Apr 292010
 

For me, it has been a very long and cold winter.  No motivation to do any writing but warmer weather is coming.  Mother Nature is sure holding off until the last minute though.  Today was quite wet and cold but I was restless so I took a drive up to Detroit Lake to see how it looked and check on the lake level.  Now, I didn’t really need to drive all the way up there to check the level of the lake since I check it online almost every day. Just needed a drive I guess.  Took Duke as he seemed a little restless too and he loves a ride in the truck.

The lake level is at 1554 feet with 1569 being full pool.  However it really only gets to a maximum of about 1564 most of the season.   The average is probably about 1560 feet.  Kane’s Marina is open and Detroit Lake Marina will open May 1st.  I could get in there now but it looked like they still have a little work to do.  The boat ramp at Detroit Lake State Park was usable and both of the boat slips were floating.  I saw a few boats in the F loop slips.  The ramps at Mongold Park was also usable.

I took some picture so here they are

Jan 152010
 

Sea Ray 250

Rocky and I went to the Portland Boat Show yesterday.  This years show is shorter than years past, only seven days and the number of boat dealers and companies is noticeably smaller.  The boating industry took quite a hit this last year.  I have noticed several dealers around town have gone out of business.  My dealer is still hanging on but I know it has been a difficult year for them.  In talking with Troy at the dealership he said if it were not for the service department he didn’t think they would have made it.  He is hoping and expecting business to pick up though.

There were some good deals at the show and we looked at a Sea Ray 250 that was a great deal but unfortunately with the market so depressed right now we wouldn’t get enough out or our current Chaparral.  Also the show price didn’t include a trailer.  They said a trailer would run about $7K extra.  Well perhaps some day.

The Seattle boat show starts January 29th and is also shorter.  I went last year but I don’t know if I want to drive all the way up there this year.  You never know though.  Perhaps I can find some one to go with me…..

Jan 092010
 
I went to Avatar at the Canby Cinema 8 today.  Saw the 3D version and it was awesome.  The technology on the 3D is very good.  The glasses didn’t bother me at all.  The movie is two hours and fourty minutes and I hardly noticed I was wearing them.  The animation is excellent and the story line is okay albeit basic.  I chose to ignore the socio political message of the movie. Lars Larson made a point of saying he disagreed with the message of the movie and he wasn’t going to go see it.  I may agree with him on a lot of subjects but I think this movie is well worth seeing.
 
 
I upgraded my cell phone again.  I am always doing that.  I am just amazed at how fast the technology is progressing.  I am a sucker for new gadgets.  I got a Droid Eris and I like it so far.  Sent way too much time trying to learn how to use it.  One nice thing is the store where I bought the phone will take it back within thirty days if I don’t like it. I could then just switch back to my Blackberry.
 
 
 
 
 
Jan 012010
 

This New Year just kind of rolled in quietly for me. My work schedule gets me up before 5 AM most days and it’s hard to break that ritual on my days off. I had New Years eve and today off this year but last night was sleeping on the couch by 9:30 pm. Amazingly I woke up at about a quarter to midnight and was able to wish my sweetie a Happy New Years and give him a kiss. It didn’t last long though. Listened to a bit of the requisite fireworks in the distance and watched the dropping of the ball in Time Square (the station said live but of course this was not the case). By 12:30 AM I was back in bed.

2009 was an interesting and historic year. Barack Hussein Obama II became the 44th president of the United States. Why, I don’t know and hopefully time and history will figure it out. He has been a total disappointment and I am sure a lot of the people that voted for him are asking themselves what they were thinking. His obsession with the nation crippling health insurance reform seems to have put the important issues like the economy, record high unemployment, the threat of terrorism and our current military activities on the side burner. The amount of money Mr. Obama has spent during his first year in office is uncompromisable. The $787,000,000,000 stimulus bill, which congress didn’t even read and most of which is still to be distributed has not been shown to do any good to our economy. Just lots of big business bail outs, many of which should have just been left to fail. I guess all that campaign money paid off.

