Friday, June 24, 2011

Second Shift: Stickers and Ballons

Posted by: Blue

Today was the first arrest that I was involved with.  I charged and cautioned a 43 year old male for Uttering Threats.  They all tell me that I'll remember my first arrest for the rest of my career.  We'll see.  I found the whole thing relatively uneventful.  I guess because I would have expected the same reaction that I might have if I found-out that I was being arrested.  He just calmly turned around, put his hands behind his back, and my partner cuffed him.  Later, at the station, he fell asleep in the cell while waiting for the paperwork to go through the Sergeant.  As we walked in to serve him his court and ident dates, he yawned, glanced them over, and said "OK.  Thanks guys.  Hey, so are you just gonna turn me out in front of the station?  Or could I get a ride to my sister's house?"

We asked where his sister lived.  She wasn't far.  We drove him down to a drug store nearby and released him back into the wild.  The whole call was quite unremarkable.

On the other hand, the thing that I think will stand-out in my memory from today was a light tap on my shoulder from an older woman.  She wanted me to come and say something to her grandson who was  outside of the store where we were picking-up coffee.  I happily joined her after the clerk waved me through with a free coffee (a perk that I really could get used to), and was introduced to Quinn, a 7 year old boy with a smile on his face. 

Quinn's grandmother nudged him, and he smiled bigger, and said "Thank-you for doing your job to keep the city safe."  His grandmother said "We'll keep praying for all of you."  I said "I can never have too many of those."

I don't think I'll ever forget that.

I gave Quinn one of the balloons that was in my vest pocket, and two stickers.  He smiled bigger, and then he came over to the cruiser to meet my FTO.  Frank smiled and asked him how old he was and if he wanted to be a police officer when he grew up.  I didn't quite hear his response, but it sounded like he said something about it being a toss-up between a police officer and a hockey player.

As the two walked away and I saddled-up in the driver's seat, Frank volunteered, "You're getting full marks for Community Relations."  I have another officer to thank for that.  Raindog, I tip my hat.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Second Call

Posted By: Blue

I try not to contradict my wife whenever possible, but I would like to point-out that on Sunday evening, I was actually attending my second call.  My first call was here, and I'm sticking to it.

First call of my first actual shift was a sudden death (SD).  Great way to start out.  Guess it was gonna happen sooner or later.

Dude "expired" on the toilet (how cliche).  He was apparently a bit of a loner.  He called in sick Wednesday and Thursday.  Family didn't find him until Sunday.  The Medical Examiner Investigator thinks he may have actually called in sick for Thursday a day before, because he was pretty far gone. 

We advised the family not to take a look at the body.  He wasn't himself.  My Field Training Officer (FTO) took down all the relevant info while I took everything else in (the sights, the smells... the tastes... He really was decomposed.  It hung in the air.).  I had been worried about my first dead body, but as it turned out, I felt confident and at ease.  We returned to the station and my FTO wrote a lengthy report.

The remainder of the shift was relatively quiet.  We ran a few plates, attended a family disturbance, and a noise complaint.  I wrote a short report on the family disturbance, but the noise complaint was deuced (cleared with no report) with just a few comments on the computer.

And so ended my first shift.  Now I'm on four days off.  I start a six day stretch of day-shift again Friday.  Looking forward to it!

Monday, June 20, 2011

There's a First for Everything - Part II

A few more firsts that have been noteworthy:

1. First special occasion (father's day) where I had to share my husband with the city and spend dinner at my mom's with the kids.

2. First time I kissed Blue goodbye and gave him the old "Stay safe out there" line.

3. First time I received a text from my officer while he was on duty letting me know how things were going.

4. First time I went to bed by myself knowing that Blue was out on the streets, keeping the city safe.

Blue is still sleeping. I'm sitting at the kitchen table with the kids while they eat their breakfast making sure they keep quiet. We only talked for a moment when he got home early this morning but it sounds like he had a really good first shift...and a crazy first call.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

All Smiles

We were all smiles around the dinner table last night.

Seconds after walking through the door Blue had his shinny new badge out, showing it off to the kids and I. He had just finished meeting his Field Training Officer and his Sargent, packing-up his Academy locker and unpacking everything into his district locker.

Blue wrote his final test on Monday (he got a great mark, btw)  and ran the PO-PAT on Wednesday (shaved a bunch off of his original time too). On Thursday he was issued his 'piece' and on Friday he was given his review from his platoon Sargent (a glowing review I might add).

Blue was pounding his fist on the table in emphasis over how excited he is about a number of things and Waffle was pounding hers right along with him (although I'm sure she had no idea what he was talking about). The Boy wanted to sit beside him at dinner because, in his words, "Daddy's a cop...he's cool", and I eagerly ate-up every little bit of info he shared about the division he was placed in.

I know that there are hard, tired days up ahead and a very sharp learning curve looming over our heads but it's nice to feel this excited and optimistic about Blue's job. It's nice that he finished that portion of Academy at the top of his game. It's also nice that other's seem to see how well suited he is for this work. I'll let him blog more about it later since I don't want to steal all of his thunder...but I'm just so dang proud of that guy!

Monday, June 13, 2011

Blue Man Group

I was walking the kids home from school around noon last Friday. The sun was shining, it was a beautiful day. Waffle was having a piggy back and The Boy was zooming around, minding his business on his scooter.

We were one block away from our street when I started seeing a lot of blue...and not the good kind. Freakin' gangs. There were roughly fifteen young guys standing in the front yard of a derelict house. The same house where shots were fired a few weeks ago. I've seen people hanging around that house before but it's hard to imagine that anyone actually lives there. Maybe no one does. Maybe it's a convenience store of sorts.

I tried not to lock eyes with anyone. A whole other group of the blue guys were walking up the sidewalk to the home. A million scenarios came rushing through my mind, a normal occurrence when your arm hair stands on end and your spidey goes off. After the kids and I passed, a truck came roaring down the street with a few more sitting in the back, hooting and hollering.

I picked-up the pace.

Ugh, East District.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Highs and Lows

(This post is inspired by John Rambo's Wife's most recent post just to give a bit of a random update since it's been so quiet around here.)

A number of years ago I lived in a house with a bunch of other girls (who, before moving in, were complete strangers to me). The house was very plain, nothing fancy. Whenever I'm asked to think back to my favorite place in the world I always think about the back porch that was attached to the kitchen of 81 Livingstone. It was our dining room. We had a huge table that sat on the covered porch and we ate all of our meals at it. Each night we all gathered around the table and talked over dinner about our days, the highs and the lows. It didn't hurt that our neighbour's daughter would choose that hour to practise her incredible opera singing. It also didn't hurt that the house was in tropical Australia.

Highs and Lows became kind-of a game for us each night. We would share our stories, however personal or deep or funny or embarrassing they were. With each story we grew closer and closer to each other and after a few months we felt like a family.

(All of that was just a back story for why I'm calling it "Highs and Lows") So today I'll share a high and a low with you but I'll let you guess which is which.

Blue got his schedule and his first shift is less than two weeks away.

Blue and I were on our way out to a wedding a few days ago when the transmission in our truck blew.

There. Highs and Lows. Feel free to share yours.