We are happy that 35-year veteran Hal Collier is sharing his ‘stories behind the badge’ with us.
Another short Balleweg story. A traffic officer asked for back up in front of the Nest Bar, a known biker bar. We arrived as did many other officers. This drunk biker said he’s not going to jail and he’ll hurt as many cops as he can.
Six cops surround this wannabe Rambo and the fight is on. The biker is wrestled to the ground and three cops twist his arm behind his back to handcuff him. A familiar snap sound is heard. That’s right, his arm was broken during the handcuffing process.
Ok, whose arrest is this? None of the cops want this arrest—it will take half the night to get his arm set in the ER and then more time booking him at County Jail Medical Ward. Dave suggests that whoever’s handcuffs are on this want to be Rambo, it’s their arrest. All the cops agree. What Joe Bustos didn’t know was that Dave took Joe’s cuffs out during the fight. Joe was not a happy cop. Dave and I went for a cup of coffee—always good after a fight.
Dave and I dealt with a lot of Meth abusers and most new us by name. Hell, they would call the station and tell us who was driving a stolen car and in which motel they were staying. I remember once we arrested Kentucky Bob for driving a stolen car. When we went to court to testify against him, he greeted us like we were brothers. He plead guilty before we had a chance to testify against him. What a pal.
I know other officers have Dave Balleweg stories, some which still can’t be told. Working with Dave was a rare and rewarding experience, a true Hollywood Character.
Altruistic motivations aside, one of the reasons many of us chose police-work as a profession was the unpredictable nature of the job. Each day presents new and differing challenges; one shift might be filled with mind numbing reports while the next might involve ducking punches trying to quell a bar brawl. Business professionals are not usually going to find themselves involved in a physical altercation with a customer. Yet, such confrontations are almost a given in police work, more so depending upon the number of drinking establishments your town happens to have. In an officer’s career, most of these fights usually blend into the tapestry of innumerable, long forgotten calls for service, traffic stops and arrests. That said, there are always some fights that you never forget.
Swing shift briefing this particular afternoon was unremarkable save for a warning about not using our flashlights in place of our batons. Apparently, a not so happy “camper” was suing officers of a Southern California department for doing just that. I filed that tidbit away in the back of my mind, thinking it would never be of importance, before heading out to patrol my assigned beat, on the east side of town. By the time Graveyard shift hit the streets later that night (around 2200 -10:00 PM) I was buried in reports; since it was the early 1980’s, we actually had to write our reports by putting pencil/pen to paper. This is the less than glamorous facet of police work seldom, if ever, portrayed by Hollywood fiction which in reality, typically makes up the larger part of an officer’s day.
Traffic Officer Gerry Goldshine circa 1985 in his patrol car
Our patrol cars were our offices and we would have to park somewhere within our beat to complete our paperwork so that we were available to handle any calls. Back then, a favorite spot to park and write was an old abandoned gas station at the corner of East Washington and South McDowell Boulevard. I had parked facing west, directly across from the “I Forgot Its Name” restaurant and bar, which was nestled in the middle of a Best Western Motel complex.
I had been writing for about an hour or so, my clipboard stuffed with reports yet to be approved by my sergeant. I was engrossed in some residential burglary report that had no leads, when the sound of a man yelling broke my concentration. I could tell, without even looking, that it was the type of howl made by somebody having consumed a snoot-full of booze. I just knew that he was probably going to require my attention, putting me further behind in completing my paperwork. I grudgingly peered out the front windshield in time to see a middle-aged man stagger over to a shopping cart that someone had abandoned in the parking lot. Clearly unaware of my presence and for reasons known only to him, this likely intoxicated clown proceeds to push the cart right into the street where it rolled to a stop in the middle of the far right lane, posing a hazard to traffic.
At almost the same time, Officer Dave Port happened to be making a right turn from East Washington onto South McDowell and witnessed what I had just seen. Dave got on his patrol car’s public address system and ordered this inebriated moron to pull the cart back out of the street. Neither of us was especially pleased with his response, which was in sign language and involved a contemptuous display of his middle finger. I fired up my patrol car and drove across the street to join Dave, who by then had pulled into the parking and removed the cart from the street.
By the time I got out of my car, Dave was in the process of explaining to “inebriated moron” that he was going to get a rather costly citation for causing a traffic hazard. Not surprisingly, he responded in a less than pleasant manner, giving both of us another emphatic, “Fuck you!” only this time, verbally and rather loudly, too. He turned to walk away as Dave and I looked at each other in disbelief. I stepped in front, blocking his withdrawal as Dave told him that he was under arrest for disorderly conduct. It should go without saying that “inebriated moron” was not having any of that and whirled around, quite obviously prepared to fight. I grabbed one of his arms, intending to apply
a wristlock, when another man came running toward us from between some parked cars. Without a word, he proceeded to shove me away from the first subject. Speaking with a heavy German accent and his breath laced with the unmistakable odor of alcoholic beverages, this new player demanded to know what we were doing with his brother. Given that we were now facing two drunken combative morons, Dave notified dispatched we needed more help.
