Thoughts on violence.

--This nation is split right now. There is little in the way of a "conversation about guns and violence." It is two sides, squaring off. It's not pretty, and it's not really effective.

--Under the New Public Service model of governance, we are supposed to engage in a dialogue until we decide what to do, without regard to completing our goal, or achieving a real consensus.

--Those of us interested in maintaining the right to keep and to bear arms are acting calmer than those who blame firearms for the violence in which they are used.
This isn't because we're less upset. 

--Belief that ONE SINGLE POLICY will stop the violence is pretty naive. Thus, even though I believe that there are things that we can and probably should do to reduce the violence, I don't present them and then nod self-assuredly and declare "that's what will finally fix the problem."

--I've said before and I will say again that this nation has a serious problem in identifying and managing our mentally ill. We don't even deal with the emergent ones.

--If I truly believed that we could put the genie back in the bottle, and eliminate all firearms from this planet in an attempt to rid the planet of gun violence, I might well consider it, even though I agree with Marko's excellent essay, here. But it's not possible, so why entertain the mental exercise? If we're going to do that, why not settle invisibility versus flight for a superpower?

--If guns are the problem, why is my life not steeped in violence? Even though I literally am dispatched to every call involving violence in my jurisdiction for half of every other day, I have seen very little in the way of gun violence in the last 12 years of service. I've never been shot at. I've never shot at anyone. I've never arrested anyone for intentionally shooting at another person (true story!). I've only a handful of times arrested people for pointing guns at others. This is in Texas, where private ownership of firearms is almost unrestricted: No limit to number of guns, no registration of guns, no waiting period, no state restriction on private sales, no state restriction on ammunition* or magazines. If you get it federally registered, you can even own an automatic weapon.

--Some folks will see that above comment and say, "well, he works in a small town, so that's different." Well, which is it? Either we're back-woods hicks who are armed to the teeth and seething in violence, or I'm working for Mayberry, and we all get along so great, no one would ever be so unkind as to shoot someone else.  It must not be the guns, though, because EVERY home here seems to have a collection of firearms.

--Firearms were virtually uncontrolled before 1934, then more so in 1968, and more so in 1986. Yet school shootings have increased almost exponentially since just the late 1990s. Why? Yes, there are more guns. Yes, more people live in urban environments. But those aren't the answer. The problem of mass shootings has grown far faster than the rate of gun ownership. Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman, when I saw him speak, opined that the problem grew in direct proportion to the proliferation of first-person shooter video games. Hm.  I don't think that blaming the games themselves is the answer. But I'll for damn sure agree that there's an inured effect upon the players to distance themselves from the perceived consequences of their actions. 

I see evidence of dissociative behavior among youth that I didn't see much before. Youngsters engaged in online debate move quickly to direct each other to kill themselves. We've got individuals scattered among us who genuinely don't see other people as real. We've always had such sociopaths (for such they are), but it seems like we've started distilling them, and creating a higher likelihood that we'll have to deal with them.

--I am real. And so are you.

--The world will never be Nerf'd. We cannot stop violence, much. But maybe we can attenuate it. Maybe we can actually get a handle on what we can do to help reduce the chance that future sick persons will decide to destroy others.  I'm going to try. Please try in your way, too.

--Let me know what you think. I'm interested.
_____________________
*Except armor-piercing handgun ammunition.

Wiping our mouths and moving on.

While working out hard for his new job, my partner hit a dog while bicycling, face-planted, and injured his head badly. While he recovered in hospital, I heard his wife, who was understandably shaken by the nearly-tragic event, tell him "The bike goes. No more bicycling, ever."

I didn't say anything. She loves him dearly, and was speaking from her heart. She perceived that this veteran police officer's nemesis was a Trek bicycle. She wanted to eliminate it, even though riding it had given him low-impact, fun workouts which were integral to his losing weight and getting fit, which in turn was part of the equation that had resulting in his just having been informed that he was getting his dream job.  He is now employed there, working hard and winning.

I think about how we as a nation responded to the worst national day of my life, exactly 11 years ago today.

"Never again," I heard said time and time again.

That was silly talk. Of course our nation will be hit with tragedy again. That's part of what comes when you're the most powerful nation on the planet; you become the target. And if I haven't made it clear in my rants here, or you're new, understand this: no amount of expenditure will stop us from being attacked, somehow. But our nation overreacted. In the name of safety, we imposed undue restrictions on ourselves, and spent inappropriate amounts of money, and perpetuated military actions that could have been shut down far sooner.

When an enraged punk manages to land a punch on your kisser, the toughest and most effective thing that you can do is to wipe the blood off your mouth, smile, and tell him that he hits like a little girl. That is, not to stop down, curl up into a tight ball, and say (incorrectly) "he can't hurt me now."

When it happens again, let us resolve to conduct business as usual. Oh, sure-- hit back if there's a shot available. but do not overreact. Do not cease the free enterprise that actually made us great.

Random Friday Thoughts.

--I would LOVE to have a news cameraman come along to video People Behaving Badly while I conduct traffic stops, like a highway patrolman in San Francisco had, recently.

--The other night, I had a dream in which I dreamt that I shot heroin. I've never used illegal drugs in my life, and I have a particular disgust for IV drugs. In the dream, the needle was even borrowed from SumDood. The whole time, I was panicking, until I woke up, upset, panting. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was a dream. I couldn't go back to sleep for a long time.  I know that lots of y'all cross all kinds of boundaries in your dreams, and it's okay, because it's just a dream. But I don't. I may have to visit the ramifications of this Never Crossing The Line Even In A Dream" thing in another post, sometime. Days later, the shudder is real.

