Tag: police car

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Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings: A Weird Co-worker

By Hal Collier, Retired LAPD

Did you ever have a co-worker who was just weird? No matter how hard you tried, you just couldn’t find a common ground. The individual I’m about to describe was that type of officer. I’ll call him Jeff. I don’t think that I ever worked a patrol shift with Jeff but I was around him enough to know he was different. Jeff didn’t get along with anyone he worked with. You think spending Thanksgiving dinner at your in-laws is a long day; try spending eight hours in a police car with Jeff! He was so difficult that officers volunteered to work the desk or jail to avoid spending time with him.

night ops with the copsEvery so often a police division will loan an officer to another division for a special assignment. If that loan becomes a permanent transfer, they must transfer another officer back. That’s were Jeff comes in. Rampart Division owed us an officer and, just like Fidel Castro, they didn’t give us the cream of the crop. In fact, they gave us Jeff. Now, the short time Jeff was assigned to Hollywood he made quite a reputation for himself. No one wanted to work with Jeff.

I recall two incidents where Jeff called in sick for work. One day, Jeff said he was stung by a bee and couldn’t report for work. Maybe Jeff was allergic to bees. Ok, that’s plausible but the next day at work Jeff couldn’t remember where he was stung. Another time he called in sick saying that he was getting married. Short romance was our guess and we were dying to see who would marry him. Sure enough—Jeff showed up at work the next day still single. Some guessed that Jeff’s bride deflated!

Well as luck would have it we owed an officer to Northeast Division and guess who was at the top of our list? That was the good news. The bad news was that I lived in Northeast Division. Jeff would be protecting me from crime at my house.  I figured that there was slim chance that I’d ever run into Jeff but I was wrong.  Well not exactly. My wife is a good driver and has only gotten one ticket in her entire time driving. Yes, you guessed right, Jeff gave it to her.

cop car in rear viewJeff stopped my wife for speeding. Actually, she was going five mph over the posted speed limit. Now, in my 35 year career I’ve stopped about a dozen police officers for traffic violations. I never wrote one a ticket; the same for firemen. You called it professional courtesy. I have been stopped three times, once in Texas, and never had a ticket. Well my wife mentions my name to Jeff. 

Jeff says, “Oh yea. I know Hal.” Jeff wrote her a ticket. We paid the ticket without complaint.

Some nights when I have trouble sleeping, I think of Jeff. I wonder if he’s still a cop, did he ever get married, or just maybe one of those bees actually stung him! 

–Hal

 

 

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Roll Call

Roll Call: Larry and the Short-cut

By Mikey, retired LAPD

 

rain in LA ktlaIt was the winter of 1978 and as I recall the rain was relentless, not unlike what we have just experienced this year (2016). I was working Morning Watch with my partner Larry A. who liked to drive. At about 0100 hours on a weekday morning we were responding to a radio call in one of the many hillside communities of Northeast Division. It had been raining earlier so we were driving on slick roads. Larry decided we would take a short cut to the call and drove off the paved road and onto a very narrow dirt, and now very muddy road.

We did not get far when the cruiser got stuck in the mud and it started to rain again. As Larry tried to get the unit out of the rut, the front end started to slide left, the downhill part of the “wannabe road.” It appeared that we were heading for Eagle Rock Boulevard below which was now rising, like the sun through Eagle Rock los angelesLarry’s window. Larry and I were in a left banking turn/slide and the movement was not stopping.

Peering over Larry’s shoulder, I knew were going to take days (on the beach) for wrecking the car after it nosed-dived onto the street. Or we were going to get seriously killed. Just then the movement stopped and I gently opened my door. I got of the car and managed to low crawl back onto the level part of the road.

Looking back, I see Larry attempting to crawl across the seat toward my door, his eyes as big as silver dollars. In those days, there was nothing to obstruct his movement. Try that today. He managed to pull himself out and did the same low crawl to where I was standing. There were no ROVER (handhelds) and no cell phones. Nope, didn’t have them in those days. We look at each other then back into the car and stare at the radio. I say, “you got us here, you make the call.”  Back at the driver’s side, Larry has the radio in his hand, but I can’t hear a word—remember  it’s raining.