I tried to explain to our newest “friend” that we were arresting his brother for pushing the shopping cart into the street, creating a traffic hazard and for public intoxication. I had already decided to arrest him once we got some more help, figuring for the moment, a modicum of discretion was the best course of action. Naturally, as Murphy’s Law is wont to do, he swung a balled up fist at me catching me with a glancing blow to my shoulder. The fight was on, Dave grappling with one brother and me with the other. Somehow, Dave had managed to use his portable radio and told whoever was coming to help us, to step up his response to “Code Three” – with emergency lights and siren. This in and of itself was a sign to other officers, that we were undoubtedly in some “deep Kimchi”.
An instant later, I unexpectedly found myself fighting with not one but two men. My first thought was that Dave had somehow lost control of the idiot who had caused all of this. That was until I saw that he was also fighting with two men. What started out to be a simple “routine” arrest for public intoxication had turned into a donnybrook and we were outnumbered two to one. Dave and I both had the same disquieting thought; where were these guys coming from and how many more were going to join the fracas?
I had already taken a couple of well-placed body shots when I managed to get my hand on the microphone clipped to my uniform shirt’s epaulet and called a “Code Twenty” meaning that we needed any and all help we could get, immediately if not sooner. Just as I heard dispatch sounding the alert tones over the radio, someone knocked the microphone from my shoulder and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground beneath two attackers. From out of the corner of my I caught a brief glimpse of a third person running towards me. That “Oh Shit!” moment quickly turned to relief when this person tackled one of the two atop me and pulled him off. For the moment, I was back to fighting one on one.
In the ensuing struggle, I managed to get on top of my suspect but unfortunately, the jackass was then lying on his hands and arms, making it impossible for me to handcuff him. I yelled at him to put out his hands, though at this point, I knew it was a futile request. I upped the use of force ante pulling out my trusty can of Mace, which is essentially liquid tear gas, and gave him a generous dose in his face. Unfortunately, the Mace did not work as advertised and he still refused to bring his arms out from underneath him or cooperate in any manner whatsoever.
I reached for my baton and discovered it had popped out of the holder on my equipment belt; so much for that option. It finally dawned on me that I was holding my police issue flashlight in my right hand. It was with a great sense of irony that I looked at the flashlight, then the suspect’s head, then the flashlight. I quickly figured that it was probably an incredibly bad idea to smack him in the head with said flashlight, given the warning we just received in briefing; however, the good Lord knows just how badly I wanted to do just that at that very moment.
Then, the welcomed sound of wailing and yelping sirens piercing the night, converging upon us from what seemed like every direction, finally penetrated my consciousness.
The cavalry arrives! Photo courtesy of the Roanoke Times/AP
The cavalry had arrived! In a matter of seconds, the restaurant parking lot and part of South McDowell Boulevard filled with patrol cars from not only Petaluma Police but also Sonoma County Sheriff and the California Highway Patrol. The sounds of more than a dozen police car radios echoed off the surrounding buildings, which were awash in a kaleidoscope of flashing blue and red colors.
A couple of officers helped me convince my subject to conclude that it was in his best interests that he let me handcuff him. As one of the other officers led him off to one of the waiting patrol cars, I looked around the chaotic scene and noticed someone in street clothes assisting some officers in cuffing my other assailant. As it turned out, he was an off-duty California Correctional Officer who happened to be driving by and saw that we needed help. He was the person who tackled one of my assailants.
Within minutes, all four were in handcuffs and on their way to the station for booking before transport to Sonoma County Jail. That’s when we learned they were all brothers, living in the San Francisco area, though they were originally from Germany which explained the accents.
As has previously been mentioned on “Just-the-Facts Ma’am”, during these kinds of adrenaline fuel incidents, our perception of time is altered. For me, the wait for help to arrive seemed interminable, yet the entire confrontation from start to finish lasted no more than four and a half minutes. I’m not sure how long it was before I finally felt the adrenaline bleeding away only to be replaced by an overwhelming feeling of fatigue. Both Dave and I had torn, tattered uniforms, in addition to an assortment of cuts, scrapes and bruises; Dave had torn cartilage between several ribs while I had a couple of badly bruised ones.
Now, had this been an episode of Dragnet or Adam-12, this would be the point where the fate of the four suspects was revealed. In keeping with that spirit, some names have been changed to protect the guilty. The District Attorney, in and for the County of Sonoma, accepted the following plea agreement for the four Deutschland Brothers. By each brother pleading guilty to two counts of misdemeanor “Battery upon a Police Officer” and two counts of “Resisting Arrest and Interfering with an Officer”, the DA would dismiss the felony battery charges and request no jail time upon successful completion of 5 years probation. The guilty plea rendered moot the lawsuit they filed against the City of Petaluma for alleged police misconduct. It also meant that the counter-suit Dave and I filed against each of the four brothers was successfully settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. The Chief of Police wrote the off-duty California Correctional Officer a letter of commendation for coming to our aid.