We lost a lot of people this year. Some I will miss, some not so much. Walter Cronkite passed at 92, Karl Malden made it to 97. Paul Harvey left us at 90 and Ricardo Montalban at 88 years young. Farra Fawcett at 62 and Michael Jackson at 50 both died on the same day. No one really paid much attention to Farra’s death as Michael took the spotlight. Ed McMahon outlived Jonny Carson by a few years but he never showed up with my check from Publishers Clearing House. Patrick Swazy lost his battle with pancreatic cancer at age 57. Billy Mays died at 50, not from a bump on the head as a lot of people think, but from heart disease. And Ted Kennedy checked out at 77. Enough about him…..

Washington State suffered the loss of six police officers in only eight weeks. On November 1st, Officer Timothy Brenton with Seattle police was killed and his partner wounded as that sat in their patrol vehicles discussing a traffic stop. On November 29th, four Lakewood Police officers, Greg Richards, 42, Tina Griswold, 40, Ronald Owens, 37, and Mark Renninger, 39 were executed while sitting in a coffee shop working on their laptop computers. I was honored to attend the Memorial Service in Tacoma. On December 21st, two Pierce County deputies were shot while responding to a disturbance call. Deputy Kent Mundell died from his injuries on December 28th.

Some interesting sudden fame in 2009 included Susan Boyle’s beautiful singing voice. She amazed the world but the instant fame took it’s toll on her. Captain Chesley Sullenberger’s amazingly landed his jet in the water of the Hudson river saving all on board. Northwest flight 188 overshot Minneapolis airport while pilot Timothy Cheney and co-pilot Richard Cole claim they were discussing company schedules on their laptops and not asleep. And of course there is Bo the First Dog, a Portuguese water dog. I wonder if he could do a better job running the country than Obama.

As for my year, well it was not too bad. I traded in my old 5th wheel for a new Montana which was a very nice upgrade. We had a great boating year, we spending most of it at Detroit Lake and a great trip to Lake Billy Chinook. I purchased a new Dell Studio 16 XPS laptop (Christmas present to self) and i’m still working on getting it set up. My best friend got married in Bend, and I was honored to be his best man. And for the most part my health was good all year.

On the down side, I did lose a bit of my retirement savings due to the bad economy however by the end of the year most of it had rebounded. 2009 will not be the best year to look back on at my work. Our department had some public image problems and in the fall out we lost an officer, our Chief of Police and some officers were disciplined. We have finally hired a new Chief who will start soon so I hope things can get back to normal. On a good side note to all of this, our City Administrator was canned. It was about time for that as he handled this situation very badly.

All in all, 2009 has been an interesting year. A very tough one for the nation but I think there is hope on the horizon.

Dec 122009
 

On December 8th I had the great honor of attending the memorial service for the four officers from Lakewood, WA police department. The service was held at the Tacoma Dome and was attended by over 20,000 law enforcement and members of other emergency services.

My day started at 6:00 AM with the drive to McChord AFB arriving at about 0930. The base had been closed to allow for a staging area for all of the police and fire vehicles. It was a steady stream of vehicles arriving and my understanding is that when the number of vehicles reached 2000 they shut it down and turned vehicles away. I think the vehicles were just told to go to the Tacoma Dome.

Staging area at McChord AFB

Staging area at McChord AFB

At 10:00 AM vehicles started leaving the staging area in procession to the Tacoma Dome. The 10 mile procession drove past the Lakewood Police Department and limousines picked up members of the officers families.

The original schedule was for the service to begin at 1:00 PM but do to the very large number of vehicles in the procession and length of time it was taking it didn’t get started until 2:00 PM. Even then not all of the vehicles had arrived at the Tacoma Dome. Even with temperatures in the low teens many people lined the procession route to pay their respect.

The service lasted about three hours and my words alone could not describe it. I was very moved by the vast support that was shown for these fallen officers. The Tacoma Dome was at near capacity. The RCMP’s were reported to have sent nearly 1000 officers. There were officer’s from as far away as New York, Boston and Florida. I saw patrol cars from Southern California and Missoula Montana.

