Mayor Daley: You're Not Listening.

The new Chicago gun restriction ordinance was just passed, supposedly to come into compliance with the Supreme Court's ruling in McDonald, which effectively overturned the 28 year Chicago gun ban. In McDonald, the Supreme Court said that they based their decision in the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection clause, which made the right to bear arms an individual right.

Comes now the new ordinance passed unanimously (45-0) by the Chicago aldermen. This ordinance has laughably been referred to in at least one headline as a "gun rights ordinance."

Look for the violations of equal protection:

1. Only one handgun per licensee per household may be operable. All other handguns must be disassembled, and/or locked up.

2. Each firearm must be registered with the city, for a $15 fee. The gun owner must get a city registration card, for a fee of $100, renewable every three years. If you're late to submit your yearly gun registration, there's an extra $60 fee. The gun owner must obtain 4 hours' worth of classroom training, and an hour of range training. Presumably, for a fee. (Too bad if you're poor; rights are for the wealthy.) Firearms training for a Chicago permit may NOT be held in the city of Chicago.

3. Only one handgun per month may be registered.

4. Registrants may not have their handguns on their porches. They may not have them in their yards. They may not have them in their garages. Only in their homes may registrants posses their single working handgun.

5. Two convictions for DWI, ever? No handguns in Chicago. They will not permit it.

6. Ever violated the city ordinance against possessing laser sights or suppressors? Ever violated the ordinance by loaning someone a gun? No license for you, then.

Text of the ordinance is HERE.

What part of "nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" do you not understand?!?

And this last bit amazed me:

Residents convicted of violating the ordinance face a fine of up to $5,000 and be locked up for as long as 90 days for a first offense, and a fine of up to $10,000 and as long as six months behind bars for subsequent convictions.

This is a MUNICIPAL ORDINANCE! In other words, a ticketable offense. In Texas, with few exceptions, a citable offense (class C misdemeanor) may not incur a fine of more than $500. Shoot, there's argument over whether we should even be able to put a person in jail for an ordinance violation. (So far, we still can, but it's a bone of contention.) But, as we know, we here in Texas do not know the Chicago Way.

As I learn more about the Chicago Way (45-0 vote?!?), and consider that our President's career was manufactured by that machine, I get very chilly.

I suppose that we should thank the City Of Chicago for so publicly making clear that they do not consider themselves part of the rest of the nation. Certainly my southern Illinois friend Don Gwinn does not consider Chicago to be a part of the state that he lives in.

Chicago lives Apart.

Come home, Windy City. Abide with us Americans.

Falling behind.

I'm badly behind on my paperwork at work. The state has a new accident report format that I need to try to master, for a hit-and-run that I caught. (For Gender, you don't put in "M" or "F", you put in a "1" or "2." How non-intuitive could you get?) I've got a DWI to put away, and an Identity Theft to investigate and type up. Those warrants need tending to, as well. Tonight's my night off, and I'm seriously thinking about sneaking in to just knock some of that paperwork out, so that I can get back to patrol. In a larger department, the cases would be handled by CID, or typed up by a secretary. But in a smaller department, we do it all, including walking the case up to the district attorney. It's somewhat gratifying, at times, but sometimes it's overwhelming, when you find yourself the victim of your own success in finding cases, and your own demands in filing them correctly.

This paperwork got put on hold the other night when I answered a Theft In Progress call. Some guys were stealing Bermuda grass sod from a pallet in front of a newly-constructed house. I found their little truck driving away a few blocks away, and stopped it. They were painters, who had been working on this and three other houses in the neighborhood, making them ready for move-in. The grass had been delivered that night to the house, with the yard all tilled and prepped for a landscaping crew to lay it out the next morning. They were working late, and had houses in nearby Big City. They took about 25 pieces of the sod. We called their supervisor, and his supervisor, and the building superintendent, and all said that they couldn't take the grass. They went to jail.

At the jail, I was putting together their probable cause affidavits, when a young DPS Trooper walked up to me. "What've you got?" he asked, just out of curiosity.

"Sod theft," I answered, not a little enigmatically.

"S.O.D.? Now, what's that an acronym for?" he asked, thinking that I was throwing jargon at him.

"Nothing. It is grass, with the roots, clinging to a layer of dirt. It is sold commercially in half-yard and third-yard squares, to lay out a nice quick lawn for a new house. In this case, it's a type of Bermuda grass sod that runs about $150 a pallet. Each pallet holds about 165 pieces. These guys took about 25 pieces," I let him in.

"But that's only...." he rolled up his eyes to do the math.

"Around $20 worth of grass. Yeah. I know," I said. Trust me-- I had already played out the cost-benefits of this arrest in my own head.

"Then why didn't you just..."

"Cut them loose with citations for Theft Under $50?" I finished for him. "Well, for one thing, none of these guys are U.S. citizens, none have affirmative identification, and I have no way to prove who they are or to hold them accountable to respond to their citations. They could give me any name. Secondly, we municipal officers have been dealing with a lot of construction site thefts. We might, maybe, catch one in ten. When we do catch them, they go to jail. Theft of $2,000 worth of supplies, or Theft of $2.00, you're going to jail. We're tired of it, the builders are tired of it, and the citizens are tired of it." (Thieves cost a city in man-hours spent on the investigation, in other ancillary thefts, and in a general loss of the feeling of security that a neighborhood feels.)

The trooper nodded, and walked over to my prisoners.

"You know, you can grow your own grass, right?" He chuckled. "You didn't even steal the kind most people want!"

He laughed. "Grass! That's a first for me."

I smiled, but didn't laugh. It wasn't a first for me. And it had put me even further behind on my paperwork, just for three Class C offenses.*

_____________________________________
*Or maybe not. I just checked, and they all three got ICE holds put on them.

Might wanna pick other friends, meth head edition.

Suppose you're a multi-time loser. Suppose you've committed scores of felonies, been arrested for dozens, and been convicted and served time for a good half dozen felonies, each of a different flavor. Some are for stealing. Some are for hurting people. Some are for doing drugs. Some are for selling drugs. You're an equal opportunity felon. Now suppose you're going to go do some more drugs, in a town 25 miles from home, and you pick up a buddy to do those drugs with. So far, the one good decision that you've made in life is that you haven't gotten inked while in the joint. You're unmarked. You're polite to the cops when you're stopped for a minor infraction. The cops might let you go with a warning or a ticket, without snooping. But not your friend. But your runnin' buddy has prison tats on his arms. And on his neck. And on his fingers. White power tats. White supremacy gang tats. All are clearly the work of an amateur prison tatooist. This causes the cops to sniff a little more into both the histories of your buddy, and yourself. This inquiry into your colorful past, heretofore unknown to the cops that just stopped you, causes a closer look at you and your car, which leads to your methamphetamine being found.

Protective camouflage fail*.

_ _ _ _
Now suppose that you're another multi-time loser. You've done some time for beating on your old ladies, and for different drug offenses. Your most recent wife, whom you've lately divorced, has moved back in with you. When you get irritated at her for not making you dinner, you slap her upside the head. She runs out and calls the cops. They see that she's been smacked, and take a statement. She mentions the methamphetamine that you so like to do. She gives the cops a detailed description of its location. She then, as a rent-paying resident of that apartment, gives the cops consent to look through her apartment, shared by your own wife-beating self. The cops go up, knock on the door, and arrest you for the assault, and for the meth that they find handily.

Relationship fail.*

Does it seem to you that you might want to associate with different people? I'm just sayin'.

____________________________________
*Of course I'm not speaking about anyone specific, here. I'm just talking figuratively, you know?

The fact that this is newsworthy is a good thing.

Do you have a cell phone with a camera in it? I do, and I was about the last guy to get a cell phone. My phone was $50, and was one of the "feature phones" at the AT&T store, which means that it's cheap.

But it's got some features, not the least of which is a video camera. I actually use it a lot. I video'd my daughter's karate tournament. I video'd a cottonmouth water moccasin that I caught, before dispatching it. It's easy, takes one hand to use, and I only push two buttons to make it happen. In short, I can be video taping recording something with about 2 seconds' notice. And I'm a blundering technophobe.

Just about everyone has one of these things, these days. My wife has one, my daughter has one, my mother, my father, and my stepmother have one. And if you're under 30, live in the United States, possess a camera that is in any way capable of recording video, then you know how to utilize that feature. It's a given.

