Tag: Frank Isbell

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Street Stories The Call Box

The Call Box: Partners

polic-call-box-pedestal-lapd-gamewell-DCAL2786_dt1By Ed Meckle, Retired LAPD

Ask most street cops what they consider the most valuable; the most important part of their professional life, if forced to; the last he/she would consider giving up.

I feel the answer would be their partner.

Partner defined: “One associated with another, especially in business or action.”

“Associate or colleague” OK so far.

“Either of two persons who dance together” (define dance)

“One of two or more persons who play together in a game against an opposing side” and “sharing risks and profits” Yes and yes

You should pick your partner with the same care as you pick your mate because you are going to be as close to and spend as much time with them as you do with the person you married. Choose wisely.

Start with the obvious—you need someone who you can get along with; who will be there when your life depends on it. Someone dependable, someone who will not lose it when the “fit hits the shan.” Trust me it will, and that’s a hell of a time to discover you picked wrong.

Choose someone with a mindset such as yours yet different enough so you complement each other. He/she sees what you might miss and vice-versa. Someone in whom you can see and appreciate the good qualities and ignore the unimportant bad ones; someone you feel comfortable and communicate easily with.

“On the right, by the alley.”

“Got it.”

Someone who knows what you are likely to do in a particular situation; who can understand and also convey a message with a shrug, nod, grimace or some other gesture you hadn’t even thought of.

Your Huntley to, his/her Brinkley (dating myself here); during a stop and on your feet taking and maintaining a good position. Moving sometimes as though choreographed. His/her Rogers to your Astaire (yet again).

And when it’s “come and get it time,” and the world is spinning out of control, his Butch to your Sundance.

As the saying goes, “someone who runs TOWARD the sound of gunfire.”

Consider the following:

You begin your tour by seating yourself side by side with your partner in a visibly marked vehicle. You are going to spend the next eight plus hours together directed by the radio to solve various problems.

When free from the radio you are on the “prowl” and “looking for trouble.” Let me repeat that: looking for trouble.

Does this sound like the sort of job description where you drive to the labor pool and pick someone from the crowd? I think not.

You hope to find out before it becomes critical that you have chosen to right person, since by then it will be too late.

They say you are lucky or rich if you have one truly good friend in your lifetime. I would think then that if the same could be said of partners. I am truly blessed.

Ward Fitzgerald and Hal Brasher, both WWII vets, taught me “the game.” Both were my kindly old “uncles.”

Frank Isbell and I were the “proverbial identical twins separated at birth,” who found each other, while Richard L. Sullivan “Sully” and I were truly soul mates.

I will lie for you, I will bleed for you, I will take a bullet for you and I will die for you.

Dedicated to PARTNERS everywhere.

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Street Stories The Call Box

The Call Box: A Vast Wasteland

By Ed Meckle, Retired LAPDpolic-call-box-pedestal-lapd-gamewell-DCAL2786_dt1
Fifty-six years ago, Newton Minow, then chairman of the F.C.C. uttered the still quotable line describing TV as “a vast wasteland.”

As true now as then, most people gain their perspective of various occupations or professions from TV. Doctors, attorneys and yes, police officers.

TV helps people to understand us–what, with our wild car chases, daily gunfights, magic deductions, the treatment of victims and especially suspects, instant DNA and so on.
I have said it before and now again. Most of the job is non-confrontational and non-criminal. I understand that no one would watch a show of an officer giving directions, helping someone locked out of their house or car, looking for lost kids, etc.

The reality is a wild, crazy, funny wonderful ride with God knows what encountered along the way, from the mundane to “you ain’t gonna believe this.” Police work is the thrill of living by your wits and sometimes flying by the seat of your pants. Just the satisfaction you get from doing the job, especially when there is no one there to say, “Atta boy.”

Two examples:

Los_Angeles_Memorial_Coliseum_-_USC
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

I was a uniformed officer assigned to some event or another at the Memorial Coliseum, that monolithic home to the 1932 Olympics. I was walking a solo beat on one of the concourse levels, the wide cement “roads,” home to food stands, beer sales and massive restrooms that circle the inside of the venue.