--It was well below freezing when I got off duty last night at 3:00. This morning, the house was cold. Really cold. I really need to hook up the vents to the furnace so that I can run the new furnace that I installed back when I put in the new air conditioner.

--Last night was the only night expected to freeze this coming week. We covered the tomatoes and zucchini with tarps and blankets, and turned on a light under them, and other stuff just got comforters and buckets put over them. About 90-95% of our stuff survived a pretty good frost.

--Okay, let's see who had the better breakfast: I had a pot of fresh coffee and half a pint of Braum's Chocolate Almond ice cream. Never mind what you had; I win.

--I took a day-long class on mobile-field reporting, on how to use our new proprietary computer system. They flew in this guy to give teach us in a class of 6. The quality of the instruction was actually really quite good, and breaks were at a minimum and lunch was short. The guy gave us full measure. I was pretty impressed. I talked to the trainer, who said that he had all kinds of technical certs that he thought that he would be using, but in fact, he uses few of them, now. He got tapped out to train one day, and it turned out that he has the gift. Knowing how doesn't necessarily mean that you can impart it efficiently to others.

--I'm about to go purchase a bunch of fencing materials to repair my mom's fence. I had put in cattle panels in the back yard during the ridiculous heat, but now's the time to do it right, and put in posts and such. I have sworn never to sink wooden fence posts again, when I can put in steel posts into concrete. I'm about to test-dig to see if the little bit of rain that we've gotten has softened things up enough to let me hand-dig the 4 post holes. Otherwise? I'm renting the gasoline-powered auger. Call me a sissy if you want. I've done my time over a post hole digger in rocky hardpan. I'm not in prison.

--I discovered this week that, with a skillet, a big wok, a pound and a half of good grass-fed beef cubed, some bok choy, lemon grass, coconut milk, home-grown basil, hot red peppers and peanut butter? --I'm an evil genius of a fusion Thai cuisine. There were other ingredients, but that was the basic foundation.

--When you're at training, and realize that the speed loader in your pocket is a 6-shot one for a K-frame, and the revolver on your hip is a 5-shot J-frame, it nags at you, and makes it harder to concentrate.

--A couple of weeks ago, I was planning on trekking over with my best friend Scott to see the Alliance Field Air Show on Sunday. The night before, it rained heavily. They cancelled the Sunday air show, because they didn't have a contengency plan for when the grass parking area got too soggy to park in.* Part of my irritation with this came from the fact that an old school chum that I've not seen in 21 years is the lead pilot of the Air Force Thunderbirds, who were to fly that day. Kind of interesting when you find out that the guy you used to make fart noises with in the lunch room is now arguably the best precision F16 pilot on the planet. Would have liked to have seen him fly, and said howdy.


___________________________
*Interestingly, Alliance Airport is just a couple of miles south of Texas Motor Speedway, which had no events going on that day. Would have been an easy thing to have parking be diverted to TMS, and just shuttle people over to Alliance, for a small fee.

Sheltered youth.

~1983. I was hanging out over at the house of a neighbor kid's, and we were listening to his new "jam box," as we had been told it was called. Zounds! A radio, integral cassette player and recorder, with a pair of 6" speakers and, most impressive to my 11 year old self, a 3-band graphic equalizer. Wowie.

So, as we sat listening to my buddy's rock album, his older brother came in, and gave us a measure of crap for listening to "that gay band." We were up in arms. No, we didn't even play the "not that there's anything wrong with that" card-- we just denied that it could be the case. This particular song that we were listening to was tough! Edgy! The singer was talking about kicking some butt! How could you think anyone in that band was homosexual? They didn't even exhibit the classic gay features (whatever those were. I guess to wear a pink lace dress. I didn't exactly know what I was talking about.).

Looking back, I might have been in error.

The band? Queen. The song we used to defend their heterosexual chops with? "Another One Bites The Dust." Maybe I would have figured it out, if I had seen this live performance.

Ol' Freddy sure 'nuff was a showman, wudn't he?

Proving his point, exactly.

I've always prided myself on being able to look at and try to understand the opposing viewpoint, even when I don't agree with it. Sometimes it's admittedly for irritainment, but often I'll review a viewpoint that I may believe is largely biased, in search of actual content. For the last 18 years, I've listened to a lot of National Psocialist Radio. I can't help it-- the stories are longer, the soundbites are longer, and sometimes the stuff in insightful. Other times while shouting at my windshield, I would have to call it incite-ful.

While Nina Totenberg and the rest can drive me nuts with their bias on occasions, I've generally been pretty impressed with one of their news commentators, Juan Williams. Don't misunderstand me-- I disagree with his views a lot. But I've respectfully disagreed with the man. He's not an idiot. He doesn't just parrot PC speech. But he's by no means on any particular wing of the political spectrum.

I was a bit surprised to learn that Fox News had him as a political contributor, but apparently, they hired him before they had decided to become The Voice Of The New Conservative. (Yes, I'm just as irritated at Fox as I am at NPR. Maybe more so, because Fox doesn't even hide that they're bending their broadcasts right, apparently in an attempt to straighten out the left-biased other reporting.)

