taking him back to station when another agency entered our city with a pursuit. Car crashed and driver bailed, we see the driver run down towards the interstate, I stop and kick my coworker out then I run out, and you can see it on dash cam where I'm in front of the car saying oh shit because I realize the car is not in park and I run back to park it then you see me on cam jumping off the side of the freeway.

We caught the guy.


Another one was our new k9 officer. We were assisting another city and we all rushed there, got out and assisted them with multiple foot pursuits. We didn't use the dog. We walked back to our cars and wondered where the k9 car went. Well, it rolled foward down the street and struck a hydrant. We blamed it on the dog.

Yeah, I got the same speech from the first Chief I worked for and my experience is the same. 100% for lying about it. Silliness.

One of my buddies had stopped in a parking lot because his belt mounted radio battery was dead. He was short for a cop and driving one of the old Chevy Caprice police cars. These cars were huge and with my 6 foot wingspan I couldn't reach things when they fell on the floor. it was a bigger issue for my diminutive friend.

It was a blustery night and the temps were low and the winds gusting.

My friend had been having problems with this battery and had grabbed an extra that he had planned to change out for good. He removed the dead battery and went to grab the new battery but it had fallen from his passenger seat. He believed the battery had slid under the rear full cage in his car. He exited his car on the drivers side and climbed in the back seat. He checked the passenger side on the drivers side without luck. He climbed further into the vehicle as a strong gust of wind blew his rear passenger door closed trapping him in his own cars cage.

Yep, he locked himself in his own car. He did it without a radio. Pure gold. It was a slow night and we went several hours before he finally missed a radio call and we knew to look for him. Our Sgt located him first. He called the entire shift over and we all took a couple of minutes to enjoy the moment and take some pictures for future torture.

quote:

Originally posted by gw3971:
Yep, he locked himself in his own car. He did it without a radio. Pure gold. It was a slow night and we went several hours before he finally missed a radio call and we knew to look for him. Our Sgt located him first. He called the entire shift over and we all took a couple of minutes to enjoy the moment and take some pictures for future torture.

Well at least he didn’t lock himself in AND forget to put the car in park!

I'd love to sit with a few of you guys over beers and hear some of these first hand. I'm sure there are some gems, and ones that wouldn't be posted on public forum.

Thanks for doing what you do.

My first ever DUI stop (still on FTO) pulled the little girl over. While I am at her window Her car starts rolling backwards I yell put it in park. She yells IT IS over and over I jump in the window to try to get to park but was too late smashed into my training officers cruiser.
Turns out little girl's Daddy was a State Trooper.

I've had a couple of good gaffes.
Best was way back when we actually took all of our reports on paper, I would stick my finished work above the passenger visor. It was a busy summer night and there were tons of papers up there.
Buddy gets in foot pursuit so I am coming in hot. Nice set of railroad tracks, went airborne when the cruiser hit the ground the visor dropped. Passenger window was down and out went ALL the papers.
came back an hour or so later after catching my buddies bad guy.
I only found about 5 of maybe 30 or so sheets of paper!!!

Another time I was in foot pursuit kid shot through an open front door and slammed it on me. My Size 14 was kicking that door with everything I had and thought the house was going to fall but the freaking door wasn't budging.
Broke out the plate glass window next to the door. Once the kid came out of the closet I went to check the front door and how the heck that thing would not give. Damn thing was unlocked and opened OUT!!!!!!!!

Many moons ago, a female officer in an adjoining agency (who is no longer in L.E.) made a traffic stop and was arresting the passenger for a warrant. Her car was not in park when she brought the passenger to the rear of the car to place him in cuffs. Her unit rolled forward, pinning her and her arrestee between the two cars. The other driver had to get out and back her car off them. He and the wanted suspect were sent off with a warning and instructions not to tell anyone. Unfortunately, there are no secrets in law enforcement, and the story soon got out.