In the Tacoma Dome

In the Tacoma Dome

The Honor Guard must have numbered around 200 and was the largest I have ever seen. I couldn’t even tell you how many agencies were represented. When the Bagpipe’s played Amazing Grace my eyes teared up. An officer from the Lakewood Police Department sang The Dance by Garth Brooks. Family members talked about their fallen loved ones and there was a touching video depicting each officers life. The service ended with the last radio call for the fallen officers.

Myself and three other officers from my department attended. By the time we got back home it was 9:30 PM. It was a very long day but a memory that will be with me for the rest of my life.

Rest now my fallen brothers and sister. You may be gone but you will never be forgotten.

Dec 112009
 

The following was sent to me from our department Padre. I just had to pass it along… Keep up the good harassment work.

* * * * * * *

Recently, the Chula Vista Police Department ran an e-mail forum (a question and answer exchange) with the topic being, “Community Policing.” One of the civilian email participants posed the following question, “I would like to know how it is possible for police officers to continually harass people and get away with it?”

From the “other side” (the law enforcement side) Sgt. Bennett, obviously a cop with a sense of humor replied:

“First of all, let me tell you this…it’s not easy. In Chula Vista, we average one cop for every 600 people. Only about 60% of those cops are on general duty (or what you might refer to as “patrol”) where we do most of our harassing.

The rest are in non-harassing departments that do not allow them contact with the day to day innocents.. And at any given moment, only one-fifth of the 60% patrollers are on duty and available for harassing people while the rest are off duty. So roughly, one cop is responsible for harassing about 5,000 residents.

When you toss in the commercial business, and tourist locations that attract people from other areas, sometimes you have a situation where a single cop is responsible for harassing 10,000 or more people a day.

Now, your average ten-hour shift runs 36,000 seconds long. This gives a cop one second to harass a person, and then only three-fourths of a second to eat a donut AND then find a new person to harass. This is not an easy task. To be honest, most cops are not up to this challenge day in and day out. It is just too tiring. What we do is utilize some tools to help us narrow down those people which we can realistically harass.

The tools available to us are as follows:

PHONE: People will call us up and point out things that cause us to focus on a person for special harassment. “My neighbor is beating his wife” is a code phrase used often. This means we’ll come out and give somebody some special harassment.

Another popular one is, “There’s a guy breaking into a house.” The harassment team is then put into action.

CARS: We have special cops assigned to harass people who drive. They like to harass the drivers of fast cars, cars with no insurance or no driver’s licenses and the like. It’s lots of fun when you pick them out of traffic for nothing more obvious than running a red light. Sometimes you get to really heap the harassment on when you find they have drugs in the car, they are drunk, or have an outstanding warrant on file.

RUNNERS: Some people take off running just at the sight of a police officer. Nothing is quite as satisfying as running after them like a beagle on the scent of a bunny. When you catch them you can harass them for hours.

STATUTES: When we don’t have PHONES or CARS and have nothing better to do, there are actually books that give us ideas for reasons to harass folks. They are called “Statutes”; Criminal Codes, Motor Vehicle Codes, etc… They all spell out all sorts of things for which you can really mess with people.

After you read the statute, you can just drive around for awhile until you find someone violating one of these listed offenses and harass them. Just last week I saw a guy trying to steal a car. Well, there’s this book we have that says that’s not allowed. That meant I got permission to harass this guy. It is a really cool system that we have set up, and it works pretty well.

We seem to have a never-ending supply of folks to harass. And we get away with it. Why? Because for the good citizens who pay the tab, we try to keep the streets safe for them, and they pay us to “harass” some people.

Next time you are in my town, give me the old “single finger wave.” That’s another one of those codes. It means, “You can harass me.”

It’s one of our favorites.

Dec 032009
 
Fallen Heroes

Fallen Heros

from left: Greg Richards, 42, Tina Griswold, 40, Ronald Owens, 37, and Mark Renninger, 39.