It didn't surprise me at all that Juan Williams would be on as a guest on "The O'Reilly Factor." After all, Bill O'Reilly routinely takes on guests that he disagrees with, lets them say something that he finds discordant, and then talks over them, drowning them out to the glee of his followers. It's so common, it's hardly even an ambush anymore, as anyone that he interviews that has even seen his show knows that he's going to do it.

I suppose that Juan Williams thought that, given his other status as a paid commentator for Fox News, he would get a little professional courtesy out of Bill O'Reilly, and would be allowed to finish his point before being interrupted in a discussion about whether it was correct to generalize all Muslims as dangerous. Williams, who was making the point that it was wrong to make such sweeping generalizations, opened a comment with a disclosure of how he personally had a long way to go before he could drop his own stereotypes, citing an example of how he had felt uncomfortable on an airplane with several traditionally-dressed Muslim persons. He was then cut off, and that comment was left to hang, out of context.

Today, NPR has fired Juan Williams, saying remarks "were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR."

Apparently, the Council on American-Islamic Relations had complained.

I'm confused. The NRA has complained about how Nina Totenberg has shown blatant anti-2nd Amendment bias in her statements, but she hasn't been fired. (For that matter, the only time she has been fired was when she got caught plagiarizing, back in the '70s.) So you can rail against a constitutionally-guaranteed right on-air, but not candidly admit elsewhere (in a non-journalistic capacity) that you are overcoming personal biases that you find distasteful?

The meat of what Juan Williams was arguing with Bill O'Reilly about, at the time of the discussion at issue, was political correctness. And as Alan said to me this morning, "of course, NPR proves his point about paralyzing political correctness."

And so it goes.

Will I be so comforted?

When I have to make that last trip out the front door, I hope I have someone like EpiJunkie to help me on my way.

Laundry

I've often said that a defining point in a couple's relationship* is the point where they agree to do laundry together. It's a mix of the mundane and the sweet. The couple is so enamored with each other that they will choose to accompany the other even during a stunningly boring chore that most despise.

There are of course division points within this Waterloo. One is: Laundry Together, Separate Loads. This is safest. It even makes sense: both have this task to do-- why not do it at the same time at the laundromat, and get it done all at once?

(This can pretty much only be accomplished at laundromats. Except for the expense and the hassle of loading up the car and unloading the car, I kind of miss laundromats. When I was a bachelor, I would wear every stitch I owned before finally loading up about five or six loads of laundry to the coin-operated laundromat, and getting it all done-- a month's worth at least-- in about two hours.)

But the Separate Loads method will inevitably evolve into Laundry Together, Shared Loads. Your laundry partner will have just a small number of whites, or delicates, and there you are with your own half-load, and it will make perfect sense to share a load, even if you never leave so much as toothbrush at your Significant Other's residence. Don't want to waste another buck. It's simple economics.

But that way leads to sorting laundry together, which involves sorting dirty laundry together. Friends, I've long advocated not living together until married ("if you're going to act like you're married, get married."), partly because of the issue of sorting dirty laundry. It's an intimacy that some people aren't ready to face, the first time they have to reach for the Spray 'N' Wash to get out a skid mark from their belovéd's drawers. A marriage contract can provide the necessary ballast.
______________________
So, back in October, 1991, I met this young lady, and we started going out. We spent a lot of time together, and by spring of '92, we were in that place in the relationship where we did laundry together.

One night, we were at the big coin laundry across the street from the university. My girlfriend and I had about 4 loads, and we got them all fired up. We decided to walk over to the grocery store and get some items for that night's supper while they washed. When we got back, we found that our washers were empty. As I looked around, I was approached by the laundry attendant. He was very direct, and slow. I put his IQ in either the Very Low Normal range, or the High Functioning Retarded range.

"You had not come back when your washers ended, so I took your laundry out," he said.

"Okayyy...?" I responded hesitantly. His shirt was buttoned to the top button and was tucked in carefully. His head was crew-cut with a zero-guard all the way around his head. His tone was initially a little bit accusatory, as if I had left a baby unattended. But he had done something nice for us.

"I put it in those dryers. Now you have to pay for that, and there is a bundling fee," he explained. "You can pick it up in an hour. I will have it ready." He wouldn't shift his gaze from my eyes. Most people don't look directly into your eyes like that.

"Okay... what, um, what's the price for this?" I asked. It seemed kind of presumptuous of him to have taken our laundry out and started up his "service" so quickly, as we had only just missed being back in time. The laundry was certainly not full, and there were machines idle. But something about his manner made us feel like he would snap if argued about. The laundry was kept neat, and he seemed to feel that everything was Just So.

"It is by the pound. I can not tell you how much it is until it is dried and weighed. There are the prices up there," he said, pointing behind him to a board with a schedule of prices for laundry done and folded, by the pound. It got a little more economical for each progressive weight by 5 lbs. Even as he pointed, he kept staring at my eyes. It was kind of creepy.

My girlfriend and I decided to just go to the video rental store next door to pick out a movie while we waited. We surely couldn't afford to eat out, now. (We were both so very poor.)

When we returned, my new simple friend was hard at work bundling laundry. We sat on some molded plastic chairs in a corner, and watched the inane show on the television hanging from the ceiling. Besides my girlfriend, me, and Our New Special Friend, there were only some immigrant ladies and their small children, who ran around unsupervised.