He low crawls back and tells me he got a hold of another unit and they are responding to our location.

 

Now we have four coppers trying to think this through. Mike and Robert, (no last names) said they remember seeing a jeep, in a driveway WITH A WINCH!!!

IMG_0556Just as they leave to investigate, our cruiser starts making more slipping noises, damn, so close. After what seemed like the entire watch, the guys came back with a very tired looking guy and his JEEP! The guy hooks up the unit, crawls back to his machine and starts cranking away. He re-hooks the car in another location and does this a couple more times until he can winch it up to the pavement. With flash lights in hand the four of us inspect the cruiser and find it muddy, but without any damage! We asked the Jeep owner what he drank and preceded to obtain the case of beer from a supermarket which will remain nameless. After telling the night manager what had happened he provided us with the Jeep owners reward.

Larry did not ask for, nor was given, permission by me to drive until we were out of the rainy season, it was a long rainy season.

 

 

 

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Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings, Radio Call from Hell

By Hal Collier LAPD, Retired

We are happy that 35-year veteran Hal Collier is sharing his ‘stories behind the badge’ with us.

The following story is true. I call this one, “The Radio Call from Hell.” 

 

In a recent Ramblings, I talked about the radio calls cop hate the most. Well, here is another I saved for your reading pleasure—“Death Notifications.” 

 

I don’t know of any cop who likes telling someone that a loved one has died. Sometimes it’s expected, like an elderly aunt or grandparent. Other times, it’s unexpected, telling someone about a spouse, or relative who died in an accident. These calls usually come in through the Watch Commanders office from a coroner in a distant part of the country or state. Another reason why cops hate “The go to the Watch Commanders Office,” radio call.

 

I’m working morning watch and it’s about 3 A.M.  “Go to the Watch Commanders Office.” Uh oh, I’ll bet it’s that citizen who wanted to make a hit and0 run traffic accident report and we told him to go to the station and wake the desk officer gently. We drive slowly to the Watch Commanders Officers. Maybe we’ll be hit by a drunk driver which will cause short term memory loss.

 

The Watch Commander tells us that a 28 year-old man was killed in a traffic accident in Bakersfield. We need to notify his wife. Whew, I almost confessed to a police department misdemeanor. We get the address which is on Beachwood Drive. I hate this call—wife alone, young. I hope she has family close by.

 

We drive to the address and park our car on Beachwood. Her apartment faces Temple Hill Drive, a cross street. We walk to the stairs and knock. The apartment door doesn’t have one of those peep holes to see who’s at the door and the windows all face the street.

 

A voice calls out, “Who is it?” 

I answer, “Police.”

She says, “I didn’t call the police. What do you want?” 

I didn’t attend the Ann Landers school of etiquette, but I’m pretty sure that shouting through a closed door at 3 A.M., “Your husband is dead,” is not the way to make this notification.

I reply, “I need to talk to you.”

“About what?”

This is not going well. I tell her, “I really need to talk to you in person.”

She says, “How do I know you’re really the police?”

Fair question. I tell her I’ll stand outside her living room window in the middle of the street.

I walk downstairs and stand in the middle of the street.  I’m in full uniform and looking pretty sharp, if I say so myself. I see her looking out her window at me. She again asks, “What do you want?” 

I didn’t want to tell her that her husband is dead through her front door and I’m definitely not going to yell it from the middle of the street.

She asks, “Where is your police car?”  Ok, that’s another fair question. I’ll go get it. I walk out to Beachwood, drive our official black and white police car and park it in the driveway across from her window. As I’m parking the police car I hear an emergency call for all Hollywood units, “Man impersonating a police officer Beachwood and Temple Hill Drive.” 

“Any Hollywood unit, handle Code 3.”

Oh crap, she called the cops on us! How could this get any worse?  I cancel the radio call. No use in another cop getting hurt racing to this call from hell.

I finally convince her to open the apartment door and let us in.  Now comes the hard part. I had five months training in the academy, I’ve got over seven years police experience working in the field and I’ve never been trained in telling someone that a loved one is dead. She has no family in California and doesn’t know the neighbors. There’s no easy way to say that your husband is dead.  I tell her the worst news she probably will ever hear. 

