There's always more than one way to catch them!

Here it is a nice sunny easy afternoon and I'm parked watching for red light violators. Why I'm doing that is another long story but today I'm just hanging out watching the flower stand guy in front of me try to sell flowers to passing motorists.
Now any cop will tell you that when you park your car it automatically attracts certain people to come over and say hello. It's never a member of the Coor's Light bikini team or anything like that. It is usually a street urchin who once had dreams of becoming something someday. Kinda sad but unfortunately true.
Sure enough this guy comes bouncing along wearing a Sears work shirt and introduces himself as Bruce and wants to shake my hand. Well I don't do many handshakes with the public but I give him a bump instead which he got a kick out of for some reason. He then bounces over to the flower guy and hangs out for a few minutes, but soon after comes the 911 call. Nothing earth shattering but a female at Lover's Package calls 911 to report that some guy in a Sears shirt was asking her to smoke some meth with her. So one of our area cars gets the call while I just sit there and watch the guy.
A few minutes later the officer arrives and walks over to my car and I just point the guy out and tell her that the guy said his name is Bruce. I just tell the officer to go over and check him out, which she does. Now some may ask why I didn't just do it since I was already there and my simple answer is "I'm the Sarge"!
I keep an eye on things while watching red light violators when I see the officer pick up the guy's backpack and they walk over to my car. It appears she got consent to look into his backpack so I get out of my car to help. While we are standing there a Suburban pulls up to quick stop and a female leans out and is yelling for this guy to run! She also calls him Anthony. Now I take that as a clue, but we really don't have anything on the guy and he is free to leave if he wants.
All of a sudden he takes off running bounding thru traffic and runs up to the Suburban but he can't get in the door and runs around trying doors like a Chinese fire drill gone bad. He panics and then runs away leaving his woman there with us staring at them. The flower guy is looking at us like "hey, you going to run after them or what?" Well I look at the officer and ask if she found anything and she said no he just took off.
Well in most every part of the US, and according to the US Supreme Court, a person who runs from the police isn't normal and we can chase them. Well we live in the land of the 9th Circuit and our Washington State Laws are little different. Now I know one could argue a Terry stop or the fact he was running thru traffic was illegal and blah, blah, blah. No offense but I'm not chasing a guy thru rush hour traffic only to get smoked by a Subaru with an Obama bumper sticker for having really nothing on the guy. Work smarter, not harder right?!
So I decide to go after the Suburban because I recognized the female from a traffic stop a month earlier. And guess what? Her license is suspended. And I won't go into details on that stop but she went crazy on me and was felony pissed off and let me know it. However, a good rule to live by is do not fail the attitude test with the police especially if your license is suspended. Yep, that little episode cost her a small fortune and a tow bill!
I catch up to the Suburban and contact Aubrey who is still suspended, and guess what? Her attitude is A LOT better this time around. You think she got the point? Well she gives us the guy's name which turns out that he has a felony warrant with an armed and dangerous caution attached. Things are getting interesting, but he is long gone for sure! Well she tells me that they are leaving for California tonight, which is odd because I have court with her next month. Hmmmmmmm!
She then asked me why we were chasing him so I seize the opportunity. You see these two just got married like a month ago so I proceed to tell her that women called 911 about him wanting to smoke meth with them and I added that he was also trying to have sex with them. Aubrey did not like this very much and started yelling and cussing at good old Anthony as if he could hear her. I then tell her that he told the women they were way hotter then his wife, which really sent Aubrey into a fit of rage. It was pretty funny but I was now kind of getting worried for Anthony a little bit! I then play into her heart a little and tell her that she doesn't deserve this and that she is way better than him and blah, blah, blah. Really though, other than the bad attitude it was all true.
So over the next few hours I drove by the house and she was like a sentry guard just waiting for Anthony to get home. Even when I checked one last time on my home she was still fuming and waiting. Well not 30 minutes later a 911 call from Aubrey's neighbor's reporting a fight between a male and female. Uh oh! =)
Offciers arrive and see him grabbing her and shoving her while she is screaming. Officers yell and bad guy takes off again. This time the officers really have something and take him down as he tries to get over the fence. Nothing like a Taser and 50,000 volts of electricity to help stop a bad guy! But get this...... Aubrey is now yelling at the officers and causing a big scene and goes into one of her attitudes again.
So guess who got a whole bunch of tickets in the mail while Anthony went to jail? There's always more than one way to catch a bad guy!

I'm back!

Okay everyone, after nearly a 3 year break the Bloggin Popo is back posting! I hope you enjoy............

