Chalk one up for the good guys!

Wazzup everyone? Sorry it has been awhile since my last post but as usual I’ve been really busy. Jess has been on my case (in a good way) to start posting so here goes my week………..
This was a good week for the police and a not so good week for the bad guys. We caught several thieves in the process of trying to rob people. I think we put a total of 7 criminals in jail on three different robberies. That’s a good week! Of course a lot more people went to jail but I’m just focusing on these knuckleheads.
To start things off, my crew just cleared briefing when one of our officers gets into a foot pursuit so we all go flying up there to help out. He is chasing a guy through a marshy swamp area full of trees and we can’t see him, but he says that the guy is headed back for the street. I park my car and jump out and I can here the guy crashing through the bushes right toward me and I’m like “Yes, finally. Action!” So I’m sitting right there seeing him come toward me when he sees me and turns back to run. I go crashing right through the brush after him ripping branches out of the way like a machete hacking machine but I soon realize that they are sticker bushes. But I charge on and tackle the guy as we crash into the brush. I take him down to the ground and put him into a handcuffing position as the original officer comes through the bushes to help. He looks at me and says “Hey, you’re bleeding.” Then I feel blood start pouring down my face. I decide to steal a line from the movie Predator and said “I don’t have time to bleed” and then said “I gotta get this guy cuffed”. So we get him into custody and start to walk him out and we hand him off to the other officers so we can relax and cool down. Then they see me with blood coming down my face and they’re like “Dude, you’re bleeding.” Well what happened is a thick vine of sticker bushes sliced my eye lid and the top of my head. It was fairly minor but facial injuries bleed like crazy so it looked worse than it was. But the cool ego expanding part was one officer said I looked like “a warrior during battle coming out of the bushes” with the bad guy and blood running down. I’m like “Yep, that’s me! =)
The next day we get a call that three teens just stole a purse from an old lady and I was only a few blocks away. So I come flying into the area and see people pointing in a certain direction behind the Circle K store and I’m thinking either they are having a cool carwash or it’s a clue. So I turn around and see the punks running into the Fred Meyer store. We go in after them and I see one coming out of the bathroom that refuses to stop so I chase him down. My partners find the other two thugs in the bathroom with the purse. Well my guy starts mouthing off and tries to break away from me so I introduce him to the beauty bark on the side of the building. So now I’m on top of him crushing him into the ground and he is still talking trash and threatening to sue me. I mean this kid is dropping f-bombs left and right and swearing at customers walking by. Then he starts talking trash to my sergeant so the next time he starts moving around I take the opportunity to reintroduce him back to the beauty bark. After a minute or so I let him come up for air and then I repeat this cycle until he decides to calm down. So the victim and several witnesses come pick these kids out as the bad guys and they all go to jail. It was a very good day.
And to top off the week and to prove it was a bad week for the criminals, several of our officers were at training and breaked for lunch at a local teriyaki restaurant. My sergeant is one of them and he looks out the window (we always sit so we can see out) and sees a lady walking with a bank bag in her hand. He then sees two thugs get out of a car and come up behind her and one of them puts a hood over his head and then pulls up a mask over his face. Again, we call this a clue in the police business. Well sure enough the thugs grab the bag but they didn’t count on a half dozen cops filing out of the restaurant full speed after them. And yes they were caught and went to jail. And as the week progressed so did several other bad guys. It was a fun and exciting week but now I’m ready to relax and be with my family. How was your week? =)

Lights, Siren, Action!