At one point, our patrol cars were keyed alike. One key fit them all. You would go in somewhere to take a paper call and when you came out side, the patrol car would be gone! You would then have to walk the entire area searching for it. No one wanted to get on the radio and say their car was missing!
I once was stealthily stalking a group of organized thieves who were targeting high $$$ John Deere tractors. I had gotten a call about prowlers in the back of a house near a storage shed. I slid into the area lights out and parked (I thought)about a block away and began to walk down the street. About halfway to the callers house, I was surprised by my patrol car passing me. In the front yards of the houses along the street! I began to chase the car and caught up to it just before it was about to impact a parked car near my callers house. I left it there, since I did not want to scare off my prowlers. My sergeant arrived, saw my car in the neighbors yard and asked me "do I need to know anything about this"? I said no.
To this day, I think the tractor thieves watched this play out and enjoyed it tremendously.
And the load / unload thing? The most terrifying thing I witnessed in the locker room was a co-worker who would unload his Browning HP every night before he left work. He did this by racking the slide. 14 times. Every night.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
At some point in your career, someone will forget to put their car in park. Yeah. I had just started my second year. We got into a vehicle pursuit late one night. The pursuit terminated when the guy wrecked out. I bailed out of my car and thought I had it all the way in park. Turns out, I didn't. I watched my car backing across a field without me in it.

Reminds me of Dewey Crowe.
 

the first time i ever pulled my service model 10, my hand wa so sweaty the gun went cartwheeling through the air, and landed with a tremendous crash on the roof of the cruiser. the poor suspect thought he was shot, and my FTO could not stop laughing, I mean COULD NOT stop laughing. I bought a lot of meals to keep that out of his final evaThe Model 10 had been around a while, and the stocks were really slick. (yeah, uh-huh, that's the reason).

shortly after our transition to 225s and 228s, a roll call sergeant called for a weapons inspection. One officer pulled her piece, and shot the sergeant smack-dab in the vest. She is now retired from another line of work involving scooters and parking meters.

Okay, I promise this is my last one. When i was in Patrol, we had a sergeant who was down to the bone mean. No body liked him at all.
In the winter, he would start his car, and leave it running for three or four hours before he hit the street. Plenty of time to put a carp in the heater box. Captain wouldn't give him a new car, either.

How many have made a traffic stop on the Chief, or Mayor, or FBI, or some other big wig?

(I'm not leo).

Politically significant person story:
Early in my career, we had a township form of government. One of the township board members was named.... Richard Little. So... Of course he was known far and wide as.... Little Dick.
I did not know LD by sight. One pleasant summer evening, there was a fairly serious traffic crash in front of LDs home. The activity brought out a small crowd of onlookers, who I rounded up and made stand in LDs yard. All except one dude who kept wandering into the crash scene. On two occasions, I asked him to stay in the yard. When I saw him a third time looking into one of the wrecked cars, I decided that a firmer approach was needed to get my point across. I approached the man and said loudly, in my best command voice:
"Hey, Stupid! How many fucking times do I have to tell you to get out of the goddamn street and back up into the yard"?
There was audible gasp from the crowd. Of course, my problem child was in fact Little Dick, the township board member. He complied this time and as we were leaving my sergeant asked what I was talking to Little Dick about. I said I don't think I spoke with Little Dick. My sergeant said "yes, you did. He was looking in one of the wrecked cars"
I broke out in a cold sweat and confessed my sins to the Sarge. He laughed and said there was nothing he could do for me now.
End result:
I sweated it out for several days until it looked like I skated. When we incorporated, Little Dick advanced in local politics to become our mayor. Several years after this incident, I was present at a city function. Little Dick approached me, shook hands with me and said "I rarely ever stand in the goddamn street these days". We both laughed.

I am one of three or four officers in my division of 100+ that are responsible for all things Taser related. This includes quarterly inspections, where we have to go through every Taser, plug them up and update them, clean them, etc.

As this is on top of my regular duties, when a quarterly update comes around it's a real pain in the ass to find everyone and do theirs, so I'm usually working on three or four at a time after roll calls.

A few months ago I was updating/cleaning/testing three at the same time. Had one plugged in and two sitting with cartridges out, cleaning them (we use the X2s). I unplugged the third Taser from the computer and put batteries in all three.


