tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2151000333053572282024-03-05T06:37:50.636-08:00Cop n' attitudeSergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-3094574429367085862011-12-07T20:07:00.000-08:002011-12-07T20:09:50.384-08:00One would think...One would think that an officer with two years on would not have to be told not to drive his cruiser down a grassy hill into a soft muddy field when it's been raining for two days.<br /><br />One would think that, wouldn't one?<br /><br />I have a new bill from our contract towing service that suggests otherwise.<br /><br />Care to guess what tomorrow's roll call topic is going to be?Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-34408949459727420272011-11-24T17:56:00.000-08:002011-11-24T17:59:23.683-08:00The day afterSeven drivers failed to heed yesterday's warning and now have court dates for DWI, including three with BAC's high enough to trigger the mandatory jail time provisions of our DWI laws.<br /><br />Tsk!Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-12495635448013181922011-11-23T15:38:00.000-08:002011-11-23T15:40:43.112-08:00Thanksgiving EveSupposedly tonight is one of the biggest drinking nights of the year due to all of the college kids being out and about.<br /><br />I have extra manpower for DWI enforcement.<br /><br />Tonight looks promising indeed. So fi you must drink, don't drive. If you do drink and drive, I have several designated drivers who will be looking for you with an aim to getting you where you belong: our station.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-16767681979471569992011-11-22T16:53:00.000-08:002011-11-22T16:54:16.869-08:00Stationhouse chuckles.A quirk in our station is that of our two urinals in the men’s room, if you flush both at the same time, the water backs up into the one on the right and flows out on the floor in front of it. Most people know this and avoid using that one, especially if someone is using the one on the left.<br /><br />Today, our Deputy Chief was in the building. He did not know this. Guess which one he chose to use?<br />One of our brand-new rookies was in there, too, using the one on the left. When both flushed at approximately the same time, guess whose dress shoes got a good soaking?<br /><br />Our rookie has now achieved rock-star status among his peers, and he has the distinction of being the only one out of his recruit class whose name and face are now known to the Deputy Chief.<br /><br />Bet we get a real plumber in to fix that thing now.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-61067842088151896282011-11-19T01:49:00.000-08:002011-11-19T04:58:15.572-08:00The high cost of being stupid...So tonight, a bit before midnight, I’m approaching an intersection with a divided four-lane road ahead of me. I see a car on that road cross the intersection at what my training and experience tells me is about double the 35mph speed limit on that road. “Someone’s about to get it,” I tell myself as I turn onto that road behind the speeding car. I accelerate to catch up. The area is devoid of streetlights and pretty dark. I'm also driving a slick-top so I'm pretty sure that the guy didn't spot me as he'd gone past.<br /><br />The car is still moving fast, but I’m moving much faster and should be close enough to hit my lights in another few seconds. There’s only one other car between me and my prey, and that’s a red Ford in the left lane who is actually driving fairly close to the actual speed limit. I’m about to pass this Ford on the right and my hand is on the light switch because I’m going to light that speeder up just as soon as I’m directly behind him when all of a sudden…<br /><br />What the @#$%! That Ford just shifted into my lane and hit it’s brakes, forcing me to punch MY brakes hard enough to engage the anti-lock system. My clipboard hits the floor and my coffee in the center console cup holder sloshes out of the cup.<br />I brake hard to get some distance between me and the obvious airhead in the Ford, and then I jump to the left lane because I’m not about to let one inattentive asshole keep me from that speeder. But just as I get back on the gas, the red Ford jumps back into the left lane and brakes again.<br /><br />That did it. Screw that speeder. I want THIS guy now. My lights and siren go on and the red Ford and I both pull to the right side. In the heat of my desire to catch my original target, I was willing to scratch the first cut-off as the action of a not-paying-attention bozo. But the second time…that was clearly on purpose and both times he nearly wrecked us. I calmly put my stop out on the radio and walked up on the driver who, like his passenger, was an early-twenties white kid wearing a sports jersey, a few too many neck chains and his hat on backwards. <br /><br />“Good evening. My name is Sergeant Krupke, Xxxxx Police Department,” I began calmly. “”Let me see your license and registration.” As soon as he handed them to me, I glanced at them briefly then tucked them into my belt while telling him to get out of the car. Once he was out and I’d walked him back up onto the sidewalk, I got to the meat of the matter, channeling my inner R. Lee Ermey.<br /><br /> “Just what exactly do you call that totally asinine display of driving?!" I shout at him. "You damn near wrecked us both not once but twice. What the hell is wrong with you?!” Actually I'm not really all that angry at this point, but sometimes it helps to employ a bit of theatrics to get your point across. And it works with this kid.<br /><br />“I-I-I-I didn’t mean to, Sir…” he began, stammering.<br /><br />“BULLSHIT!” I shouted. “That was 100% on purpose and don’t you even consider telling me anything different. I’ll tell you exactly what that was! You saw me coming up on you and decided that you didn’t want to be passed, didn’t you?” I was right in his face now, nose-to-nose, acting just like an old drill sergeant that I personally recall from my own younger days.<br /><br />“I-I-I- didn’t know you were a police car, Sir…” he offered.<br /><br />“Oh, so that makes it ok? Hell, I’ll bet that you two thought that it was pretty damned funny for a few seconds there, didn’t you?”<br /><br />“Sir , we didn’t know that you were the police…” he repeated.<br /><br />“So it’s ok to try to kill anyone who isn’t the police? Is that how it works? Do you even realize that your stupid stunt could have gotten all three of us killed?”<br /><br />They both looked at me wide-eyed with their mouths open. The driver was shaking now. Maybe I was finally starting to get through to him.<br /><br />“You’re actually damned lucky that I am the police,” I exclaimed both sharply and loudly. “Anyone else might have knocked your head off for that, and they’d have done it with my blessing!” I paused, staring at him. “But you lucked out, because I’m not going to knock your head off.”<br /><br />“Th-th-thank you, Sir…” he replied.<br /><br />“Oh, don’t thank me yet,” I told him as I pulled my cuffs out. “You’re under arrest for Reckless Driving, Unsafe Operation, and being a dumb-ass without a permit.” I may have been a bit theatrical, but truth be told, I was getting more pissed the more I thought about what this joker'd done. And it was either take him in or just cut him loose with a couple of tickets. Frankly, the latter option just wasn't working for me so I hooked him. Maybe next time he'll think twice before trying to cut off another driver just for fun.<br /><br />So as I write this, his (dad’s) car should just about be arriving at the impound yard on the flatbed tow truck and he’s waiting for his turn before the magistrate in the morning. His pal’s probably still hoofing it, too, seeing as how he didn’t have a cell phone with him.<br /><br />"Can you call me a cab, Sir?" he asked when I told him that he could leave. <br /><br />"No, I'll call you a dumbass just like your friend here. Start walking."<br /><br />I’m willing to bet that if you ask either of them, they're wishing that they'd just let me get that speeder.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-44422390754214269292011-11-14T19:37:00.000-08:002011-11-14T20:08:58.572-08:00I ruined his night...But sometimes that works out better for all involved.<br /><br />Last night I was parked watching traffic on a road that comes away from the nightclub district. (Yes, we CAN do that, and I encourage my officers to scope out those roads and stop as many people for minor traffic violations as they can. Inevitably, each will get at least one DWI a night that way.)