As I paid the guy to get our laundry out of laundry jail, one of the ladies that we had sat with began demanding of her children, in increasingly more frantic tones, "Felipe? Donde es Felipe? Donde es su hermano? Mi bambino!" (Where's Philip? Where is your brother? My baby!)

Everyone began looking around for the baby. I had earlier seen a very little baby sleeping in a car seat/carrier earlier, and was thinking of that kid. He had been mostly wrapped up in blankets.

At just this time, one of the laundry loads got off-center, and began to slam the drum against the housing. Thud. Thud. Thud.

My girlfriend and I looked at each other with wide eyes as we heard "Mi bambino! Donde es mi bambino?!?" and boom-boom-boom, as our New Special Friend stepped into my consciousness and said, "Sir, that will be nine dollars and forty nine cents."

"Boom! Boom! Boom!" went the off-centered washer. Someone must have put in a heavy blanket, or a quilt, or...

"Felipe!"

"Sir, I am going to have to ask you for correct change." I thought about that pile of blankets, with the baby in it.

Our jaws had gone a little slack before they finally found Felipe playing out in the parking lot. Turned out he was about three.

I married that girl on the last day of February, 1998. And even now, my wife of 12 years (as of Sunday) and I can still make each other laugh by exclaiming, "'Felipe!' Boom! Boom! Boom!"

See what doing laundry together can get you into?

___________________________________
* I almost said "relationship between a man and a woman," but I suppose homosexual relationships have this, too. But then, I'm not so sure. There are vast gaps in my knowledge.

Political Distribution.

There are shades of gray.


It would seem that people are so busy identifying the difference between black and white, that they forget that the vast majority of the world falls somewhere in between.


Most people tend to think of their political affiliations as falling along a single line, like this:

But it's not really that simple. It's at the very least two-dimensional, like this:

The above graphic is one that I sketched from memory, from a lecture by Dr. Robert Taylor in a graduate class on terrorism. This was early on in the class, and we were discussing what drives people that were allegedly on opposite ends of the political spectrum to take up very, very similar positions and tactics.

It's funny how worked up people get in their identity with regard to which side of the centerline that they fall.

I worry about the polarization that I see in our nation.

I worry about the civil Cold War that looms.

Pucker factor.

TXDOT and the local town sanding crews did a nice job of giving some traction during the Great Morning of North Texas Ice, 2009.

Lulls you into a sense of complacency, it does.

As I came off an exit prior to a flying overpass, I was late to discover that the offramp was elevated, and unsanded.

A lonnnnng period of skidding ensued, in which I began overtaking the minivan ahead of me.

I was in my patrol car, which has antilock brakes that instantly kicked in with their long groan, seemingly ineffectively. I dropped the automatic transmission down a gear, standing on the brakes, still impressed that the car was actually steering through the slight curve of the off-ramp.

The offramp was long; about 300 yards, with almost half of it elevated, or so it seemed.


I watched my distance to the minivan shrink to 50 yards, keenly aware of the downhill grade that would make the ramp unsafe at my now-unchecked highway speed, even without the ice. When that van hit unelevated ramp, I figured that it would slow much faster, and that I'd be toast. I heard very clearly the announcement of "Brace For Impact" in my head. Divider walls on each side made bailout impossible. I decided that I would try to use the divider wall to slow myself just as I would impact the other car. I edged left, staying squarely pointed ahead.


Finally, I noticed that I was slowing.


I matched speeds with the minivan, then slowed below its speed, and realized that we were both now on non-elevated off-ramp by this time. I kept on the brakes, to increase my following distance to over 50 yards, even at the now-crawling speed of about 8 mph. I then regularly tapped my brakes, to let everyone behind me know I was slowing dramatically. I didn't feel okay until I got to the intersection, with several lanes around me and numerous bailout destinations, should another car find himself sliding down that off-ramp. I tried to call to get that ramp sanded, but the line was busy three times. I gave up.

Although it was actually worse last night, when I was called out to an emergency, I was more prepared for that to be terrible (raining wet at 25 degrees makes you prepare for the worst. 2 hours at the hospital put half an inch of window-pane clear ice on my windshield), and had no problems.

Deadly parenting.

Mom gives some insight from the perspective of a retired Child Protective Services caseworker into how children go emotionally dead before they physically die.

Yeah, it's tough stuff to read, but it's interesting, and it's fairly brief. Worth the read.

Bittersweet.

Lawdog tells well the story of an old man who finds his way home.

Not a misogynist. NOT.

Look, I probably hold women to higher standards than I do men. They don't have that testosterone poisoning that we do, which makes us want to solve simple problems (e.g.: "The neighbor's dog is crapping in my yard.") with complicated or at least complicating solutions ("I'll settle his hash!" Blam! Blam! Blam! "Is that bullhorn coming from a helicopter?"). Ladies see sex, conflict, and self worth very differently, on the average, than does a man. Usually for the better.

But, boy, when you run across the dumber ones... it'll put you into a spell of the cranky mumblings that people might misinterpret to think that you're judging all women, by the actions of a few.

"Grumble mumble grumble idiot couldn't find her mumble grumble if she used both hands and called Directory Assis... grumble, mumble... "

Exhibit A:

Dumb Woman: "Officer, I'm so glad you stopped."

Me: "Well, it seemed like the thing to do; you kept following me."

DW: "I need to report a Hit and Run."