I was approached by a man who reported. “There’s trouble in the men’s restroom.” He was gone before I could obtain any details.

Eight to ten feet inside the door, the problem was evident. A well dressed, middle-aged woman had inadvertently entered the men’s room. The urinals, probably twenty plus, are against the far wall. As she entered someone yelled, “Lady in the room,” at which time a good number of the men at the urinals turned as one to see what was happening.
The woman is now face to face, so to speak, with a situation she was unprepared for. She appeared frozen and unable to move. I stepped in front of her, close enough to block her view. Taking her by the shoulders, I attempted to turn and push her out the door.

She was rigid as a board and was not breathing.

Finally, I was able to break her free and start her moving while shaking her and telling her to breathe.

Once outside, she transitioned from not-breathing to hyperventilation. And she started to melt. Now, I was trying to hold her upright for a few seconds when she regained her composure. She straightened her clothing and without ever uttering a word or looking at me—was gone.

~~~
graphicstock-illustration-of-a-cartoon-angry-policeman-cop-_rFR6Esf2Kb_thumbYears earlier, I was working patrol. My partner Frank Isbell and I were in the station for some reason. As I passed the watch commanders office the sergeant called, “Meckle, see me.”
Yes, sergeant.
The following is the gist of that conversation:
Sergeant: Did you write a ticket to a [consulting note] Norman Williams earlier?
Me: Yes, Sergeant.
Sergeant: Did you have a problem with him?
Me: No, Sergeant.
Sergeant: He came in to complain that you called him a [consulting note again] “peragidave.”
Me: A what, Sergeant?
Sergeant: [consulting] A “peragidave or peragidive.”
Me: What’s a peragidive, Sergeant?
Sergeant: I was hoping you could tell me.
Me: Honest, Sergeant. I have no idea what he is talking about. My partner was there the whole time.
Frank has now entered the office and is standing just inside the door trying not to laugh out loud.
Sergeant: [to Frank] Well?
Frank: [shrugged] Nothing, Sarge. [smothering a laugh]
Sergeant: What?
Frank: Honest. Nothing, Sarge.
Sergeant: [to me] Did you say or do anything that would make him drive all this way to complain?
Me: All I did was write him a ticket. He wasn’t happy and said, ‘This is going to court.’ And I said, oh—
Sergeant: What, ‘oh’ what?
Me: I said, “That’s your prerogative.” Aw jeez.
Sergeant: I’m betting he didn’t understand what you said, kept repeating it to himself all the way here and it became peragidave. Do us both a favor. No more big words on the street.

Note: you can’t have laughs like that flipping burgers or bagging groceries, boys and girls.

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The Call Box

The Call Box: Two Short But True Stories

polic-call-box-pedestal-lapd-gamewell-DCAL2786_dt1By Ed Meckle, Retired LAPD

In May of 2016 when Thonie agreed to give my tales a chance I realized that with a fading memory it would be best to create a list of story ideas as they would occur to me. My handwriting has deteriorated so over the years that when I went to examine the list I got one of three results.

1) I think that will make a good story

2) What the hell was I thinking ?

3) What the devil is “finat whreps snangle”?

Moving my list to the computer helped along with using complete words.

diceHere then are two completely unconnected events in the life and times of Ed Meckle.

Working vice was a real blast. Plain clothes after time in uniform was a little strange but good partners along with a fun assignment made coming to work a pleasure. As the newest guy on the detail I got all the “interesting” jobs, like going through bedroom windows in the middle of the night.

Assigned primarily to gambling enforcement meant arresting “illegal gamblers.” Finding the games was easy. We had a list of regular locations and tips were plentiful. Games usually held in private homes, were so noisy they could be heard a block away. One of us (me) would gain quiet entry to the house and open the door for my partners.

On this occasion I was in plain clothes, going through a back-bedroom window about six feet off the ground. The hour was late and the light in the room was very dim. They boosted me up and as I went through I lost my balance. I fell about 2-3 feet landing on a bed on top of a sleeping male.

Now stop for a moment and think what your reaction would be under these circumstances. I know mine but that’s not what I got.