<br /><br />As I was sitting there, I saw a car turn off onto a parking lot across from me and park. It's lights went off, and I decided to give it about a minute or so and then go check it out. <br /><br />A minute later, I rolled up behind it with my lights still off, and when I was right up on it's back bumper, I lit everything up. Putting the location and tag out on the radio, I got out of my cruiser and walked up on what I honestly expected to be two drunks hurriedly getting re-dressed. Instead, I found a sheepish-looking guy driver with a semi-conscious female passenger who was covered in vomit and clutching a plastic shopping bag which turned out to be filled with more vomit. (I guess that she was going to save some for later.)<br /><br />I started out by pulling him out of the car and putting him on my front bumper while I checked her out. Yep. She's still alive. Just drunk as hell. So I went back to talk to him and after determining that he's <span style="font-style:italic;">not</span> drunk, started with the usual questions:<br /><br />Q. What's your name?<br />A. Steve Xxxxxx.<br /><br />Q. What's her name?<br />A. Robin.<br /><br />Q. How do you know Robin?<br />A. I met her in this club we were both in.<br /><br />Q. When? Tonight?<br />A. Yes.<br /><br />Q. Where are you going now?<br />A. I'm taking her back to her place. She's had a bit too much to drink.<br /><br />"Well aren't you the gentleman," I said. "Stay here."<br /><br />Then I went up to talk to "Robin".<br /><br />Q. What's your name?<br />A. Stacy Xxxxxx.<br /><br />Q. Who's that guy?<br />A. That's Dillon.<br /><br />Q. How do you know Dillon?<br />A. I met him at the club. He's taking me back to my place because I'm not feeling good.<br /><br />Q. Yeah, Alcohol'll do that to you. Do you think that it makes sense going home with a guy you don't even know? And just to let you know, his name's not Dillon.<br />A. Yeah, he's ok. I'm safe with him. He's gay.<br /><br />Q. And how do you know that?<br />A. He told me. <giggle><br /><br />Yeah. OK. Nice try, "Stillon". I've only known him for five minutes by this time, but even I know that he's not gay. And I also know that he's not taking this gal anywhere, much less back to her own apartment.<br /><br />"Stacy, You're not going anywhere with that guy. It's just not smart or safe. I'll get you a cab, but he's not taking you anywhere tonight. She started to say something but then began to heave as her stomach began rejecting more alcohol and whatever else she'd consumed. I quickly closed the door lest she get any on my nice clean parking lot and she turned her head and barfed on the center console. <br /><br />Aw, hell with it. I called an ambulance. Even if she's not danger-drunk, (and she might well be at this point), a ride in an ambulance and a spell in the Emergency Department will sober her up and hopefully drive home the point that drinking that much is dangerous and expensive. Plus while she's in the hospital, Dileve or whatever his name is can't show up and talk his way inside. The I went back and explained the facts of life to Romeo, who was still sitting on my bumper. I impressed up on him my belief that picking up drunk girls in bars and taking them home is probably not a smart thing to be doing. I also got his driver's license and ran his name, documenting it in case it turns out that someone drugged her in this bar. By the time the ambulance showed up, Steve had a pretty clear understanding of where I was coming from and what I thought that he was up to, and he had a car that was going to remind him of Stacy for a long time. (Hell, I could smell the puke ten feet away from it as the EMT's got her out of the car.)<br /><br />Now I could have let him just go on and take her home, especially since she wanted him to, but if I did, I'd be just as culpable for whatever happened to her later as him, and that just wasn't going to happen. At that point, I don't care what a drunk girl tells me she wants. My job is to protect and serve, emphasis here on "protect" and sometimes that means intervening and making the right decisions for people who can't make them for themselves. If Stacy still wants a date tomorrow when she's sober, she can always go back to the bar and ask around for "Dillon". Hopefully by then, he'll have gotten his car detailed and bought a few pine tree air fresheners for it. But until she's competent to make that call, my job is to make sure that no one else makes it for her. THAT is what being the police is all about.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-21988973446700538872011-11-12T10:41:00.001-08:002011-11-12T10:44:46.041-08:00Back to the blogYes folks. I'm back.<br /><br />Sorry for the absence, but I had a temporary reassignment that put me in a position that didn't exactly give me a wealth of tales to relate, but now I'm back on the street with a new squad of officers and the stories are about to start rolling again because these guys are kicking ass and taking names out there. So stay tuned and I promise to make up for the dearth of posts these last several months.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-27866584508876735922011-02-14T16:42:00.000-08:002011-02-15T06:25:27.879-08:00Ah, the joys of citizen complaintsSo one of my officers comes in and tells me to expect a complaint call any moment. Oh, Joy.<br /> <br />Having just had an encounter of the unsatisfactory kind with a citizen, he's following the time-honored protocol of racing back to the sergeant to get his own side in first.<br />They learn so fast, these new college-educated officers...<br /> <br />Anyway, he tells me about how he stopped this guy, and right from the get-go, the guy was all bluster and attitude. Now my guy is professional and I consider him to be one of my best, but even he has a boiling point, and this loudmouth finally reached it and got my guy pretty hot, too. So the stop ended with my guy handing out a few well-deserved citations, all of which were based on observed violations committed before the discussion got heated, and he sent the guy on his way after giving him his name, my name, and the station phone number, all of which he is required to do under our department's policy when citizens request it.<br /> <br />After hearing about the stop from my guy--someone that I tend to believe because I've known him for a while and I know how he deals with people (like I said, he's one of my top officers), I come to the conclusion that the guy he'd dealt with is basically just some sort of an asshole. Still, assholes call to complain just like regular people do, and it's my job to listen to the complaints and take appropriate action.<br /> <br /> <br />A few minutes later, the phone rings. My stalwart officer, my consumate professional, picks up the phone and gives the department name and his own per our policy.<br /> <br />A few seconds go by. He looks a bit peeved. He hits the "Hold" button and hangs the phone back up.<br />"Hey sarge...it's that cocksucker that I was telling you about. He's on Hold for you."<br /> <br />Only the guy is not on hold. My officer--one that until a minute ago I'd considered one of my best and brightest--had mistakenly hit the Speakerphone button instead of Hold.<br /> <br />And now the phone nearly explodes off the wall. "WHAT?! What did you just call me?! Did you call me a cocksucker?! How dare you! I'll....<br /> <br />Striking like lightning, my officer reaches out, picks up the phone handset, and drops it onto the cradle again, cutting off the call.<br /> <br />"Whoops. Sorry about that, Sarge."<br /> <br />I figure that he'll either call back here tonight, or else he'll call into the Chief's office tomorrow. And as it's been a few hours now and he hasn't called here, I'm already working on my latest "Dear Chief" memo.<br />Hopefully he'll read his memos before attending to his messages so I can at least get my side in first.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-1677496866013715482011-01-26T10:09:00.000-08:002011-01-26T10:14:19.656-08:00Dopes, a dope, and what happens when you dope off.So yesterday, I get a call from our undercover unit supervisor, asking if I can provide a jump-out squad to help snag a group of people that they would like to arrest after observing a number of them engaging in drug sales transactions. Now I like requests like this, because it gives me a chance to put a number of my less-experienced and/or less-motivated officers to work. I walk through the station and corral several of the ones that I want, than call for a few others to meet me at a specific corner a few blocks away from the park where the suspects are loitering around under observation. A quick call to the lead detective gets me the descriptions of the ones he wants, and so armed, we convoy up to the park, split into two wings—one for the north end and one for the south end—and sweep into the park to isolate the group and help the detective grab the suspects.