So you can bet that really interesting things that happen around college students in this nation get video recorded. How could they not be? By definition, an American college student has the equipment, the knowledge, and probably the opportunity. So it is that we get YouTube videos of drunken youngsters doing things that their mothers would not approve of.

Now, let me ask you-- if your buddy was getting an unfair beat-down by the police, wouldn't you want to document that? And if you're a youngster with a camera phone, it's dollars to donuts that you'll whip it out, begin recording, and then send it to your friends in a fit of outrage.

Or, if you're a bright boy like one Dimitri Masouris, you'll sell it to the first high bidder you can find, like the attorney representing his beaten buddy, Mr. Phuong Ho. (Stop and think about that. Masouris took the tools he had, and turned them into something valuable and fungible, with his own hands and his savvy. Free enterprise at work. Gawd Bless America.) The video has been released to the media, and shown to the San Jose Police Department, who employ a couple of cops who got a bit frisky whilst arresting Mr. Ho for brandishing a steak knife. Reportedly, the video shows that at least one SJPD officer beat the unarmed Mr. Ho with a baton, even after he was handcuffed. Not good!

It's bad, and I'll expect to read about charges on the officer, if the video actually shows what is said to have happened. And that, friends, is GOOD. I want the idjits who beat up handcuffed prisoners to leave my profession. I want them charged, and convicted. I don't want it swept under the rug, with people muttering "cover-up." Good solid video gets convictions, and that's a good thing.

Here's the thing, though-- if this were common, we'd see a LOT more of it. There would be reality TV shows with nothing but footage of bad cops beating down helpless citizens, illegally. Because remember-- camera phones are everywhere. And most police cars have video cameras. And that weird guy on the corner always keeps an 8mm video camera handy. And there's surveillance cameras on every other corner. And... and....

Why don't we see more of this? Because frankly, it just doesn't happen much. And that, my friends, is a damned Good Thing.

"What's the big deal? We were just funnin'."

Babette Perry, a pharmacy tech in Mount Holly, NJ is suing her company because they decided to "test" her by threatening her life. The pharmacy employed a man in a ski mask to come in and point a gun at her and demand Oxycontin. She was terrified, and is suing for post-traumatic stress. The pharmacy company admits that they sent in the guy, but whines that the gun wasn't real.

Here in Texas and in other states that permit their free populace to go armed, this might have gotten even more traumatic... for the robber.

And, had this little incident happened in my little patch of Texas, I would have sat down with the felony intake D.A. and discussed whether he wanted to run with Aggravated Robbery charges, or just good old Aggravated Assault charges against the actor. We also would have discussed, after all the facts were in, whether Criminal Conspiracy charges were appropriate for the actor's employers.

Acting recklessly can create unintended consequences. It would be best to think twice before proceeding.

Wow. Just... wow.

I've been in a few pursuits, and things have gotten exciting on occasion. But never anything quite like this. Wait for the end. This one is almost as impressive as the famous Montana pursuit of a few years back.

Please remember that it's hard to get bullets to go where you want them to, when shooting through compound complex curved safety glass. Even harder when, as the good sergeant in this pursuit had to do, you're shooting through TWO pieces of glass. (His own windshield, and the bad guy's.)

Woa.

Sometimes we have to do that which is needful.

This time, it wasn't me who arrested this kid.

This time, I kinda cheered up. when I heard he went to jail.

Last time, it got to me a little.

But I'm better, now.

Policy.

I didn't recognize the car before I stopped it, but something about it piqued my interest, and I turned around on it, and started my video. When it made a left turn without signalling, and I noticed an equipment violation, I lit it up.

When I made contact with the driver, I recognized him immediately. An out-of-town professional small-time thief, driving his aunt's car with out-of-state plates, staying at his sister's house. I asked him for his license and insurance, and he produced one, claiming the other was misplaced. His license was from out of state, though he had been in state for most of a year.

He was dressed in gangsta chique, with a scarf tied around his head and his pants belted around his junk, and a shirt that somehow managed to engulf his portly frame. I checked him for weapons visually, and began writing him some citations, and we talked as I did so.

"Why you gotta always be harrassin' me? You know I used my turn signal."
"Nope. None was visible from the rear. You were in a passing zone driving slowly. I might have passed you. Dangerous. Maybe it's broken?"
"Naw, it works fine."
"Then perhaps you didn't operate it correctly. There was no turn signal. I have video to prove this."
"I wanna see that."
"You certainly may, at your trial."
"You're gonna take this to trial?"
"Only if you wish to do so, in traffic court. I'll be sure to save the video."
"So I have to take your word for it now?"
"Yes. Which the court has found to be credible."
"You sayin' I'm a liar?"
"Nope. But I will note that the first time I met you, you lied about the items you had just pilfered, which were in your pockets."
"That was harassment, too. You took me to jail, on a little Theft Under $50 charge, which you could've just given me a ticket for!"
"Oh, that was policy."
"Your department has a policy to take someone to jail for something you could've given a ticket for?"
"No, my department does not; I do. If you steal something, and then lie to me about it when confronted with stealing it, and then continue to lie about stealing it*, then you will go to jail. Don't feel harassed; I'd take anyone else who did that, too. Per my policy."

_______________________________
*At the time, he had contended that the batteries in his pockets had come from another store, even though they were store-brand batteries from the complainant's store, which I had just seen him walk out of.

With a lot less hue and cry.

OJ gets convicted with a lot less fuss than with which he was acquitted 13 years ago.

What a miscarriage of justice! Surely the jury knew that OJ wasn't robbing that memorabilia dealer in Las Vegas with his armed posse of 5, but was just searching for Nicole Brown-Simpson's real killer.

This is going to hurt you more than it hurt me.

An intoxicated prisoner got frisky with me, and kicked me, twice.

Rather than striking the prisoner, or even using any pain-compliance techniques, I did what was necessary to:
A: Make sure I wasn't kicked again, and
B: Better secure the prisoner.

My initial reactions were: "Ouch." and "Matt, you need to watch out for those flying feet, boy."

Once the prisoner was put away and properly secured, I got to writing. I collected statements from all witnesses, including officers and nearby witnesses outside of law enforcement. I asked the prisoner why I had been kicked. "I don't like cops" was the answer.

I sent a probable cause affidavit over to the jail (it hadn't even been my prisoner), for the arresting officer (also a witness) to add to the growing list of charges.

The next day, I looked up the kicking prisoner, and found that the arraigning magistrate had found that there was certainly sufficient probable cause to set bond for Assault (On A Public Servant), a 3rd degree felony under Texas Penal Code 22.01(b)(1). Moreover, the judge had set bond for TWO offenses. Huh? Oh, yeah-- I was kicked twice.

Hope those kicks felt good to give. While I felt some significant pain at being kicked, I'm doubting that it hurt me as much as it's going to hurt a certain other party, at $10,000 bond per kick.

You're shy of the mark, pal.

Among those things which cannot get my cool are fresh arrestees who, even when they were sober, were stupid, but who are most decidedly not sober as they hurl insults at me.

While wearing handcuffs.

Which they earned through incredible acts of dumbassitude.

My favorite, most recently: "You sum' bitches better be glad these cuffs are on me, 'cuz as soon as I get 'em off, I'm gonna kick your sorry asses!"

Then, five minutes later: "Hey! I need to pee! Lemme over to the side of the road, and take these cuffs off, so's I can pee! C'mon, guys! Please!"

He never got the complete insult that he was being issued, when the smallest cop present took him to go relieve himself, and the rest of us saw no real need to provide close support.

I HATE being used.

A local business owner experiences major damage to his equipment, caused by a customer being a little reckless with a borrowed car.

The customer, who has actually just committed a petty theft beforehand, actually stops and talks to the on-site employee before leaving in his friend's car.

Nobody calls the cops. Hey, it happened on private property; they don't have to.

Some weeks later, my P.D. receives a DVD from the local business owner, who has reviewed his very-cool digital video system that stores on his computer hard drive and off-site, and has burned the DVD of the entire incident, including the theft, in full color, from three different camera angles.

The case lands in my hands. I investigate, find the ne'er-do-well customer, deal with the theft, and get a statement from him.

I also file an accident report for good measure. I don't have to do this; the accident occurred well over a month before, on private property, and is essentially a civil manner. But I think that the business owner might appreciate that his police department is going the extra mile, and I spend the extra time and effort it takes to put together a perfect accident report, and distribute copies to the case file, the state crash reporting bureau, and eventually to the business owner.