Well business is still good and I am keeping busy. We have been having a problem with robberies and gun calls in a certain area of the city so we are focusing a lot of our efforts there. A few weeks ago we had a family of Samoans taking pictures in the parking lot of their apartment complex when a guy walked up and asked them if they wanted to buy some drugs. They declined and told him to move on but the guy started talking trash, which is a big mistake because Samoans are BIG people and you don’t mess with them or their family. So they basically decide to help the guy leave but he threatens them with having a gun (I hope it’s a big gun). They don’t care and go to snatch him up and he actually shoots one of the family dudes in the leg. The bad guy didn’t have time and was only able to shoot the gun through his pocket, but now his life is in real danger because the whole family is coming after him so he barely gets out of the complex alive and jumps over a series of fences to escape. Here’s the cool part…. The family got great photos of the bad guy and we were able to ID him as a local dirtbag. So now the hunt is on!
After a few days our undercover detectives find out where the guy is hiding so they wait for him to come by the place. After a few hours the bad guy comes walking up and then the foot pursuit is on. The problem is the detectives didn’t tell us they were waiting for the guy so when the call comes out as a foot pursuit we didn’t know who they were chasing. Well my partner, who is brand new, and I are way far away on a call of a homeless person lighting a camp fire in the woods. Huge crime I know! The problem is that we are way across this field and in the wood line and since we were so far away we decide to finish our call. But that’s when the detectives announce who they were chasing so my partner and I start running across the mammoth field and when we get half way across we heard that shots were fired during the foot pursuit. Now we are really running, but all of our gear weighs 30-35 lbs so it feels like we are running in place. Anyway, we finally get to our car and we jump in. The new guy is driving so he whips the car around on this narrow path and we almost get stuck in the mud. I tell him to hurry so he slams on the gas and we take off with mud flying everywhere. By now there are a ton of officers and tons more on their way from different jurisdictions to help out. So we got the lights and siren going and as usual traffic is in our way, it never fails. We go rippin up the street I look over to see my partner hunched over the wheel with a death grip and he is breathing really heavy. I try to get him to relax but I’m basically doing the same thing! We just ran our butts off and the adrenaline is pumping because this is the real deal call!
We finally get into the area when we hear that the suspect ran into a certain complex so we go straight in ready for action. We jump out of the car guns ready and all of a sudden this Russian guy comes flying into the complex in a tow truck. He tells us that his mother just called and said some unknown guy just broke into their apartment and said that the police are chasing him. Well I’m no detective but I would call that a clue! So we go surround the building and come up with a plan to try and talk the bad guy out. We call into the apartment and get the mother to come out but she doesn’t speak English so it is hard to get info. Then we get another guy, the father, to come out and he doesn’t speak English either. This brings me to a side point. I love the diversity of our country but it should mandatory that if you want to stay in United States you should have to speak the language.
Anyway, we have a negotiator with us who is talking to the family and he says that there is nobody else in the apartment except for the bad guy. So we have all our guns trained on the apartment ready for anything. All of a sudden another guy pops out speaking Russian. It’s the uncle. I look over at the negotiator who shrugs his shoulders and says, “Sorry. I don’t speak Russian.” It was kinda funny but hey this is serious! Well we spend the next hour ordering the guy to come out but we get no reaction. Long story short is I finally hear “Officer? Can I speak to you for a minute?” Roman is the bad guy’s name so I say “No problem Roman. Just come out with your hands up.” I can tell he is scared so I try to play the nice cop role with a calm voice but thinking that I may shoot this kid at any second. So he sticks his head out with his left hand up in the air and we can’t see his right hand. That’s when my partner, the new guy, yells with a loud voice “Let me see you hands!” Well it scared me not mention the bad guy who almost retreats back into the home. I tell my partner to relax just a little because he basically did the right thing but the overall goal is to get him out. Roman eventually puts both hands up and comes out to the top of the stairs. He tells me that he is really scared and is worried that we are going to shoot him. He is pretty much right if he does anything crazy but I just tell him to come down the stairs. That’s when he asks “Can you come up here and get me?” I’m like yeah right! I mean does he think I’m new or something? He really said it because he was scared. I tell him that he will be okay and to keep his hands up and just walk down, which he does, and as he comes down he says “Please don’t slam me down on the ground.” I’m thinking this guy is a mind reader because that is exactly what I was thinking, but I tell him that we won’t. In the end we get him handcuffed safely and he is off to the big house. It was a fun call, the type I love to be at. Oh here’s the weird part. The Samoan victim and his sister were right there when we took the bad guy into custody because she lives at the complex. And she asks us if she could “speak” to him for a few minutes. Well I’m thinking that might be a good idea and it might just save everyone (taxpayers) a whole lot of time and money. But I decline her request and tell her she can look him up in 10 years when he gets out.

A flawed system?