On Sunday, November 30, 2009 an animal named Maurice Clemmons, shot and killed these four brave police officers. I have never met Greg Richards, Tina Griswold, Ronald Owens, or Mark Renninger but they were my brothers and sister. I can’t explain the feeling inside me over their senseless execution by a man monster that should never have been on the street. I wont get into blasting former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for being instrumental in letting such a beast go free. The media and society will take care of that. I do hope he pays with political death.

Two days later Clemmons was shot and killed by another hero with the Seattle Police. I know I should not feel happiness over the death of another human but I do. As a police officer, society believes we should only bring the criminal to justice but I believe he was. I know if the officer had been able he would have taken Clemmons into custody but Clemmons actions made the decision for the officer. His death was the best possible outcome to this terrible event.

A memorial service will be held at the Tacoma Dome on December 8th at 1:00 PM. I will be there along with an estimated 20,000 fellow officers. Please take a few moments to remember and honor these brave officers and the family and friends they were taken from.

Nov 262009
 

lightbar15

Sorry…. Very long post.

This has been around a long time. I don’t agree with everything but I do with a lot of it…….

WHY COPS HATE YOU

If you have to ask, get out of the way By Chuck Milland

Have you ever been stopped by a traffic cop and, while he was writing a ticket or giving you a warning, you got the feeling that he would just love to yank you out of the car, right through the window, and smash your face into the front fender? Have you ever had a noisy spat with someone, and a cop cruising by calls, “Everything all right over there?” Did you maybe sense that he really hoped everything was not all right, that he wanted you to answer “No, officer, the idiot’s bothering me”? That all he was looking for was an excuse to launch himself from the cruiser and play a drum solo your skull with his nightstick?

Did you ever call the cops to report a crime – maybe someone stole some- thing from your car or broke into your home – and the cop acts as if it were your fault? That they were sorry the crook did not rip you off for more? That instead of looking for the culprit, they would rather give you a shot in the chops for bothering them with your garbage in the first place? If you have picked up in this attitude from your local sworn protector’s, it’s not just paranoia. They actually don’t like you. In fact, the cops don’t just dislike you, they hate your guts! Incidentally for a number of very good reasons.

First of all, civilians are so stupid. They leave things lying around, just begging thieves to steal them. They park cars in high crime areas and leave portable TV’s, cameras, wallets, purses, coats, luggage, grocery bags and briefcases in plain view on the seat. Oh, sure, maybe they will remember to close all the windows and lock the doors, but do you know how easy it is to bust a car window? How fast it can be done? A 10 year old can do it in less than 6 seconds! And a poor cop has another Larceny from Auto on his hands. Another crime to write a report on, waste another half hour on. Another crime to make him look bad.

Meanwhile, the knuckle head that left the family heirlooms on the back seat in the first place is raising hell about where were the cops when his car was being looted. He’s planning to write irate letters to the mayor and the police commissioner complaining about what a lousy police force you have here; they can’t even keep my car from getting ripped off! What. were they off drinking coffee somewhere?

And the cops are saying to themselves, Lemme tell ya, wing nut, we were seven blocks away, taking another stupid report from another civilian about his car being broken into because he left his stuff on the back seat, too! These civilians can’t figure out that maybe they shouldn’t leave stuff lying around unattended where anybody can just pick it up and boogie. Maybe they should put the stuff in the trunk, where no one but Superman is gonna see it. Maybe they should do that before they get to where ever they’re going, just in case some riffraff is hanging around watching them while the car is being secured.

Another thing that drives cops wild is the “surely this doesn’t apply to me” syndrome, which never fails to reveal itself at scenes of sniper or barricade incidents. There’s always someone walking down the street (or jogging or driving) who thinks the police cars blocking off the area, the ropes marked Police Line: Do Not Cross, the cops crouched behind cars pointing revolvers and carbines and shotguns and bazookas at some building, all of this has nothing to do whatsoever with him – so he weasels around the barricades or slithers under the restraining ropes and blithely continues into the field of fire.