Me: [Tensing to run out and stop the perpetrator, but then stopping myself.] "Where and how long ago did it happen? You've been following me for over three blocks."

DW: "It was over at that shop? You know, across from the school?"

Me: [After waiting a second for clarification and getting none.] "Which school? There are several. What shop?"

I finally dragged out of her which shop (only by establishing what they sell).

Me: "That's a couple of miles from here. How long ago did this happen?"

DW: "Oh, it was right before I dropped Junior off at school-- say about 7:50? Don't they ring the bell at 8:00? I just know we were running late."

Me: "Ma'am, it's almost 10:30 AM, now. Why are you just now reporting a hit and run, 2.5 hours after it occurred?"

DW: "I had to get Junior to school."

Me: [Putting that aside for the moment and noticing a tightness in my jaw I hadn't noticed earlier that morning.] "So how did this happen? Wait. Let me bring you a piece of paper to draw it out for me."

After I diagrammed the parking lot on one of the sheets of typing paper I always carry on my clip board for just such exigencies, I drew a compass rose to indicate "N" in the corner, labeled the road adjacent, and handed it to her, asking her to show me how the crash occurred. She rotated the clip board around, and around, and around, and asked what the "Z" meant (seriously), and said that she couldn't make heads or tails of the diagram, and didn't know where everything was. I pointed out buildings, parking lot entrances, and streets. I may not be Michelangelo, but I've been drawing crash sketches for a large fraction of my existence on this earth, and I'm pretty competent at it.

I wondered not aloud whether this woman should be driving at all. Ever.

By doing something akin to the Sullivan/Keller exercise ("Yes! That's water, Helen!") where I took my pen and carefully outlined the articles on the sketch while she held the clipboard (that was important, apparently), I actually directed the pen in her hand to items in the parking lot to areas around the property, I got her oriented.

(Now that looks like a snark at Helen Keller. It's not. Helen Keller was one of the smartest people who ever lived. She, even with her being deaf and blind, would have understood the diagram faster, and would have conveyed to me how the crash had occurred more concisely. And, to look at the numerous dings and bits of body damage on this lady's car, would have been a better driver.)

So I established that she had gotten backed into by another car in the parking lot. She then pulled into the spot next to it, and watched the other car begin to back away. She went to great trouble to describe the car, and the kid in the back seat, and even the driver, which was helpful. I asked her the make of the car, but that was an exercise of sheerest optimism. She did, however, finally, as an afterthought, after I had asked twice whether she had it, present me with the license tag number that she had written down.

I asked her what she had done when the other car drove away.

DW: "I called my husband, of course!"

Of course.

Me: "On your cell phone?"

DW: "Yes. I could still see the car driving away, and wanted to know what to do."

Me: "Where did the car go?"

DW: "Oh, it got in line to drop of the kid at the school."

Me: "The kid in the car? He goes to school here in town?"

DW: "Yes."

Me: "And you saw the other car drop off the kid. How long did it take to drop a kid off and leave?"

DW: "Well, because I had to call my husband, I was about 10 places back of her, but it was busy, so I guess about 4 or 5 minutes."

Me: "Tell me again why you didn't call the police?"

DW: "Well, I didn't know what to do. And I didn't have your number."

Me: "You didn't know the number to 911?"

DW: "Well, I didn't think I should, you know..."

Me: "Ma'am, for a Hit & Run in progress, calling 911 is completely appropriate."

Sensing an accident report in my future, I asked for her driver license and insurance document. She produced a card with the name of a man she identified as her husband on it. I noticed the discrepancy between her license address and her insurance, and asked if she had moved recently.

"No, we moved 2 years ago," she said, looking at me like I was a fool for not knowing this.

"Okay, you might want to go notify the D.P.S. of your current address, so that you don't get a citation from someone," I said helpfully. Texas law requires you to notify of change of address within 30 days of moving. No, I had no intention of writing her for it, but someone might, so I thought I would just let her kn...

D.W.: [Aghast] "You're going to give me a ticket?!? I'm the victim! What did I do wrong?!?"

Me: "No, ma'am, I was just..."

D.W.: "I can't believe this! Some horrible person almost kills me, slams into me, and you want to write me a ticket!" she was warming up to the subject, so I raised my voice.

Me: "Ma'am! I am not writing you a citation for anything, here."

She immediately calmed down, and said in a self-satisfied tone, "Well I'm glad you came to your senses," she said tritely. "I'm the victim, after all. If you're not going to write me a ticket any more, may I have my stuff back," she said as she gestured toward the license and insurance card that I still held, forgotten, in my hand.

"Uh, sure. Let me just get your information written down for my report," I said, transcribing quickly. "So you now live at this address?" I referred to the address on the insurance card.

"Nooo." She was completely unable to hide her disgust at my stupidity. "That's my husband's address."

The address was only 5 miles away. "You are estranged from your husband, then?"

"No, we are divorced, for the last 5 years," she said slowly, as if to an idiot child.

"Have you remarried?" I asked. Oh, trust me. I knew it really had no bearing on anything, but I just wanted to know how much I was understanding. Or misunderstanding. Whatever.

D.W.: "No."

Me: [Pondering] "So it was your ex-husband that you called while the other driver drove away, rather than calling 911."

D.W.: "Well, yes. Of course." [Surprised that I hadn't realized that from the start.]

