quote:

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?"

yeah, I always told Mrs. Mike everything...except the time I missed getting shot by about an inch on a hairy call (my buddy's patrol car took one for the team), two weeks later someone was telling the story and Mrs Mike heard the "rest of the story"....she was not happy.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:

quote:

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?"

yeah, I always told Mrs. Mike everything...except the time I missed getting shot by about an inch on a hairy call (my buddy's patrol car took one for the team), two weeks later someone was telling the story and Mrs Mike heard the "rest of the story"....she was not happy.

I've got one of those, but I can't tell it without 'the rest of the story'...

I worked on a housing/gang unit for a few years. Hands down, best years of my career. For anyone not familiar, housing officers police the public housing projects. We did those and the areas between/around them. Over 90% of violent crime (legit statistic, not something I'm making up) happened within 1 mile in/around a housing project. They were good times.

There were six of us on the unit, and one was a rather rotund (but great) fellow we called "Sammich".

One night Sammich and I were riding in my Crown Vic, and had just left the best coffee shop (which contains it's own chapter of stories) after purchasing two fu-fu drinks through its drive through.

As we were leaving we turned to the right onto the main street, and immediately were met by a vehicle we had spent the prior night looking for. This vehicle had a GPS tracker on it from the Vice unit. In those days, no warrant or anything was required to slap a self-powered tracker on a car, but once the battery died you had to find the vehicle to recover the agency's $2,000 tracker We had been tasked with finding it.

So we promptly do a U turn and go after it, only the dude in the vehicle saw us turn and punched it. Not wanting to completely tip them off, we went looking for them without turning our lights/siren on. We checked the first turn-off and didn't see them and were continuing down the street when we came to an intersection with a solid green light.

We were moving with traffic, not going 80mph or anything, but we watched as a car began to turn left in front of us. Sammich let out a gutteral noise and I said "I see it!", but we didn't have time to stop. I had to pick between hitting another vehicle head-on, hitting a brick wall, or T-boning the turning car.

So we T-boned the turning car. The car continues and we start sliding sideways, smacking the curb with the driver's side tires.

This all happened in a matter of two or three seconds, but I remember it all as if it was slow motion:

Our Crown Vic flips on its side, my side, and I looked at the grass coming through my open window. In my wisdom, I had not buckled my seat belt and began falling toward the grass. I thought I was about to die. Then I felt our iced coffee drinks pouring all over me (good thing we got fu-fu coffee!).

As I was accepting my self-imposed fate, I looked to the right, at Sammich. That is when I realized that Sammich also was unbuckled. Except Sammich is called Sammich for a reason, and now all 350 pounds of him were falling on top of me. That was it. I was done. My wife was about to become a millionaire. Me? Death by Sammich.

Then we hit a phone pole, mid-roll, and were suddenly uprighted. Covered in coffee, with our computer in my lap, I look around to see if I'm still alive. I call out to Sammich to see if he was too.

No answer.

Sammich is a loud breather. Not quite Darth Vader, but close enough that you don't have to look to know he's around. Except I was sitting right next to him and couldn't hear him.

I've fucking killed Sammich. Shit. Everybody is going to hate me now.

"Sammich! You ok man?!?!" and suddenly I get a gasp, and a "Yeah...I think so". Whew.

We crawl out of the car and find out the other vehicle's only occupant was ok, and she apologized profusely. We get transported to the hospital for evaluation and I call my then wife and tell her we were in a fender-bender and were going to the hospital as a precaution, but I'd be home after.

When we get home I was inside while my sergeant was telling my wife the story. I walked out and saw her wide-eyed, and got pounced on for telling her it was a fender-bender...I replied and said "but dear, the fender was bent!"

Death by Sammich! Great!

Several years ago, a buddy and I were rolling to a motorcycle accident with injuries. When running code with more than one vehicle on extremely twisty roads, It was our habit to run nose to bumper to avoid traffic pulling over to abruptly pull out in front of a second speeding cruiser.

My partner was leading in a 2000 Vic; I was tailing in a 97 Vic. If you are familiar with the breed, you may already know that just about everything on the 97 is sub-par to the later model, the most critical being the ability to brake rapidly.

We came around a turn to discover not only was the reported accident location off by a couple of mile markers, but that the maintenance workers that had stopped to assist hadn't bothered to put out flag men or radio the exact location. My buddy stomps on the brakes; I do too and realize that he will stop WAY before me. I intentionally steered off the roadway and destroyed many small trees, and most of my aged cruiser. About 20 assorted people got a great show, and the only injury was to my pride.

