I have a firm deadline to submit my “clean” manuscript to my publisher by Friday, May 30. Because I don’t have a minute to spare, I’m not going to post today…because I’ll be doing this:
But look for Hal Collier’s post on partners on Sunday, June 1.
Thanks for your patience,
Thonie
In my last Ramblings, I described the bad partners I worked with. Most were probationers and you might think that I didn’t like newbies. Actually, it was just the opposite.
Training a probationer was a lot like watching your own child grow up. You nurse them, teach them, and often laugh at the mistakes they make. Some learned to walk faster than others. Some days you’re frustrated and ready to give up, then you see the light come on in their head and you know they’ll be ok. Think potty training. You coax them along then send them out into the real world hoping for the best. When you really care, you worry.
As I have said, I probably trained over 100 probationers and most made it through an entire career, a few resigned in lieu of being fired. There were ones who became your boss. You bragged how you trained them. Thank goodness they didn’t hate me. If I named each good partner I worked with, it would take up pages.
What is a good partner? That’s a loaded question! Is it someone you have a lot in common with? Now, I loved partners who had nothing in common with my interests. He/She didn’t like sports, He/She didn’t like hunting, He/She was a Democrat or Republican. Some came from rich families and others lived paycheck to paycheck. And yes, some even had a lot of education.
Bill Barren (RIP) was a good partner. He loved Ohio State, I loved USC; he hated the outdoors, I loved camping and fishing; but when we pinned on those badges, we were as close as twins. Dale Hickerson another great partner. We have fished, hunted, and watched each other’s kids grow up. At times, it was as if we were an old married couple. Dave Balleweg another great partner wasn’t into playing sports like I was, but we have remained close even when he moved to Oklahoma. There are dozens more I could name including supervisors but I don’t have enough space.
Good supervisors: I had many and I often tried to copy them when I became a supervisor. So, what does a patrol cop look for in a good supervisor? A supervisor who cares more about his officers than his next promotion; a supervisor who shows up at your call and lets you handle it. They’ll save you from making career ending-decisions. They’ll offer advice when asked but don’t butt in and screw up the situation you had calmed down. I once had a neighbor dispute almost handled. My sergeant showed up and escalated the incident which later found me in civil court on the wrong side of a lawsuit. I won but what a headache.
Some of my favorite sergeants, Gil Jones, Terry Seagraves and Roger Jackson would show up stand back and let me handle the incident. They offered advice based on their extensive field experience. These sergeants were more concerned with doing good police work than impressing the chief. Some days, when I was the Watch Commander and I was ready to retire, I would walk into Mike Diaz’ office and close the door. Mike would let me vent, pat me on the back, and then send me back into battle.
I had other supervisors who had no field experience; we called them “Building Boys.” Some had trouble finding Hollywood Boulevard even though you could see it from the front door of the police station. I had one brand new sergeant show up at one of my calls and when confronted with a decision, requested another sergeant to decide how to proceed. Jeez.
Some partners you just bond with. There’s a chemistry, somewhat like being married. You can finish each other’s sentences, know what he/she is thinking and spend hours together and never be at a loss for words. Craig Bushy knew when his partner, Randy Walker, was losing patience. He would take off his glasses and set them on the hood of the police car. Luckily, when you divorce from these partners, you don’t lose half your pension.
A good partner is someone you put your trust in, even more importantly–your life. Often, before going to your family, you confide in a good partner and listen to his/her advice. A good partner is someone who can make you laugh, even when you ready to cry and believe me there are times you’re ready to give it all up. The stress can kill you if you don’t laugh.
So, what’s the clue? Hell, I don’t know. But when you spend a few hours together, you’ll know. I had many good partners who I hunted and fished with and a few who (outside of police work) I had nothing in common with. When working with a good partner, you looked forward to going to work. Even if you got all the crap calls that night, you still had fun. You just knew that it was going to be good shift.
The good partners let you forget the bad partners and allowed me to spend 35 years on the LAPD. Good partners were gold and made the job fun; I miss the good ones and still have nightmares about the bad ones.