The business owner files a public records request for the official police report. Fine.
The business owner asks for help in locating the owner of the borrowed vehicle. Fine.
The business owner asks for help in getting the insurance company's attention. Fine.

I eventually get a call from the business owner, stating that he is terribly sorry, but that the date on the DVD is off by 3 weeks. So, the date that I had put in the case report, on the criminal charge information, and on the accident report-- all is wrong. He takes me back to his office, and shows me the rather high-end computer system, to prove to me that the date on the camera management software is incorrect, and he has NO idea how to change it; he'll have to call tech support.

As an aside, he happens to mention that the insurance company insuring the borrowed car has brought to his attention that the insurance policy was only started a week AFTER the date that I had documented. But that's okay, he assures me, since I had put the wrong date on the documentation; I should have listed a date three weeks later, he explains. But it's not my fault, he's quick to explain-- it's the camera system's fault.

I ask him when was the last time he had changed the date on the camera system.

Never! He proclaims.

I gently inform him that the date as it sits on the camera system today is actually 3 weeks later than today's date. That error which he is presenting to me right now would have caused me to put a date three weeks later than it occurred. In fact, the error "proves" that the accident occurred three weeks before the date I observed on the DVD.

If date of the accident was X, and the error on the system was Y, then he is claiming that the error is X - Y, when the demonstration that he's showing me is for X + Y.

He looks flustered, and explains that there have been "power surges," which must have caused the problem. The system was X - Y BEFORE, but now it's X + Y.

Oh. So it's just varied its date by 2Y.

Just all of its own.

And Mr. Business Owner, who is savvy enough to install the digital surveillance system, mark three time tracks, and burn them onto a DVD, and administer the computer system in so many other ways, doesn't know how to adjust the date.

Now, if I were skeptical, I might just think that he had moved the date three weeks to try to get me to change the date of the accident record, to get the insurance company to accept his claim.

Yep, that's what I'd think.

Shoot-out lessons

Nice job by the cop, good job by passers-by, and fair work by CNN.

This video on CNN shows a shoot-out that occurred in Altamonte Springs, FL, where police officer Mike Lavoie (a patrol officer who is on the SWAT team) pulled over vehicle matching the description of a suspect leaving a motel. CNN drops the ball by not mentioning what he was suspected of, but I'll let that go-- it's not the lead nor really pertinent.

As Officer Lavoie approached the driver's side door of the red Ford Focus hatchback, the passenger, one Franklin Ortiz Castro, made a damned fool decision that could easily have cost him and his partner their lives-- he began shooting at the patrol officer with his single-action revolver.

No word on the caliber or make, but the nickel or chrome-plated revolver was showed from a couple of angles in grainy shots, and clearly was a single-action, which required the operator to thumb cock it before each shot, as compared to, say, a double action revolver (which self-cocks with each trigger pull) or a semi-auto pistol (which almost always self-cock after each shot, for a fast, light trigger pull).

Officer Lavoie does a nice job-- he doesn't shoot the driver who is between him and the active threat, and he does make hits on Castro. Though not fatal, the hits do end the gun fight.

One of the truly superb parts of the story is that a bystander, Mike Solitro, and his unnamed adult son, tackled the fleeing driver and held him for responding police.

No word on how this started, or where it will end, but lessons learned are:

--The threat may be the next guy over; never assume that the one nearest you is the only or most dangerous person in the area.

--Decide ahead of time, before the balloon goes up, what your criteria are to take action. Mr. Solitro and his son were not expected to tackle the driver, but they did so. Would you have done so? What's your line in the sand? Consider situations in your head. What could you live with?

--Always be sure of where your bullets will end up. Officer Lavoie did a superb job of putting them (through glass and open door) on the threat while avoiding perforation of a driver that looked a LOT like a collaborator, but who wasn't yet really a person one could rightfully shoot (and indeed turned out to be, in all probability, a hostage). This takes us finally to:

--Keep your head.

Heck, I'm going to upgrade Lavoie's response from "workman-like" to "Excellent."



(Did I beat Xavier to the punch?)

"Team Six, but I can't tell you any more..."

"...without a Need To Know."

So said yet another yahoo, tonight.

Pal LawDog, who'd dropped by and was riding shotgun with me for a few minutes while passing through town, exchanged a sideways glance with me. We both tried to keep our smirks from showing as we faced away from him.

I don't think the yahoo could have seen them through the smudged Lexan of my patrol car's cage, anyhow. That, the darkness, and the fog of better than double the legal limit of alcohol would impair anybody's ability to detect inaudible snark attacks.

Heh.

It's always "Team Six."

And another one bites the dust.

Yawn. Another night, another sports bike rider caught after running.

Remember when nobody could catch these guys? The general consensus back when I was going through cop school was that it was pretty much worthless to try to pursue a motor, especially a sport bike, because a decent rider would leave a pursing cop car in the dust. Even motor cops, who were the guys teaching my traffic school, would regularly just disregard when a cycle ran, because they understood that, when running on a bike, the guy running has the advantage of action and good thrust/weight ratio. It was especially common knowledge that the guy who bought a speedy sport bike was such a rider aficionado, that he also would have the requisite skills to evade successfully.

But things have changed, a LOT, just in the past couple of years.

Some of it may be the higher wages and lower interest rates making motors more available to the masses. Some of it may be that sports bikes are no longer the brand new thing, so there are plenty of used ones on the ground, bringing the price down. Some of it may be that the surge in fuel prices over the last two years has made a bunch of cagers decide to try riding motorcycles, and they want to look cool while doing it, so they get Ninjas and the like. (Sorry-- all soft drinks are "Cokes," and all sports bikes are "Ninjas," to my narrow-minded, Southern Culture mindset.)

At any rate, this seems to be the Age Of The Common Man on cycles. And these guys have heard the old "Cops can't catch a sports bike, so they won't even try" wives' tales. And they're writin' checks with their expert throttles that their newbie asses just can't cash. Neophytes on bikes are running when they probably just would have gotten a ticket or bonded out in a couple of hours.

Evading In A Vehicle is a State Jail Felony, and while I agree with Tamara that we're making too many things felonies, I hold with this one-- running in a vehicle (even a motorcycle) is inherently reckless, and endangers bystanders and the officers who, in my opinion, are bound by duty to attempt to apprehend a running suspect. About half the time, when we catch a running motorcyclist, we have to roll EMS for them. In that instance, they get charged with a felony in addition to going to the hospital with life-threatening injuries and having their multi-thousand dollar vehicle messed up. And any warrants that they had get piled on.

Most of the guys running on bikes lately are getting caught, and about half of them are getting hurt. All are getting charged with felonies.

Why does that seem worth it? Do any of these guys weigh the options?

Maybe we need to start raising the consciousness that the myth is not true. That you can be caught on a bike.

Looks like he got...

...Out-Whataburgered!





Dufus creates "a disturbance" at a drive-through.

Cops are called.

Cop cars arrive. Two in front. (One in back.)

Cops challenge dufus.

Dufus waves a gun (which turned out to be an ultra-realistic pellet gun) at the cops.

Dufus has not taken time to observe cop behind him with an AR15.

Blat, blat.

Meatwagon took delivery from the drive-through, and a certain cop suddenly finds that in fact he will get a chance to take a late summer vacation, after all.



My apologies to y'all not from Texas, who don't get the Whataburger ad campaign reference. Whataburger's kind of a fast food institution down here.


(Source: Denton Record Chronicle)
((Uh, and professional grapevine.))

So sweet...

I really shouldn't watch these clips.

The fact that I like to probably says something about me that I'd rather not know.

But I LOVE watching these "To Catch A Predator" clips.

Some people say "Oh, they depress me too much! I don't want to see that!"

Well, they tickle me to death. They're solid evidence of the scum that's out there, to present to kids (boys and girls, please). They provide superb evidence for court. They provide useful profiles for case studies to help catch and (gasp) maybe even treat adult men who show the first signs of pedophilia.

There are apparently some neighborhoods that have been FURIOUS that decoy houses have been set up in their neighborhoods. To which I ask, "Why? It's not like the predators are ever coming back to the place where they got arrested for trying to meet an underage kid." Oh, but there might be some that don't get arrested. Well, that would mean that they either realized that it was a sting (and they sure as hell wouldn't stay around or come back), or they backed down, in which case they're not as dangerous as the other predators who are, by the way, statistically living in your neighborhood. Yes, yours.

