Weren't you the Officer who.....

A few weeks ago I handled a hit and run traffic collision. The call came out early during my shift for the collision which occurred the day prior. The gist of the call was one neighbor (neighbor A) had their car parked on the street in front of their house. The other neighbor's (neighbor B) teen aged daughter parked her car in front of her house. It appeared that the daughter left the car in neutral and didn't set the parking brake.

She gets out of the car and goes inside. Sometime during that late afternoon, early evening the daughter's car rolls forward and into the rear of neighbor A's parked car. Neighbor A was a little upset because they had recently had the rear of that very same car fixed from a prior hit and run traffic collision which caused substantial damage.

Of course neighbor A' version is that he very politely walked next door to contact neighbor B about the "bump" between their cars. Neighbor B is very irate, and insulting during this initial contact. Of course I later contact neighbor B and his demeanor was polite and neighbor A's was very threatening and rude.

I facilitated the exchange of information between the neighbors and all went away happy. You'd think that was the end of the story right? Wrong.

The next day I'm in traffic court for a seat belt ticket and unsafe lane change I had issued to a teen aged driver. As I'm sitting in the court room I see neighbor A sitting in the row in front of me and several seats over. He sees me and mouths "Hi". I give him a nod back before he looks forward.

I look at my traffic subpoena and notice the last name of my defendant is the same last name as neighbor A. Yep, it was his daughter I had cited while driving one of the cars which caused all of the drama from the day before.

Biased Journalism? Oh You Betcha!!

The other night I was watching the news and the story came up about the shooting death of Oscar Grant and the change of venue for the trial of former BART Officer Johannes Mehserle.

As I listened to the story, the pictures of both victims caught my attention. The picture of Oscar Grant showed a smiling young man. The picture of a stern faced Johannes Mehserle was his booking photo at Santa Rita Jail. Now who in the hell would be smiling for a booking photo, especially for this situation?

This pissed me off! Okay we all know this is a very touchy situation with fingers being pointed everywhere claiming racism, police cover up, and so on and so forth.

Nobody knows exactly what happened on that BART platform or what was going through the minds of Oscar Grant and Johannes Mehserle. Unfortunately Oscar Grant can't tell his side.

Oscar Grant didn't deserve to die, but the media is painting him to be a great guy and anglicising him, while the media demonizes Johannes Mehserle. Tell me that the two different photos don't have an affect on public opinion and if you believe that you probably believe in the Wizard of Oz.

That just goes to show that our media, meaning television news and newspapers aren't neutral, unbiased and are not reporting all of the facts about both of these individuals and if they have they have minimized the criminal history of one of the individuals involved.

I'm glad the Judge granted a change of venue, the Bay Area is too inflamed on both sides to allow a fair trial.

Where are the ethics of these reporters be they television or newspaper? Sensationalizing the story and twisting the facts is what appears to drive these people to get more viewers or readers. Shame on those "sheeple" who's opinions rely on the crap that is written or televised.

Missing Person?

I hear a lot of radio traffic during my shift, especially when our Communications Center dispatches for three other police agencies and several substations not including South City PD.

My motor partner, Juan Jalisco and I were on our way to breakfast when I heard the call for one of South City's patrol units about a missing person.

During our breakfast, the officer who was dispatched to the "missing person" call showed up and tells us all about his call.

Apparently an Asian Indian couple got into an argument. Hubby says to wife he wants a divorce and for her to go back to India. She says sure and packs her bags. Hubby drives wife to SF International Airport and drops her off. After the wife walked away with her bags into the airport, Hubby drove off only to circle around expecting to see his wife curbside asking to come home.

Hubby drives by the terminal and his wife wasn't waiting curbside. He figured a couple of more laps around and she'd be there....NOT!

Hubby had a change of heart knowing his bluff had been called. He was able to speak to his wife a few times via cell phone and white airport terminal courtesy phone trying to get her to step outside. Well she didn't step outside after she had hung up on him.

Needless to say, he drove home and then called the police to report his wife as "missing". According to the Officer, he contacted the Hubby who could not comprehend the fact that his wife was not a missing person and that a report would not be taken. He was adamant about her missing person status.

The Officer politely reminded him that he had told his wife he wanted a divorce and to go back to India and even drove her to the airport.

I guess Hubby got the clue because he hung up on the Officer.

To the Hubby, be careful of what you ask for because as in your case it looks like you got it. I guess the old saying "You catch it, you clean it" is something above his comprehension.

Personal Accountability, what's that?

I haven't yet met anyone who enjoys getting a ticket. I've probably heard about every excuse under the sun about why a driver committed a vehicle code violation after getting stopped by yours truly.