FYI more than half the people who I sent this to were considered good partners. Thanks-Hal
[editor’s note: this last paragraph refers to those on Hal’s email list. This is how he first disseminated his Ramblings. You know who you are and you should be proud–Thonie]
Joshua Mohr appeared at the Redwood Writers General Meeting Sunday, May 18. I’m so sorry I missed him but reading his “homework,” I found that he put words to the techniques I seem to be evolving. Reading these two files were helpful in moving forward with my third Nick and Meredith novel.
–Thonie
The following is taken from the Redwood Writers website; links are to Mohr’s website and pdf files.
Joshua Mohr
“Plarachterization: Intersection of Plot and Character”
The best plots aren’t controlled by an authorial presence. Plot springs from the characters themselves. The writer masterminds all of these things, but the more we program ourselves to think of it in this way—that our protagonists are sovereign beings with independent consciousnesses from our own—the better prepared we are to traverse what I’m calling “plarachterization.”
This seminar will be geared around characters’ decision making, the causality between plot points, how to keep a reader excitedly flipping pages. We’ll also delve into specific tactics for constructing a present action and how to fold backstory into it. Plarachterization is a strategy that will help any aspiring writer!
Joshua Mohr is the author of four novels, including Damascus, which The New York Times called “Beat-poet cool.” He’s also written Some Things that Meant the World to Me, one of O Magazine’s Top 10 reads of 2009 and a San Francisco Chronicle best-seller, as well as Termite Parade, an Editors’ Choice on The New York Times Best Seller List. He lives in San Francisco and teaches in the MFA program at USF. His latest novel is Fight Song. Visit his website: http://www.joshuamohr.net/
TO PREPARE FOR THIS SEMINAR ON WRITING CRAFT,
DOWNLOAD AND READ TWO SHORT ESSAYS BY JOSHUA MOHR.
CLICK ON THE TITLES : DRAMATIC ACTION PLARACHTERIZATION
By Hal Collier
The following stories are true. After 35 years of working patrol, I have been exposed to a variety of partners. Some were rookies, some became your close friends, some were your immediate supervisors, and some were the captains of your station. Some were “good,” some were “bad,” and some were just plain “ugly.”
I read in the paper recently where the L.A. Sheriff’s Department has a program where they rate their leaders, anonymously of course. Some of their quotes were amusing and some probably true. I’ll pass on a few.
“I wouldn’t follow him to a free buffet lunch.” “I wouldn’t follow him out of a burning building.” “He couldn’t lead a sing along.” “He couldn’t inspire a flea to jump.” He plays favorites like a DJ at the VFW.” “Couldn’t make a decision if he had a pocket full of quarters.” OK, the last two were mine.
In some business environments, you work around a co-employee. If you’re talking about a patrol partner, you spend eight hours or now days, ten to twelve hours in a car with your partner. After a few days working with the same person, you know everything about them. Their financial situation, how their marriage is working out, and yes, even their sexual history. You know their kids and their wife’s/husband’s names and in some cases, you know her menstrual cycle, like it or not. Partners become very close, or bond as they say. Some are easier to bond with than others.
I’m going to break down partners into four categories. Those partners you work directly with, those who you supervise, or who supervise you and your commanding officers (if you’re lucky they don’t even know your name).
First, I’ll talk about probationers, or rookies to my non-police friends. Probationers graduate from the police academy, wide-eyed, and ready to save the world. They are going to turn prostitutes away from a decadent sex life into the adults their parents hoped they would become. Drug addicts will turn into health freaks, and bums into productive members of society. After their first month in patrol, their balloon has burst or you hope they have come to their senses. Cops deal with the shallow gene pool of humanity and our short interaction won’t change their lifestyle.
In the early days, the training officer probably told them the first day, “Forget everything they taught you in the academy, I’ll teach you the right way!” That means search and seizure rules went out the window. It’s the way you write the arrest report and laws of arrest are a little stretched. If force was used, it depends on how many independent witnesses were present, if it was excessive. Your first day or night, you talk about an hour to get to know your probationer.
The first question you ask is, “Is your gun loaded?” Don’t laugh, some forget or think they’re still in the academy. One real story goes like this. The officers are enroute to a shooting in progress call and the training officer is advising his brand new partner to be careful and stick close to me. The probationer turns to his training officer and asks, “Should I load my gun now?” Never mind, we’ll get coffee first! Don’t laugh, it happens. I’ve had partners with college degrees but not a lick of common sense.