Also, there's the shaming.

John Braithwaite wrote in his superb 1989 book Crime, Shame, and Reintegration that it's the thought of the shame at being found out that is the greatest deterrence for would-be criminals.

Some pass out. Some run. Some commit suicide later. The shame is real.

Good.

I know they're out there already. I'm learning nothing new that the fax machine at the P.D. doesn't already tell me every time another sexual predator is located in our neighborhood. And those are just the ones we can make cases on.

MORE! Chris Hansen, you can come to my neighborhood, if you want. Heck, I'll move the family to a hotel for a week, and you can use my house.

This one, by the way, is my favorite; I laughed out loud.

Perspectives.

The following events are not fictional, but they may have happened at different times, with different people, at different places. Each one of the authors has had patients just like these, in situations just like those described. If you want to know what it's like to live a day in the life of an ambulance driver, or a small town cop, or a small town ER nurse, join us for the story.

It's the same story. On the same night. With the same people.

This is part of what we do, and working with EMT/Paramedics and nurses like these is part of the reason we do it.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _


God, but I'm tired. Even though I've gotten what I thought of as "enough sleep" during the day, it has neither been enough nor of the quality that can keep a man's eyes from wanting to droop at... well, the dash clock of the Crown Vic cruiser says "03:02 am." Still four hours left on shift in this old country town. Surprisingly, I haven't found anything of interest all night, though it's a warm weekend night. What the hell kinda kids they rearing these days? To quote my old FTO: "Sheeeit. If I couldn't make it go no faster'n' that, I'd park it."

But you know-- it is about lunch time, and I think I've earned myself an omelette at one of the all-night places in town. The Golden Hour for drunks has just about passed, and nothing much is gonna stir until about 05:00. I'll just wander on into town, drop by Dispatch, pick up any returns and signed PC affidavits, and run by Denny's... no, IHOP... no, Denny's... (or maybe Taco Cabana?) for a little sumpin' sumpin'. Supper with the family was a long, lonnnnng time ago. Let's see: I really could dig some good coffee, and IHOP grinds their beans fresh and puts the whole coffee pot on the table, so that's probably the way I'll go. . .

The radio burbles on about stuff in other towns throughout the county that doesn't matter to me. I wish they'd get another channel or two and dispatch by region. I don't care what's going on 20 miles out of my town. But this is the system they've used for decades, and will probably continue to use for another one. I mutter to myself. (I've been doing that a lot, lately. Hmmm.) Then:
"Attention all units: Attempt to locate reckless driver, westbound FM 123 west of Sleepytown. Caller reports a red Toyota SUV, license plate unavailable, almost ran complainant off the road. Caller reports that the vehicle is alternating high and low speeds, currently traveling 45 mph, running from ditch to ditch. Caller is still behind the actor vehicle in a white Ford SUV. County clear, 0304 hours."

Well, crap. That's just a little west of here. If he's as bad as all that, there's a chance he'll pull over to pee or throw up or run into something, and I can catch 'em. I start rolling west. It's not my call. That SUV is out of my city and getting further away. But it bothers me. With the exception of one of the few houses down that way, he almost certainly came through my town, and I missed him. I think back to the few vehicles that I've seen over the last few minutes. Then again, I was thinking damned hard about what I was going to put in my omelet for the last twenty, wasn't I? I put my foot down.

We've got our own deputy assigned to our side of the county, but he's on another call, according to my MDT. At this hour, there are no constables out, and the troopers who haven't gotten a DWI for the night on the interstate are beginning to head on home. I am without a doubt the closest unit to that reckless driver. And If he doesn't hit something first, I can catch him. If it's a cut-and-dried DWI, I'll be walking out of the jail in two hours. If he's just sleepy, I'll wake his happy butt up, and go get lunch. I grab the radio mic:

"588."

"588, go ahead."

"I'll be en route from just west of my city to try to locate that reckless driver in the red SUV that you just made the broadcast over. Any updates?" My MDT makes a tone, and I know that I've just been assigned to the call.

"588 stand by. 111, go ahead with your traffic."

So unit 111 gets his traffic stop logged. See what I mean? Even when it's dead, a man can't get done what he needs doing.

"588, your caller reports that the actor vehicle is now traveling 60 mph, keeping it on the road, just passing Neal Rd." Well, maybe he was just sleepy. Good...

Then: "588, update: caller reports that the red SUV just went into the ditch briefly. Can you continue en route?"

Sigh. "10-4. I'm about a mile back of 'em. I'm entering the S-curves now." The S-curves slow me down, and I lose a little time. As I'm halfway through them, Dispatch gives me some bad news:

"588, information: Caller reports that the actor vehicle has turned off southbound onto 234, and the caller is continuing on to Bugscuffle. Your location?"

"Still in the S-curves about a mile behind them. I probably won't be able to catch them. Go ahead and notify Bugscuffle County."

"10-4, should I take you off the call?"

"Negative, not just yet, County." Hell, haven't they heard of throwing good money after bad? I'm so dadgummed far out already, I might as well check the area before heading back. I seem to recall that CR 234 has some pretty scary curves in it as it drops down into the creek bottoms, too. I might well overtake that SUV. Ah. Here's the junction now. I crank it to port, turn and burn.

"588, 10-60." In the area. We'll just see what we've got. I accelerate out of the first tight switchback, and brake going into the next one.

I see the steam and the dust cloud first.

- - - -

The SUV is initially not even in view, but through the dust, steam, and darkness I see a glow out in the pasture. The ditch was pretty pitched here, and the old barbed-wire fence on cedar posts was pretty tired, but together they and some trash trees along the fenceline have convinced a Toyota 4-Runner that it really probably shouldn't be attempting what it had done, which was to straighten out a sharp turn, crash through the ditch, knock down a tree, break through the heavily-repaired, rusty old wire fence, and roll. It looked like, given the width of the skidmarks through the gravel at the road's edge, the SUV had been sliding sideways when it hit the ditch. Dropping the outside tires into that ditch was all it would take to make the body roll. The undercarriage had caught some of the fence, and rolled the fence up in it as well, so that when the 4-Runner came to rest on its tires, it looked like it was just parked over a fence. Out in a field.

I get every light in my car turned on. Overheads to keep from getting hit from behind. Arrow stick to get confused traffic to divert around me to my car's left. I turn on the takedown lights to get more light on the situation. I get the spotlight onto the SUV. I even turn on my hazard lights. I get on the radio as I park, and hold the button down for a two-count before speaking. When it's important, I don't want to have to mess with "short-keying," where the first part of the radio transmission is cut off by the repeater not catching up. Also, that pause gets some people's attention, which I need right now.

"588, County: Major accident." We're now supposed to call them "crashes." The idea is that an accident doesn't adequately describe that these things happen for a reason, and that we can prevent them by enforcing the laws, and can determine the cause by correctly interpreting the site. While I agree with the philosophy, my old habits die hard when I'm busy.

I give my location, tell them to get EMS rolling, and ask for a trooper to assist. Hell, it's his accident --excuse me-- "crash" to work, anyway. I grab my big rechargeable flashlight and head over to the SUV, and take a look.

Aw, crap. I am not going to be eating omelets tonight.

I call for a helicopter to be launched.

+ + +

Cops can do that. They'd probably better not do it very often, but if the first-responder sees the immediate need, he can call for a chopper. It's quite a powerful tool that they're giving to a guy who doesn't even have EMT training, and doesn't have any idea about triage. I went to a show-and-tell talk by our friendly neighborhood CareFlight 'copter crew one night, and they said that a round trip transport gets the patient charged $26,000. Heck, that was some years ago; it may be more, now. I'm damned careful about launching birds on my own. I'll put 'em on standby at the drop of a hat, but calling to have them in the air on my own is a very rare occurrence on my part. We've got this crazy-assed ambulance driver who hauls butt to the scenes, and seems to have a pretty good feel for when to hold 'em, and when to launch 'em.