I drove a 3/4 ton Chevy pick-up for the better part of the next year waiting for my replacement ride.

Traffic stop, get OL and registration, go back to cruiser, it's locked, cut offender loose, call for someone to bring spare keys from the station.

Burglary alarm at a business, rookie w/o a radio, shaking doors, one opens, is on opposite side of large building from FTO and other units, let door go to contact other officers, return and door is locked tight, ex-Marine says: "We have to get in and check" and rips door open, no one inside, luckily door isn't damaged and secures again.

Alarm at courthouse, send new deputy- alone, search interior, sees a figure in the corner of an office, draw down, able to locate the light switch, aiming at a judge's robe.

Got another one...open door on one of our municipal park buildings one night. Make entry, and go out onto enclosed front porch to check it (they store a bunch of equipment out there), and the door between the porch and the building closes and locks behind me. No way to unlock it from the porch side, and both exterior doors are padlocked from the outside.

I'd left my cell in the car, and no way was I putting out over the repeater that I'd locked myself in a building. I was just about to boot one of the exterior doors when I remembered that a friend was working campus security that night at the college up the road. I was able to get him on their private radio channel (not monitored by dispatch) and he came down and let me out...I still get crap for that one from time to time!

Ooh... "Locked in on duty" stories. I'm up.

About a decade ago, when I was relatively new, I was standing in as bailiff in one of our courtrooms when I was tasked by the Judge with retrieving the waiting customer from the adjoining holding cell. The holding cell area in this instance has one secure door leading from the courtroom into a small hallway. The small hallway has two further secure doors, one for the holding cell and one leading to another area of the facility. Both the outer door and the inner holding cell door are opened with the same key, but the other inner door to the other part of the facility has a different key.

(Can you see where I'm going with this?)

So being a stand-in without any relevant keys of my own, I retrieve the courtroom's spare key to the holding cell, use it to open the outer door to the hallway, and step inside to open the inner holding cell door, only to hear the outer door slam shut behind me and latch. I turn around, and realize that just like the holding cell door, the outer secure door only has a keyhole on one side. The outside. Which is the opposite side from me. And while I have a key to both that outer door and the inner holding cell, I don't have a key to the third door leading to the rest of the facility.

Dammit. Now I'm locked in this hallway. No keyhole to get out the door I can unlock with this key, and no key to unlock the other door out.

I then recall seeing a large wooden doorstop next to the outer door on my way inside, and have a sudden realization as to its purpose.

I end up having to timidly knock on the outer secure door to attract the attention of someone from the courtroom, slide the key under the door, and have them let me out. Turns out that this is not an uncommon occurrence. The Judge and all the experienced court staff know this, and I'm sure they purposely refrain from warning new folks like me about it, just for shits and giggles.

I'd like to know who thought this setup was a good idea...

Rookie deputy making rounds in the jail, unlocks isolation wing and gives another deputy the keys, gives a tug on the door so it won't be wide open. Gets half way down wing and hears the clang of the door closing. No radios, no cameras. Yelling just like an inmate to get the deputy with the keys to return.

An officer would always make a stop at "Pedro's" when coming back from the beach. You never wanted to be caught in the john after he returned; otherwise, you would be bombarded with firecrackers and no way to exit rapidly.

Sundays would be cruiser inspection day and one officer would be assigned to get dirty. Occasionally, someone would be a wise guy and would go to a cruiser or two and turn on everything that is normally dead when the ignition is off. When the unsuspecting officer turned the key he or she would be greeted by the siren wailing, winshield wipers going and radio blaring.

Go to the station and get the spare set of keys to a cruiser. When an officer was on a call of minor importance, move his cruiser.

quote:

Originally posted by OKCGene:
How many have made a traffic stop on the Chief, or Mayor, or FBI, or some other big wig?

(I'm not leo).

One of our J&DR Judges but he never said he was a judge. I went to school with his son and knew from the son talking what his father did. I asked if he had a son named _____ and he looked quizzically at me and said yes. Give him his paperwork back, told him I went to school with his son and wished him a good evening.

A CA congress critter.


The chief of one department encountered a drunk FBI agent who was trying to use his influence to get a drunk friend out of some trouble. The chief asked to see the creds he flashed. Upon display, the chief took the creds and told the agent they would be given back to his supervisor. The ones that we encountered back then thought they were God's gift to law enforcement and were douche bags.