Hello again. I just woke up and felt the need to post! Plus Jessica told me that I needed to. =) I guess it has been a few days but it has been a long week and I’m so glad it is the weekend. Plus it is Easter weekend which is really cool. I’m looking forward to church on Sunday to see and hear some great music and words from Pastor Steve.
Well if I have to title this week I would have to call it "white trash week". I don’t call it that to be demeaning in any way because I do not think badly of people that don’t have things or are in bad circumstances. What I am talking about is a state of mind, a way of life based on continual bad decisions even when faced with truth. I’m talking about how the household is run or lack thereof for that matter. Unfortunately, I am talking about three single moms on welfare that appear to be abusing the system. I personally think that there is nothing wrong with welfare or even being on it. It is a great system designed to help those in need, especially children. I am even a product of the welfare system. But there are those out there that feel that they are entitled to everything under the sun because they don’t have. They want free rent, free food, free clothes and free money. To those truly in need they should get some or all of those things. But I’m going to tell you a story about a group of people that test the limits of my Christianity. They test my limits as a parent, and they test my limits as a police officer.
For several months we have been dealing with a group of kids with ages ranging from 9-12. Somehow, and I don’t want to know how, they are all related or interrelated. They live in an apartment building that is smaller than a shoe box. The parking lot is so small that my patrol car barely fits in it. It more looks like an old motel with only a few rooms. It sits across the street from a new business project that is fun for people to visit, shop and eat. But these kids run amok over there and are causing problems. They first came to our attention when one day they went into a business and slapped a cashier on the butt and then ran out. So we tracked them down and spoke to their parents, which only consists of their mothers, and learned that the families recently moved to Kent and were “placed” in the apartments. That’s clue #1.
We are specifically dealing with 3 of the apartments all next to each other. The mother lives in one with her kids, her adult daughter lives in the third one with all of her kids, and the middle apartment is the aunt with all of her kids. Each woman has different kids from different fathers. They all smoke, drink and sleep all day while their kids are running the streets. They also have people living with them who are in the same situation. To make matters worse the toilet in one doesn’t work, the shower in the other doesn’t work, and the sinks in the third doesn’t work. So they are all constantly going in an out of each other’s home to do what they need to do. Well this is starting to take a toll on their patience and they are all now fighting and accusing each other of stealing things. It is a complete mess and the kids are caught up in the middle. So why not get CPS involved you might ask? See clue #1, they are already involved.
The other day the kids got kicked out of the library because they were all running around playing tag and knocking things over. Could you imagine taking your own kids to the library and having to deal with these kids running around? Well at first they refused to leave and when they finally did they knocked over the tables that have all the tax forms and booklets because they were mad. That’s when I was called. Needless to say they picked up everything! Two days ago they were throwing rocks at other kids at a park so I had to kick them out of there too. Unfortunately they are too young to commit a crime, too young for juvenile detention, and the only option is to take them home. And really, it’s not their fault. They are products of their parenting. The kicker is that they really aren’t being “neglected”. They have food, clothes, shelter and education. All provided free by the taxpayers. Of course they don’t live in the best of situations, but it’s legal. So now the CPS and DSHS (welfare) systems have only been enabling the families to be right where they are. No accountability, no expectation to move up.
Back to the moms…. A few weeks ago one of them wanted to report their Quest Debit card stolen. This card has replaced food stamps, and it is pin # specific so you need the pin # to use it. Just like a real debit card. So I get her story and she says that it was stolen the day after payday and someone used it at a local store and all the money is now gone. She tells me that she needs a case number from the police so she can get a new one, with new money, so she can feed her family. I ask her how the “thief” got her pin # and she said that she doesn’t know. Yeah right! This is a common scam by the way. And she is telling me this as she is puffing away on a cigarette. You know how much money she would save it she was just quit? Anyway, so here is the dilemma… I know that she is lying but if I don’t give her the case # her kids might suffer for a few weeks. So what would you do? Well last week the other adult calls and says that her prescription meds are stolen. I already know the answer because this is another common scam but I ask her what kind of meds it was and she says “Oxycontin”. This is a good drug but addictive and sells on the black market. She also needs a case # so she can get a new bottle of pills, on taxpayer’s dime of course. What would you do? Tough choice, huh?! Not for me!
My week finally ends with a call back to the same families where they are fighting in the parking lot. I get there and all of the adults are yelling, swearing, and going off at each other and right in front of their kids. They were dropping so many f-bombs that every other word was an expletive. After several requests to please stop yelling and swearing, my partner and I had to basically tell them all to shut up! The sad thing is that is how they respond to things. Please and thank you just doesn’t work. So we get it all settled and send them all to their rooms so to speak. But I know we will be back there next week when I return from my days off. It is sad to see a mother, her daughter, and their kids to live like this. You can just see the effects of generational sins and curses being passed along. It is a reminder that I was once not too far away from being in a situation like them. But I have made a decision to take stand! A stand to break the mold of my forefathers and not be like them. A new generation starts with me. It will be a generation of people who love God. The sins and curses of my father and his father stop here with me! I am a man of God who will raise my family in a new light. That is my stand! I just hope I can impart that on these families as well.
This is just a typical call and one of many we deal with daily. I can see why cops get so cynical after long careers dealing with this type of stuff, not to mention all of the other things we see. But thankfully I have Jesus to help me out with this stuff. He keeps me grounded. Without Him I would probably say things to these people that should never be said. I took this job to help people, to be a light in a time of darkness. So if you ever get a chance, pray that for me. Pray that I see the Jesus in people and they see Him in me.