Sitting bolt upright, he said, “DAMN OFFICER, YOU SCARED ME HALF TO DEATH.”

~~

bus stop silhouettesI have tried to be as circumspect as possible with what follows out of respect for any female readers.

BUT IT IS WHAT IT IS…

I was working Metro with my regular partner Frank Isbell and we were in uniform in a black and white, assigned to some daytime detail or another in Hollywood.

We were east bound on Hollywood Boulevard crossing Cahuenga. Frank was driving. On the southeast corner was a bus bench occupied by three people with another half dozen standing behind them.

The center person on the bench was a twenties something male with a bouncing newspaper on his lap, head back and eyes closed.

I said, “Bus bench.”

Frank replied, “Got it.”

Three right turns brought us north on Cahuenga to Hollywood. We parked, approaching on foot. Paper was still bouncing, and he still was unaware of our presence.

One of us removed the newspaper. Here goes—he was having carnal knowledge of a cantaloupe. {honest, that’s the best I could do, people}

At the station, we had to admit we don’t have a victim, so he goes to jail for traffic warrants.

I can just hear Hal saying, “OK, so what did he do wrong? This is after all Hollywood!”

Categories
The Call Box

The Call Box: Partners

polic-call-box-pedestal-lapd-gamewell-DCAL2786_dt1By Ed Meckle, Retired LAPD

Ask most street cops what they consider truly valuable: what is the most important part of their professional life, if forced to, the last he/she would consider giving up.

I feel the answer would be their partner.

Partner defined: “One associated with another, especially in business or action.”

“Associate or colleague.” OK so far.

“Either of two persons who dance together.” (define dance)

“One of two or more persons who play together in a game against an opposing side.” and “sharing risks and profits.” Yes and yes.

You should pick your partner with the same care as you pick your mate because you are going to be as close to and spend as much time with them as you do with the person you married. Choose wisely.

Start with the obvious—you need someone who you can get along with; who will be there when your life depends on it. Someone dependable, someone who will not lose it when the “fit hits the shan.” Trust me it will, and that’s a hell of a time to discover you picked wrong.

Choose someone with a mindset such as yours yet different enough so you complement each other. He/she sees what you might miss and vice-versa. Someone in whom you can see and appreciate the good qualities and ignore the unimportant bad ones; someone you feel comfortable and communicate easily with.

 

“On the right, by the alley.”

“Got it.”

 

Police partners
Sgt. Michael Biddy, front, and Corporal Aaron Whitehead use a radar gun to detect the speed limit of drivers on Tinker Air Force Base, Okla. The two DAF civilian police officers were both prior military before joining the civilian security forces here on base. Civilian officers are federally certified law enforcement officers and perform the same duties as the military security forces. (Air Force photo by Kelly White)

Someone who knows what you are likely to do in a particular situation; who can understand and also convey a message with a shrug, nod, grimace or some other gesture you hadn’t even thought of.

Your Huntley to, his/her Brinkley (dating myself here); during a stop and on your feet taking and maintaining a good position. Moving sometimes as though choreographed. His/her Rogers to your Astaire (yet again).

And when it’s “come and get it time,” and the world is spinning out of control, his Butch to your Sundance.

As the saying goes, “someone who runs TOWARD the sound of gunfire.”

Consider the following:

You begin your tour by seating yourself side by side with your partner in a visibly marked vehicle. You are going to spend the next eight plus hours together directed by the radio to solve various problems.

When free from the radio you are on the “prowl” and “looking for trouble.” Let me repeat that: looking for trouble.

Does this sound like the sort of job description where you drive to the labor pool and pick someone from the crowd? I think not.

You hope to find out before it becomes critical that you have chosen to right person, since by then it will be too late.

They say you are lucky or rich if you have one truly good friend in your lifetime. I would think then that if the same could be said of partners. I am truly blessed.