The Spousal "you never told me about that" was not a factor for me. Mine stayed glued to a scanner whenever I worked.
Often, I would go flying by my own house with lights ablaze and siren wailing. My cell phone would ring. It was the wife. She would ask "was that you who just went by the house"?
HAVE TO CALL YA BACK, BABE, I'M KINDA FUCKIN BUSY!
And whenever she heard my ex-GF sign on the air, she would call me and ask who was working with me tonight.
I am divorced now. Police work is hard on marriages.

I unfortunately have a few of those "You didn't tell me THAT" stories with the Wife. I don't really tell her much of the crazy shit that goes on, what I do, or what happened.

My Bro-in-law, who I used to work with, spilled the beans once or twice. Nothing major.

I shattered my wrist in a car accident a while back. I got home early in the morning, which wasn't unusual being on a Gang Team at the time. I took a shower, a nice healthy dose of bourbon as pain meds, and went to bed before my wife got up. I woke up to my loving bride giving me the "Oh my God!!! WHAT HAPPENED?" as she pointed to my hand in a cast. I gave her the short version of the story. She went to work, I went back to the Dr's office, later that day, after all that we decided to go to the movies.
Upon coming home, I took the dog out, my Wife went inside and noticed a few messages on the answering machine. One from a Commander, one from the Area Deputy Chief. Meanwhile, I'm in the yard with the pooch. I walked inside to that glare she gives me when I fucked up... My bosses both left messages that were rather detailed about the incident, and thanking me.

When she brings it up, I also remind her that if it wasn't for that incident, she wouldn't have gotten pregnant. (Hey, broken wrist and 7 months off... ya gotta fill the time by doin' something )


Years ago, working on a Tact Team with some of the best guys in the business, we were doing a Search Warrant. There was a 4ft iron fence with a locked gate in front of the house. 4 of the guys on the team were built like gorillas and all trying to rip open the gate, working on it with the tools. Me, the skinny new punk on the team decided to do the smart thing and WALK AROUND the gate & fence. (it ended about 5 feet away at the end of the property line) I'm standing on the front steps and yelling at the rest of my team on the other side of the fence "When you're done monkey-fucking that gate, I'd like to get in the house!" Now they start rolling and hopping over the fence, up the stairs, hit the door.... We got a pretty good amount of crack cocaine, a few guns and 2 guys wanted in a shooting.
We get done searching the house, walking out the door to get back in the squad cars, and they get held up by the locked gate.
I'm standing on the front steps in disbelief, because these guys are at it again like the Keystone Cops. I simply WALK AROUND the fence again...
They're staring at me like Im some sort of magician because Im ***POOF*** on the other side of the fence.
I mutter "Dumbasses" and point to where the fence ends... 5 feet away...

Dodge Diplomat's had a module that controlled the power locks. Out on a stop one drizzly night in a pool car while mine was down for service and get back to the car to write a cite and -it's locked! Looking around for a second and I hear the thunk of a door lock activating. Light it up with the flashlight and, sure enough looks like the passenger door is unlocked! Whew! I walk around back by the trunk and -" THUNK! " Sure as hell it's locked! I cut the driver loose and hung out by the passenger door for a couple for a couple minutes and just as I'm about to radio a buddy to come by so he can grab the spare key...... " THUNK! " it's open! Took it straight back and red-lined it!

I always carried a "just in case" key for my regular ride.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:

quote:

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?"

yeah, I always told Mrs. Mike everything...except the time I missed getting shot by about an inch on a hairy call (my buddy's patrol car took one for the team), two weeks later someone was telling the story and Mrs Mike heard the "rest of the story"....she was not happy.

I tell my wife pretty much everything and if it newsworthy she gets notified immediately.
I made the mistake of not telling her once. Was in a pretty bad wreck I was doing about 90 or so running lights and siren and a car turned in front of me. How neither of use were not hurt I still have no clue. Both cars were absolutely obliterated. Seemed as if the only part of the vehicles with no damage was the corner of the bumper where my cruiser number was.
Of course when reporting on the story, what did the news camera zoom in on? I worked nights then she was usually asleep when I got home. Not that night. What is that saying about Hell hath no fury??

I'm not a LEO but I have spent many hours with my LEO friends. One of my hobbies is scanners listening to my friends.
You would not believe how many times this guy's DL was ran. Seems like every new dispatcher got the call to run this DL number. That's back in the days when you could kind of play on the radio

The Advocate Obit