TGIF

Well I made it through another week and man was my Friday busy!
The entire city went crazy with calls. I went to 23 different types of incidents during my 10 hour shift, but the good thing is the day went by super fast. The hard part is that when you run on high octane all day long you hit a lull afterward and just feel like crashing out on the couch. But I had to go work off duty at a night club until 0230 hrs. Needless to say I was wiped out big time!
There was a break in the storm for a few minutes so my partner and I ducked into Taco Time for a quick bite to eat, but quick was an understatement. Just as we get our food a call comes out as a blocking accident only 2 blocks away. We were short on traffic officers (remember the mean guys on motorcycles) who handle accidents so we thought we were going to get stuck taking the call. We stand up and look out the window and don’t see any accident so we let dispatch know it’s not blocking so we don’t have to go. Whew! We dodged that bullet…. So we thought! On a side note, I feel a little guilty sometimes because here someone gets into an accident and all I think about is chowing down my #4 with chicken, no tomatoes and sub olives. Hey let’s be honest, those mexi-nuggets rock! Anyway, dispatch gets back on the air and says one of the vehicles is taking off. Now it’s a hit-n-run. The fleeing vehicle is a big white van (great, another kidnapper van) headed east bound right towards us. We stand up and see it drive right by Taco Time so my partner and I look at each other like should we or shouldn’t we. So we do a quick cop version of rock, paper, scissors and off my partner goes. I’m stuck bagging up our food when my partner radios that the vehicle isn’t stopping. I now have the decision to keep bagging the food or possibly miss a pursuit. Well there is no way I’m going to miss a pursuit so I have the cashier bag our food and off I go. Well the guy eventually drives home and then gives up. But he is tanked! He blew over twice the legal limit and went to the clink. Hey, maybe that could be a new slogan… “If you drive and drink, you’ll go to the clink!” Then again maybe not. And as four my #4 with chicken, it was all soggy and the nuggets were soft. Bum deal, huh?! Maybe I should ask the court for reimbursement when this guys goes to trial?
Well the rest of the shift was call after call and I was happy to end my day because I worked my tail off. Bye the way, where does that saying come from? If you know please let me know.
Moving on…. I remember one of the last times I was that busy and I decided to stop by McDonald’s on the way home from work. The van in front of me pulls into the lot and I see two teens kick the side of the van. But the van leaves and never stops so I go through the drive-thru. I’m like the third car back when the same teens run by me and up to the car ordering food. At first I thought they knew the driver but all of a sudden one of the teens punches the driver. I see the wife get out of the car and she looks really scared. The driver gets out and is trying to call 911 and the teens are up in his face big time. Seriously, can you imagine being with your family and two punks come up and jack you up? It is just so wrong and unfair that these guys get to ruin someone’s day like that. Well I get out of my car and take out my badge and yell for them to stop. They turn and look at me like how dare I interrupt their punk session and one of them charges right at me. Mistake #1, don’t get between me and my food. Mistake #2, don’t take on a defensive tactics instructor unless you are a stud. So the guy shouts out some profanities and tries to punch me. I block the punch and grab him and then I throw him up against the wall. Then I slam him down on the ground WWF style. The guy then scurries away. I guess he wasn’t as tough as he thought. But then out of the corner of my eye I see the other guy come at me so I grab him and knock him to the ground. I jump on top of him and tenderize him a bit until the on duty police arrive. While I was waiting I see another guy behind me so I turn and there is this guy who says “Hey, I’m just watching your back man. I see you got things covered.” Well the police arrive and the wife is telling my buddies what happened. She was crying and saying that these mean guys came up and punched her husband and then this cop comes over and starts throwing the bad guys around like the “incredible hulk”. At that moment my buddies look over and I just smile and shake my head like “yep, I’m the man!” It was pretty funny. And I got to put in overtime for it too! And as for the guy who “had my back”, without either of us knowing he was invited to a men’s camping trip for our church and he said that he thought I looked familiar and we ended up putting two and two together. Now Marty is a member of our church and we laugh about this story from time to time. God is really cool, huh?! What a small world. =)