Some partners had the same views and values that you have. You could spend six hours on a stakeout and never be at a loss for words. Then again, I once spent three hours with a probationer who didn’t say a word. No kidding, not a word, for three hours. We didn’t have much in common, I liked John Wayne and she liked sci-fi movies. She didn’t even get out of the car for coffee.
I’ll start out with the bad and in some cases, they were also ugly. You’ll see. I was blessed with some very good probationers which I’ll talk about in later Ramblings. One of the bad probationers didn’t seem suited for police work. I was looking for a common bond to talk about and I asked him his hobbies. I said, “I hunt, do you hunt?” He replied, “No, I don’t think I could kill anything!” Stop the car!!! A lot of cops don’t believe in hunting but do I want to work with a partner who might have reservations about using his gun to save a life, maybe mine?
Part of the training program is letting the probationer drive. Driving a police car is more than just driving down the street. Officer safety is very important to his partner who is looking forward to retiring alive. Probationers have a tendency to park right in front of the location of a man with a gun, or they will look for a legal parking spot. They often park next to a trashcan, mailbox, or fire hydrant so the passenger can’t get the car door open.
I had one probationer who thought that red lights were for non-cops. I let him drive twice and both times, I took the car keys away from him. He kept driving through major intersections against the red light figuring that no one would hit a police car. I once supervised a probationer who had never driven a car. He lived in New York and always took a taxicab. I watched his training officer’s hair turn grey. We had a few female probationers who weren’t use to driving big four-door cars with a powerful engine. We didn’t have any two-door police equipped BMW’s.
The worst probationer I had was Jeff. Jeff was a graduate from USC and thought that being a cop would be fun. Jeff couldn’t write a sentence without help. No, he wasn’t an athlete. He told me that he paid someone to write all his college papers. I thought that was strange because Jeff was the cheapest cop I ever met.
We were eating at Denny’s one morning and I just had coffee, Jeff had steak and eggs. Jeff wanted to split the bill down the middle. Another time Jeff and his partner walked into a restaurant to eat and spotted a wanted burglar sitting at the counter. The whole watch was looking for this crook. They grabbed him and Jeff objected. He wanted his half price meal instead.
The worst trait about Jeff was that he was a coward. Yep, Jeff wanted to wear the uniform and collect the paycheck but didn’t want any of the danger that came with the badge.
We had a “man with a gun” radio call and the witness told us the armed suspect went into a parking lot. Jeff and I were to go down one side of the parking lot and two other officers were to check the other side. We started searching the parking lot. I was in the lead after about thirty yards I looked back, Jeff was still out on the sidewalk hiding behind a building. I motioned for Jeff to join me; he refused and said it was too dangerous!
Another time Jeff and his partner got into a pursuit. The suspect’s vehicle crashed and the driver fled on foot. Jeff’s partner chased and caught the suspect. He looked around and no Jeff. The partner walked back to the police car and there was Jeff. Jeff said he was guarding the police car! Jeff was asked to leave the LAPD.
I had another probationer, Tom, a nice enough guy, but he use to sit at code-7 (meal break) and tell me he had the next day off. He would ask me if he should get drunk and go to bed or sleep then get up and get drunk. I sent Tom AA cards for years after we worked together. Another time, he informed me that he went to a Doobie Brothers concert in Santa Barbara instead of sleeping. Tom asked me if we could coast tonight. I told Tom that if I caught him with his eyes closed, I’d send him home. He’s my back up. Am I hard ass or just a music critic? Come on—the Doobie Brothers!!
During the height of affirmative action hiring, I had a probationer who had no common sense and couldn’t make a decision. We once were given a bag of possible narcotics to book. He took custody of the bag and then informed me that he had gotten some of the powder on his hand and had touched his lips! I told him that if he started acting strange, I might have to shoot him. I hope he’s now working as a Wal-Mart greeter.
Some thought my hair loss was hereditary. I think it was probationers. We all learned the hard way.
