#15.10 Fuzzy Pink Slippers


I’ll close out this chapter with an anecdote from recent history that some of you will swear I made up. Those of us working that night can hardly believe it ourselves. Nonetheless, it is 100% true.

One of our officers got a call on a signal 57 (loud noise/disturbance) at an apartment complex. No big deal. We answer thousands of those calls each year. It was what happened when he got there that will live in infamy.

The officer had no difficulty locating the offending apartment. The music coming from inside was indeed quite loud. He banged on the door a few times before the Eastern European resident came to the door. The resident opened the door part way and the officer asked him to turn down the music. The resident gruffly complied and the officer turned to leave.
Just as he got a few yards from the apartment, Evil, in a taunting gesture, turned the music up even louder than before. The officer, obviously a bit perturbed, backtracked to the apartment and banged on the door again. Evil actually opened the door and was verbally defiant to the officer, proclaiming that the apartment was his and he could play his music as loudly as he wanted. That assumption is not only patently incorrect, it also often causes one to fail the attitude test. The officer asked for the man’s ID and walked him into the living room of the apartment.

Evil told the officer that he had no ID. The officer stood in front of Evil while Evil sat on his couch. Evil’s roommate peeked out of a back bedroom and was told something by Evil in their mutual native language. The roommate went back into the bedroom and closed the door. Meanwhile, a verbal altercation between Evil and our officer ensued. At that point, the officer decided that he had had enough and was going to take Evil to jail.

The officer approached Evil from the front to handcuff him. We teach officers not to approach from the front to handcuff. What happened next is one of the reasons we teach that. Evil promptly kicked the officer backward over the coffee table. The fight was on. The officer had called for backup already and, while the fistfight (or possibly slapfight) raged, Evil’s roommate decided to join the fray, thereby joining the ranks of Evil himself.
As the three men tussled, they worked their way toward the apartment door. At some point the officer had deployed his baton and was preparing to strike with it when somehow, one of the disciples of Evil took it from him. The officer began backpedaling for the door to escape the hornets’ nest he had stirred up. As he backed over the plane of the doorway into the safety and freedom of the great outdoors, Evil slammed the door in his face.

The officer frantically called out over the radio that he had just been involved in a 29 (fight) with the 57 (loud music) perps. Then he added as a footnote, “…they 45’d (stole) my baton.”

For whatever reason, Evil opened the door, threw the officer’s baton at him, and then slammed the door again. The officer broadcast over the radio, “Be advised I got my baton back.”

The officer, as a reaction, kicked the door, knocking it partially open. He hit the door again and it came open just in time for the officer to see Evil running to a back bedroom where it once again slammed the door.
The officer decided to wait for a back up officer to arrive. Consequently, enough time elapsed for a supervisor to arrive at the scene. The supervisor, exercising his supervisory abilities, told the officers not to go into the apartment and promptly called out the hostage negotiator and the SWAT team.

Once all the units were in place, the hostage negotiator carefully entered the apartment and approached the closed bedroom door that likely housed at least one perp. The hostage negotiator knocked on the door and got no answer. He said something through the door that was the functional equivalent of “you guys better come out or we’re comin’ in” and again got no response from the heinous loud-stereo-playing-baton-stealers.
With that, SWAT burst through the hollow-core bedroom door and laid the smackdown on Evil (which, by the way, offered less resistance than the hollow-core door). Both of the svelte, effeminate East-Europeans were taken out of the bed they were sharing and into custody with minimal difficulty.

As a lieutenant was looking around the apartment subsequent to the melee, he spied by the door a pair of fuzzy pink bedroom slippers that belonged to one of our brutal combatants. Without breaking a smile, he lit up the slippers with his flashlight, looked at the initiating officer and said, “So… just how tough were these guys?”

 

Chapter 8
_____________

Hey Scumbag!…Got Change for a .40?


On one particular night, I was assigned to the morning watch and had the fortune of having a beat partner that I both knew and worked with quite well. Such alliances are rare and valuable and usually short lived. I don’t remember the exact time, but it was near the beginning of the shift, probably just after midnight. We received a call on a suspicious person outside an apartment on the second floor of a two-story apartment building. Nothing alarming, and by all indicators just another “routine” call.

The apartment was located in what you would call a high crime area. Being familiar with the complex, we both knew exactly where to go. This particular apartment complex had three driveways, all of which fronted on the same roadway, which was oriented in a line running East and West. The western-most driveway led to a separate part of the complex that was not accessible by vehicle to the part of the complex served by the other two driveways.

We entered simultaneously into the center driveway. The building we were looking for was right in front of us. It is a rectangular building situated perpendicular to the roadway with apartments on the front and the back. It has two levels, which are accessed by open staircases at either end. The building is situated in such a way that when we pulled into the parking lot, we were facing the windowless, south end of the building. No one in the building could see us unless they were outside of an apartment on the common walkway.

As soon as we exited our patrol cars, a resident in the building next to our cars came outside and pointed to an apartment on the rear of the second floor of the building to which we were dispatched. This particular community was predominantly Mexican at the time and few residents spoke English. Often though, sign language seems to be universal.

I headed for the staircase on the opposite end of the building. My beat partner, of course, headed for the nearer staircase and we climbed to the second floor in concert. Tactically speaking, it is usually a good idea to allocate manpower in such a way as to cover the maximum amount of area with the minimum amount of officers. Just be conscious of potential cross-fire situations. If you are on one end of a walkway and your partner is on the other and you start shooting at someone in between…well, you get the idea. As we reached the second floor walkway, we both noticed that about midway down the corridor, there was what appeared to be a window screen lying on the concrete floor. I motioned for my beat partner to cover me while I approached the apartment in question.