I've got a little bit of first aid training, but I can't claim that I'm trained, in any sense of the word. I was a Boy Scout, and my dad was a cop who had worked his way through high school and college first as an ambulance tech (they didn't have EMTs back then) and then as a hospital tech. Mom had been a medical writer for a major paper, and had volunteered to work in a hospital E.R., many years ago. On more than one vacation trip, we pulled over for my parents to attend to people in major accidents. I've grown up knowing basics like splinting, airways, CPR, and direct pressure. The "ABC" of first responder care priority made sense the first time I was officially exposed to it-- but then, who wouldn't know that? Or so I had thought. Over the years I've learned that a surprisingly high percentage of people don't have enough of a grasp of the basics to save a person's life when they're dying in front of them. I've been told "yeah, but you've got that cop first-aid training." Yeah. Right. People have no idea how basic that stuff was, and it was almost all lecture, except for the CPR. No practical demonstrations beyond breaking Simulator Sarah's ribs over and over again, while blowing coffee breath into her plastic lungs. I know enough to know that I don't know much, and that can sometimes help when I'm trying to decide how loudly to sound the call-out.

I know that a dead-- truly dead-- person can't be brought back. There are times when it frankly makes sense just to call an ME, and keep the medical staff from messing up a scene. In such times, I try to get the best, most level-headed and pragmatic paramedic available to make the initial evaluation. When you're trying to piece together what caused an accident, or even determine whether a death was an intentional act of suicide, homicide, or mishap, you really don't want the single most important piece of evidence (the body) moved before the scene has been properly documented. At any rate, I can accept a fatality. I've seen 'em, and except for the kids, I have never shed a tear. (And I kept right on working through the tears, redirecting traffic while troopers drove pavement nails and measured distances, took pictures, and finally called for wreckers.)

But I've met some decent people whose lives were saved by extraordinary measures taken quickly and decisively. I've also met some decent people whose lives were saved by extraordinary measures taken to preserve the body of an organ donor. I've met two organ recipients from my best friend's little sister. Her heart beats strong 10 years after her body was CareFlighted to a trauma center. Her liver is flourishing in the abdomen of a man she'd never met before a train struck her little car. Good work by small town firefighters and a flight nurse and paramedic gave her family a chance to say goodbye, and to make the decision to honor her wish to give parts of herself to 10 people. So even if you can't save this patient, you can perhaps save another patient by working hard, and working fast.

+ + +

There's a boy in the back, and he's screaming. I holler out to him as I approach, and he goes nuts. I lean in through the broken-out window and see that he's pinned in the back seat behind the passenger side front seat. He's a fat boy of about 20 years, with red hair and a sparse beard. His broad face is pinched with pain, and tears are streaming down his face, but he stops yelling when he sees me. First things first: "How many of you were in the car?" I ask.

He moans. I think at first that he didn't understand me and I begin to ask him again, when he says, "James. Bobby. Arnie.... Arnold. My legs. I think both my legs are broken. I can't get them out and it hurts to move them." They must hurt a lot-- he's not mentioned the obvious compound fracture in his right forearm, or the cuts to his face and head.

"Stop moving. Four? There were four of you?" I demand. I can smell alcohol in the air, and I see someone sitting on the ground on the other side of the 4-runner. At least he's sitting up. That's two. Where are the other two? He groans and nods with his eyes squeezing out tears from the pain that he's in.

The kid is trying, but I've got to push him-- I suspect that he's going to pass out soon, and for all I know, he has two femoral fractures. Sharp bits of shattered bone floating around next to a pressurized artery the size of your thumb can make a dumb drunk kid into a death notification very quickly. He begins to moan and reach toward the door again. "Listen to me: Don't. Move. I need you to sit very still," I order him. His moaning rises into a quiet closed-mouth squeal, as if my very words have made it worse for him. "Do you hear me? Do you understand me?" I demand in my best cop voice. He opens his eyes and nods.

"Where are the rest of them?" I ask, thinking quickly that I've already wasted too much time. I've been on scene for almost a minute, now.

"588, can you give me a size-up?" the dispatcher reasonably wants to know over the radio.

"Rollover accident, One white male trapped, conscious and breathing, with probable femoral fractures and other unknown injuries. Stand by for further."

"Jimmy was driving," he says. "Arnie was sitting in front with him. Bob was in back with me..." He says, and stops to gasp.

I jot down in my pocket notebook "Jimmy-- (FL); Arnie-- (FR), Bob (RR)."

"What's your name, kid?" I ask.

"Tony... Anthony Willis." I want more, but I've got to find the other boys.

"How old are you, Tony?" ("Tony-- (RL)," I scrawl in my notebook)

"19," he manages to say.

Jeez. I've been calling him 'Kid,' just out of hand-- with that beard and his size, I figured that he was well into his 20s. But 19-- he's a teenager! I look at his face again. There are glistening tracks running from his eyes through the dust on his cheeks. I'm only 35, but I guess that I'm feeling a little old, all of a sudden, which perhaps explains the unexpected paternal feelings that spring up.

"I'll be back, son," I promise.

"I think Arnie went out the window-- help Arnie!" he says. I'm already walking away.

I'm looking. Searching. I'd seen that the windshield was gone, and now pray that it doesn't mean an ejection. Tony's most recent statement is kind of cryptic-- did Arnie "go out the window" by crawling? Or flying? I check in front of the FourRunner, and find the busted windshield, still attached to the frame by a long strip of black rubbery crap, lying in the tall grass immediately in front of the SUV. Great. That tells me nothing. It could have been kicked out by the front seat passenger, or thrown out by the impact. I trot over to the bare-chested kid on the ground.
He's sitting on the ground, legs splayed open, staring at the big puddle of vomit in his lap. A long stream of what I'll charitably call "drool" connects his chewed-up lip to the puddle in his lap. The enormous amount of alcohol that he's consumed, stirred up, warmed up, and re-introduced to the outside air makes his vomit surprisingly strong-smelling. And... it looks like he's had something with peas and carrots recently. He's still looking vacantly at the ground in front of him. "Hey kid!" I say to him abruptly. I really don't have time to move at Drunk Speed. I crouch in front of him quickly and put my light in his face.

He doesn't move. He doesn't say a word. He barely blinks. But I can tell he hears me. I can tell that he's thinking as fast as his addled brain will allow him to. He's heard how he has the right to remain silent. Sitting drunk on the ground just outside the driver's side door of a vehicle that's just wrecked, and he's thinking, if he opens his mouth, he might get in trouble. To say that I have a doubt in my mind that he's the driver would be like saying that I have a doubt in my mind that the sun will rise this morning. I glance at my notebook. "Jimmy. JIMMY!" I yell at his face. He stirs a little, then looks back at his lap. Most of the puke has slid into the dirt, now. I put a hand on his shoulder, and shake him a little.

"Jimmy, I need you to tell me where your friends are. Where are Arnie and Bob?" I ask him.
He doesn't say anything. Maybe he does have a little light-running shock going on. But he's not even trying to help his buddies, and I hate him for that. I get up.

Time to do the search right. I start my sweep with a quick zig-zag in front of the SUV, extending out in a widening cone, the point of which is at the point of departure from the road. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion, so regardless of the orientation of the vehicle now, bodies thrown will be basically in line with the direction that the vehicle was traveling when it lost control. The SUV rolled at least once. If my victims were thrown clear at the shortest and fastest part of the lever arm of a rolling vehicle, they can be a long, long way out. The tall grass, which is uniformly knee-high coastal hay grass and buffalo grass that's flourished in the spring rains, is both a blessing and a curse. It probably helps reduce injury, but it hides the victims. I pull the Stinger flashlight off of my belt, and hold it and my big SL20XP duty light high above my head in each hand, light twin headlights, pointing down from their 8 foot vantage point to the grass about 20 yards ahead of me, swiveling back and forth. The headlights and spotlight from my car about 50 yards back help some, too. I look at my notebook again. Why can't I remember simple first names?

"Bob? Arnie? Robert! Arnold!" I call. I get no response. "Yell out to me, so that I can come help you!" I mean to sound firm, but I'm afraid that I detect a note of pleading in my voice. The Man In Charge does not plead. He gives clear commands. To some this sounds cocky, but experience has shown me without a doubt that it has nothing to do with ego, and everything to do with getting done what needs doing. (Which may well be saving a life or two.)