Her first reaction is denial, disbelief, and then anger. She’s now sobbing uncontrollably. There’s nothing I can say or do that will ease her pain. I won’t go into all the options we offered her but in the end we left her alone in that apartment. Boy, I hated my job that night. 

Now you see why cops hate death notifications. They are never easy. This one still bothers me thirty-four years later.

 

                                           

Hal

Hal’s “Character-Angelyne” will post tomorrow.

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Ramblings by Hal

Ramblings: Females, Part 2–On Patrol

By Hal Collier

The following stories are true and again are only my opinions.  I’m sure that other officers of both sexes have different views of female officers in the LAPD.  I welcome hearing from anyone.

In the early 70’s, most people didn’t think women should or could be police officers.  Even Chief of Police Edward M. Davis was against women working patrol.  I worked with a lot of females throughout my career and they had a lot of different reasons for joining and diverse backgrounds.

Here are a few.

One female officer said she was looking for a husband, cops have a good steady job, they’re clean, (disease free) and they’re in good shape.  Another said she was an interior decorator in Texas and came to California for work. She found out that everyone in California was an interior decorator, so she applied to be a cop.  She was the one who thought we carried dynamite (road flares) in the trunks of our police cars.

I worked with one female who drove an expensive BMW and had expensive clothes.  In her previous job, she made double my salary, so I asked her why work for LAPD?  She said the money was nice but her job was boring.  She was looking for some excitement.  She found it on the LAPD.  Quite a few said it was the only job they could find with benefits.  We had one female probationer who arrived at work each morning, dressed like she just slid off the pole at a strip club.  She was not retained when it was discovered she was dating both her male training officers at the same time.  A few slept their way through probation and promotions.

LAPD women
LAPD women

I was a training officer for over twenty-one years and worked with a lot of probationers or “rookies,” as some called them.  As I stated in my first Ramblings, I worked morning watch with one of the first female police officers.  My wife didn’t like that I was working with a female, alone all night.  I discovered that my wife was not the Watch Commander at work, only at home.

The first thing I noticed was that on almost every call you had a back-up unit.  As I stated, we were a good old boys club and most men didn’t think females could do the job.  Some of the officers were there to save my butt, if need be, and others were there hoping the female would fail.

I’ll never forget my first fight with a female partner.  It’s Christmas Eve and we get a domestic dispute radio call.  Two brothers, drunk, get into an argument and one punches the other in the nose, breaking it.  The brother with the broken nose wants his brother arrested for battery.  No problem, right? A simple citizen arrest and report.  We might even get off on time.

We handcuff the brother and put him in our police car.  I’m driving, of course, and sitting in the police car.  My female partner is in the back seat with the drunk brother.  Just as I’m about to drive away the brothers’ mother comes running out and says, “You’re not arresting my son on Christmas Eve.”  She reaches in the driver’s window and grabs me by the neck.  I open the car door and knock the mother to the ground.  She’s about 110 pounds and I later learn, a 60 year old grammar school teacher.  I step out and she jumps up and attacks me.  I grab her arm and spin her around in a rear wrist lock.  I hear a familiar snap. Oh shit, I just broke her arm.

This can’t get any worse right, wrong.  The son, handcuffed in the back seat screams, “What are you doing to my mother?”  My partner comes to assist me in handcuffing the now one armed school teacher.  The son begins kicking the door window of our police car.  My partner subdues him with a few punches to the ribs.  Everyone goes to jail for Christmas except the son with the broken nose.

There were changes to be made and it wasn’t going to be the women who changed.  Think of it as a marriage, who changes?  First, the men had to stop swearing in roll call, although some of the females swore like a sailor.  Next, no more blond jokes or for that matter all female gender jokes were banned.  No more jokes on how many female officers does it take to screw up a crime scene.