I disengaged as fast as possible.
_ _ _
Exhibit B:

Later that day, I was typing up a report at the P.D. when Dispatch notified me that I had a "Meet Complainant" call at the P.D.

"Uh, I'm right here," I reported. "The door's unlocked."

"She says that she's been parked out front for 10 minutes but can't find anyone," the dispatcher advised. I had been working on paperwork in the office by the front door for half an hour. I opened the door and saw an older woman pensively smoking in a small sedan out front.

"Uh, show me on scene," I told Dispatch.

"There you are!" chided the older woman as she got out of her car.

"How can I help you?" I asked as I held open the front door for her to come into the P.D.

"You can tell me why you arrested my grandson today!" she announced.

"Ma'am, I haven't made an arrest today. And if I'm not mistaken, neither has any other officer with my police department today, because we've had no arrests today. What's your grandson's name?" I asked as I opened a computer browser to the public website to look up the boy's name. "How old is he?" I asked, figuring that it was possible that he wasn't even on the public site, because he was obviously a young teenager, and would be in the juvenile system.

"26," she said.

I was aghast. She went on. "I already paid his tickets with y'all last month! You shouldn't have put him in jail for them!"

"He's in jail for traffic citations?" I asked as the page came up. Yep, Mid-Sized City P.D. had arrested him for warrants issued on unpaid traffic citations out of our city an hour and a half before. Before I looked up his history, I asked if he had been to jail before.

"Oh, my word, yes. Y'all just won't leave him alone! I've had to bail him out 5 times this year. It's not his fault that he gets in trouble-- he has A.D.D."

What do you say to that? I pulled up his history, and saw that A.D.D. had caused him to be arrested for stealing, for driving with a suspended driver's license, for possessing dope, and for driving while intoxicated. Damn those bastard cops, and double-damn the greedy drug companies for charging too much for Ritalin!

I wondered why she was in such a hurry to get him out. "Does he have a job?" I asked.

"Yes!" She said as she beamed proudly. "He starts next week. As a matter of fact, yesterday we got the judge from another charge to postpone his upcoming court appearance so that he could go to work."

"But he's not working now, so..." I began, thinking to suggest that he sit out the tickets for a few days, and also thinking that she would learn that her darling grandson wouldn't just waste away to nothing if he spent a night in hoosegow for his own actions or failures to act.

"A.D.D.! I told you! It's not his fault that he can't keep a job! Plus, with you people always putting him in jail, it's hard for him to keep a job, anyway. He gets depressed," she accused.

"Well," I said, turning around from the computer, "He's never been in our system, so we don't have any information on him. I guess that he just didn't pay his tickets."

"But you put a warrant out for him!" she accused.

"No ma'am, that was the municipal court that issued the warrant, after he failed to appear," I said.

"Well, I'll pay right now for those tickets --but I could swear that I paid for them last month-- so you can let him out," she said, reaching into her purse.

"You'll need to discuss that with the municipal court clerk," I said. "But he can't get out until he's been bonded out at the jail."

"Can't you just call and have him let go?" she asked. "After all-- it's not his fault. I was the one who didn't pay his tickets."

I sat there astounded. "No, ma'am. He has to stay arrested until he posts bond to appear in court, or until a judge orders him released. Aren't you tired of bonding out a 26 year old man?"

She pursed her lips, nodded, and said, "I sure am! Why can't you just leave him alone? Can't you see that it's hard enough on him as it is?"

"I'm sure it is," I said, as I held open the door for her to leave. "Good luck ma'am. Buh bye."

_ _ _
And so on.

My whole day went like that. I had to run over to the municipal court to calm down a mother who was lambasting the court clerk who had the audacity to demand that her own 25 year old son (who was not present) honor the payment plan that he had signed to pay for his citations for driving without driver license, insurance, etc. The fact that her son had a much sought-after professional tradesman's license, a job, and a meth habit didn't seem to make her see why she shouldn't act as the sole point of contact on her little sonny boy's city court case.

I went to knock on the front door of a house where I found a three year-old playing unattended in the street. He was stopping traffic, literally. The mother complained that I was sticking my nose in where it didn't belong, and then got mad at me when I asked for her full name and date of birth, along with the child's. Hell yes, a report was going to be made.

I finished my day with a phone call from a woman who wanted advice on how to get her kid back from her ex-husband. There had been no custody agreement, because they hadn't been officially married. He wanted his car back from her before he would give her back their child. She, who didn't have a driver's license, didn't want to give him the satisfaction. He just wanted the car, she said, so that he could sell it to buy more meth before he went to prison in two weeks. He had an appointment to check himself into custody to serve his 2 year felony sentence, she said.

"Sounds like a civil issue to me," I said. "Consult a family law attorney, and get a property judgement and a custody order." I hung up as fast as I could.
_ _ _

I love women. I think womanhood is admirable, and the best people that I know are women. I love and respect my wife and my mother, among many, many wonderful ladies. I am bringing up two girls who I know will become respectable, great ladies.

But man, did I meet a BUNCH of dingbats, the other day.

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.

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.

Crazy Man With A Gun

"34**, I need some help here!" I heard Art's voice coming shakily over the radio, like he was running. Don, my corporal who was working deep night shift and who had relieved me 20 minutes before, had been chatting with me at the P.D. He swung his feet off the desk and onto the door as I rebuckled my duty belt back on. We hit the door at the same time, heading toward our respective cars.