The result is that some cop risks his life (or hers – don’t forget, the cops include women now) to go after the cretin and drag him, usually under protest, back to safety. All of these cops, including the one risking his butt, devoutly hope that the sniper will get off one miraculous shot and drill the idiot right between the horns, which would have two immediate effects; The quiche-for-brains civilian would be dispatched to the next world, and every cop on the scene would instantaneously be licensed to kill the scum bag doing the sniping. Whereupon the cops would destroy the building, sniper and all, in about 30 seconds, which is what they wanted to do in the first place, except the brass wouldn’t let them because the bad guy hadn’t killed any- one yet.

An allied phenomenon is the “my isn’t this amusing” behavior exhibited, usually by yuppies or other member of higher society, at some emergency scenes. For example, a group of trendy types be strolling down the street when a squad car with flashing lights and siren screeches up to a building. They’ll watch the cops yank out their guns and run up to the door, flatten themselves against the wall, and peep into a place cautiously. Now, if you think about it, something serious could be happening here. Cops usually don’t pull their revolvers to go get a cup of coffee. They usually don’t hug the sides of buildings just before dropping in to say hello. Any 5 year old ghetto kid can tell you these cops are ready to cap somebody. But do our society friends perceive this? Do they stay out if the cop’s way? Of course not! They think it is vastly amusing. And, of course, since their not involved in the funny little game the cops are playing, they think nothing can happen to them!

While the ghetto kid is hiding behind a car waiting for the shooting to start, Muffy and Chip and Biffy are continuing their stroll, right up to the officers, tittering among themselves about how silly the cops look, all scrunched up against the wall, trying to look in through the doors without stopping bullets with their foreheads.

What the cops are hoping at that point is for a homicidal holdup man to come busting out the door with a sawed off shotgun. They’re hoping he has it loaded with elephant shot, and that he immediately identifies our socialites as serious threats to his personal well being. They’re hoping he has just enough ammunition to blast the crap out of the gigglers, but not enough to return fire when the cops open up on him.

Of course, if that actually happens, the poor cops will be in a world of trouble for not protecting the “innocent bystanders”. The brass wouldn’t even want to hear that the knuckle heads probably didn’t have enough sense to come in out if the acid rain. Somebody ought to tell all the quiche eaters out there to stand back when they encounter someone with a gun in his hand, whether he happens to be wearing a badge or a ski mask.

Civilians also aggravate cops in a number of other ways. One of their favorite games is “officer can you tell me?” A cop knows he has been selected to play they game whenever someone approaches and utters the magic words. Now, it’s ok if they continue with “how to get to so and so street” or “where is such and such place located?” After all cops are supposed to be familiar with the area in which they work. But it eats out the lining of their stomachs when some wing- nut ask, “Where can I catch the number 54 bus?” or “Where can I find a telephone?”

Cops look forward to their last day before retirement, when they can safely give these people the answer they have been choking back for 20 to 25 years: ” No maggot, I can’t tell ya where the 54 bus runs! What does this look like, an MTA uniform? Go ask a bus driver! And no, dog breathe, I don’t know where ya can find a phone, except where ever your eyes spy one! Take your head out of your butt and look for one.”

And cops just love to find a guy parking his car in a crosswalk next to a fire- hydrant at a bus stop posted with a sign “Don’t Even Think About Stopping, Standing or Parking Here. Cars Towed Away, Forfeited To The Government, And Sold at Public Auction,” and the jerk asks, ” Officer, may I park here a minute?”

“What, are ya nuts? Of course ya can park here! As long as ya like! Leave it there all day! Ya don’t see anything that says ya can’t, do ya? You’re welcome See ya later.” The cop then drives around the corner and calls a tow truck to remove the vehicle. Later, in traffic court, the idiot will be whining to the judge, “But, Your Honor, I asked the officer if I could park there, and he said I could! No, I don’t know which officer, but I did ask! Honest! No, wait. Judge, I can’t afford $500! This isn’t fair! I am not creating a disturbance! I’ve got rights! Get your hands off of me! Where are you taking me? What do you mean, ten days for contempt of court? What did I do? Wait, wait………..” If you should happen to see a cop humming contentedly and smiling to himself for no apparent reason, he may have won this game.