I was sitting at one of our local hot spots parked along the curb out in plain view watching the morning salmon run (commute). I see this car drive by me with a female holding her cell phone in her left hand, up to her left ear and was obviously having a conversation.

I stopped the car and walked up to the driver door. Usually the driver will sit there silently until I tell them why I've stopped them, etc., etc. Well as I stood by the driver door as the driver was rolling down her window, I get the "Why'd you stop me!" in that tone of voice like I had inconvenienced her.

So I told her I had stopped her for her not using a hands free device while talking on her cell phone. I get the "I wasn't talking on my cell phone" excuse. I politely told her she drove right in front of me, with no tint on the windows and the fact that her cell phone was pink and clearly seen in her hand. She again said she wasn't using it. I told her that her cell phone was pink.

After asking for the usual driver's license, registration and proof of insurance, she's fishing all throughout the front passenger compartment for the stuff. She tells me its in the trunk of her car. So I follow her back to the trunk and she cannot find her registration and proof of insurance. She fishes out her driver's license from her purse and her pink cellular phone fell to the ground. I asked if I could look at her call log and her obvious answer was "no".

I'm sure the car is insured as it's a newer Volvo S80 sedan. So I tell her if she finds the registration and insurance, just show it to me when I come back to her driver door.

So I scratched out a quick rag for the hands free device violation and walk back up to the driver door. She tells me she couldn't find them. So I politely tell her that I'll give her a verbal warning on those missing documents and she'll just have to deal with the hands free violation which incidentally I told her was not a moving violation meaning no point on her driving record.

She tells me she isn't going to sign the ticket and to just give her her copy. I do the usual, "This isn't an admission of guilt" thing to help sell the ticket. She tells me she has her registration and insurance and begins to look for it again and tells me "I ain't signing no ticket."

As she's turning the interior of her car upside down, I politely interrupted her and told her that I'd have to place her under arrest and take her to jail in the hopes that her case can be heard in front of a Judge sometime during the day. She gets out of her car still looking for the missing documents I had verbally warned her for.

She tells me her husband is a cop. I asked her where he works as there was no confidentiality to her driver license or vehicle license plate. She very impolitely tells me "Don't worry about it."

Well I've just about had enough of her attitude. I had been polite and professional to her. So not recalling if the registration on her car was current, I asked dispatch for the information again as the month and year tab on her license plate showed the her car to be expired.

Once I got on the radio she stopped tearing up the inside of her car and asked "What are you doing?". My reply, "Don't worry about it." During my request I also asked for a supervisor to respond as sometimes when you have those stripes on your arm it helps to get the ticket signed. Turns out her registration was current.

It turns out her husband isn't a cop but had attended a police academy. While waiting for the Sergeant to arrive I politely added the not having her registration, insurance and improper tabs. While she stood there trying to call hubby on her cell phone, I held my portable radio up to my mouth, did not key the mic and asked for a patrol car to respond to my location for transport of an in-custody to the jail.

When she heard that she immediately said "Okay I'll sign it." and muttered "cracker" under her breath. So after she signed it, I reminded her of how much more difficult she had made such a simple incident which almost cause her to go to jail. Not to mention the extra time spent when she could have quickly been back on the road on her way to work.

So ticket signed, her copy in hand, another customer blaming the "po-po" for all of her problems in the world. She gives me a parting shot by calling me a "pecker wood". End of story right? Not!

She called our front lobby and bitched at the Office Tech to make a complaint about me. Hell I hadn't even had a chance to make another traffic stop! She was very rude to him and became even angrier when told she'd have to call our dispatch center. So she calls our dispatch center and begins bitching at the dispatcher. The call gets dispatched to my supervisor about my rude, racist, unprofessional behavior about my "profiled" traffic stop.

Oh did I mention that the driver was a certain ethnic group? So she ranted and raved to the Sergeant. As soon as I heard the complaint come over the air, I called the Sergeant and told him I was coming to the station to talk to him about it.

Unbeknown to the driver, I had digitally recorded the entire contact. Complaint squashed. It's always fun to listen to them back stepping when they're told "You know I listened to the Officer's recording of the traffic stop...."

For those that read this and are of the ilk to make false complaints against Officers for doing their job and those drivers who refuse to accept the responsibility for their actions, piss on you!

I love my job! For as long as I've been doing it I still enjoy it. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my weekends like everyone else does but when Monday is rolling around I'm looking forward to getting back on the bike and "making friends" and not looking for an excuse that I haven't used before to call in sick.

What liberal repealed the law that made it a crime for people to make false allegations against police officers? I think it'd be nostalgic to hang them by the feet and stone them.

It's even a SMALLER world

I'm sure everyone who reads this will recall a time in their life when you've come across one of those "HOLY CRAP! (or some other expletive) situations. This story has nothing to do with police work other than a couple of people involved.