I must have passed him by about 15 feet. You'd think a man-sized boy would stick up a little better than that. I find him on my way back from my first quick sweep. I look back to the SUV. Not too far-- about 50 feet. Where's the other one? This guy's on his side, with his arms pulled up in front of him, wrists crossed in front of his chest. His legs are (I hate this word, but damned if it isn't descriptive) akimbo. I'm on my knees, checking for breathing -- ragged-- and reaction to stimulus. His eyes are open, and he's not doing well. He doesn't answer me. His eyes don't move in response to my light. The breathing sounds wet, and reflexive. Crap. Agonal breathing? I don't know. I'm out of my depth.

I pull my mic off my shoulder, key the mic for a second, and call in: "588, E.T.A. on medics?"

An unexpected voice with sirens comes over the air: "Medic One to 588, ninety second ETA." It's Ambulance Driver. I reckoned that he would be out tonight, and I'm glad to have him responding first. "What have we got?"

Well that's a damned good question. What DO we have, in twenty words or less? Something I learned a while back is that it's better to take your time and say it once correctly, than to broadcast it quickly and incorrectly. Huh. For all I know, the fourth guy's fine and has gotten help. Or he's dead. Or he's dying here in the grass, somewhere. Or he's under the FourRunner. (Oh yeah-- I already thought of the death possibility.) Well, let's give him the bare basics. "Rollover with an ejection. Two critical, one moderate, one unaccounted for. County, please advise our Fire Department that we will need extrication for one of the critical patients." Normally I would go into the age, sex, race, and whether they're conscious and breathing, but I hear a distant siren. Just get here.

"County is clear direct, 588, and be advised that 1176 and 451 are en route to you location, as well," responds County Dispatch. That would be a trooper and a Sheriff's deputy sergeant. Since we're well out in the county, this accident will be theirs to work. Aw, who am I kidding? It's the trooper's accident to work. A good deputy is a joy to behold and a wonderful man to have on your side, but he ain't gonna work a major accident when a dedicated state accident investigator is on the scene. Oh, he might help measure, and photograph, and document, and move wreckers and block traffic, and all the other stuff that may well actually require more physical work than the actual accident investigation. But the signature at the bottom of the CR-3 form is the signature of the man who's going to get called into criminal and civil court when this is all through. That's what the state boys in dove grey and the spray-painted hats are paid to do.
My kid (Arnie or Bob?) is having serious trouble breathing, now. He's aspirated a lot of fluid, and while I hope it’s vomitus, it's probably blood. When you're unconscious, either one will kill you. At least he's on his side, and his airway is clear, from what I see. I reach behind me to the little leather pouch on my duty belt, in which I keep a pair of rubber gloves. It's supposed to carry two pair, but I wear extra large (XXL when I can find 'em), and I can only get two gloves in and get it to reliably stay closed. The other guys at my P.D. think I'm a little silly for carrying the pouch, but I've never found that I can plan on when I'll need them. I glove up, thinking that I might do a quick mouth sweep of the kid, and then think back to my old training. Nope. Why give the medics yet another patient? (Teeth!) I use my light and confirm that his mouth is relatively clear. And I see the blood. Dammit. Maybe his just bit his tongue. But even with my minimal training, I know that this kid's probably not going to make it.

We'll do what we can.
_ _ _ _

By the time Ambulance Driver's done a once-over at the scene, it's clear that he's decided that this boy --Robert or Arnold-- is not worth working on for the time being. That's actually being unfair to A.D.. I understand triage. It's the process of deciding how best to allocate your resources. Triage saves many, many lives every hour of every day. It's not about emotion, it's about fact. It requires a person with medical training to use protocols to determine where next to apply his efforts, which sometimes means cutting your losses. I get that. But I also think back to my best friend's little sister, and the lives that were saved because they got her to the hospital in time. I think back to how incredibly important it was to my best friend's family to get to say goodbye before they harvested her organs. Before you accuse me of being too emotional over what was essentially keeping a corpse alive, consider that. Consider his parents. Consider the lives that deserve to be prolonged, and can, by this young man's family's gift. And yes, dammit, consider the chance that he might pull through.

I volunteer to give a hand 'til more medical help arrives. Ambulance Driver suctions the boy's mouth and hands me some device that I've seen at scenes and on television, but never used-- this one looks like a mask with a latex football attached to it. He has me breath for the kid by compressing the bulb and letting it self-inflate, and runs to help the other boys. I see the drunk, bare-chested kid --Jimmy?-- is still sitting near the wrecked FourRunner. Good. Other cop cars are arriving.

Trooper 1175 and deputy 451 arrive and begin working the scene. Even better. They each put their cars at the distal ends of the curve, the apex of which we're beyond. Frankly, I'd rather they put them even further out, to have their gumball machines warning other drivers of the crash site. Secondary crashes are not uncommon, and often are far worse than the initial crash. And with our closest first responders already tied up, a secondary wreck could be catastrophic. I'm kinda liberal with flares at an accident scene, and if I'm on the road (which I'm not, tonight), I put on my orange reflective traffic vest. If I had a magic feather, I'd stick it in my hat, too. If I wore a hat.

The trooper looks in the vehicle, and then begins to talk to the bare-chested boy. I look down to the kid I'm helping-- has that mask slipped? Pay attention to what you're doing, Matt. The trooper knows his job. I peek up again. The trooper has the boy standing, and the boy is talking, now. Oh, good. I hope the trooper is running video and audio.

I try to check the kid's pulse at the neck. None! No, wait. I reposition, remembering not to use my thumb lest I feel my own pulse. There. It's weak, but rapid. I can't operate the breathing bulb and feel his pulse and look at my watch all at once, but I know it's fast. Vague memories of descriptions of the symptoms of shock fill my mind. I touch the kid's hands. Like ice. It's 68, 70 degrees out. I should have a blanket on this kid.

"Shock kills," said my old Boy Scout scoutmaster almost a quarter century ago. "Keep 'em breathing, keep 'em warm, don't let 'em bleed out, and don't screw anything else up, and you'll be doing your part," he'd said, around a wad of Red Man. "But don't let me catch y'all usin' none of those warmup techniques in the Manual involving stripping the victim down nekkid and using your body heat to warm 'em up. This is NOT that kind of troop!" by this time he had been grinning, and us boys had been howling. Even now, I start to break into a grin, and realize that I'm again not paying enough attention to the victim I'm attending, in the here-and-now. Focus now, A.D.D. Boy, and we'll get you a nice Ritalin lolly, later.

I consider my mood. I'm not upset. I'm not particularly excited, actually. I'm now in a rhythm, of a task I only started for the first time a few minutes ago, and I'm actually a little distracted. I know that I'm probably only helping with organ preservation, and that's fine. But then again, I've seen some pretty miraculous changes in human beings when the right "switch" is thrown. I've seen an ER doc give a shot of sumpin'or'other to an incoherent dopehead, who instantly lost his buzz. I've seen a medic shove some sugar paste into the mouth of a near-comatose diabetic patient, who 30 seconds later became as aware as Sleeping Beauty having newly been kissed. I watched my first daughter enter this world after a 23 hour labor, with the cord wrapped so tightly around her neck that it disappeared in the folds of her skin, and her body was uniformly ashen-blue with periwinkle highlights, so dead-looking that the APGAR score of "2" that they gave her was a gift-- only to pink up like a Valentine's Day heart after they gave her some O2 and suctioned out her airway (and then go on to be in the Gifted & Talented program at school). I've seen multiple-fatality accident scenes have the number of fatalities revised downward (twice, on one occasion). So turn-arounds do occur, whether you want to classify them as "saves" or routine. So we'll plod along on this one, and see if we can't give someone who knows what he's about a chance to push a turn-around.

But this ain't my job, I think. I'm an over-educated jack-of-all trades. I know how to do a lot of things in law enforcement, and some of 'em I do pretty well. One of them is scene size-up, and calling for the necessary help. (Harder than it looks, at first.) Another is on-scene interrogations and interviews, in a manner that gets me some information to do the job right away, but which also can later be used in court. With some cops, it's either-or. I like to make it both. In short, I'd like to be over there, talking to that pukey boy that wouldn't talk to me when I first rolled up. Jimmy. I want to get it nailed down who was the driver, because I know that the driver's going to be charged with Intoxication Assault, and I strongly suspect that it's going to end up being Intoxication Manslaughter. As such, this is a crime scene, and I want to make sure that we have good evidence and statements that we can use in court.