Apologies to the band Fun. and their wonderful song,Some Nights
Check out Just the Facts, Ma’am on Wednesday for the continuation of Hal Collier’s Ramblings on calls for service–next comes part one of 5150’s. For those of you who aren’t familiar with that term, it’s the California Welfare & Institutions Code for mentally impaired. Get ready for more stories!
Very early in my police career, one of my training officers hammered home a crucial aspect of officer safety. When an encounter devolves into a physical altercation and fists are flying, it is essential to remember there is always at least one gun available to the attacker and that’s my own gun. This is one of the primary reasons that when an officer becomes embroiled in a fight, as Hal so eloquently stated it in one of his recent stories, “we don’t fight fair—we fight to win as fast as possible.” There is no greater mortal fear than having a suspect gain control of your weapon. When that happens, the outcome is usually fatal to one or both parties involved and perhaps others as well. This is why an officer treats every fight as being for all the marbles.
Front lawn at Petaluma Valley Hospital
One fall evening, dispatch sent me to check a report of a man down in front of Petaluma Valley Hospital. When I got there, I found a young man, who appeared to be in his early twenties, lying on the grass right by the hospital’s sign. He had no obvious injuries that I could see and though he seemed conscious, he was unresponsive to any external stimulus. I didn’t smell any odor that would indicate he was drunk, so that left some type of medical, mental or pharmaceutical issue. As the saying goes, “The lights were on but nobody was home.” I requested an ambulance to have the paramedics evaluate him.
Once they got there and checked the young man, they radioed the Emergency Room to consult with the on-duty physician. Since it was unclear what was causing his condition, we loaded him into the ambulance. All these years later, I can’t recall precisely why, but I locked up my patrol car and rode in back of the ambulance while it covered the short distance to the back of the hospital, where the ER entrance was located. As safety protocol dictated, the paramedics restrained him to the gurney with its safety belts. No sooner had the back doors to the ambulance closed and we got underway than the kid began trashing about and let loose a series of inhuman shrieks. I had seen this sort of reaction in people with severe head trauma but there wasn’t a mark on him.
Suddenly, he did a great impression of King Kong, ripping free one of the gurney straps from its anchor point. I immediately suspected he might be on PCP, a very nasty drug that hyper stimulates you, often instilling unbridled aggression and super-natural strength. In seconds, he freed his other arm and began swinging wild punches at us while trying to free his legs from the other straps. Much of what happened in those next few moments is still a bit of a blur. I vaguely recall hearing the driver call for more police units. I remember being alarmed at the number of things in the ambulance he could use as weapons. I was about to find that was the least of my worries.
Petaluma Fire Department ambulance
My adrenaline spiked after when a well-placed kick connected, bouncing me off one of the equipment cabinets. An instant later, he was tugging on my Beretta, trying to pull it out from the holster. Words cannot convey to you what I felt at that moment. In a flash, everything appeared to be moving in slow motion. I was experiencing time compression, a phenomenon that frequently occurs in such critical incidents. I realized that not only was my life in danger but so were those of both paramedics; I was responsible for their safety. As my mind raced to formulate a strategy, instinct and training took over. I yelled a warning that he was trying to pull my gun from my holster. The driver slammed on the brakes thinking that would be helpful. All it did was add to the chaos. The ensuing tangle of bodies eliminated any chance of reaching my back-up gun in my ankle holster.
Thankfully, I was wearing a state of the art safety holster, designed to prevent someone from pulling my pistol out, particularly from the front, which was exactly what he was trying to do. That bought me time. I don’t recall making the conscious decision to do so but I put all of my 140 pounds of brawn behind a punch that I delivered to the left side of his jaw. It was the first time I had ever punched someone in the face and it stunned him just enough that he released his grip on my gun. All three of us piled on top of him and held him down on the gurney. About then, the back doors opened and two more officers jumped inside. The five of us quickly trussed him up better than any Thanksgiving turkey, using every strap we could find.
He was still shrieking and violently thrashing about when we delivered him to the ER a few minutes later. The doctor put him in a darkened, quiet room, still strapped to the gurney. Reducing all external stimuli was the recommended way to treat someone reacting violently to PCP. I honestly don’t recall what happened to him after that.
Fortunately, I had a hell of a good Sergeant that night. He had me park my car at the hospital and then drove us to Denny’s. I had a very bad case of motor mouth – I couldn’t stop talking and my hands shook seeming to move about of their own volition. It took a while for all that adrenaline to bleed off. I was also lucky in that I was about to go on my days off. With that in mind, my Sergeant told me to write up my report of the incident and then go home; he would take care of everything else. Three days later, I was back on the job.
So yes, when cops fight, the Marquis of Queensbury rules go out the window. Absent a Taser, the most effective and safest tactic to neutralize a physically combative suspect is pretty much along the lines of General Schwarzkopf’s strategy in the first Gulf War; use overwhelming numerical superiority to make the opponent realize his position is untenable and more importantly, unwinnable.