<br /><br />Predictably, as we swoop into the park, several people suddenly get up from the benches and tables in one corner of the park and begin to rapidly scatter. We all split up and began putting the Habeus Grabbus on the ones we wanted. I drove after two guys who started to run off, pulling ahead of them with my cruiser and jumping out to nab one. I sent the rookie riding with me after another one. Typical rook: “Which one should I get?”<br />“The guilty-looking one! The one RUNNING! Sic him!”<br />So charged, my rook ran off and grabbed the alleged crack-head in question. Other officers and detectives also went after various and sundry other mopes—uh…”alleged” mopes—and when the dust had settled, we had nine detained.<br />I lucked out; mine was a guy that I’d been locking up from time to time for a few years, so at least we had our shared history to talk about while I searched him. <br />Now picture this scene: A park. In the park—a ring of police vehicles, all with lights flashing. Inside that ring, there are groups of uniformed police officers who have several people in handcuffs that they are searching. And into the middle of all of this rides Miss Oblivious on her bicycle.<br />I see her as she rides around my cruiser. I yell at her to stop and go around, but she’s listening to her ipod and doesn’t even bother looking at me. I have my hands full of crack-head so I can’t go after her, so I yell to my rookie to stop her. My rook, having just handed his crack-head over to a detective, steps into her path and yells “HALT!” so loud that people a block away reflexively stop doing stuff. Bike Gal startles out of her stupid zone, tries to swerve around my officer, strikes a decorative chain barrier about two feet high that borders the sidewalks, and topples off of her bike into a muddy flower bed. She’s not injured, but by the time she gets to her feet, even the crack-heads are laughing at her. I hand my detainee off to a detective and walk over to make sure that she understands the error of her ways. But she’s not feeling sheepish or apologetic at all; she’s furious and immediately launches into me about my rookie “knocking” her off of her bike for no reason. She wants his name, and my name, and starts telling me that she’ll be going to her doctor to get checked out and that…”<br />I cut her off before she can get to the lawsuit threat that I know is coming. I point out the police vehicles and police officers that she was riding around and between, and I let her know that she’s right on the edge of being locked up for interfering in a police operation. I tell her that if she’s injured, I will arrange for a medical evaluation, but it’ll be subsequent to her arrest for disobeying my lawful order to stop. Only slightly cowed (because her father knows a city councilman in a nearby municipality that has nothing to do with our jurisdiction), she argues that she, as a citizen, has the right to go wherever she wants to go and that we have an obligation to protect her right, not interfere with it. She then demanded my name and badge number again.<br />She didn’t get arrested, mainly because we had all these crack-heads to deal with, but she got my name and badge number written down for her on the mandatory appearance citation that my rook issued her. Maybe she can bring her daddy’s friend to court with her. <br />As the day wrapped up, we had seven arrests for possession, possession with intent to distribute, and/or possession of narcotics paraphernalia. We also seized all the cash that the “alleged” sellers had on them.<br />The icing on the cake: A fairly new but undeniably lazy female officer from another squad tried to sneak back early from an overtime beat and when I saw her in the station half an hour earlier than she was supposed to be, I assigned her to do the strip searches on our two female arrestees, both of whom were morbidly obese homeless women who stank to high heaven. I'm sure that she'll try to lodge some sort of a grievance for that, but since she was on the clock on my shift, she'll doubtless find out that I can assign work to whomever I choose, even slaps from lesser squads.<br /><br />Sometimes, work’s just fun in spite of itself.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-34373860655906364062011-01-02T12:22:00.000-08:002011-01-02T12:25:16.934-08:00Happy New Year...or not.I’m back, after some time off for vacations and training.<br /><br />And it didn’t take long for people to reaffirm my belief in the inherent stupidity of some of our local citizens. All it took was a car broken down in the center lane of a multi-lane road yesterday. Flares were set out and I had two other offers trying to push the car over onto the right shoulder to lessen the hazard resulting from such a traffic obstruction. Like a good sergeant, I’d positioned my car just inside the flare line at an angle blocking both the center and right lanes as best I could. However, no sooner had I positioned my cruiser then I observed a gray Volvo approach my car, slow to almost a stop, then proceed to go around my car on the right, using half the shoulder in his effort to get around my marked police cruiser as it sat there with all lights flashing and the arrow board pointing clearly to the left.<br /><br />Seriously? Is he really trying to pass me and drive into our scene?<br /><br />Yep. He sure was. He went right around my car, running over a flare as he did so, and then began trying to angle around the car that was being pushed by my other officers. <br /><br />Well this needed to be addressed, so I pulled out after the guy and stopped him just after he went around my other officers and the car that they were pushing. One of those officers had tried to flag him down, but he drove right past that officer, too. I got him to stop about half a block down. Needless to say, I was not in the best of moods when I approached the driver.<br /><br />“Do you make it a habit of driving through police scenes like that?” I asked him.<br />“I didn’t know that you wanted me to stop,” he replied.<br /><br />“Sir, my car was right there blocking the lane. You drove around it on the shoulder. What were you doing?”<br /><br />“Well there was room to get around…” he started.<br /><br />“No, there wasn’t.” I said. And even if there was, why would you go around a police car with it’s lights on like that? You almost hit my officers back there, and then when that one tried to stop you, you swung extra wide to go around him. What’s going on in your head there?”<br /><br />“I could see that all you guys had was a stalled car…” It was at this point that he gestured to the woman passenger beside him. “I knew that I could get through and I need to get my wife to the hospital,” he said.<br /><br />OK. Now that MIGHT be a plausible reason. And me being one of those nice guys willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, at least initially…<br />“So what’s the emergency?” I asked. “Do you need an ambulance?”<br /><br />“Oh, no medical emergency,” he replied. “She works there, and she’s going to be late.”<br /><br />Usually it takes some work to convince me to arrest a person for misdemeanors on a holiday, But he managed. He got locked up for crossing a police line, and his wife, who doesn’t drive, was taken to the nearby hospital by one of my officers. (Hey, I’m not a total meanie…although I did tell the officer to drop her off where everyone could see.)Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-79013891171248297812010-11-29T08:15:00.000-08:002010-11-29T08:33:11.010-08:00New Rookies...God help me.So I'm watching my newest crop of rookies load their cars prior to hitting the streets, and one of them--one who is carrying WAY too much gear--is putting his second duty bag in the trunk of the cruiser. The trunk is already packed to the gills with other stuff, but he puts his bag in and slams the trunk anyway, compressing everything. A moment later, however, a yellowish cloud begins to envelop the rear of that cruiser, causing everyone else in the parking lot to stop whhat they're doing and stare. The rook looks at me for guidance, and he gets it as I yell at him: "Don't just stand there--do something! Get that trunk back open!"<br />You see, I already know what that is. I know what he did. Now I just want him to figure it out.