Finally, a couple of volunteer fire-fighters come on over. I'll never understand why they have to wear all that bunker gear when there's no fire, but I feel a certain kinship with them for that-- after all, nobody's shooting at me, but I've got this damned Level II vest on. There's not really much to pass on to them, other than that I found him unconscious and breathing with some difficulty, and that his pulse was hard to find. I also ask them if they can get some of the other responding firefighters to sweep the area in a grid search to check for my last crash victim. "His name is either Robert or Arnold," I tell them. The one not now squeezing the bulb gets on his radio, and calls some of the other fireman over. Looking at them, I don't think that they've got much more experience with that bulb-thingy than I did. But that's part of their job. I've got mine to get to. I head back to the Four-Runner.

Firefighters have dragged over a portable air compressor and Jaws Of Life and a gasoline-powered grinder wheel, and are about to open the SUV up like a can of sardines. I hear a distant whump-whump-whump of a chopper, and look around. I spot the fire captain and ask if he's the incident commander. He says that he is. I tell him that the chopper's inbound and ask him if he needs any help with the landing zone. I've got some other stuff to do, but it's kind of important to make sure that the chopper has a good, safe, clearly-marked L.Z. to land in. "Naw. I've got 3 guys in that field," he points out into the field I just walked out of, and a hundred yards away are the flashlights of three firefighters radiating away from the strobe that they've just placed on the ground as a marker. I tell him that we're looking for a fourth accident victim, who may have also been ejected into the field, and he nods, thinks for half a second, and says that he'll get his guys looking after the extrication and the chopper lifts. It makes sense, really-- treat what you have. The fourth guy may be dead, or have run off. Either situation is not an emergency. Or, he may be in dire need, but the time and manpower used to find him will cost care to other victims. I nod and let him to his duties, which at that point involve multi-tasking the set-up for extrication and talking to the CareFlight pilot by radio.

I go to the door opposite the side the firefighters are setting up the equipment on, and talk quickly to the fat kid trapped inside. I get my notebook out, and make sure (again) that my body mic is on. I look at my barely-legible scrawl.. find R.L (rear left), and decipher the name next to it. "Uh, Tony? Who was wearing the red-and white striped shirt? Arnie or Bobby?"
"Agh. Bobby, I think. With an alligator on it. Didja find him? Is he okay? What about Arnie? Ooh!"

"Yes, I found Bobby. The medics are with him now," I respond. "We're still looking for Arnie." I quickly get Arnie's and Bobby's last names from him, and their ages: 18 and 19 years old.
"We were camping on Arnie's folks' pasture..." he says.

I take a second to get some more information. "What's your date of birth?" He answers with a date that I calculate makes him 19 this year... okay, 18 years old.

"What's your address?" I ask him. I know that somebody's going to need to contact his folks tonight. He gives it, stopping to pant and moan in the middle of its short recitation. The air compressor fires up, and the chopper is getting closer, and people are yelling to be heard, and my radio is going off in my left ear, and and another VFD firefighter is arriving with his siren going, and someone's calling my name I think, and all these things are trying to distract me, and... Everything focuses on this kid for a second. He's crying. He can barely get the words out, and halts to gasp:

"Officer. We were camping... we all were drinking some, but Jimmy and Arnie-- they were drinking a lot more. We were going to go out mudding in the four-wheeler and then fish, but I didn't want Jimmy to drive. He wouldn't let me drive. I know I shouldn't have been drinking, but I was more sober than them. He drove so fast, and he wouldn't stop, and wouldn't let me out!" It all comes out in a flood. When he stops, he begins moaning. "My legs hurt so bad. . ." his voice is lost to the sound of the gasoline-powered grinder firing up and biting into the SUV frame.

This flood of comment sounds like... what? A confession? No. It sounds more like a dying declaration. I've never heard one before, but so help me, that's what this kid is giving me. He thinks he may die. And, to be honest, he could, if his femoral artery is cut and they can't replace the pressure stopping the flow that the seat crushing him now may be providing.

But he's said it: Jimmy's my driver. Jimmy's my bare-chested mute puker. Jimmy's my suspect. I go to find Jimmy.

Jimmy, it seems, has decided to start talking. "What happened to my car?!?" he demands to the world in general.. "Who did this to my new car?!?" He tries to put some real outrage into his voice, but it's not very convincing to the trooper, the deputy, or the EMT he's talking to.

I walk up to the deputy, and tell him, "Arnold DeLima is missing, and the kid in the wreck tells me that they were camping on the DeLima pasture near here. Doing some fishing and beer-drinking."

The deputy smiles and says, "I'll just bet that we'll find young Mr. DeLima down the road, then." He radios dispatch to have another deputy run by the DeLima house to check on the welfare of Arnold. I hope they find him. I hear dispatch call out the address of the DeLima house to the other deputy, and I write that address in my notebook next to "Arnold, (FR), DeLima, 18 y.o.a."
I turn back to Jimmy. He's protesting alternately that he was a passenger, that he was in the back seat, that he wasn't even in the vehicle, that he was in another vehicle following that left, that he walked up on the accident scene.... all with blood dripping down his forehead from where it hit the door frame and perhaps the window or windshield.

I'm really kind of thinking about how nice it would feel to slap the kid.

Mr. Clean, one of our volunteer firefighters who stands an inch taller and 30 lbs heavier than I do and has a shaved head, grabs him by the shoulders and begins telling him angrily while shaking him a bit that he needs to know precisely where Jimmy was sitting, so that he can treat him properly. Mr. Clean is doing this for us, and the questions are worthwhile, but the hands-on approach is a bit heavy, and won't help us in court. The trooper turns away. I put my hand on Clean's shoulder, and he stops.

"Jimmy?" I ask.

"Yeah?" he looks askance at me.

"What's your full name and date of birth?"

"I already gave..." he begins.

"And you'll be giving it again," I smile encouragingly and tell him.

"James Ashley Heaton." He gives me his date of birth. 19 years old.

I pull a card from my ID case, and quickly read him his Miranda warning, asking him after each right if he understands them. He says that he does, with wide eyes.

"Am I under arrest?" he asks.

"No." I tell him. I consider saying "not yet." Sometimes that helps-- they'll talk and talk to forestall arrest. But I decide not to put it that way, just yet.

"So where did you drive from?" I ask Jimmy.

"I wudn't drivin'!" he protests. Then, "Who stole my car?!?"

"Okay. Now, that act isn't going to work," I admonish him. "First, I've got a witness that put you in the car. Second, you're bleeding from fresh scrapes to your head, like, you know, from a car crash, or something. Finally, a minute after the accident had occurred, I found you sitting on the ground in the open door of the car. So, you want to revise your statement about who was driving?"

"Okay, it was Tony! Tony was driving! That fat drunk sumbitch!" he declares.

"Tony was driving. Tony Willis." I mean it as a question, but it comes out flat.

"Yeah. He drives crazy! Wouldn't let us out...."

"So that's your new, revised statement. Why didn't you tell us that in the first place?" I ask reasonably.

"Cuz I was scared! And, uh, 'cuz I'd been in a wreck and was shook up!" he's kind of shrill now.

"What happened to my car?!?" he suddenly demands, for no reason I can see.

"Uh, Jimmy-- you've already admitted now to being in the car. You KNOW what happened to it. Now, where were you sitting? In the car? During the wreck. Which you were in?" I'm speaking with patience. I'm speaking with calm reason. I will not slap this kid. I will be as nice and professional and courteous as I can... while I work up a case to put his ass in prison.

"I was in the, uh, back left seat," he says.

"Back left? With Tony driving?" I clarify.

"Yep." he actually crosses his arms now, with a set jaw and a nod, to let me know that This Is His Final Answer.

"So, let me get this straight. First you lied about not having been in the car during the accident, and now you're telling me that you were sitting in the back seat, and the driver of the vehicle was the kid that those firefighters over there are currently extricating from the seat position which you're telling me that you were sitting in, where he's currently trapped and crushed under the front seats?" I ask him.

I let it sink in for a few seconds. His watery, bloodshot eyes tell me that he doesn't fully get what I'm telling him.

"You're lying again, Jimmy. You couldn't have been sitting there, and he couldn't have been driving." I tell him. "You've got one more chance to redeem your credibility."

"I wudn't driving!" he blurts out.

