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.
Every 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.
Jeff 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. 
Rampart Division, 1992, shortly after the riots things were settling down, different, but settling down. Just as this 19-year veteran of the LAPD thinks he has all figured out, reality back-hands you, square on the face. It was a PM patrol watch, business as usual, when a 5150 WIC (5150 Welfare and Institutional Code describing a mentally ill individual), is broadcast on a street in the south end of the division, boarding South West Division. The information we received was that the teenage son had torn the inside of his house apart, threatened his family with a 15” butcher knife and had fled the home with the knife.
Well, I joined the chant as well, as I unholstered my 9mm and told him to drop the knife. I broadcasted a “Help” call, “man with a knife.” The standoff lasted 30 seconds before the teen charged us, knife raised, in a full sprint. I yelled to him that I would shoot if he did not stop. From behind, me I heard the women yell, “don’t shoot him.”
Another sergeant was there as the man was taken into custody. The sergeant was a Vietnam veteran as well. He came up behind me and whispered into my ear, “