Wildly unrealistic civilian expectations also contribute to a cop’s distaste for the general citizenry. An officer can be running his ass off all day or night handling call after call and writing volumes of police reports, but every- body thinks their problem is the only thing he has to work on. The policeman may have a few worries too. Ever think of that? The sergeant is on him because he’s been late for roll call a few days: he’s been battling like a badger with his wife, who’s just about to leave him because he never takes her anywhere and doesn’t spend enough time at home and the kids need braces and the station wagon needs a major engine overhaul and where are we going to get the money to pay for all that and we haven’t had a real vacation in years and all you do is hang around with other cops and you’ve been drinking too much lately and I could’ve married that wonderful guy I was going with when I met you and lived happily ever after and why don’t you get a regular job with regular days off and no night shifts and decent pay and a chance for advancement and no one throwing bottles or taking potshots at you?

Meanwhile, the sweet young thing he met on a call last month says her period is late. Internal Affairs is investigating him on messing up a disorderly last week; the captain is pissed off for tagging a councilman’s car; a burglar’s tearing up the businesses on his post; and he has handled two robberies, three family fights, a stolen auto, and a half dozen juvenile complaints today. Now, here he is, on another juvenile call, trying to explain to some bimbo, who’s president of her neighborhood improvement association, that the security of Western Civilization is not really threatened all that much by the kids who hang around on the corner by her house. “Yes officer, I know they are not here now. They always leave when you come buy. But after you’re gone, they come right back. Don’t you see, and continue their disturbance. It’s intolerable! I’m so upset, I can barely sleep at night!”

By now, the cop’s eyes have glazed over. “What we need here, officer,” she continues vehemently, “is greater attention to this matter by the police. You and some other officers should hide and stake out that corner so those rene- gades wouldn’t see you. Then you could catch them in the act!”

“Yes, ma’am, we’d love to stake out that corner a few hours every night, since we don’t have anything better to do, but I have a better idea,” he’d like to say. “Here’s a box of hand grenades the Department obtained from the Army just for situations like this. The next time you see one of those little cretins out there, just lob a couple of these into the crowd and get down!”

Or he’s got an artsy-craftsy type who’s moved into a tough, rundown neighborhood and decides it has to be cleaned up. You know, “urban pioneers”. The cops see a lot of them now. The cops call them volunteer victims. Most of them are intelligent, talented, hard working, well paid folks with a masochistic chromosome interspersed among their otherwise normal genes. They have nice jobs, live in nice homes, and have a lot of nice material possessions, and they somehow decide that it would be a marvelous idea to move into a slum and get yoked, roped, looted and pillaged on a regular basis. What else do they expect? Peace and harmony? It’s like tossing a juicy little pig into a piranha tank.

Moving day: Here comes the pioneers, dropping all their groovy gear from the Volvo station wagon, setting it on the sidewalk so everyone on the block can get a good look at the food processor, the microwave, the stereo system, the color TV, the tape deck, etc. At the same time, the local burglars are appraising the goods unofficially and calculating how much they can get for the TV down at the corner bar, how much the stereo will bring at Joe’s garage, who might want a tape deck at the barbershop, and maybe mama can use the microwave herself.

When the pioneers get ripped off, the cops figure they asked for it, and they got it. You want to poke your arm through the bars of the tiger cage? Don’t be amazed when he eats it for lunch! The cops regard it as naive for trendies to move into crime zones and conduct their lives the same way they did up on Society Hill. In fact, they can’t fathom why anyone who didn’t have to would want to move there at all, regardless of how they want to live or how prepared they might be to adapt their behavior. That’s probably because the cops are intimately aquatinted with all those petty but disturbing crimes and nasty little incidents that never make the newspapers but profoundly affect the quality of life in a particular area.