The trooper has come back, and asks one of the EMTs from the second ambulance if he can take Jimmy inside the box for some privacy. I know why, but our intense fireman Mr. Clean doesn't immediately get it. His eyes light up and he grins as he murmurs "tune up time?" I snort, as I climb up on the back bumper to block the window with my body. Mr. Clean has seen too many movies. We cops don't "tune up" suspects to get confessions. The whole trade-off of getting a worthless confession versus losing our job, getting sued, and going to prison just really isn't that appealing. And those that might consider it worth doing wouldn't ask to take the suspect into a borrowed ambulance box with a dozen witnesses around. Plus, "tune up" is more of a prison term, anyway.

The reason that I'm using my body to block the back windows of the ambulance is because I'm trying to assist the trooper in his investigation into Jimmy's suspected level of intoxication. Or, I should properly say: his intoxication. The test that the trooper is administering to Jimmy in the ambulance is not designed to detect the level of intoxication, but whether the subject is or is not under the influence. The test, Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus, is probably the single best field tool in establishing intoxication. It's a simple test that looks for involuntary twitching of the eye while following a stimulus (usually a pen). But it requires that no flashing lights be visible to the subject, as strobes (which can cause eye twitching) can invalidate the test. With two ambulances on scene, a helicopter, 3 police cars, a brush truck, an engine, and a couple of POVs outfitted with strobes so that volunteer fireman could respond directly to the scene, there's no shortage of flashing lights in the vicinity of the crash site.

I use the time to get the driver license info on the four boys from the dispatcher. After six minutes of standing on the back bumper of the ambulance, I look in through the window and see that the trooper has moved on to interviewing Jimmy, and I step down. I see the deputy's face has a bit of a grin on it as he cocks his head to listen to his radio, tuned to a different channel than my portable. "Well. They found Arnold DeLima," he says.

I know he wouldn't be grinning if it were bad. "Where'd he run off to," I ask.

"Home. Hell, he just lives over the hill, yonder," he beams. "I sent another deputy over there to check on his welfare. Turns out, he's pretty beat up. Cuts and bruises. Probably needs stitches and a bone set. They're having an ambulance respond mutual aid to take care of him. Our deputy, ah, is accompanying him."

Well that's good to know.

They've finally got Tony out of the SUV, and have splinted the hell out of him, with immobilized neck and back board. I can barely see the kid for all the parameds, EMT's, and firemen crowded around him as they take him to the helo. Gawd, he must be bad, if they're needing all those people... I think, and then realize. No, you moron-- he's about 300 pounds by himself, and that ground's rough over there-- they need the extra people to move that kid to the helicopter.
The other kid --Bobby-- has been put on a backboard and taken into an ambulance by AD and his sidekick. I feel a little better about the kid-- they don't seem to be too frantic. But then, they wouldn't be if they knew that it was all for nought, too. They get fired up and head to the hospital. I consider that they hadn't CareFlighted Bobby, and I hope that his mother gets a chance to say goodbye.

"You got it?" I ask the deputy. The scene's in the County, after all, and the trooper will shortly be taking Jimmy to the hospital for his blood draw. All the deputy has to do is wait for the wrecker and see that the road is clear.

"Oh, sure," he says, as he begins to fill out an impound slip.

"The kid who was CareFlighted-- he lives in our city. I'll make the notification to his family," I tell him.

"You gonna contact the other kid's parents-- the one who went by ambulance?" he asks me.
"They live at the other end of the county. Maybe we can get Piddling Point P.D. to drop by?" I said. "He's probably not going to make it, and will need a personal notification. Who's on over there, tonight?"

"297. Here." He pulls out his cell, and pulls up a phone number that he recites to me. "Call him direct." I look at him questioningly-- most of us don't have each phone number for each of the 100-odd other cops in the county. "Eric and I went to academy together. He can give a good notification."

I get in my car, and mark my times on my patrol sheet, using MDT for reference. I sign myself out "On Follow-Up," and call unit 297, cell phone. I give him the run-down of what's gone on, and ask if he could run by the boy Bobby's address and try to notify his family. I tell him the hospital that they've taken him to, and explain that the boy might not make it.

"Time sensitive, or stable?" is all he asks. I admit that I don't know, but repeat that AD didn't seem to feel he was viable.

"I'll probably end up giving them an escort, then," he says, and hangs up to do what he can.

With that taken care of, I head on back to my own town, and go to the address of Tony, the CareFlighted boy who cried to me. I negotiate with three dogs before gaining the porch of the tired old house. Junk is piled around on all sides. I bang on the door with my knuckles, then the side of my fist, and finally with my flashlight, before I hear someone stirring toward the door. I illuminate myself with my flashlight, and announce myself. Getting myself shot on their front porch would not be helping these citizens. For that matter, it wouldn't do me any good, either. The door flies open, and a very heavyset older woman asks what's wrong. I ask her relation to Tony, and she says that she's his grandmother, who Tony lives with, because he and his mama don't...

I interupt. "Tony's been in a bad car crash. He's hurt, but he's being taken to a very fine trauma center by helicopter." I have to say it kind of quickly, because she's starting to get wild-eyed, and I know that the crying is about to start. When her husband appears in the door buttoning his overalls, I could hug the man.

"What's this about Tony being hurt?" he asks me with hard eyes. He doesn't want any window dressing; just get down to brass tacks.

"He was in a bad car wreck with three other boys. He was conscious and able to talk to me when I arrived. He may have broken his legs, and he's broken an arm. Right now they're concerned about the legs, which is serious. But they got CareFlight to take him to Big City Trauma Center, which is the best emergency care around," I reassure him. "Can y'all drive? Do you know how to get to Big City?"

He assures me that they do, and that he'll be taking his wife. He's concerned, but not hysterical. She is just about 2 clicks shy of hysterical. I have her sit on a bench on the porch, and repeat for her (she had been heaving and crying before) the bit about the good care he was receiving. Then I worry: What if he doesn't make it? Are you setting them up for the worst surprise? But Big City Trauma is 48 miles away, and I can't give them an escort all the way there. I need them to drive calmly. And besides-- I haven't lied or embellished-- I'm telling them what I believe.

While she goes back inside to dress, I check with GramPaw a little more-- the boy is his wife's grandson, he tells me, and he's been in trouble before, but he's a good boy. Light of their life.

I see no reason to mention the loaded marijuana pipe I found in the SUV.

"Tony made an effort to tell us what happened at the scene," I tell him. "He was honest about the fact that they'd been drinking some, and that helps us know what happened." I think about that pain-wrenched confession that he made, and wince.

I get out a card, and think for two beats before putting my work cell phone number on the back of it. You keep giving out that damned cell phone number, and you'll have no one to blame but yourself when they're calling you at all hours. "Please call if you need anything." I tell him, and he shakes my hand.

As I walk back to the car, I key up my portable radio. "588, County: Ten-8." Clear for calls.

It's in somebody else's hands, now, I think.

Trainwrecks

Casey Jones, The Old 97, The Crash At Crush....

None of 'em had a thing on the spectacular,ongoing trainwreck that is the barely 21-year-old actress Lindsay Lohan.

And to think that it was only last year that my daughters and I watched Freaky Friday on DVD, and really enjoyed it.

Now, like those 40,000 who in 1896 formed up the temporary town of Crush, TX, there's a certain amount of entertainment to be had from the schadenfreude of watching this spectacle.

Tsk.

That's it-- I'm calling Ford Motor Company...

My entire career on patrol, I've driven Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptors.

I've owned seven cars in my life. I've driven countless others.

I've driven BlueBird schoolbuses with up to 73 kids at a time in them.

I've never found any of those vehicles to cause seizures. As a matter of fact, I'd never even seen a seizure in my life, until I started putting people in the back seats of Crown Victoria Police Interceptors. They're never petite mal seizures- they're always grand mal. There is gurgling. There is grunting. Sometimes there is urination. My most recent one caused the entire car to bounce on its shocks because I was out of it, but as soon as I opened the door, he was face down in the footwell. (Well, I thought-- his head is off the floor, he's got a good airway, he can't aspirate his saliva in this position, and he can't hurt himself. I called for an ambulance and closed the door.)

It doesn't happen every time I put arrestees in the cage. It so far hasn't happened to me when I've been in the cage, to clean it out or search the seat crease. But that's what makes it scarier-- you never know. What if this is the time? I can get lulled into a sense of complacency, and then... zing! I'm on the ground, makin' like my parents handle rattlesnakes and happen to have parents who were siblings.

I used to think the lightbar had something to do with it, but I've had it happen with slick-tops, too.

I'm about to call OSHA.