Ward Fitzgerald and Hal Brasher, both WWII vets, taught me “the game.” Both were my kindly old “uncles.”

Frank Isbell and I were the “proverbial identical twins separated at birth” who found each other, while Richard L. Sullivan “Sully” and I were truly soul mates.

I will lie for you, I will bleed for you, I will take a bullet for you and I will, die for you.

Dedicated to PARTNERS everywhere.

Thanks, Ed. Any readers recall great partners? Leave a comment, let us know who and why.

Categories
The Call Box

The Call Box: Singin’ in the Rain

By Ed Meckle, Retired LAPD

I am working P.M. Watch Patrol (3A15) at the old University Station with Frank Isbell. We think almost as one. We are in our first partnership which is to last many years. Frank and I have just cleared the parking lot enroute to our patrol area. It is early evening, plenty of light and it has been raining for several days. I am driving.

Less than two minutes out, I turn north from Washington onto Vermont. Directly in front of us is a motorcycle, single male rider, young, no helmet (not then required).

It is listed on the “hot sheet” as stolen. I activated lights and siren.

 

As reported in a previous episode when the siren pitch goes up, the car slows down (hi- tech). We have solid reds on the roof looking like Mickey’s ears and no seatbelts. When you made a turn everything and everybody slid.

At the sound of the siren the motorcycle took off like the proverbial scared jack rabbit and left us like we were standing still. Frank put us in “pursuit” on the radio.

Side bar: during the first half of the 20th century street cars were a major form of transportation in L.A. All major streets had trolleys and naturally, tracks. At each stop was an area in the street bordered by heavy duty traffic “bumps.” Each was the size of a trash can lid in diameter standing 3 to 4 inches high to protect the passengers/pedestrians. Sounds primitive but that’s the way it was. 

It’s still raining and our hot motorcycle is walking away from us and has a full block lead.

As he approached Olympic Boulevard, a major intersection, we have been on him for about ten blocks. He is about to become a memory.

At this point everything slowed as the motorcycle hit one of the “bumps” at about 70 mph and went airborne.

 

We watched as it soared end over end, gaining an altitude of 12 to 15 feet. Bouncing once in the intersection without striking anything or anybody, it continued on its journey and crashed into the side of a store on the northwest corner.

The intersection is in a slight depression and had an inch or two of standing water. The rider propelled from the bike, hit the surface of the water like a flat stone skipped across the surface of a pond. He scrambled to his feet and was gone between the houses.

While examining the motorcycle, a citizen (we now had a small crowd) told me there was something laying in the intersection. It turned out to be a wallet. Want to guess who it belonged to??

Now, as if this isn’t improbable enough, our suspect shows up in the crowd. When I went to cuff him, he pleaded, “You can’t arrest me. It’s my birthday.”  We told him that only applied to adults. He was 16. He did smile, though, when we  sang “Happy Birthday” on the way to booking.

The really amazing thing is after going down at 70 mph he did not require medical treatment.

Categories
The Call Box

The Call Box: Three New Copland Stories

polic-call-box-pedestal-lapd-gamewell-DCAL2786_dt1By Ed Meckle, Retired LAPD

My partner Frank Isbell and I have been assigned a plain clothes stakeout inside an apartment where the occupant has been threatened with death. He has been temporarily relocated while we wait for the intended killer.

Frank and I hear a tentative tap on the door. I look through the peephole but see nothing. I shrug and signal, “Nobody,” to Frank. A few long seconds later there is a second tap. Again nothing. I signal Frank that I am going to open the door.  Frank is to my right, shotgun ready as I pull the door open quickly with revolver in hand. And there is a very small girl staring into two guns, who says, “Would you like to buy some girl scout cookies, officer?”

Officer? Talk about presence of mind.

 

 

Here I am, still at 77th Street Patrol, morning watch, still doing scut work, checking tickets, reports, etc. It is very quiet when the jailer from across the hall sticks his head in the office and announces, “One of the prisoners wants to talk to a supervisor.” The elderly lieutenant does not acknowledge the interruption which I take as my cue to handle the situation. Now, I have been on the job long enough to know that someone who wants to see a supervisor is not about to deliver good news.