The other day I stayed up all night and into the wee morning hours playing xbox's Halo 3 fighting 14 year olds from all across the planet when I realize I should actually get some sleep. I'm telling you it's like crack.
So I manage to calm my war torn mind and fall asleep when in what feels like a blink of an eye I hear some pounding on the front door. My first thought was some computer nerd I made fun on and smacked down on xbox must have googled my gamertag name and tracked me down somehow. But somehow I managed to decipher the pounding as a familiar sound....... my mother-in-law!
I stagger to the door half asleep in my underwear and t-shirt and manage to get the door open before another series of furious knocks, and as I am rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, which are now blinded by the morning sun that would've destroyed any living vampire, I am greeted by "were you asleep?" Now had I not just came out of a coma I might have had something witty to say other than "huh"?
She then blurts out you have a flat tire! I'm thinking "what"? I'm thinking it's felony early in the morning and this flat tire is the reason for the emergency pounding on the door that would've made any police officer proud to be able to do. So I manage to say "is it just low or flat, flat"? She replies, huh?
It then hits me as I slowly start to wake up. A sense of uh oh floods over me as I remember that I am in my underwear, it's early in the morning and I panic for about an 1/8 of a second to make sure that no physiological changes happened as I slept and was now standing at the door..... in front of mom!
Well thankfully I was safe so I stagger out to the carport to see a totally flat tire. Suck! Well no biggie, I'll just change it when I leave for work in a few hours. I thank mom for the heads up and was actually glad she told me and that she saw the problem during her early morning walk she does every day. And remember I said no biggie? Please let me explain.... I have zero mechanical ability and every time I try to do something if it can go wrong it will go wrong. This isn't some self doubt down talk people. It's a known fact! So why I thought it would be no biggie is beyond me!
Okay, I go back to bed and then get up a few hours later, take a shower and get ready for work. I put on my uniform and all my equipment and go to change the tire. I remove the stupid, tiny little jack that every car has knowing that this will not be fun. By now the sun has really come up and is starting to warm up. I manage to loosen 4 of the 5 lug nuts but I notice that the 5th one barely budges. Oh well, I'll take care of it after I jack up the car was my thought. So I put the jack under the car not really looking where I placed the jack and get the small piece of junk cranked up but not really seeing the car rise. I'm breaking a sweat as the car barely moves. I then realize that I put the stupid tiny hand crank jack under the suspension so only that moved and not the car. I'm such an idiot sometimes!
I get the stupid tiny little jack cranked back down and get it where it needs to be. I crank it up as I feel sweat dripping off my face as a very nice older man comes up to me and says that he has been watching me and wants to know if I want to borrow his nice industrial floor jack. You know, the kind that would've raised up the car in three or four easy pumps, unlike the 60 or so frustrating turns it took me, twice! And then I remember he said he was watching me, which he had to have seen me struggling, so I think to myself why didn't he come over sooner?
I politely decline because I have a terrible issue with pride, and go to remove the last lug nut but it won't come off. With all my might I manage to slowly get this thing turning. I mean it seriously took a herculean effort to get this stupid thing off, but somehow I did it. I throw the spare on and put back on the lug nuts. But, the same stupid lug nut now won't go on! I struggle to get it barely on hoping that my tire won't fall off somehow as I'm driving down the street on my way to work. I then lower the stupid little jack as the car slowly drops only to find that the spare tire is also flat. I'm not joking. I'm standing there, sweating, looking at the flat tire. Well it did have a little bit of air so screw it. I drove it a block to the nearest gas station so I could put air in it.
I go inside and buy some gum because I was out, plus a bottle of water to replenish the fluids I just lost as some old guy watched me look like a struggling idiot. I ask the clerk if she can turn on the air machine for me so I don't have to pay the 75 cents. Well she says yes so I go all the way out across the parking lot to the air machine which is not on. I wait a minute or so and nothing. I go all the way back to into the store where she asks me if it came on. I'm thinking why yes it did, that's why I'm standing here looking at you like you are now messing with me on purpose. Well she politely says that she will turn it on so I go all the way back out there where I find the machine is still not on.
I see her looking at me so I wave at her and she waves back. I'm like what!? So I wave harder and so does she. I'm like no way! She has no idea how hot and sweaty I am and the morning I'm having. I decide to just pay the 3 quarters so I reach into my pocket of change from the day before to find that I only have 2 quarters. Ugh! I realize that I have to go back into the store and actually think about driving over but decide to make the long walk instead. So I go inside and she is trying to push some button on a box to make it work. I simply and kindly tell her that I will just pay for the machine and hand her some money for more quarters. I make it back out to the car and as I place the money in the machine I'm thinking if this doesn't work or it eats my money I am going to go on a shooting spree! Thankfully it worked and I get the air in the tire and off I go to work. I stop by the shops to have the mechanics look at it and they tell me no biggie and that they'll have it fixed in no time. Oh great, not the no biggie comment again?
The mechanic gets 4 of the 5 lug nuts off and gets to the stupid 5th one that is barely on. He has the high speed thingy that gets them off real quick but it doesn't work. He tries and tries and tries with no luck. I'm now watching this guy struggle and I'm having flashbacks of an hour earlier. He is determined but can't get it off. He then goes in the back of the shop only to come out pushing two big tanks. Yep, he's going to blowtorch the sucker off! I'm thinking that's what I'm talking about. Make this little stupid lug nut suffer! Well he fires it up and cuts right through in no time flat only to finish with an uh oh. I'm like uh oh what?
He proceeds to tell me that he cut too far and cut into the post the lug nut screws on to and now the axle needs to be replaced. So he gets the big floor jack out and you guessed it, 3 or 4 pumps later the car is off the ground and the tire comes right off. I'm like WTF!?! And just so you know, the bullet proof vests we have are great but they are like vaults and once you get hot and sweaty in them the heat just stays there.... all day long!
Well finally, about three hours later I get the phone call that my car is done and that it is ready for pick up. I go down and pick up my car and have a seat as I check my Facebook only to see that my friend Justin from Reno leaves a comment about my tire. He says "no biggie, it'll only take 10 minutes to change it!" =)