LaDonna asked me last week, ‘How in the world did you manage with your hubby in danger, violence wise and hooker wise, for so many years?’

I was frequently asked a similar question: Don’t you worry? My standard reply was, my mother-in-law did enough worrying for the entire Department. But let me clarify by saying, I did worry, sort of. And here’s why I sort of worried but didn’t allow the fear to own me. First of all hubby is smarter than the average bear. He was born and old soul. He was highly trained. His brain works nonstop and he is an excellent judge of character. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said after we meet someone, “What a nice person.” And he has responded, “He’s a liar.” And sure enough it comes to fruition. He has always put the hurt on our daughter’s potential beaus and given the evil eye to some none too savory friends our boys have brought home.

I’ve also seen my husband in action. I’ve seen him morph in the bat of an eye from good-natured guy to bad-ass-don’t-fuck-with-me cop. The PD kept their officers in shape and well trained. They have to. It’s a jungle out there.

Now all of that said, there was one time when I nearly killed my husband because he…well here’s the story.

Sound asleep one night I was woken by a knock at my front door. I looked at the clock on the nightstand. 3:00 a.m. My heart stopped. I knew it could mean only one thing. I lay frozen in bed. Another knock. In slow motion I saw myself get out of bed. I felt like I was headed to the guillotine. As I walked very slowly toward the front to door, forcing myself to take each step, I heard the low scramble of a police radio on the other side. My worst suspicions were confirmed. My heart nearly exploded. I almost fainted right there in the hallway. I knew it was my husband’s sergeant coming to tell me he had been shot or worse, he was dead. So many things raced through my mind. How would I survive without this man? How would the kids handle it? The girls and boys loved their daddy, would they recover? Would I? I stood there for what seemed like an hour, my hand reached out, but unable to open the door.

Then I hear a voice. “Karin, open the door, it’s me.” Oh, I opened the door alright. I opened it so fast the butt head on the other side was taken aback. I punched him so hard in the trauma plate I nearly broke my hand, told him I hated him and then slammed the door shut in his face, and cried like a baby. He managed to cajole me into opening the door again. Surprised he asks, “Why d’ya do that?”
I explained he scared 20 years off my life, then asked him what the hell he was doing there.
“I had to 300 a kid and the foster home was down the street. I thought I’d come by and say hi, but I didn’t have my keys so I knocked.”

My response? “Who the fuck stops by to say hi at 3 a.m. in the morning?”

He apologized and left with his tail between his legs. I guess in hindsight up to that point I was just as scared as any other wife, but hadn’t dealt with it.

Then there was the day he told me (big mistake) he was going out with the warrants team and was front man. Boiled down, he got to bust down the door and yell, “Police!” Sounds exciting and I suppose for him it was, but he is also the first person the bad guys sees and usually shoots. I put my foot down after that day. “No more front door man!”

I found out that that wasn’t the first time, but it was the last.

As far as worrying about the hookers? Egads, they were a nasty lot. I can remember once driving through the town we lived in, which was not the town hubby worked in (that is a no brainier, who wants live amongst those you arrest?) anyway, hubby recognized one of his hookers, pulled over and told her to get back to his town. She just grinned a toothless grin and asked for a ride. I told hubby, “Don’t even think about it.”

My worries weren’t with the hookers out on the streets; it was the subtler ones, the ones who worked in the Department I had to watch out for. And watch I did.

Welcome to Cop Talk. For fourteen years I served a northern California city as a police officer. In that time, I have seen pretty much everything that can be seen through the eyes of a cop. Some of it was good, some was bad and some was just down right ugly. There were times of prolonged boredom and instances of controlled sheer terror. I have seen the worse that man can do to his fellow man as well as the out pouring of kindness from one stranger to another stranger in a time of need. I have experienced the complete spectrum of human emotion and managed to keep my sanity and my marriage.

I may not be able to answer all of your questions. An on the job injury forced me into retirement four years ago and I am sure some things have changed. I will, however, endeavor to give you the best legal answer based upon my training and experience as well as my personal insight. Not every state has the same laws. Not every department handles things in the same way. Even codes can differ from department to department. In the east they call a patrol car a “prowler”, some refer to it as a “squad car” others a “cruiser” and some of us, “that piece of shit the city makes me work in every night”.

Let’s try to have some fun with this along the way, shall we?

“Officer Friendly 10-8.”

“10-4 Officer Friendly, prepare to copy a detail.”

Dear Officer Friendly -

How much does a cop rely on his “gut instinct” or do you think this is just a Hollywood myth?

I’m a firm believer in gut instinct. Some people have it, some don’t and for some it’s like another weapon in their belt. Working mids one night, I was dispatched to cover another officer who made a bicycle stop. Upon arrival, I found the officer talking with the cyclist who was still astride the bike. Who am I kidding, he wasn’t a cyclist, he was a dirt bag parolee but I digress. As I approached the pair, I heard the officer advise the subject to get off of the bike. My gut instinct and a measure of common sense told me not to let him off the bike.