The prisoner who sits across from me is a very well dressed man who has been arrested for DUI. He says, “The man in the cell with me is wearing his suit.”

“Okay,” says I. “But I need some details.” He tells me he was the victim of a burglary several weeks prior and the thief made off with several custom-made suits. “And the man in the cell is wearing one of my suits.”

“How can you be sure it is yours?” I ask.

He tells me when the man fell asleep, his coat fell open. He checked and found his own name embroidered on the lining.

I pulled the burglary report and there it was.

The next radio car that came into the station got an easy felony pinch.

 

One of our elderly sergeants was enroute to eat in the wee hours of the morning when he spotted a man on a side street pushing a bulky wheeled item covered with a blanket. Curious enough to check but not enough to get out of the car he pulled up alongside the “pusher” and began a routine conversation as they both moved along. Eventually the question was asked. “What’s under the blanket, friend?”

At this point the “pusher” lost the battle of nerves and turned rabbit, gone in a flash.

Under the blanket? A box safe on wheels.

 

 

 

Categories
The Call Box

The Call Box: Vignettes

 

By Ed Meckle, Retired LAPD

** A word of warning: this vignette is graphic. If you can’t stand gruesome details, skip the fourth paragraph–although this will alter the impact of the story.**  

Read the second Vignette next Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Vignettes—are they funny, bizarre, ironic, poignant or maybe horrific? Why do some stories stay so vivid in our memories? Here are two that won’t go away…(look for the second one next week)

Ting-a-ling, ting-a ling

I am working a night watch radio car (3A15) with my partner Frank Isbell. It is late, nearing end of watch on a particularly dark night.

We get the call every copper dreads— “unknown trouble.” This means the person taking the call for the PD was unable to determine what the problem was. It could be anything from a cat up a tree to a multiple homicide. It’s the type of call that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

The street is dark as is the house. The front door stands wide open. We talk for a moment on the sidewalk. It is decided I will check the back door before we go in. It is locked and shining my flashlight into the kitchen window shows me nothing. The front door opens into a large living room. As we enter I take the right half the room, Frank the left.  My half shows a doorway to the back of the house and a shotgun on the floor, far right.

 

Frank sweeps his light left. Then I hear his voice, saying softly, “Whoa.” Against the far left wall is a large overstuffed chair. In the chair is a young woman, legs sprawled, arms flung out, head back with the left upper side of her face missing. Her ear, eye, part of her nose and scalp are sprayed onto the wall behind her, blood spattered to the ceiling. We quickly search the rest of the house, empty, when—she moans.

Yes—it startled me.

I went to the car to request an ambulance and was met by a man standing in the street. “The guy who did the shooting is hiding behind that car over there and he has a rifle or a shotgun.”

While I waited watching the car I sent the citizen in to get my partner. Now. Quick plan: I would go to the rear of the car. He would take the front, careful of potential “crossfire.”

We could see a shadowy figure in a half crouch. And when I hit him with the light he was facing me holding a rifle muzzle down, half bent over trying to close the bolt.  (he had the wrong sized ammo and the rifle would not operate) I told him to drop the gun and he ignored me. To this day, I don’t know why didn’t not fire. Frank then appeared and told him in very colorful street terms what would happen if he didn’t drop the rifle.

He did.

He later told us he shot her because she had broken one of his favorite phonograph records, however he “loved” her so he shot her with the .20 gauge, rather than the heavier .12.

When she testified in court, she said she only remembered him pointing the gun at her. Then she heard bells, “Like you know, ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling.”

Ain’t love grand?

 

 

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