On the lighter side

Although the events in Oakland are still fresh in our minds I thought I might relate an event which occurred last Thursday which shows how much we look out for each other, regardless of the department we work for or what color our uniform is.

I had just rolled into the station when I heard our dispatcher on our channel relay a Code 3 cover request for the California Highway Patrol for a motor officer who had made a traffic stop in South City and the CHP dispatcher was not able to raise him on the radio.

Our dispatcher calmly put out the last known location of where the CHP officer had made his traffic stop. So I head out of the parking lot with lights and siren blaring and headed to the broadcasted location. North Town also had officers on the way.

We arrived at the location of the traffic stop only to spot one of our motor officers there. Of course you can imagine the surprise on his face with us motors and patrol units arriving with lights and sirens on. Naturally he asked "What's going on?" We kindly told him of the Code 3 cover request for a CHP motor at this location.

Our motor officer began to laugh saying he had just finished having a conversation with that CHP motor officer. Apparently the CHP motor officer as well as the South City motor officer had their radios turned way down to the point neither one of them could hear anything being broadcast.

The CHP motor who was "missing" saw a couple of South City patrol units being led by a motor and thought there might have been a bad traffic collision. The CHP motor officer immediately turned around and followed the units traveling Code 3. In talking with him later he was telling himself that he hoped it wasn't one of us South City motor cops that was injured.

So there we all stood as the CHP motor rolls up asking what was going on. Needless to say we all had a good laugh about it. It was very reassuring to see so many motors and patrol cars from South City and North Town there.

The CHP motor is really a good guy. He lives in South City and we're always crossing paths, even having coffee together. Will we let him live this incident down? Probably.... but at least not for a while.