<br /><br />Sure enough, he opens the trunk to find that everything inside--including his oversized duffle bag that's filled with everything that some huckster at the police supply store convinced him that he might need someday--is coated with yellowish dry chemical from the fire extinguisher whose lever he'd compressed when he threw his bag on top of it and slammed the trunk shut. As a result of that careless moment, the entire extinguisher has emptied itself in the trunk, and now the contents of the trunk--and the interior of the cruiser--are dusted nicely withe the chemical.<br /><br />So my new rookie spent the next hour and a half pulling everything out of the trunk and cleaning it, then getting the car vacuumed out, and then he had to go back to his locker and change, because now HE was covered with dry chemical. And of course that crap's all over the station parking lot now.<br /><br />I've said it before and I'll say it again...I could not <em>possibly</em> have been that green when I came on the job. No way.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-68606045106455511302010-11-21T07:06:00.000-08:002010-11-21T12:52:32.117-08:00On new cops and clues...Sorry for the absence--training and year-end leave got in the way.<br /><br />But I'm back, with this neat tale of one who almost got away.<br /><br />Yesterday, one of my guys gets dispatched to a 1-car non-injury crash right out of roll call. Since he forgot to take the rookie that I’d placed with him for the day, I corralled the rook, tossed him into my cruiser, and took him up to the crash scene.<br />When I got up there, it was just my guy and two cars—the one wrapped around a utility pole, and another one that was just there for some reason. I was starting to get irked right out of the gate. I like my crash scenes run a certain way, and uninvolved bystanders are never included, family and friends of the involved parties in particular.<br /><br />I walk up to my guy—a fairly new officer himself. He told me that the female driver was claiming that as she was descending the highway on-ramp, a car that was ahead of her made a sudden u-turn and came back up the ramp at her, forcing her to swerve to avoid it. In the process, she claimed, she struck a utility pole. But one look at the skid marks and the damage to the car told me that her story was crap.<br /><br />“Whose car is this?” I ask, pointing to the uncrashed one. <br /><br />“Oh, that’s the boyfriend of the woman who crashed,” he replies.<br /><br />“And he’s here why, exactly?”<br /><br />“I dunno. When I got here he was here waiting with her.”<br /><br />“Get rid of him,” I said. I could already tell from the scene that this was likely going to involve more investigation and I don’t need boyfriends or anyone else dipping in from the sidelines.<br /><br />Then I approached the woman standing next to the crashed car. I asked her if she was ok, and she replied that she was. I saw that she was smoking a cigarette, and noticed that she kept her cell phone in front of her face. “I’m on hold with my insurance company,” she explained.<br /><br />Uh-huh. “Well how about if you call them back in a few minutes? We’ve got to get a few things wrapped up here so we can get you and this car out of here.” She smiled, and hung up the phone, just the perfect picture of cooperation. “Here, it’s awfully cold out here. Why don’t you come back and have a seat in the back of my officer’s cruiser for a bit, just to get you out of the weather.” She smiled again and followed me back to the responding officer’s car. I asked her to put the cigarette out, the put her in and closed the door. Then I went back to talk to my officer.<br />“What do you have?” I asked him. “She drinking?”<br /><br />“Oh, no, Sarge,” he replied. “I checked but I couldn’t smell anything on her.”<br />“Of course not,” I told him. “Not with her out in the open air, smoking that cigarette to mask her breath, and covering her mouth with that phone. Now why don’t you go talk to her again now that she’s had a minute or two to sit in that closed car and see what you think.”<br /><br />“I’d already seen her eyes and I knew. But now I wanted my new officer and the even newer rookie to pick up on it, and hopefully realize what mistakes had already been made here. Sure enough, when they came back after talking to her in the closed car, without the cigarette or the phone in front of her mouth, they'd been able to smell the tell-tale odor or alcoholic beverages and they told me that they wanted to do field-sobriety on her.<br /><br />“Yeah, I kind of figured that you would. Now do you see why I wanted her boyfriend out of here?” They nodded, knowing that had he still been here, he’d have been one more variable, and might possibly have interfered with the process. Talking a person into performing the tests could be tricky enough without having someone else standing on the sidelines telling them not to do it or otherwise butting in.<br />Predictably, she failed. Big time. And she got locked up, so we had a happy ending to the tale.<br /><br />And as she was being searched and put into the car, her boyfriend returned. As expected, he saw her being placed under arrest and started to front up, showing her that he was her alpha male. But once I pulled him aside, explained the situation to him, and asked him if he wanted to go with her for interfering, he looked over to see if she could see us, and when he realized that she could not, he shrugged and told us that he’d come get her later when we released her. He walked off, and I then explained to the rookie how much easier these things tend to work when you get the guy out of eye-and ear-shot of the girl. All-in-all, it was a good learning opportunity for both of them and hopefully they take a few things away from it. <br /><br />Realistically, my guy had already ruled out DUI in his own mind despite it being a single-vehicle crash early on a Saturday morning just a short distance away from the bar area. He was so caught up trying to be all “Officer Friendly” to this poor girl that he was even buying her tale of woe about how the crash happened despite the skid marks which clearly showed that she’d fish-tailed from road shoulder to road shoulder twice before hitting the steel pole hard enough dent it severely while destroying the front of her car. Yet when asked her speed, she’d just batted her eyes and said “no more than 10-15 mph…”<br /><br />But she was pretty, and he’s way too naïve and trusting at this stage in his career, so he'd disregarded all the clues that didn't confoem to her story and she almost got away with it.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-40611036592712983972010-10-19T15:22:00.000-07:002010-10-19T15:56:20.379-07:00"Authorized Emergency Vehicles Only" sign means me, not you.Today, as I was out checking on my crop of new rookies, I had occasion to use one of our emergency turn-around strips that goes between two opposing lanes of a highway. This particular one is fairly long and it runs between two long hedgerows so that the vehicles traversing it are not readily apparent to oncoming traffic in either direction. naturally it's great for radar/laser work and other traffic-monitoring activities.<br /><br />But today it was just supposed to be a way for me to quickly reach the scene of a new officer's traffic stop, saving me the trouble of going all the way up to the next exit and back. However, as I turned into this lane from one direction, what did I encounter but a Mercedes SUV coming the other way!<br /><br />I stopped.<br />The Mercedes stopped.<br />My overhead lights came on and my ticket pen came out.<br />The woman driving the Mercedes buried her face in her hands, certain that her day was about to get expensive.<br />It did. To the tune of $275.00 plus $50.00 more for not wearing her seat belt.<br /><br />Those cross-over lanes, folks? Those are for us, not the general public. We take it kinda personal when people presume to encroach upon our exclusive domain. And besides that, they're not set up to allow the average person to safely exit and re-enter traffic. So please, save us the aggravation and yourselves the risk and the fines if we catch you, and just go up to the next exit like you're supposed to.<br /><br />This has been a public service announcement from Sgt. Krupke.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-82072289526648823352010-10-18T09:37:00.000-07:002010-10-18T16:56:27.518-07:00Pursuit...without a police car.So the other evening--my night off--I'm heading back to my house with a friend of mine who is in town for the night. We'd been out for dinner and as we're driving back on the two-lane highway well outside of town, I see that the vehicle coming head-on in the opposite lane is encroaching over the solid double-yellow line.