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.