"I got it!" Don declared. As my corporal, he could tell me to not go to the call. Doing so anyway, after I was off-duty, in a city car, would be a bad idea if he had ordered me not to. But he hadn't precisely told me not to go. He just had said that he "had" it. I kept going to my car. "I said I got it...!" he repeated himself. Uh-oh. He was about to directly tell me not to go, and I was going to have to make a decision. I knew Art.

"34**, he's got a gun, and he's chasing me around with it pointed at his own chest--- get me some help out here, now!" We both ran the last few steps to our cars, with no more discussion. Gravel flew, light bars lit up, and sirens wailed as we ran code in.... opposite directions. We had different ideas of where he was. I kept going. Heck, Don may have a better idea, or I might. But we could double the chance of getting that deputy some help if we kept on. I asked for a vector-in, from a now highly-harried dispatcher. It took some time. During that time, I made a bad guess on a dirt road that, while technically going more directly toward my destination, was rutted and potholed. I risked wrecking at 45mph. I stepped it up to 55.

"I NEED SOME HELP!" Art's voice was pointed. He was panting, and running. Involuntarily, my foot responded, and the speedometer briefly flirted with 60. A pothole the size of New Hampshire almost disabled my car, sending me half into the ditch. I slowed it back to 45. If I wrecked, I couldn't help. I finally got to blacktop, and found triple digits quickly. A railroad crossing immediately before a stop sign had me settng my tires down again about halfway through the intersection. I had every light and sound device on the car broadcasting.

Another brother with a badge from another agency arrived just about a minute before I did. When I got there, Art and Jeff were behind Art's car, and Jeff had a shotgun pointed at a man standing in the road about 20 yards away, who was holding a pistol and a beer. Art had just gotten a less-lethal beanbag shotgun out, and was yelling to the guy over it. At 20 yards away with lots and lots of open range behind him, the man with the beer was frankly a little far out for the beanbag gun.

We all found ourselves yelling to the guy. Art, whose call it properly was, also had a little bit more training with this stuff. He quite correctly told the rest of us to shut the hell up. And, thinking again about it some more, he put away the beanbag gun and got out the Mini-14 patrol rifle. At least now we had a rifle pointing at the guy, who was a good 30 yards from Art's car, by this point. The guy kept walking toward and away from us, with the pistol pointed at himself or to the side. He never pointed it at any of us, though. I made a point of getting my car spotlight and headlights on him, not only to help us see him, but to keep him from being able to see us. Putting a guy in a pool of light allows you to move about with a lot more stealth.

It began to rain cops. I decided to move alongside the guy. His pickup was parked at a cross street about 50 yards off and he'd already gone back to it for a beer. He kept moving as if to return to it. Well, I figured, maybe I can get to that pickup, and cut off an option. I began moving along a steep ditch to our left, to parallel the guy. The ditch had a lot of loose shale and brush, which meant that moving without giving my location away was hard. I got to a point about halfway to the truck and realized that I wasn't going to make it without a lot of distraction. I looked for cover. Ah! A utility pole! I snuggled up to it, and found that I could hide behind it. I took a practice sight picture on the guy with my Kimber, and found that, at about 20 to 25 yards, I felt confident that I could hit the guy in the upper body, but was NOT confident that I could make a first round headshot. I cursed my old chief for dragging his feet on adopting the proposed patrol rifle policy that I had written. (I now work for a more enlightened chief.)

About this time, the guy declared, "Well, that's it. It's time," and he poured the last of his beer out and dropped the can. He then began to stride toward Art's vehicle, behind which about 10 other cops were now gathered. I could hear Don now among them. I hoped he had good cover. I prayed that the guy didn't come my way, drawing all those muzzles in my direction. The guy pointed his pistol out to his right, straight out, and kept walking toward Art's car in that manner. I realized that the pistol was pointing straight at me as he passed me. He never knew I was 15 yards (at that point) beyond the end of that pistol. Rather than holler at him to watch his muzzle, or shooting him, I made myself a splinter on the far side of that creosote-soaked utility pole.

He kept walking toward Art's patrol car. Jeff had his shotgun aimed at the guy's center. Art, kneeling in the crease made behind his open driver's side door and front door post, had a good rest and was looking through the sights of his Mini-14 at the guy. Art began yelling for the guy to stop. Stop. "STOP!" The guy kept coming. As he got right to the front of Art's patrol car, it was reported to me that his sergeant began murmuring to Art, "Take him. Take him!"

I couldn't hear that just then. I too was yellng for the guy to stop and was fully expecting to hear the shot. The guy began to swing his right arm, with the gun, toward the cops. The gun, however, was reversed now. He slid it up onto the hood of the Crown Victoria, and stepped back. EVERYone began yelling for him to get down on the ground. He did so, and was quickly handcuffed as I secured the pistol. It was a... Hm. what did they call them? Ah yes, a Vektor. Cute little South African plastic pistols that were a good example of style over function. With no magazine in it, it felt light. I checked the chamber. Empty. I handed off the pistol and went to the truck. On the bench seat was the magazne, and a 50-round box of Winchester Western 9mm FMJ ammunition. He meant to die that night. He just wanted a good man to do it to him.

Thank gawd Art didn't.