<br />"He's over the line," I say as I swerve to the right. But before I can even finish the sentence, there's a loud "WHAM!" as his mirror hits mine. At a combined closing speed of over a hundred miles an hour, this jack-ass who couldn't hold his own lane damn near killed us all. I slow to a stop, but as we look back, we see that the other vehicle--a pick-up truck--isn't stopping. "Oh, no," I say. He is not going to hit and run me. That's NOT happening." I commence to turn around, and my pal tells me that he'll be gone before we can catch up. But this is a long road with no side roads to turn off on, and while it's all hills and curves, it's a road that I know intimately as I drive it every day to and from work. I know this road better than I know our agency's pursuit track, and I can run this road. <br /><br />As my pal dials the local law enforcement agency via his cell phone, I manage to make up enough lost ground to come up behind what we think is the striking vehicle caught behind a couple of slower vehicles ahead of him. Sure enough--it's an older full-sized pick-up and what's left of it's driver's mirror is hanging.<br /><br />My initial plan is just to stick with him until he gets back into town where the local law guys can intercept him, but when we get to an intersection, he messes that up by trying to turn left onto a road that will take him well away from where help is on the way to us from. So I pull left of the center line, pass him, and cut him off. As I stop, my dashing pal is already out of my vehicle and getting ready to snatch this miscreant out of his. But the hit-and-run driver has other ideas and he throws his truck into reverse, backs down the highway past several other cars, then three-points it and heads back the way that he came. And we're off after him again.<br /><br />Back down the highway we go, his old pick-up moving so slow compared to my vehicle that this hardly counts as a chase. The local law has been advised of the change in direction, the tag number of the offender, and the fact that the two occupants of the pursuing vehicle are, in fact, off-duty police officers.<br /><br />We roll on behind this truck, and the pursuit is about ten miles old and approaching the jurisdiction's boundary when we see behind us a fast-approaching car with the familiar Ford Crown Vic front end...the calvary's arrived. The red and blue lights come on, but again, our fleeing truck doesn't stop. So I pull over, expecting the officer to take up the lead, but to my frustration, he pulls over behind US instead.<br /><br />Now shame on me--I know better--but when he didn't immediately come out of his cruiser, I opened my door, stepped out holding my badge up, and yelled: "That one! Get him!"<br />The officer stepped out of his cruiser and yelled back, "Did he hit you?"<br /><br />"Yeah! Now go get him!""<br /><br />"Don't yell at me!" the other officer responds, getting back into his car.<br /><br />"Sorry!" I yell, getting back into mine. The officer takes off after the truck, and we naturally take off right after the officer. Two cars that had passed us as we sat on the side of the road were treated to the spectacle of seeing the police car passing them on the left with the car that it had just stopped in hot pursuit. I'm so used to doing this sort of thing on the clock that it never occurred to me not to do it here and now in my POV....besides, when this officer catches the truck, he's liable to be alone and we may well be <em>his</em> only back-up until others arrive.<br /><br />A couple of miles up the road, the officer catches the truck. Just as he pulls up behind it, another police vehicle ahead of it puts it's lights on, and the truck is effectively trapped. It pulls into a gas station, as do the two police cars and us. I almost pulled in beside the cruiser "felony stop" style out of habit, but at the last second realized that my part in this was done. I stopped back a bit and my pal and I waited to make contact with one of the officers who was actually at work and in their own jurisdiction.<br /><br />As it turned out, the driver of the truck was a punk teen. He told the officers that he was scared because we were chasing him, but he never explained while I was there why he didn't stop in the first place OR when the first officer put his lights on. My take is that the kid is both a coward and a liar, and now he's got a charge of Reckless Driving under a statute that imposes jail time upon conviction. And of course, as cops will do, we all got to be talking. Not unexpectedly, we all have mutual friends/co-workers in common. I even apologized to the nice young officer that I'd yelled at in the heat of things. <br />And of course THAT had to make the kid feel good, to see the cops detaining him acting like it was "old home week" and laughing with the people that he'd hit. Feeling a little but outnumbered there, junior? Good!<br /><br />Anyway, it ended on a good note, in that the bad guy got caught and no one got hurt. Discussing it afterwards, my pal and I agreed that both of our respective agencies would probably have called that chase off long before it's conclusion, but since we didn't have any supervisors on the radio to tell us to break it off--and since traffic was light and the weather was good (and the bad guy only doing about 70mph max) we exercised our discretion and made use of our training and abilities to go a little (ok, a lot) farther than any civilians should ever have considered attempting. (In my defense, I'd just completed a 40-hour in-service pursuit driving refresher course.) Should we have chased the kid? Probably not. But we did, and a hit-run driver who would otherwise have gotten away with it got nabbed in the end, bascially because of all the cars that he could have hit that night, he had the bad luck to hit the one containing two police officers.<br /><br />Oh, and a fair warning to people with GEICO insurance... GEICO has informed me that even though I'm not at fault in any way, I'm still responsible for a deductable. Apparently they don't waive that like other insurance companies do. So if you're a GEICO customer, you might want to re-think that.<br /><br />And despite the drama, I did manage to get my pal to the airport on time the next day. He's off on a new adventure as one of Alaska's newest State Troopers.<br /><br />Those moose and meth-heads have no idea what's coming their way.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-51676802663709042372010-10-10T12:29:00.000-07:002010-10-10T12:42:11.931-07:00So today...I'm sitting in my car, having what passes for breakfast. I'm parked in the shade alongside one of our local war memorials. As I sit there eating, I see a man in his 50's walking down the sidewalk toss a soda cup at a trashcan. He misses by a mile but he keeps walking as it hits the sidewalk.<br /><br />Sigh.<br /><br />I pick up my PA mike.<br /><br />"How about you pick that up and put it in the trash can."<br /><br />He stops. He looks all around. He obviously doesn't see my slick-top cruiser parked alongside the curb. He's Mr. Oblivious. No, make that Mr. Looks-Guilty-but-Oblivious.<br /><br />"Sometime today would be nice."<br /><br />He looks right. He looks left. He looks right at and past me. Then he looks UP. I was so tempted to key up again and say: "Yeah, that's right. it's me--God." But I managed to restrain myself.<br /><br />Suddenly he sees me. He looks right at me, then points to himself and mouths "Who? Me?"<br /><br />Like there was someone else walking down the sidwalk throwing paper cups on the ground? Seriously--there's just the two of us here, and <em>I</em> didn't throw that cup on the ground.<br /><br />"Yes, you."<br /><br />He looks at me, then looks at the cup as if he's seeing it for the first time. He walks over, picks it up, and deposits it in the trash can as reverently as one might place an envelope in the church collection plate. Then he shouts "Can I go now?"<br /><br />It was so tempting to tell him that no, he now has to stay there and clean up after the next three litterbugs who happen along, but damn it, I'm a supervisor now. I can't be doing the sort of stuff that my rookies do--or that I used to do--any more. I dismiss him with a wave and he turns to walk away, leaving me to wonder how people that obtuse actually get to be that old.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-20652983738959398222010-09-08T17:46:00.000-07:002010-09-08T18:13:26.348-07:00Just because I felt like it...Today being the last day of our work week, I found myself with nothing to do during the last hour. And since it was a nice day out, and since I was a bit bored, I decided on a whim to indulge myself and correct the behavior of some of the violators that just get my blood to boiling--the lane-cutters.