the saga continues

Hello everyone out there in the civilian world. I hope your week was fun and full of excitement. As for me, I'm ready for a day off for sure! I guess I'll start with my first call from yesterday where a vehicle was left partially blocking an entrance to a trailer park. I get there and the vehicle was smashed up and leaking all over. It looked like it struck a pole or something because the front end was crunched pretty good. I assume that it was a DUI driver from overnight so I run the plate and it doesn't show stolen. I checked the car and see that there is a key in the ignition. I call the owner who says that her 17 y/o son drove it last night and he is at a friend's house. She said that she would call him and meet me at the location. When she arrives she tells me that her son just woke up and noticed that the car was gone and he wants to report it stolen. Hmmm, how convenient! He admits to being at a party drinking but he stayed at the house and never left with the car. He said that he put the car key under the floormat and went inside to party. I don't know about you but when I park my car I put the key in my pocket not inside the car. Anyway, he says someone stole it and that's it. The mom believes him and basically orders me to take fingerprints. She was the type that says that she pays taxes and therefore my salary so I better do it. But I live in the city where I work so wouldn't that be the same? Or more like I'm self employed? Maybe I should give my self a raise with logic like that! Anyway, I check for prints and find two on the rear view mirror. I notice that the kid is a little nervous so I explain to him that not one single car was stolen or broken into overnight, which is rare in my city, except his which happens to have the key under the floormat. I tell him that there are no signs of forced entry and remind him that making a false report is a crime and he can be arrested. Lastly, I tell him that I will send these prints off the be checked and if they come back to him he's busted. I give him one last chance to tell the truth and he caves. He admits that he crashed the car.... but wasn't drunk. Yeah right! Take that mom! The funny thing is that it's his car so the prints should be in there. He totally fell for it. Oh, he has also never been fingerprinted before so there was no way the prints would have ever come back to him. My wife called it sneaky of me which may be true but I call it good police work. I mean come on, my job would be way too easy if I walked right up and the dude said "yes sir I did steal that car, or rob that bank, or broke into that house". But since they lie we have to get creative, which is the fun part. So I let mom handle the matter and leave. Lesson learned for him I hope.
Moving on...... after that call I get another call to go to a passed out drunk guy back at the Labor Ready. But on the way I see a nice Expedition in front of me so I run the plate. I see that the female driver looks nervous and when I get the return I notice that it is registered to the one and only "Jim and Tammie". Yep that's right, the very Tammie that leaves replies to my posts. How cool is that?! Wouldn't it be great if we all ran into each other somehow through all of this? So I pull up next to her and roll down my window and she said that she was nervous I was going to pull her over. Too funny! So we say our goodbyes at the traffic light and I continue on. When I arrive at the drunk guy he is out cold. He is one of our local transients who drinks enough to kill me so I check to make sure he is at least breathing. As I lean in, his "spider sense" must have kicked in because he jumped up and I startled the daylights out of him. Well me too but I couldn't show that. I have an image to protect, right? So I make sure he is okay and send him on his way. I drive back to the station and pull into the fenced lot and when I step out of the car there is a white and gray pet rabbit running around under the cars. No joke. I think where in the world did this thing come from? So I try to grab it but it takes off. As I go after it, I stop and think that this is probably a set up and a camera is on me right at that moment. But there is no camera and I left the bunny be. Maybe we have a new PD pet? There's a ton more so stay tuned. I'll post more tomorrow.