Next I’ll describe some of the best, or good, partners I worked with or for. Hal
By Thonie Hevron
Well, technology defeated me yet again yesterday.
Back in April, Sandy Baker, Lex Fajardo and I did with KCRB’s Gil Mansergh to publicize the Redwood Writers From Pen to Published Conference (to be held on April 26th). The interview went well–I actually had fun. but it took me all this time to have a moment to find it. I did that yesterday and thought I set the post to appear on Wednesday with the thought that I’d add photos and some explanation today. Obviousy, I made a boo-boo because it appeared yesterday morning. So for today, I’m posting some of the photos we took.
Gil Mansergh is the host of KCRB’s Word by Word, a show reflecting the literary talents in the North Bay. Sandy Baker, my co-chair, is the author of the thriller Tehran Triangle as well as a host of darling children’s stories. Lex Fajardo is the creator of the graphic novel Kid Beowulf series and will appear at the conference in a session about book trailers, YouTube and other media for book marketing.
I was the third interviewee.
By Hal Collier
The following stories are true to the best of my memory, but then I’m beginning to write my name and address in my underwear. Now, if I would just remember to wear underwear.
I never worked Vice or PED (Prostitution Enforcement Detail) but I did spend a lot of time, pissing in the wind, trying to stem the flow of untaxed prostitution.
I was working the best job I would ever have on the LAPD. I was walking a foot beat on Hollywood Boulevard. I still laugh when some supervisor on a cop show threatens to send a cop back to pounding a foot beat. Anyway, I’m working a morning watch foot beat assignment on Hollywood Boulevard. A morning watch foot beat is unheard of in other divisions. That’s right 11:30 P.M. to 7 A.M. Anyway, I got a handle on the drag queen problem—they’re all working east of Vine.
My lieutenant says “Hal, the whores on Sunset are out of control and Vice can’t work all night. I want your foot beat to go down to Sunset and give them some attention.” Uh oh, I’m going to need another recipe box. PED hadn’t been invented and Public Nuisance laws hadn’t been enacted. Anybody who knows the law, knows that uniformed police officers don’t make arrests for prostitution. Only a Darwin Award candidate would go up to a uniformed cop
and offer a sex act for a specific amount of money. So, all I could do was write them tickets or book them for the tickets that I wrote them and they didn’t pay for. The circle of a Hollywood cop’s life.
So, Randy Witkamp, my partner at the time, and I headed down to Sunset. We began filling up a recipe box with a whole new circle of friends. Mud Ducks from the East side and the more attractive and expensive girls from the west end. I knew they were girls, because if you remember, [see post from May 3] I’m a department expert on drag queens.
We immediately encountered one girl at Sunset and La Brea. Her name was Bobbie XXXXXX. I remember her last name but she’s probably a member of some city employees staff and I can’t afford a civil suit. Bobbie was attractive, smart and only dated regular customers. Vice had a hard time arresting her. I think she actually graduated from college; her brother went to UCLA and played football. Any way Bobbie had a bad attitude toward the police and we became her new favorite nemesis. Randy and I would drive down Sunset, right after stopping at Limelight Liquor for sunflower seeds and cigars.
If we saw Bobbie, we would park right in front of her. Bobbie always paid her tickets so all we could do was put her out of business. Bobbie once told me she makes a $1,000 a week, tax free. I was making about a $1,000 a month, before taxes. So we would sit in our car and Bobbie was put out of work for the night. Because we didn’t have to respond to radio calls we could sit for an hour at a time. One night we brought a thermos of coffee, pulled up in front of Bobbie poured ourselves a cup and sat back drinking coffee and eating sunflower seeds.
Bobbie said something about a waste of tax payers dollars and jumped into a taxi cab. She’s not paying taxes so who cares. We followed her southbound Hollywood Freeway to southbound Harbor Freeway. The taxi exited at Century Boulevard and so did we. We got back on the freeway and stopped at PAB and topped off our gas tank. We got back to Sunset and La Brea just as Bobbie was getting out of the taxi. We made sure that Bobbie didn’t make any money that night.