<br /><br />On my way home most days, I have to pass by a highway on-ramp that gets a ton of traffic come evening rush hour. Usually cars are lined up in the merge lane to get on it, and all too often, the impatient among us decide to get into the right non-merge lane and drive past all of the people who are waiting in line and then horn in at the last second just as the ramp splits off from the main road. As anyone who has waited patiently in line for several minutes only to have some jack-ass zip past and cut in can attest, there are few ways to be more selfish and disrespectful towards everyone else, and it's aggravating enough to make the Pope want to slap a nun, especially after a long day at work.<br /><br />So today, with nothing but time and a repressed desire to see justice served, I pulled up to that split and parked my car in the safety zone between the actual road and the ramp. Then I got out, put my safety vest on, and began targeting those cars that were passing all of the waiting motorists and trying to cut in. It didn't take but a few seconds to spot the first one whipping across the beginning of the safety zone. I pointed to the driver, and when he made eye contact with me, I waved him right back out of line, told him that I could either cite him for crossing a safety zone ($150) or else he could get back on the surface road that he'd cut in from. He got back on the road and drove off, and I was loudly thanked by the drivers of two of the next three cars that came by--cars that he'd just cut right in front of because he was (in his mind) more important than them.<br /><br />This felt good.<br /><br />I pegged about thirty of these people in a bit over ten minutes, offering each the choice of a ticket or a detour back on the road that they'd come from. many of them whined that they only know one way home (the highway via this ramp) and a few got downright panicky at the thought of having to navigate on unfamiliar city streets to try to find a new alternative route. Most of them had GPS units too, which was the sad part. "You got a GPS and you still can't find your way? Sucks to be you today. Move along." <br /><br />One young woman in a new Lexus SUV tried to tell me that she had a baby in her back seat. I replied that that was nice, but she still couldn't cut in front of other people or cross my safety zone in violation of the law. She began to get upset and then turned on the tears, growing louder and acting more hysterically each time that I told her to drive straight ahead back onto the road. Maybe that crap works with her baby daddy or her mom, but it doesn't work with me. Finally her baby started to cry too, probably because she was crying and carrying on. Then she yelled: "You made my baby cry! I hope you're happy!"<br /><br />Another guy was peeved at being told that he couldn't just cut in front of everyone as he'd just done. (He refused to come back out of the merging traffic lane and I had to go stand in front of his SUV to force him to stop.) He told me that everyone cuts lines and that he does it like this every day. I let him know that if I catch him doing it again he'll be going to jail. (Even though we rarely arrest for traffic charges, all of our traffic offenses here are technically arrestable.) "Yeah, we'll see about that!" he yelled as he drove away (on the surface road). <br /><br />Yes sir, we more than likely will. Even more than the many people who thanked me as they drove by today, you've just motivated me to come back out here next week and do this again.<br /><br />Besides, it's fun and it generates no paperwork.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-77938962990924394182010-08-15T07:18:00.000-07:002010-08-15T07:48:29.002-07:00Is there a "short bus" stop around here somewhere?So last night, I'm out and about and I stop this pick-up truck full of good ole boys because I saw them coming out of a road construction zone. It turns out that they were stealing...wait for it...SANDBAGS. <br /><br />That's right--they were picking up all of the sandbags used to hold temporary road signs in position. Of all the things in that work area to steal, these idiots were only taking the sandbags. That's like breaking into a bank just to steal the pens chained to the counter.<br /><br />They're also all drunk, which might explain the desire to possess thirteen state-owned sandbags.<br /><br />But sadly, dumb as these guys are, they're not the special ed class graduates that I'm writing about. No, the real idiots of this story are the couple dozen pedestrians who happen to walk up during my traffic stop.<br /><br />You see, I'd stopped these jokers just past a mid-block cross-walk. My cruiser is actually partially IN the cross-walk, with it's lights flashing. There are also three other fully-marked cruisers on scene, and we've got the four drunken bumpkins our of their truck and seated on the curb between my cruiser and the truck...in the cross-walk, naturally.<br /><br />So what do these pedestrians insist on doing, literally one right after another? That's right--trying to cross the street in this cross-walk by going between my cruiser and the stopped truck, and even trying to walk between the four guys seated on the curb and the uniformed officers who are watching them while we search the truck.<br /><br />And then these pedestrians have the nerve to look surprised and offended when we tell them to stop and look at them as if they're retarded.<br /><br />Now it's not as if there's so much traffic that they all *have* to cross here--traffic's light and there's not even a light here. But the bike path happens to cross here so suddenly every brain-dead zombie on the bike path has to show up and try to walk through the middle of our scene. One woman even asked our detainees to move aside for her, I swear. And when I asked her if she had any idea what was going on here, she looked totally baffled and said "no." <br /><br />So do you make it a point to walk around fire trucks at building fires and ask firemen to stand aside for you too?"<br /><br />"Well no," she replied, as if <span style="font-style:italic;">that</span> would be silly.<br /><br />She finally went around the scene, but her fellow window-lickers just kept showing up and trying to walk through the scene, even as the narcotics K-9 was being brought up to the truck. I finally had to post an officer on each side of the scene just to redirect people who you'd think would have had the common sense that God gave a goose--it was either that or just put everyone back in their vehicles and move the stop down the block away from these white painted lines on the pavement.<br /><br />Oh, and if this wasn't stupid enough, we also had to deal with several drivers who pulled up adjacent to the stop, rolled their windows down, and proceeded to ask for directions, as if we were all just out there like some sort of information kiosk with our red and blue lights flashing.<br /><br />"We're busy--keep moving," we'd say before they could even pose the question. But even that wasn't enough for one guy, who insisted that we tell him how to find a certain street first. <br /><br />"You'd best find yourself a gas station that sells maps real quick," I tell him. "Now move!"<br /><br />The pathetic art is that this city is ranked as one of the most well-educated cities in America. I just don't get it.<br /><br />Oh, and the sandbag guys? The driver eventually got locked up for DWI and his truck was impounded, and we made the other guys put the sandbags back before letting them summon a cab and leave.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-64358746558020264492010-08-03T18:10:00.001-07:002010-08-03T18:28:14.914-07:00I made three people cry today.First there was the woman that I stopped for running a red light who broke down into dry but very dramatic sobs before I even reached her window. She quickly stopped when I told her to show me her license, registration and some maturity. She quit crying and just got angry.<br /><br />Then there was the driver of a private school's bus, who made an illegal turn across traffic in her small bus filled with other peoples' kids, narrowly avoiding being struck by a garbage truck that had the right-of-way. She cavalierly told me that she wasn't much of a "city driver" and when I pointed out the numerous and highly visible "No Left Turn" signs, she replied: "Well my GPS told me to go that way so I did."