As I got closer to the apartment, I was able to see broken glass scattered around the mangled window screen. Closer inspection suggested that the damage was recent. I could make out a broken windowpane in one of the windows that was right next to the only door in or out of the apartment.

I used a geometric progression to look in through the broken window. The aluminum mini-blinds were dispersed around the broken pane. As my vantage point improved, I saw a figure standing inside the well-lit apartment. He was wearing a mask. At that point, relying on my finely honed, keen cop senses, I made a dangerous leap of faith and assumed that he was Evil. I also saw a pistol in his hand and what looked like people lying face down on the floor of the apartment.

The masked man appeared to be looking around for something and as I watched, he was joined by two other masked men (also Evil). Those two men moved from one room, across my field of view and into another room that I could not see. I could hear someone saying something inside that sounded angry but could not make out what they said.

I slowly and quietly backed away from the apartment and moved back to my end of the corridor at the top of the stairs. Confident that I was out of earshot of anyone in the apartment, I raised radio and gave the following broadcast, “120, we have a confirmed signal 36 (holdup in progress). There are at least three masked perpetrators 69 (armed) with handguns. We have several possible victims face down on the floor of the apartment. Hold traffic and advise units enroute to enter through the middle driveway. Our patrol cars will be parked directly beside the building. We are on the second floor of that building in the rear.”

So we sat and waited for what seemed like minutes but was probably only seconds. Three units announced via radio that that they had arrived at our location. I felt a bit relieved because while my partner and I had the two ends of the corridor covered, Evil could still jump over the railing and avoid our trap. I expected to see additional officers any second but instead heard one of the units that was supposed to be on scene, call out on the radio.

“Radio can you raise 120 for TAC?”

I remember thinking to myself, “Oh my god you can’t be serious. Ok I’ll play your silly game.” I clicked my radio to the tactical channel and said, “120 go ahead.”

The unit responded by saying, “We are in the complex but are having difficulty locating you.”

Obviously a bit irritated, I responded as clearly as I could, “Enter the complex through the middle driveway. You will see our patrol cars directly in front of you. Park there. We are on the second floor of that building in the rear. I will be returning to main channel now.”

Shortly thereafter, we no longer had to worry about our backup units. Not because they found us, but because the first perpetrator came out of the apartment. I heard footsteps running toward the other end of the walkway, so I knew my partner was going to make “first contact”. I remained crouched at the top of the stairs on my end, so as not to give away my position until absolutely necessary. I heard my partner begin yelling those cherished expletives and an uncontrolled grin came over my face.

Shortly thereafter, those footsteps that initially went to the other end of the hall were suddenly coming my way. This is what we call an “oh shit” moment. When it sounded like the footsteps were getting close, I jumped up from my hiding place pointing my pistol, and fired my expletives. Even through the masks worn by the two perps I was now facing, I could see that their “oh shit” moment was having a much greater effect on them than mine was on me. They both immediately threw up their hands and their weapons hit the floor in front of me. They began back-pedaling and I began advancing. I remember tucking my pistol in close to my body and knocking one of them down with my non-weapon hand, and with that they both went face down on the floor.

I took a step back to assess the situation. I could see that at the other end of the hall, my partner had the first perp in much the same position as I had the second and third. I then yelled for him to cover me as I holstered my weapon and secured my two (always carry at least two handcuffs). When my two bad guys were secured and given a quick pat for weapons, I stood up and took a cover position for my partner to do the same with his bad guy.

So there we were with three bad guys contained and an unchecked apartment with who knows what inside…and oh yeah, still no backup units! I looked at my partner and asked, “Where is everybody?” He just looked at me and shrugged. Not too long after that, our shift commander came boppin’ up the stairs on my partner’s end. He looked at the bad guy on his end. Then he looked at the two bad guys on my end. Then he asked, “Where is everybody?” We both shrugged again and one of us asked the shift commander if he could watch over the Evil while we cleared the apartment to make sure there were no more perps or injured parties. He did. We cleared the apartment. No more Evil and the victims were fine.

We took the bad guys down to the patrol car and as we were putting them inside, there came all three backup units. As it turned out, the first unit went into the complex across the street and the other two followed. They kept driving around in circles until one of them had the bright idea to check elsewhere. Better late than never …I guess.

As a side note, while interviewing the victims, they told us that $6000.00 in cash had been taken. In and of itself that is not out of the ordinary. Many of the Mexican immigrants in that area are hard workers who don’t trust our banks, so they keep lots of cash on hand. That makes them good targets for home invaders. And since many don’t trust the police either, many such crimes go unreported. We did recover $6000.00 from one of the evildoers. I then decided to make a cursory search of the area around the building to make sure I didn’t miss anything. On the far end of the building I found a duffel bag. In the duffel bag was eight pounds of marijuana. That duffel bag wasn’t there ten minutes before, so I asked the male head of household at the apartment if he knew anything about the duffel bag.

He said, “No,” and that he had never seen it before.
I asked if he was sure. He said, “Yes.”

Then I asked, “Then why does it have your name on it?”
Remember, things are not always as they seem. Evil is everywhere! Both victim and perpetrator were arrested.