One night we were sitting in front of Bobbie when we heard this car speeding northbound La Brea. It was a van and it sped right through the red light at about 60 mph. Randy and I looked at each other as another car somewhat slowed and ran through the same red light. This has to be better than watching Bobbie give us the finger. We turned northbound and followed the two cars. They both ran the red light at Hollywood Boulevard and again at Franklin Avenue. We hear a horrendous crash. The van was still going about 60 mph when it ran into a block wall where La Brea ends. I won’t describe the driver’s condition but he died within minutes. His van crashed into the block wall right in front of the yellow street sign that said “END” The second car was an off duty cop who saw the van speeding and thought he had just committed a robbery. The irony is the van driver was drunk and going home to the 1900 block of South La Brea. He died in the 1900 block of North La Brea. Right street, just going in the wrong direction.
I’m working station security one night. This white guy pulls up in a pick-up truck. He shows me an LAPD badge and asks if Sergeant Houchin is the Watch Commander. I tell him yes and he sprints into the Watch Commander’s office. I notice the guy is bleeding from his head. Minutes later, I hear a crime broadcast, murder just occurred at the Sahara Motel on Sunset, suspect is described as a male white in a pick-up truck. I’m putting 2 and 2 together and this time I come up with that’s the murder suspect.
Turns out he’s a Wilshire sergeant who picks up a black prostitute and goes back to her room for that 30 minute nap. He’s just entered her room when the pimp emerges from the closet and tries to rob the sergeant. The sergeant takes a couple of hits to his head, pulls out his gun and sends the pimp to the afterlife. The homicide was ruled justified but the sergeant’s career path hit a major speed bump.
Ok, last story on prostitutes, I think. We’re driving down Sunset early one night and we spot this attractive prostitute, new to us. We stop her and she informs us we just arrived in Hollywood from Fresno. She tells us they needed to turn a few tricks for motel money. I’m no English major but I pick up on we and they. I ask who’s she with, thinking it might be a pimp. She tells us her girl friend just got a date before we stopped her. I ask whats her girlfriend look like? She tells me she looks just like Farrah Fawcett. I’m thinking yea, right, they are on the west end where the better looking hookers work, but come, on Farrah Fawcett!
We drive around for an hour looking for Farrah, when we see a line of cars trying to pick up a hooker. Yep, it’s Farrah. Damn if she doesn’t look just like Farrah, even with the famous hair style. We get in line and it’s surprising how many cars ahead of us give up their spot. We interview Farrah. Yea, she got the looks but three words out of her mouth and you can see why she is a prostitute. She couldn’t make change for a dime. I swear my Lab has a higher IQ.
I’m not going into stories about the following but these are locations which catered to male prostitutes. Most of my retired cop friends who worked around Hollywood could tell you stories that will amaze you. Non-cops will find them unbelievable.
Ferndale #4–A men’s bathroom at the end of Ferndale Park.
Barnsdale Park–During the day a world class art gallery and Hollyhock House, after dark dozen of men running around looking for someone to share that 30 minute nap.
La Jolla and Waring–Nice neighborhood in the daytime, men having sex on your front porch at night.
I didn’t like working the prostitutes and equated it with standing Station Security. Very little return for your effort.
Hal
Here is a story you won’t find on the 5 o’clock news. Maybe this will be contagious.
Here’s an ABC story about Anaheim PD’s heroic K-9 Bruno released May 2 from the vet hospital. Click on Bruno.
The fourth part of a planned trilogy.
If you missed the first 3 parts, e-mail me and I’ll send them to you free of charge. Of course I live in California so I’ll have to charge you a tax of $12.96.
My last Ramblings talked about how to identify a drag queen. Now I’m going to tell you how I became a Department expert in a field so disgusting. My background: I worked A.M. (graveyard) watch for the first fourteen years of my career on the LAPD. The hours were roughly 11:30 P.M. to 7:30 A.M. During those hours the prostitutes come out from under which ever rock they dwell. It started out innocent enough. I took a couple of reports when men dressed as women robbed their customers. The suspect usually gave a first name to their new-found love. Usually Steven was changed to Stephanie, Robert to Roberta etc. and there were always an abundance of Bambi’s, well, you get the picture. After a number of reports where Roberta robbed Paul to pay Peter the pimp, I thought that Roberta was driving up Hollywood’s crime stats. All I needed to do was ID and arrest Roberta. KISS—”keep it simple stupid.”