<br /><br />When I returned with her ticket, she began to tear up and proclaimed that this would probably cost her her job. I told her that I wasn't seeing that as such a bad thing. Then she seemed to get mad, just like the last one.<br /><br />Finally there was the cab driver whose cab was being impounded by the local taxi inspector for numerous safety, paperwork and hygiene violations. HE cried the loudest--and I mean bawling with real tears and even throwing himself on the ground and wailing in some arabic language while beating the grass with his fists. He told me that I would have bad karma forever and asked me if I knew what karma was. I replied that I had heard the song about it by Culture Club back in the 80's just like everyone else. He then ran over and sat down in front of the tow truck and screamed "Just kill me now because I won't let you kidnap my cab!" However he changed his mind and got up quickly just as soon as he saw me take my pepper spray out of it's holster and shake it. Last I saw of him, he was walking towards a bus stop and shouting "God sees this! God will get you!" back at me as he walked. The tow truck driver was nice enough to give him a friendly beep of the horn as he drove past with the cab but even that didn't seem to cheer him up. He threatened to leave America and go back home (wherever that is) and didn't seem the least bit grateful when I wished him a safe and speedy voyage.<br /><br />Maybe tomorrow I can make someone happy. Just maybe.<br /><br />Or not.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-33483456731229199432010-07-27T15:23:00.000-07:002010-07-27T15:57:05.277-07:00So can you still have fun as a supervisor?Apparently so.<br /><br />The other day, I showed up to assist one of my rooks who was handling a minor collision. As I was helping him explain the facts of life to a woman who crossed three lanes of traffic trying to make a right turn from the far left lane--a woman who hit another car that was properly in the far right turn lane and who for some reason insisted that the driver of <span style="font-style:italic;">that</span> car was at fault--I was interrupted by a car horn that was being sounded by a guy who's stopped <span style="font-style:italic;">his</span> car in the traffic lane. "Hey! Come here!" he yelled at us.<br /><br />"I'll take this joker," I told the rook. My asshole detector was already registering. So I ambled over to see what could be important enough to summon a police officer away from an accident scene.<br /><br />"I need to know how to get to the city," the guy exclaimed.<br /><br />"You're in the city," I told him.<br /><br />"No, I want to get to the <span style="font-style:italic;">city</span>."<br /><br />"Look around," I told him. "You're in the city. Seriously."<br /><br />"No. I want to get downtown where all those tall buildings are," he explained, pointing to several tall buildings about a mile away.<br /><br />"Well you probably should have turned back there and gone that way," I told him. I mean, Geez, dude...you could see them and you still can. Think about it.<br /><br />"Well I didn't see the signs telling me how to get there. You need to tell me how to get there. Show some public service." His attitude indicated that he considered me to be just half a step above a moron. Whatever, idiot. At least I'm not lost. Damn, I should have let the rook deal with this guy...must...bite...tongue.<br /><br />The I noticed that his seatbelt was off.<br /><br />"How about if you put your seatbelt on for me," I suggested.<br /><br />"Yeah, ok," he replied, making no effort to do it. "So how do I get over there?"<br /><br />"Well first you start by putting your seatbelt on," I suggested again.<br /><br />"Are you going to tell me or not?"<br /><br />"I'll tell you right after I hand you the $50.00 ticket for not wearing your seat belt if you don't put it on right now," I told him.<br /><br />He sighed and put it in. "There. happy now? Feel big? Gonna tell me now?"<br /><br />"No problem," I said with a smile. "Go straight ahead to that next light. Take the downramp that says "Airport" and after you get on it, the very next turn-around you come to will take you right downtown. Just follow the signs."<br /><br />"Thanks for nothing!" he yelled as he drove off.<br /><br />The rook came over. "Gee, Sarge, why'd you take all that from him? He was an asshole."<br /><br />I just turned and smiled. "Yeah, he was. And he'll have some time to reflect on that once he goes down that ramp." We both looked and could just make out his little car going down the ramp I'd directed him to...the one for the airport connector--The airport connector that has no exits and no opportunities to turn around until one reaches the airport itself, seventeen miles later.<br /><br />"I guess I forgot to tell him that the first turn-around that he's going to come to is seventeen miles away. If he follows the signs there, they'll direct him to drive seventeen miles back here and with any luck he'll see the signs for the downtown exit. Allowing for afternoon traffic and airport congestion, I figure he'll be just about back here again in about an hour or so.<br /><br />The rook laughed. "Damn, Sarge. That's just wrong."<br /><br />"No, Son...That's what we call a learning experience. With any luck, he'll learn something from this. And if he does, that'll be my good deed for the day."<br /><br />Stripes or not, I still enjoy this job.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-83987981252337811522010-07-22T07:01:00.001-07:002010-07-22T07:21:47.529-07:00Rookies with ticket booksLike I said previously, I have a whole flock of new rookies working for me now, several of whom have been assigned to downtown foot beats. And each rookie has a ticket book and has been told that he or she can write as many tickets as their little hearts desire. So what are they doing? Why naturally, they are having contests among themselves to see who can write the most, and they are going out and enforcing regulations--chiefly parking regulations--that have not been enforced in a while. So people who have gotten used to parking freely in areas where the prohibitions against it have not been enforced are suddenly and repeatedly getting slammed with parking tickets. This of course makes my phone ring, as people used to getting away with things now consider it "unfair" that they're getting tickets for parking right under the big "no parking" signs that have always been there.<br /><br />Well they're calling the wrong person if they're expecting sympathy or any kind of a break. I've always been about the "enforcement" part of law enforcement myself, so if my rook are writing legitimate tickets..."You have two options, sir or ma'am...you can pay them or request a hearing...No, I'm not going to take the ticket back just this once as a courtesy."<br /><br />I used to hate it when I had a particular sergeant who used to pull my tickets as favors for friends of his or for people that he wanted to suck up to, and I'll be damned if I'm going to do that to my officers. If they wrote a ticket, that's their call and I wasn't there so I have no business second-guessing them. That's what court is for.<br /><br />Hell, I'm so proud of my charges for going out every day in the hot sun and crushing the scofflaws that I've taken to going out there myself a little bit each day when my schedule allows and writing tickets right alongside them. And this has already led to one humorous phone call:<br /><br />"RING!"<br /><br />"Sergeant Krupke speaking."<br /><br />"Yes, Sergeant. I'm calling to complain that one of your officers wrote me a ticket for parking an a handicapped space this morning."<br /><br />"OK, were you parked in a handicapped space?"<br /><br />"Yes, but..."<br /><br />"Do you have a state-issued handicapped placard in your car?"<br /><br />"No, but I was just in the store for like thirty seconds, and now it's going to cost me like three hundred dollars!"<br /><br />"And what would you like me to do about this?"<br /><br />"I just think that you need to talk to the officer and tell him to have a little understanding and maybe show some common sense. I mean, he was right there when I parked and he could have told me not to park there."<br /><br />"And what is the officer's name on the ticket?"<br /><br />"Uhhh...Here it is...it's 'Krupke'...oh damn." (click!)Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-41435213908532852392010-07-21T13:08:00.000-07:002010-07-21T13:44:08.169-07:00Not funny anymore.It wasn't long ago that I, along with most cops, thought that Force Vehicle Crashes (where a police officer smacks up his cruiser) were a source of amusement. Contrary to what you see on TV, most of these don't occur in the middle of high-speed pursuits but typically during normal driving and parking...especially backing up. Most cops drive a lot, and they mutli-task while doing so, so the chance of a fender-bender is always there. It used to be fun to come into the station parking lot and see a freshly-crumpled cruiser because you knew there was going to be a funny story circulating inside about how it happened.<br /><br />That changes when you get to be a patrol sergeant. Now it's more along the lines of: "Dammit! How could you not see that post?! It was sticking right up out of the ground in the same place where it's been since you came on this job. Now I've got to write a report, take pictures, get the damned thing to a couple of local garages for repair estimates, explain it to the white shirts, and somehow make street coverage without that car for the next week or two...DAMMIT!"<br /><br />So the enjoyment that I used to secretly--or openly--take from other people's car mishaps has come back on me in the form of a baseball bat gripped in the hands of the karma fairy. Now no matter who on my squad wrecks a car, it's MY problem, and in the eyes of a couple of our white shirts, somehow MY fault. ("You aren't supervising them right, Sergeant Krupke...")<br /><br />And if anyone in the station wrecks one, I still have to do without as I work out my daily beat coverage assignments every day. Again, unlike in the movies where every cop gets a nice, shiny car and just goes out wherever they want, I have to make sure that each little zone or area in our jurisdiction has a police car in it, plus I have to make specific coverage of certain locations with dedicated cars assigned strictly to those areas, and I have to cover a few road construction sites with permanently-placed cars that are required by municipal contract. The construction contractors pay for the officer--usually at overtime rates--but the cars that the officers use get drawn out of the existing pool fleet and usually they're gone before I even get in to start my day. Bottom line: Ever since I came on board, there have been more cars needed each morning than are available and I have to juggle assignments and scare up nonexistent spares or hand out cars that are being saved for some special use by somebody higher up the food chain and are therefore technically off-limits to me.<br /><br />So along comes my perfect storm: Not only does one of my rookies wreck a car the other day, but he totals one of the brand-new ones that had (naturally) been set aside for another unit's exclusive use. Short on cars, I made a decision and snatched the keys to that car out of someone's desk drawer where they had been poorly hidden. (I keep reminding the white shirts that they gave me the power to make decisions...) Not twenty minutes goes by and the radio explodes into screams of "10-50! 10-50! Officer involved! My rookie is in his first wreck (with <span style="font-style:italic;">that</span> cruiser, naturally) and it's hit the fan.<br /><br />I can't post specifics about the incident yet, but the rook smacked someone else who was both totally at fault and politically connected. As a result, my report (and my finding of fault) is on the best-seller list around here--everyone wants a copy. It's also been "suggested" that I revise it a couple of times and take some of the sting off of the guilty party. I may be a new (and still probationary) sergeant but I'm not changing the report, especially not in a way that opens my rook up to even a part of the responsibility. I'm standing by my findings, but I can't help noticing that there's a chill in the air every time I have to go into white-shirt country, and it's not just because they've got killer air conditioning.<br /><br />Ah well...this too shall pass.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-19964844355332939722010-07-18T04:11:00.000-07:002010-07-18T04:15:00.291-07:00Back...all new and improvedSorry for the absence, gang...but Officer Krupke had to go back to school for a bit.<br /><br />Exit Officer Krupke--enter SERGEANT Krupke.<br /><br />That's right--I am now a patrol sergeant, with a squad of 24 officers (and two Corporals, thankfully) under my command. Adding to the fun: almost half of this squad are new rookies right out of the academy.<br /><br />Oh, I've already got stories, and more are coming every day. So stand by and I'll get them all posted here as soon as I can.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-4350474042882586142010-06-18T17:48:00.000-07:002010-06-18T17:50:09.949-07:00Cop humorRecently, our chief had a neatly-lettered motivational sign put above the mirror in our locker room. It says: "A Neat Appearance Commands Respect."<br /><br />It wasn't up three days before some wise-ass cop wrote in pen underneath it: <br />"So does the ASP."<br /><br />The chief's pissed, but I still chuckle when I see it.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-20909230303802694822010-06-15T13:25:00.000-07:002010-06-15T13:38:49.202-07:00Just a suggestion...If you're the sort of person who can't help driving through an accident zone and shouting obscenities at the people involved and the officers handling the mess, it's probably not a good idea to do it less than two miles from where you habitually park illegally. And as dumb an idea as <span style="font-style:italic;">that</span> is, doing it while driving a tricked-out brightly-painted SUV with a personalized vanity tag is just plain ignorant.<br /><br />A fella here did that to a few of my co-workers last week. It was rude to say the least. And later that day, one of the officers involved happened to see the undeniably distinctive vehicle parked in a two-hour metered zone and the meter was expired. Cost to the loudmouth: $50.00.<br /><br />But it gets better. The next day, the same officer found it parked at an expired meter again. CHING! Another $50.00. <br /><br />We discussed this at roll call and deduced that the driver works at one of the nearby businesses and is one of the many local workers who roll the dice every day by parking in the metered spots and gambling that they won't get more than a ticket or two every month. (As long as they think it's cheaper than paying for legal parking every day, many people will do this and just accept a few tickets as their unofficial parking fee.)<br /><br />To be honest, a main reason that this works is because most of us have better things to do with our time than cruising meter parking and handing out parking tickets every day. But this guy...he's become a day-shift project now and it's a game to see who can find him and tag him first on any given morning.<br /><br />He just got his fifth parking ticket this morning and some of us are wondering how long it's going to take him to figure it out and either pay to park in a garage, take public transit to work, or start driving another car--one that we don't automatically recognize on sight.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215100033305357228.post-80249106183455431082010-05-29T09:17:00.000-07:002010-05-29T09:18:56.721-07:00Regarding my previous postLike I said--all cops are family, and I don't ticket family.<br /><br />Of course I also don't ticket lots of other people I stop. Generally, if I'm hunting for drugs or drunk drivers and I stop someone for a minor infraction--known as a "pretext stop" by the Supreme Court that endorses such tactics--I usually don't cite the ones that I stop unless my brief contact with them turns into something more. I stopped you because you have a light out or because you were doing ten over. No indications of drinking or contraband? Drive safely and correct that problem before I see you again.<br /><br />Other than that, most people that I stop get stopped because they've done something right in front of me that's so egregious that it cannot be overlooked. And even in that case, if I feel that my merely pulling you over and discussing it with you has been sufficient to change your behavior, you probably won't get anything worse than a written warning either. My traffic tickets are few and far between these days and generally only go to those who worked hard to earn them. So it's not like I'm stroking everyone except cops. <br /><br />To the ones upset because they see a few cops getting away with something...If I pull you over tonight for something minor, unless you're drunk, appear to be hiding something, have a bad driving record or are just a total mouthy tool, you're probably not going to get a money ticket either. So chill.Sergeant Krupkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05474778356561310018noreply@blogger.com17