This one however had no tragedy to it as we see and read on television and in the papers, this story has a great happy ending which there are not enough of.

My daughter-in-law is a really sweet girl, I should say woman. Her and my son were married almost a year and a half ago. My daughter-in-law was adopted at birth and since I've known her she has made several attempts to locate her birth mom. She was born locally and you'd think that it would be easy. Unfortunately she kept running into dead ends.

My wife was talking to me about trying to locate my birth mother as I'm also adopted. My wife walked over to our computer as she continued to talk about finding my birth mom and did a yahoo search for finding birth mothers.

She came across adoption.com and saw "free search" and the word "California". The wife being the incognito private investigator that she is, typed in some of our daughter-in-law's information and very unexpectedly.... BAM! A return on the information!

All of the information matched!! Hospital, city, birthdate, gender, adoptee name and birth mom's name and delivering doctor's name! We used the usual internet search engines and located several possibilities. We called our daughter-in-law and told her what my wife had discovered. They verified the information talking as women do when they're on the phone, crying, laughing and crying again.

Her birth mom had used her maiden name on the website and showed she was married. As we further searched we learned her married name.

As we continued our search to narrow down and locate her birth mother, she called us and told her she thought she found her MySpace page. We checked it and low and behold, there was our daughter-in-law in the MySpace picture, only it wasn't my daughter-in-law. The same colored hair, same eyes, nose, cheeks and smile. They even held their heads the same way when having their picture taken.

We had found her!!!! We were so happy that our daughter-in-law's search and her birth-mother's patient wait were now over.
My daughter-in-law asked me take a picture of the MySpace page photograph of her birth mom and husband with my cell phone and send her a pix message of it. No problem, I have the technical know how to handle that one.

I looked at the man standing next to my daughter-in-law's birth mother and that's when the "HOLY FORNICATION!" (to put it nicely) situation occurred. I had to look at the picture again and repeated my earlier statement several times over.
The first name of her husband on the original adoption.com website and the married name we found later now made sense.

The man standing next to birth mom in the picture is a Police Officer in the same department whom I've worked with since 2006!!! We've worked different shifts while in patrol and now bump into each other on occasion as we're both assigned to specialty positions within our department.

I called him and left a message. He later called back and the rest is history. Birth mom and daughter are now catching up on 24 years of lost time.

Yes, miracles still happen and the wife went out and bought some lotto tickets.

Ever think about downsizing ?

Anybody who rides a motorcycle on our public roadways will be able to tell you a story or two about a close call with a car. As we all know well, those of us on two wheels won't fair as good as those on four wheels with all that metal around you. You can be the most defensive driver in the world and still have a few close calls.

Those of us who are lucky enough to ride a motorcycle for a living day in and day out stand more of a chance becoming too intimate with other cars on the road.

I was responding to a call of a CHP motor on a traffic stop at the south end of our city on the interstate who was dealing with an irate driver. I get there and see nothing unusual. The CHP motor officer held up 4 fingers indicating that he was Code 4 (situation under control) as I rolled to a stop.

After the truck driver had left, we had a brief conversation. Needless to say the location of the stop was just south of the last exit for South City. I jumped back onto the interstate and took the next exit in the neighboring city to the south to get back onto the northbound side of the interstate.

I'm waiting at a red light behind this huge Hummer (H2). The light cycled to green as I made a right turn behind the Hummer as we drove toward the onramp for the interstate. The onramp for the interstate has two lanes which eventually turn into one lane about 200 feet. This onramp curved to the right and with an uphill grade.

I made my right turn onto the onramp behind the Hummer. I noticed the Hummer made a wide right turn and straddled both lanes. I stayed behind the Hummer not knowing the driver's intention. When the Hummer moved over to the left lane I began to accelerate and pass it in the right lane.

I have this habit of looking into cars as I drive by for things like seatbelt or cellular phone violations. As I'm passing this Hummer and I'm right about at the right rear passenger door I see this Hummer start moving to the right into my lane. I had to move over onto the shoulder of the onramp to avoid becoming one with the soundwall and really turned on the throttle.

Now as I passed this huge behemoth of a vehicle, I look over and see the driver talking on her cellular phone. Since I'm already on the shoulder I slowed down to let the Hummer pass me. I then did what comes so natural to motor cops, I got behind it and turn on my pretty flashing emergency lights.

The Hummer pulled over on the shoulder of the interstate where I contacted the female driver and told her why I had stopped her.

She of course told me the vehicle was too big and that she had to occupy both lanes because the sides of her vehicle would be to close or even scrape the soundwalls. She also said she wasn't talking on her cellular phone, but was listening to her voice mail. She just couldn't comprehend the "hands free" law here in California and how it just doesn't apply to talking on the phone.