LAPD officers
LAPD officers

Women as a rule were of smaller stature, which presented a whole new set of issues.  Some of the shorter women couldn’t close the police car trunk from the back bumper.  They had to step to the side fender where they could reach the trunk lid.  In the 70’s, all the police cars had bench seats.  Go ahead—let your 5 foot 3 inch partner drive and spend the night with your knees in the dash for eight hours.

I’m going to leave you with one more female cop story.  I’m not working with a female this night and a “robbery just occurred” call comes out.   A female officer arrives and puts out a crime broadcast.  She describes the suspect, male white, 6-0, 180 pounds last seen westbound Sunset in a fuchsia colored Ford.  It might have been the interior decorator.  I look at my male partner and ask what the hell color is fuchsia.    Most of us good old boys never graduated past the primary colors, you know the ones that make up a rainbow.  After 35 years as a big city cop, I still don’t know what color fuchsia is.

Next Ramblings, why I liked working with female partners.     Hal

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More Street Stories Writer's Notes

Jurisdiction and Jobs

Jurisdictions and Jobs

Police car light bar code 3
police car

I was in a critique group years ago with a writer who had San Francisco PD (SFPD) detectives investigating homicides, a rape and several assaults that occurred in Marin County. The manuscript was completed and the author was using our group to improve the editing. As gently as I could, I explained jurisdiction: SFPD wouldn’t routinely respond to a crime that occurred in another county. There are times when it could happen: mutual aid request from Marin County Sheriff (who handles that jurisdiction) or the crimes are related to an SFPD case. But, normally this is a mistake that could cost the author his readership–at least, readers who know about the cop life. Believe me, there are a lot of us!

It was unfortunate that he chose to dump an otherwise very entertaining story. But, to varying degrees, I see the same type of mistake in almost every book I read, certainly every cop show on TV and most movies. As much as I love Donny Wahlberg and Tom Selleck, I had to turn off Blue Bloods for this reason. When I see cop characters interfering where they would never go, saying things that are inconsistent with the cop culture or other inaccuracy, it is so distracting that I lose track of what is going on.

Okay, how does jurisdiction work?

With this in mind, I thought I’d spend some time explaining the roles of each type of law enforcement officer and their jurisdictions and responsibilities.

We will start small with the city police. It is the basic unit of the law enforcement fabric. Take a city–Petaluma, California, for instance. The 2010 census tallied the population at 57,941 for an area of nearly 14 square miles. The police department is structured like this (source Petaluma Police Department website): 94 full-time employees, including the Chief, two Captains, three Lieutenants, ten Sergeants, fifty-two Officers, twelve Dispatchers, four Community Service Officers, two Parking Enforcement Officers, and other support staff. Additionally, the Department has D.A.R.E. Officers, two School Resource Officers (SROs), an Explorer’s Program, a Traffic Unit with a Serious Traffic Offender Program (S.T.O.P.), a K-9 Unit, Bicycle and Motorcycle Patrol, Dual Purpose Motorcycle Unit, a SWAT Team, a Hostage Negotiation Team, Patrol Gang Enforcement, an Investigation Unit, and a volunteer Reserve Community Service Officer Program.

Petaluma Police Department patrol car

This sounds like a lot of people but in reality many of the jobs in the fifth paragraph are staffed by people in the fourth paragraph. While SROs are normally dedicated to assigned schools, they can also be members of the SWAT team and be “called out” for an emergency. The same goes for Hostage Negotiators. Commonly, they are detectives or patrol officers with special schooling. In larger cities, these positions are more likely to be staffed full-time. In some large agencies, top-tier police association (or union) presidents or representatives are dedicated to the position.

What do they do?

The scope of responsibility for city police is to respond to emergencies, record crimes reports and suppress crime. They also serve criminal (not civil) warrants, write tickets, assist in medical and rescue calls.

As a writer, generally you will have a location in mind, fictional or not. Feel free to call a similar jurisdiction nearby to see how it is structured. Most cops are helpful with this kind of information especially when listen to their answers. Cops appreciate that.

Next week

Next week, we will talk about public safety departments, sheriff’s jurisdiction, marshal’s office, state cops, California Highway Patrol and finally the Feds.

Feel free to add anything you might note is different in your locale. Most law enforcement agencies are standardized throughout California.