Something else that causes premature aging among cops is the “I don’t know who to call, so I’ll call the police” ploy. Why, the cops ask themselves, do they get so many calls for things like water leaks, sick cases, bats in houses, and the like – things that have nothing whatsoever to do with law enforcement or the maintenance of public order? They figure it’s because civilians are getting more and more accustomed to having the government solve their problems for them, and the local P.D. is the only government that’ll answer the phone at 3 am let alone send somebody.

So when the call comes over the radio to go to such-and-such an address for a water leak, the assigned officer rolls his eyes, acknowledges, responds, surveys the problem, and tells the complainant, “Yep, that’s a water leak all right! No doubt about it. Ya probably out to call a plumber! And it might not be a bad idea to turn off your main valve for a while.” Or, “Yep, your Aunt Minnie’s sick all right! Ya probably ought to get her to a doctor tomorrow if she does not get any better by then.” Or “Yep, that’s a bat all right! Maybe ya oughta open the windows so it can fly outside again!” In the meantime, while our hero is wasting time on this call, maybe someone is having a real problem out there, like getting raped, robbed, or killed. Street cops would like to work the phones just once and catch a few of these idiotic complaints. “A bat in the house? No need to send an officer when I can tell ya what to do right here on the phone, pal! Close all your windows and doors right away. Pour gasoline all over your furniture. That’s it. Now, set it on fire and get everybody outside! Yeah, you’ll get the bat for sure! That’s okay; call us anytime.”

Probably the most serious beef cops have with civilians relates to those situations in where the use of force becomes necessary to deal with some desperado who may have just robbed a bank, iced somebody, beat up his wife and kids, or wounded some cop and now he’s caught but won’t give up. He’s not going to be taken alive, he’s going to take some cop with him and you better say your prayers, you pig bastards! Naturally, if the chump’s armed with any kind of weapon, the cops are going to shot him up so bad they’ll be able to open his body as a lead mine. If he’s not armed, and the cops aren’t creative enough to find a weapon for him, they just beat him into raw meat and hope he spends the next few weeks in traction.

They view it as a learning experience for the poor soul. You mess somebody up, you find out what it feels like to be messed up. Don’t like it? Don’t do it again! It’s called “street justice” and civilians approve of it as much as cops do – even if they don’t admit it. Remember how the audience cheered when Charles Bronson beat up the bad guys in Death Wish? How they scream with joy everytime Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry makes his day by blowing up some rotten scumball with his 44 Magnum? What they applauded is the administration of street justice. The old eye for an eye concept, one of mankind’s most primal instincts. All of us have it, especially cops.

It severely offends and deeply hurts cops when they administer a dose of good old fashioned street justice only to have some bleeding heart do gooder happen upon the scene at the last minute, when the hairbag is at last getting his just deserts, and start hollering about police brutality. Cops regard that as very serious business indeed. Brutality can get them fired. Get fired from one police department, and it’s tough to get a job as a cop anywhere else ever again.

Brutality exposes the cop to civil liability as well. Also, his superior officers, the police department as an agency, and maybe even the local government itself. You’ve seen those segments on 60 minutes, right? Some cop screws up, gets sued along with everybody else in the department who ever had anything to do with him, and the city or county ends up paying the plaintiff umpteen million dollars, raising taxes and hocking it’s fire engines in the process. What do you think happens to the cop who messed up in the first place? He’s done for.

On many occasions when the cops are accused of excessive force, the apparent brutality is a misconception by some observer who isn’t acquainted with the realities of police work. For example, do you have any idea how hard it is to handcuff someone who really doesn’t want to be handcuffed? Without hurting them? It’s almost impossible for one cop to accomplish by himself unless he beats the hell out of the prisoner first – which would also be viewed as brutality! It frequently takes 3 or 4 cops to handcuff one person who is absolutely determined to battle them.

In situations like that, it’s not unusual for the cops to hear someone in the crowd of onlookers comment on how they are ganging up on the poor person and beating him unnecessarily. This makes them feel like telling the complainer “Hey, you think you can handcuff this guy by yourself without killing him first? C’mere! You’re deputized! Now, go ahead and do it!”