I began stopping drag queens who matched Roberta’s description. I filled out a field interview (FI) card and if possible took a picture. After collecting a few dozen FI cards I needed something to store them in. My wife bought me a green plastic receipt box. It was the perfect size and became known as the “The Green Box.” A few officers called it the “Drowning Rat File.”
Soon the “The Green Box” became two boxes, A thru L was the Green Box an M thru Z was a tan box. Whenever possible, the suspects were taken to the station where we had a strip mug photo machine. Just like you had at the carnival, four pictures for a buck. The “Green Box” became popular not only among officers but the drag queens themselves. If an officer was looking for a particular he/she, he would look thru the “Green Box.” The drag queens wanted to see if we had a good picture of them. One even offered to go to the station for a better picture. The Green Box evolved into two I-Card books. Each individual had it’s own card with all it’s alias’s, DOB’s (date of birth), criminal arrest numbers and a small picture. Once a homicide detective used my Green Box to ID a murder suspect.
I was the keeper of the Green Box or the drowning rat file books. I guarded them with your tax dollars. The information contained hundreds of hours of computer time as well as a who’s who in the drag queen hall of fame. I once used the Green Box as a Christmas list. I checked the current Hollywood drag queens for warrants. I used the wanted queens as a shopping list. Two days before Christmas I arrested and booked the “Ladies” who caused the most crime. It was my present to Hollywood Officers who might otherwise have to take crime reports with drag queens as suspects.
Some of my non-police friends might wonder why I spent so much time and tax dollars on drag queens. It was because of RD’s (Reporting Districts) and crime stats. Each police car is assigned an area which is broken down into RD’s. The officers assigned to an area are somewhat responsible for the crimes in their area on their watch. Sometimes the Watch Commander (W/C) would say “Collier, why is your area leading the division in robberies?” I’d say, “It’s the prostitutes, they’re robbing their customers.” Wrong answer! The watch commander would counter, “Collier, what are you doing about it?” Do you still believe it’s a victimless crime? My robbery statistics and watch commander didn’t say so.
My W/C said I had to do something, so I figured I would move two hundred drag queens out of my area and give my problem to the bordering car’s area. My area was Hollywood Boulevard from Highland to Vine, Franklin to Fountain. I couldn’t drive them west, that’s where the Chinese Theater was. Unwritten rule, no prostitution around the tourist attractions. I’ll just get them to go east of Vine St.
I started telling the queens who frequented my area that if they worked east of Vine I wouldn’t harass them, I mean give them selective enforcement. I even wrote up an east of Vine pass. About a dozen of them started working east of Vine. I would stop by and compliment them on their nice clothes and make-up. I didn’t write them any tickets or check them for warrants. My crime statistics dropped, and crime went up east of Vine. Other officers started giving out RD (reporting districts) maps detailing which areas they could ply their trade.
Some officers become department experts in narcotic sales and identification. Me, I became an expert in drag queen recognition. It started out one night when my partner and I saw this guy trolling for a drag queens. We ran his license plate and it returned to a John XXXXX, legal owner, LAPD Credit Union. Oh, oh, my partner recognized the name as a classmate who was now working Rampart Division. We looked at the driver and sure enough it was an off duty cop. After notifying a supervisor we kept an eye out for the cop. A month later a Hollywood sergeant stopped the cop with a queen in his car. He resigned but later requested a trial with a police review board. That’s where I testified as an expert on the recognition of men dressed as women. This was in the 70’s and cops supporting the oldest profession was a no no.
Last entry on drag queens and a kind of funny. This is the very early 70’s and we stopped this young, I want to be a lady at a bus stop. It was about dawn and the normal citizens were coming out and heading to work. After a consent for drug search the queen took off his blouse and then took the dirty socks from his bra. He removed his bra and shoes and placed them on the hood of our police car. I noticed this little old lady sitting on the bus bench. She was watching us and had a “Oh, my God look on her face.” I walked over to her and advised her that it was a man, a prostitute and a drug abuser.
She thanked us for protecting society and got on her bus.
Hal