How was your Monday?

Well I went back to work today and even though it's Tuesday it's my Monday (we work 4 ten hour shifts and have 3 days off). I was a little anxious to see the final outcome of Friday's pursuit so I headed into work. Nothing exciting happened on the way in except for people driving in the slow lane, but I got over it. So to answer the big question..... Yes, every bad guy got away, but we have identified the ring leader and we'll catch him soon. He's toast! We almost always catch them through investigation.
Moving on, today for me was pretty exciting but not nearly as exciting as last week. I got a call from my friend Brent, who said that he saw me twice today. Once on one end of the city and the other time I was downtown pointing my gun at some guy. So we'll skip the first time he saw me and go right to gun part. One of our traffic officers (the mean guys on motorcycles that write good people tickets all day long) tried to pull someone over, for speeding of all things, and the guy took off. Yep another pursuit. Well this guy only goes a short distance and darts into a park. He lights something small on fire with his lighter and jumps into the back of his van, you know one of those kidnapper type vans that have dark scary windows, as if we aren't going to see him hiding. Yeah right!
Anyway, we surround the van and try to call him out but he doesn't want to cooperate. So we can either sit there for 3 hours until the SWAT team comes in or handle it ourselves. We chose the latter. By now there are all kinds of bystanders and mothers with their kids at the park watching a live episode of cops unfold before them. Which brings me to my first point. If you were there it is only natural to want to watch, right? Of course. But if you have little junior with you and there are several cops chasing a van into the park and pointing their guns and yelling commands don't you think that may be a clue to run? Or at least move a safe distance away? You'd think!
We were able to run the owner of the van's name and discovered that he had a $100,000 warrant out for his arrest. Now this incident is getting fun. So we shoot out the windows with a "bean bag shotgun" to let the knucklehead know we mean business. I guess that got his attention because he came out peacefully and went to jail. Boring ending I know. Oh, and the thing he lit on fire was only a cigarette. He wanted one last smoke before going to the clink! And speaking of cigarettes......
Later in the shift my partner and I get a call of a female at Labor Ready, a temporary work for the day type business, who was "flashing" people in the parking lot for cigarettes. In her defense they are getting really expensive these days. Anyway, in a typical officer response we ask for a description of the female, which comes out as 5'04, 110 pounds with long brown hair. All of a sudden we now have 20 cops going to this call which just cracks me up because if the description is the opposite only one or two officers respond. But I've been doing this cop thing for over a decade and I know the truth is always far from the reality. I mean there is no way some supermodel would be hanging out at Labor Ready peddling for cigarettes. Nonetheless it's now a race between the other 20 cops even though my partner and I got dispatched first. So we get there first and there she is, she looks just like Cindy Crawford but with missing teeth, drunk, and on crack for the last two years. Yep, it wasn't pretty. It was one of those times where you just say, "Ma'am. Please leave now and don't come back, and if you do make sure the graveyard shift is on".
That's about it for today. There were several more cool things that happened, but I can't make these posts mega long. Plus I did enough paperwork for the day. =) So stay tuned for more action and if tomorrow is boring I still have a ton of cool past stories to tell. Bless you.