To test the Tasers we have to pull the trigger to make sure the 5 second stop on the cycle is working. I picked up one of them to test the Taser and pulled the trigger, promptly and LOUDLY followed with the sound of a Taser cartridge shooting off, and the two Taser prongs tasing the shit out of the carpet right by my feet, after bouncing off the desk drawer.

The Taser I had been updating still had the cartridges in, which I picked up instead of the two I had been cleaning that did not


Of course, there were at least seven people in the office with me when that happened

^^^we are supposed to spark test our x2's before every shift, moet do it here and there and just check the battery daily. We had one guy spark test it in the locker room and forgot to pull the cartridge. He fired one set of probes into the drywall, followed by the 2nd set of probes.

I was one of three officers to respond to a drunk and disorderly call. We arrived and were dealing with a non compliant subject and after diplomacy failed out came the female officers taser. The taser and the female officer were brand new and apparently she missed part about spark testing the taser every day so it doesn't hang fire.

Well, she eventually yelled "Taser, Taser, Taser "and pulled the trigger. Nothing. She turned her wrist 90 degrees to the left to look at the Taser and diagnose the problem when it finally went off. One of the probes struck my partner in the stomach and the other went through his pants and struck one of his testicles. She discharged the Taser and in her panic she continued to hold down the trigger. After about ten seconds she was relieved of her Taser.

This happened over a decade ago and to this day the female officer still buys my partner a package of Cadburys eggs on the anniversary day.

^^^ that's freaking hilarious and freaking terrifying all at the same time!

I stopped a car one night, and it just had that vibe. Out of state plates, and the dude was leaning out the window looking back at me from the second he stopped. I got my feet on the ground quick, approached cautiously, and immediately noticed that I can't see both of his hands.

About this point I hear my buddy go 23 to back me up, and out of the corner of my eye see his car pull up. I ask the driver to place his hands on the wheel, and he tells me he only has one hand...all I can see of the other arm is an empty sleeve. This is kinda skeeving me out because based on his demeanor, I'm not sure if he's lying to me and concealing something down there, or legitimately doesn't have a hand. I continued talking with him, and while his story is starting to make sense, I'm wondering why my buddy isn't showing up on the other side of the car.

I finally get to the point where I get his ID and head back to my vehicle to check it. Except my car is now about 20 feet further back from where I left it, and my buddy is sitting in the passenger seat. I opened the door and asked what the heck he was doing with my car, and why he wasn't up there backing me up. Wide eyed, he tells me he rolled up just in time to see my car start rolling backwards...jumped out of his car and dove into the passenger side of mine and slammed it into park... apparently in my haste to get out I put it in 'R' instead of 'P', and I was so fixated on the one-armed guy I was dealing with that I failed to notice the drama unfolding behind me. He saved me from having to explain to the chief why my unoccupied squad car had slammed into a loading dock across the street!

Before our agency got enough Tasers for everyone, they were kept in a box in dispatch. Invariably there were one or two left there, and often shenanigans would ensue. Like sparking one behind a particularly jumpy female dispatcher's head.
One night, a officer came in and decided they'd pull the old "let's put the red dot on her screen and pull the trigger" deal. Except he forgot to pull the cartridge. He tasered her main CAD screen. The major over dispatch was NOT happy.

I have only been at it for 12 years and like everyone else I should have kept a journal from the start. A partner jumped a police car 47 feet in the air Dukes of Hazard style in a pursuit to dead infants and everything in between.

Night shift as a LEO is an interesting experience.

When we first got tasers I tased a desk while attempting to do a spark test.

when someone falls or does something funny we never check on them first we make sure someone turns on a camera so the previous 30 secs is caught before activation.


Just got done fighting a a big guy on hyped up on bath salts that felt no pain when a naked guy comes running through your crime scene.

The worst though is when you are gathered off duty and war stories are being swapped and someone brings up a close call and your wife gives you the evil eye and asks "how come you never told me about that?"