By Mikey, Retired LAPD
I was just assigned PM Watch patrol at Rampart Division and I’m excited that as a brand-new P-2, I’ll be working with another brand-new P-2!
Oh yeah, it doesn’t get any better than that and the best thing is that we get to make our own decisions! Real adults! So, I find that my partner is another Hispanic (We are both Mexicans. Just say it) and he is as excited as I am. We flip as to who is going to drive and the other partner is TGOTR, he is the “guy on the right.” He keeps the books and does the talking on the radio.
Before clearing we grab a cup of mud and discuss tactics, back up gun positions, driver officer’s responsibilities, passenger officer’s responsibilities, who is first up to scratch a traffic ticket, and so forth.
Pretty important stuff as you may not have the time to figure out these things if you get into deep serious. Then we discussed our training officers, supervisors, the hot records clerks, and most important, where we were going to take code 7, eat.
We were westbound Temple Avenue approaching Bonnie Brae Street when we see two guys in the middle of the street in a throw-down, one guy on top of another on the ground.
We go code 6 (busy) at the intersection and break up the fight. After the guys are handcuffed, we sit them on the curb and discover that they speak only Spanish. S—t, cause neither of us “Hispanics” speaks the lingo worth a crap. We talked about it a long time before we made the decision—to request a Spanish speaker to our location. Then we did it.
The first to respond was our supervisor. He got out his cruiser, walked up to us and yelled, “What the hell kind of Mexicans are you two?”
“Ones that don’t speak the language very good, Sarge.”
“You don’t speak English very well either.” He began. “If I ever find that you two possess more than $5. 00 between the both of you I’m gonna arrest you for theft, ’cause you are ripping off the city. Two Mexicans and you don’t speak Spanish.”
He shook his head as he walked off.
And from the curb came the spoken words, “He don’t like you, huh?”
Yup, from the jerk that was on top.
2 replies on “Roll Call: Just off Probation, Rampart ’74”
Funny stuff Mikey. I remember what it was like to ”get my own car” after doing some quality learning time as the number three man with two WWII vets . They moved on and I got the best partner I ever had, we did the same, we set our own rules, devised signals and ”magic” was born. Some great memories I shall take with me to EOW>>
Thanks for your thoughts on your formative training.