The problem with that, in addition to being unfamiliar with how difficult it is in the real world to physically control someone without beating him, last minute observers usually don’t have the opportunity to see for themselves, like they do on TV, what a monster the suspect might be. If they did, they’d probably holler at the cops to beat his butt some more. They might actually want to help!

The best thing for civilians to do if they think they see cops rough up somebody too much is to keep their mouths shut at the scene, and make inquires of the police brass later on. There might be ample justification for the degree of force used that just wasn’t apparent at the time of the arrest. If not, the brass will be very interested in the complaint. If one of their cops went over the deep end, they’ll want to know about it.

Most of this comes down to common sense, a characteristic the cops feel most civilians lack. One of the elements of common sense is thinking before opening one’s yap or taking other action. Just a brief moment of thought will often prevent the utterance of something stupid or the commission of some idiotic act that will, among other things, generate nothing but contempt from the average street cop. Think and it might mean getting a warning instead of a traffic ticket. Or getting sent on your way rather than being arrested. Or continuing on to your original destination instead of the hospital. It might mean getting some real assistance instead of the run around. The very least it’ll get you is a measure of respect cops seldom show civilians. Act like you’ve got just a little sense, and even if the cops don’t love you, they at least won’t hate you.

If you have made it this far, you are either a cop and getting a good chuckle out of it or a very curious person. In this era of buzz words and community policing, there are sections of this article that no longer hold true. But on the whole, it reflects the way street cops view some of the people they deal with on a regular basis.

Nov 202009
 

Part of my job as a sergeant is to review reports submitted by the patrol officers. Most of them are fairly routine, even somewhat boring at times. Fights, drunk drivers, property damage, thefts, fraud and the other usual things you might expect. Some are more serious like sexual assaults, child abuse and domestic violence with serious assaults. These type of reports can be difficult to read and you feel for the victims. Today however I read a fraud report and it again amazed me at how gullible and just dumb some people can be at times. The scam goes like this:

An employee at a restaurant receives a phone call from a guy who identifies himself as a deputy sheriff. He tell the employee that he needed the managers cell phone number because another employee of the restaurant has been arrested for drunk driving and needed to be bailed out of jail. He tell the employee that due to confidentiality laws he can’t tell them the name of the employee was but that she would be the last person they would expect to be arrested. Of course the employee mentions a name and the bad guy says “well yes that’s her”.

Now he has the name of an employee who is not working and is given the managers cell phone number. Immediately he calls the manager and having the employee’s name he tells the manager that the employee needs $680 dollars for bail to get out of jail. He tells the manager not to hang up because it is the only phone call his employee gets and she really needs his help. He instructs him to go to a major store which he actually names, and wire the money to a location which he says is a bail bondsman, of course giving the manager a fake name for the bondsman. He further tell the manager to send the money with “no identification required”. Could this be a big Red Flag perhaps?  I just don’t get it.

At this point it seems a reasonable person would have at least started asking some questions… (I probably would have laughed at the guy and hung up... but that's just me...)  Perhaps getting a call back number, where she was in jail or something like that. Then make some phone calls to verify the story. Also I would be wondering why she was calling an employer for bail and not friends or family or just bailing themselves out. Anyway the manager wires the money and then his brain kicks in and he is starting to think something is not right. Of course by this time the money is gone and there is no trail.

This scam has been successfully pulled of at several businesses in the area, mostly restaurants. Like I said, I just don’t get it…..

Nov 182009
 

This is the Selene 36 named Serenity and is a bareboat charter with San Juan Yachting.  This is just a dream boat for me and I would really like to take her for a week long cruise.  I plan to take some training next year either with some family that has a nice yacht up in Anacortes or if that doesn’t work out I may have to pay for it at one of the charter companies.  I’m considering ABC Yacht Charters for this but I am still looking and haven’t scheduled anything yet.

Let’s go boating….