I noticed that her address came from the snooty North Town where too many of the residents believe they're "special" and deserve every break their stature in life entitles them to.....BULL SHIT! But it sure explained her attitude.

So after getting her driver license, registration and insurance, I told her I was going to issue a citation to her. She had to ask me, "What's a citation? Is that the same as a ticket?" It just goes to show that being affluent has nothing to do with the level of intelligence..... She did tell me that she was in a hurry and to make it quick which was right in line with the attitude of many persons in North Town.

Now here's a clue. Don't ever tell a motor cop or any cop for that matter that your in a hurry and to make it quick because you'll get the exact opposite from me. I walked back to my motor and did what I love to do.... write tickets.

Since she was in such a hurry and demanding that I make it quick, I took my sweet ass time. My printing on that ticket was so neat you'd think it was done by some architect on one of their drawings.

After finishing her ticket, I walked back up to the Hummer. Because we were on the interstate with cars zooming by at 65+ mph (in California it means more on the plus side) I had made a passenger side approach on my initial contact and the second contact to issue her citation.

For those not familiar to law enforcement, by making a passenger side approach it keeps me away from the side where the traffic on the interstate is, as well as gives me protection using the vehicle I had stopped.

So I told the driver I had cited her for straddling lanes, unsafe lane change and yes, the cellular phone violation. She of course told me she personally knows the "Police Chief of Sonoma County". Her statement verified she was truly a blond because there ain't no such thing as a "Police Chief" for a county in California. Now had she said she knew the Sheriff of Sonoma County, she at would have at least sounded somewhat intelligent.

Needless to say, she told me she was going to see me in court with her lawyer and tell the Judge what happened and she'll win. I asked her if she would bring the Police Chief too.

Her last parting shot was that I had contacted her on the passenger side because her vehicle is so wide. I wasn't going to get into a pissing contest about tactics and safety with her as I handed her my cite book with pen and said "Press hard, three copies."

I handed her copy of the ticket to her as she crumpled it up and tossed it toward the floor board. I just love it when people have that reaction. I told her since it was obvious that she couldn't safely manage her Hummer she ought to think about downsizing to something like those new "smart cars".

Evergreen State Drivers

Living in California for pretty much all of my life, you get used to the rat race, I have to hurry to work type of drivers. We see them every morning on our way to work and again while driving home. When I ride my personal motorcycle to work, I usually zip to work doing a comfortable 75 mph. But even at that speed I'll have motorists creep up on my ass and I'm not even in the so called "fast lane".

Now I typically don't mind if someone creeps up on my ass while I'm in my car, but I tend not to like it when I'm on my motorcycle. I harbor those thoughts of having a hand full of ball bearings in my hand to toss up behind me to let the driver behind me know that they're too close. Just a thought mind you.

Recently while on a trip in Washington State, the wife and I picked up our rental car at the airport and drove from Seattle, around the south part of Puget Sound and up north along the Sounds west side to Port Townsend.

The speed limit is 60 mph on Washington State freeways. It took some doing not to drive the usual Californian style of 75 mph or faster. I found it easiest to put the cruise control on 65 mph. I was amazed that most if not all of the other drivers were going the speed limit or slightly faster like I was.

I thought to myself, "Geeze, those Washington State Troopers must be some hard asses and not give any breaks to speeding motorists".

Being well into the groove of cruising at 65 mph, and I'll tell you it sure seems like you're traveling at a snails pace, I was feeling pretty relaxed and taking in the beautiful scenery. My wife had a harder time adjusting to the speed limit than I did.

While driving through Tacoma, the traffic was bumper to bumper. I didn't experience the usual Californian "You're not gonna take that space in front of me" mentality when trying to move over. I found the drivers to be courteous and had no problem making my way over to the interchange.

After getting out of Tacoma, the traffic thinned and soon enough we were back up to that sound barrier breaking speed of 65 mph. Once again I was driving along, relaxed, enjoying the scenery and pace.

Driving northbound on Hwy 16 across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was very scenic to me. The contrast of the evergreen trees which dominate the skyline as well as the contrasting deep blue waters of Puget Sound and the light blue sky was calming. I drove along with not a worry in the world.

Hwy 16 is made up of two northbound lanes and two southbound lanes separated by a very wide median of green grass. The traffic had become very light. I think I saw more cars going southbound than I did going my direction.

As we neared the Bremerton Naval Shipyard on Hwy 3, I saw a Ford F-150 coming up from behind at a high rate of speed. So I moved over to the right lane to let speed racer zoom by. As the truck zoomed by, you could probably guess which state license plate was on it...... yep California.

I guess there are those who don't do as the natives do.