Bloggin POPO

Okay, check this out. You want to know what cops really think like? Here goes........... Yesterday was my Friday and at the end of shift we get a call of three guys with guns breaking into an apartment and assaulting the resident. My first thought is "Yes! Action!" But that was immediately followed up by, "If I get there first I have to do all the paperwork." Then came "I'm off duty in one hour and it's my Friday. Why couldn't this have happenend yesterday when it was slow?" All that came and went in about 3/10 of a second so all of you 911 callers out there don't worry. So then I put on my cape, turned on my lights and cranked the siren. Why, I don't know because nobody gets out of our way anyway, but since it's policy I just do it. The adrenaline is now flowing and I'm ready to go to work. Most people think confronting three bangers with guns is crazy, and it probably is, but for me it's fun. I mean someone has to do it, right?! Now is my time to swing my proverbial sword and axe and go to battle! So as I get into the area, my partner says he's arrived and the bad guys just jumped into a car and are taking off. All of a sudden I see the bad guys coming right at me from around the corner, and fast! I go to block the road and the driver tries to go around. I try to cut him off and he rips through the dirt median barely missing a ditch and plows over a street sign. Some how he is able to fishtail his way back onto the road. Pure luck! That's what bad guys have, pure luck! So my partner comes screaming around the corner and is in pursuit. Now I have to make a 3-point turn around that seemed to take about 4 months to do but at least I'm ready to get in this thing. I hit the gas and take off but traffic is getting in my way. My partner is now on the freeway by himself chasing armed bad guys and I'm falling behind, quick! I finally get on the freeway and I see my partner way up there but at least I see his lights. I'm now rippin down the freeway at 110 mph trying to catch up when my cell phone rings. I think it's my wife so I answered the phone and said "sweetie, I'm in pursuit." But it's my son Josiah and he says "Umm dad, can I stay the night at Jesse's house? I quickly tell him I'm busy and to ask his mother who's at a friend's house, but he says that he already tried but her phone is off. He's begging me at this point and I guess the siren in the background wasn't a clue so I tell him "sure, sounds good, love you gotta go." I mean he could've asked for a new bike at that point and I would've said yes. Because I had to go! So I hang up my phone and I try to get in the pursuit. Quick question.... Have you ever had someone cut you off in traffic? How about when you are going 120 mph with lights and siren? Not once, but twice! Funny I went to work a Christian that morning but at that moment all I wanted to do was knock that car into next week! As I pass by the car I give a quick wave, with all my fingers, I say a few kind words under my breath and continue on. Now, if I have to give a driver advice it would be to check your rear view mirror once in a while! Not once a week, but every few seconds or so. And if you see a cop car parked on your bumper with lights flashing and he is looking at you with an upside down smile that might be a clue to move over, right? It's not a clue to slam on the brakes, which always happens, but to move over... to the right! Not your left because that is where we the police pass. And right means over to the slow lane where you should've been driving in the first place. Anyway, moving on.... I step back on the gas and try to catch up. My partner was doing a great job with his Moses impression by parting the red sea (of brake lights) but you'd think traffic would stay out of the way but nooooooooooo! As quick as they pulled over they moved right back into my lane even though there are now 20 cops motoring at mach one in the fast lane behind them. So now I'm riding the bumper of this lady who has the nerve to raise her hands up like "What?" I'm like "What!!!!" I'm thinking to myself that she has no idea she just had a near death experience but I don't have time to rip her out of the wing window. I thought for a second I should just pull her over because it appears that I am going nowhere fast so why not?! And remember the image of cops on your bumper with lights and siren and an upside down smile? Well they're now on my bumper! So I raise my hands like "what?!" and I can't help but think I'm slowing up all of mankind. This is now truly a battle because traffic is not cooperating but I march on like a good troop. So we head up a long freeway into another city and thinking they are waiting at the end of it for us to get there. Wrong again. It must've been coffee break time or something, or more like "it's their chase and we're off in 30!" Well eventually the bad guys bail out of the car into 'crack central'. Yep they got away. Or did they? Stay tuned....... Oh yeah, on the way back a kind hearted citizen called 911, to thank us right? Yeah right! He called to complain that an officer threw a cigarette out a window! Time out! Let's just say an officer did do that. Wouldn't you think that an officer chasing ARMED BAD GUYS might need to discard the thing at least for safety purposes? I guess not. The funny thing is that the officer he complained against doesn't even smoke, and it was my sergeant. Too funny, huh?! And to the dude that called 911 to complain...... if a cop flies over a lit cigarette at mach one it's going to fly up in the air like it flew out his window you knuckle head! But bless him anyways. =)