Here’s the deal: While astride the bike with both feet on the ground and the bike between his legs, dirt bag isn’t going anywhere in a hurry. If he jumps up on the bike you knock him down. If he tries to make a run for it he has to drop the bike first, giving you time to react, either way, advantage cop.

So, I immediately suggested he stay on the bike but dirt bag is already in motion and we’re not going to argue about it in the middle of the street. Dirt bag realizes I’m the more experienced of the two officers and that things are about to change. No sooner does the bike hit the ground and dirt bag is beating feet. My instinct, my gut reaction, foretold of his escape and I was in motion before he knew he wanted to be. In taking him down, I ended up on the bottom and in a bad position but held onto his throat while my junior partner called for help and then joined in. The blue wave arrived and dirt bag went to jail for a variety of things including the outstanding warrants that caused him to run in the first place.

Oh, yeah, I believe in gut instinct.

Dear Officer Friendly, I have a few questions. What’s a “Detail?”

Answer: A detail is a special assignment for a determined period of time. It is an assignment that may take an officer or detective away from his normal duties in order to concentrate on only the special assignment. In some departments for example, a “Homicide Detail” is that unit which only investigates homicide and is not a special assignment but the duty the officer is assigned to.In a city with a small department, that may have only a handful of murders a year. What does a Homicide Investigator do the rest of the time? Work cold cases? Assignments on another squad?

Answer: In small departments where the homicide rate is low, homicide detectives will work other cases through the year. Usually, detectives/inspectors are assigned duty as stolen vehicles, burglaries, assaults and missing person’s investigators. When a homicide occurs, their supervisor would assign a team of two to handle that particular homicide in addition to their other investigative duties.

How would an investigator at the station get called to the scene, by phone? Is the main building even called a station?

Answer: In a small department, there is usually only one building housing the Police Department. It is referred to by the rank and file as: The Station, the P.D. (police department) or sometimes The House. I used P.D. most of the time and often used The Station. While in the station, a detective could be notified of a detail by Dispatch calling him on the phone, or most likely one of the following: Dispatch notifies the patrol watch commander of the homicide and he in turn notifies the investigator supervisor who then assigns it or Dispatch could notify the investigator supervisor directly.

What’s in those giant police RV’s they bring out when something’s happening? Would they bring it out for a dead guy in an alley?

Answer: The large RV you see at certain scenes is filled with hot coffee and lots of jelly donuts for the cops. Just kidding. That RV is a special response unit and usually it is a mobile command center for a critical incident. It will have a radio capable of linking with other departments, a TV for getting local news bulletins like during a storm, computers to write reports and gather information from the department or county data banks, comfortable seats for tired officers, a microwave and sometimes even a shower and toilet. It is where the Incident Commander can be found running the show. It is often used as PR at civic events in smaller departments. It would not be used for a homicide investigation.

A sampling of next weeks questions: Officer Friendly, I recently heard the term ’suicide by cop.’ what does that mean?

From my agent 2 seconds ago:

The First Line Contest entries went off to Lauren last night.  I asked her to give me a ball park time frame of getting to them.  Of course I also let her know all involved parties would be dancing off the rooftops if she requested more material. I’ll let y’all know when I know. 

Secodly, I wanted to remind you that tomorrow, COP TALK goes live here at The Write Life.  Officer Friendly has been busy answering the questions posed to him. While he can’t answer all of them every week, the ones he can’t get to will roll over to the next week.

So, please stand by.

K*

Hubby sent this to me this am.

 A guy goes to the supermarket and notices a beautiful blond woman
wave at him and say hello. He’s rather taken aback, because he can’t place
where he knows her from.

So he says, “Do you know me?”

To which she replies, “I think you’re the father of one of my kids.”

Now his mind travels back to the only time he had ever been
unfaithful to his wife and says, “My God, are you the stripper from my bachelor
party that I laid on the pool table with all my buddies watching, while
your partner whipped me with wet celery and then stuck a carrot up my
butt???”

She looks into his eyes and calmly says……… “No, I’m your son’s math teacher.”

  K*

         ”Hell, I’ve got kids myself, Deborah, so I can see how something like this can happen—what with you being a single momma and all. It’s a hectic, overwhelming day and then the kid starts to whine.” Stuart Albright, Jamesville’s chief of police, leaned forward in his wood chair, bracing beefy forearms against the scarred surface of the interrogation table.           

       He was so close now Deborah could smell the hint of onions on his breath, hear the smoke-raspy catch to his breathing. She drew back, retreating until the wood slats of her chair pressed hard against her spine, trying to think past the exhaustion, past the icy bite of fear.          

       “It’s all about the little things, isn’t it,” Albright continued, “he wants pizza instead of peas for dinner, or maybe he just won’t go to bed—the point is he starts to whine. Whine. Whine. Whine.”