The distance from Art's rifle's flash supressor to this bozo's chest couldn't have been more than 5 feet when the guy leaned over the pushbumper and slid that gun up the hood toward Art. Probably more like 4 feet. Call it a meter and a half. There were probably 10 guns pointing at the guy, and nobody dropped hammer on this armed man refusing to stop when ordered to. Remarkable, really. But Art was closest. His call. He was talking to the man in a clear, direct manner while looking through the sights. I'd like to believe that it was his confidence in his ability to stop the guy that saved the man's life. In the light and shadow there that night, no one could see the empty magazine well, and that wouldn't mean anything, anyway-- who wants to be the unlucky one to catch the single round in the chamber of an improvised single-shot?

Art's sergeant started telling cops to clear out. Some of us who had hurried to get there almost got our feelings hurt. But we cleared out.

The next morning, I checked on this crazy guy that had:
-gotten drunk,
-led Art on a short pursuit after being called in by his family,
-held us all to a stand-off for almost half an hour, and
-then nearly caused an officer to be victimized by his actions.
He had been booked in for DWI and Unlawful Carrying Of A Weapon (both misdemeanors), and had been bonded out by noon. No psych hold was placed on him. (Did someone drop the ball? Oh HELL, yes.)

He can legally buy a gun, drive a car, etc.

Why is it so hard to put correct tags on the legitimately unstable guys? So much so that, with two sergeants and numerous other cops on scene, no one had the gumption to ask for one?

We need to find a way to better deal with the people whom we've identified as crazy (like Cho Seung-Hui). Right now, there aren't enough beds as the public or or private hospitals, and you pretty much have to be activelly hacking off digits and throwing them at people to get committed. How about bringing about a simpler mechanism to get a person some help BEFORE it gets to that point?

Because, right now, I'll tell you: it's pretty frickin' bleak to us who run across 'em. And saying "I told you so" isn't much solace.

Message to posterity:

While I'm not certain that anyone will keep this blog on their hard drive in the decades after I'm gone, I'll make the following observation, in an attempt to help future anthropologists and historians who are sifting through the remnants of our present, looking for an answer:
_________________________________________________________
At least half of our major news broadcast today is made up of two main stories:

1. Discussion on the findings of an inquest as to who is the biological father of a dead drug-addled slut's surviving kid.
2. Discussion of how a black minister with bad hair is decrying a white broadcaster with bad hair, for using the term "nappy-headed hoes." [Apparently, the definitive meaning of the phrase can be provided by one "Snoop Dogg"(who is about to earn his street cred in prison.)].

So don't go thinking that I haven't done anything for future generations.

_________________________________________________________

"I don't understand! They had the biggest satellite network. They had the best computers! The biggest army and the last big blue-water navy! They had the biggest economy this world had ever seen! What could possibly have caused their downf.... Ohhhhhh...!"

Measuring my abillity

I get off at 0700, then meet up with Dad. After we make a run in his pickup to move a load of my stuff to a storage unit (more on that some other time), we pick up ammo, and go practice a little with my duty rig.

Friends, I've ALWAYS hated to hear gun-toters brag that they don't ever shoot their carry guns except for qualifications. It should be a point of shame. But I see it in cops, all the time. When I got my Range Safety Officer qualification, I caught a lot of grief over how I had the audacity to make a course of fire harder than the state mandates [p. 35]. Guys would complain, and bargain. I gave them the course of fire a week or better ahead of time, but I still caught grief. "Practice!" I'd say. Nothing doing. They wanted to come shoot the straight course of fire with their duty load a couple of times a year, and never put another round downrange the rest of the year.

There's a certain fear, by some officers... men... uh people of confronting their actual abilities and inabilities. It's common at a deer camp to hear a guy refuse to check the zero on the rifle he's dragged across a thousand miles without shooting. "Aw, she's dead on-- you can be assured of that," they'll say. The truth is, they don't want to lay bare the possibility that they're not as good as they believe they are. I know that, off-hand, I can on demand put a bullet into a paper plate while standing at 100 yards with my rifles, and at 35 yards with my full-sized duty pistols. Every time.

That's not very impressive, is it? It's okay. You can say it. I'll be the first to agree that it's not very impressive. A 10 inch circle? That's gi-normous! Who could miss? Well, not me. At those ranges. Given plenty of time.

But that's my point: I know. I know. Can I do better? Probably. I don't know. But I do know that I can at least do that. I've proved it. And that puts me ahead of many of my mates.
* * *
But...

Well, here I am, almost 5 months into my newest gig, and I've shot this damned thing on exactly two occasions, both times for qualification. Shameful. SHAMEful!

So we're going to pick up some ammo (I don't reload .357 Sig), run out to a friend's private range (read: cow pasture with a berm), and do some quick drills with my issue Glock and AR. Then we hop back into the pickup, and head off to the match that a local larger deparment puts on once a month for peace officers.

A few years ago, I used to shoot this match fairly regularly, and even scored decently in it. Of course, back then, I carried my Kimber Stainless Classic 1911 .45 on duty, and it really kept me in the race, scoring very high in the accuracy stage of the match. This time, my duty gun is the Glock 31. Why? Because that's what they issued. We'll see how that goes. :rolleyes: I refuse to game it up by shooting the match with anything other than what I carry.

There's also a carbine version of the match, for a couple of bucks extra. I might as well get in some time with the AR, seeing as how I've had exactly ONE session with my PD carbine. Again, we'll see how that goes. I actually considered bringing my M1 Carbine, too. Maybe next time.