Tango-Zulu II

Posted by: Blue

Last night, our first call was at one of the hospitals in our district.  A psych patient had barricaded himself at the end of the hallway and armed himself with a chair and a pillowcase with two billiard balls inside.

He was an ex-C.O. and had gotten into coke and meth, ruining his career, his marriage, his family and his brain.

We tried for about two minutes to convince him to drop the weapon before I pulled the trigger on the X2 and gave him a 5 second ride.  He tensed and the other three officers moved-in.  He was brought to the ground safely, disarmed and handcuffed.  He was uninjured and the nurses were able to sedate him.

I much prefer the Taser to my other intermediate weapon options when it comes to certain scenarios like this.  There are fewer chances of serious injury both to the subject and to the officers.

Intelligence Quotient

Posted by: Blue

Me: "Man is he ever dumb, hey?"

JT: "I don't think he could pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel."

Donations

Posted by: Blue

We are currently using phones at the work desks in the station which have been donated to us by a local Catholic charity.

The Service didn't have a budget for telephones.  The station didn't have cell or radio reception until recently either, so using a cell phone was out too.

Last week, a signal booster was installed which allowed us to text our spouses that we would be home late... Or call for help if the station was under siege.

Soup Can Cops

Posted by: Blue

Of the toil of policing, JT quipped the other day: "It's like trying to empty the ocean with a soup can."

Murders

Posted by: Blue

There were two murders in the city last night.  Two districts were tied-up.  At one point, I counted 92 dispatchable calls pending in the queue (not including around 100 call for report cars for break and enters and property crimes.

JT and I bounced from call to call, trying to put out fires before they spread before we were chained down to a Mental Health Act (MHA) call that required a hospital wait.  That carried us through the last half of the night.

Ugly City Bitch

Posted by: Blue

The drunk woman we breached two nights ago oscillated between pleasant and jovial to bouts of maniacally violent rages.

During her down swings, she would spit and kick at the doors, while "rapping":

"Rack-rack city bitch!  Ugly, ugly city bitch!  Ugly city bitch, ugly, ugly city bitch!  Rack-rack city bitch!"

Find a link to the song here.  Be forewarned, the link contains explicit lyrics and mature video content.

Summer

Posted by: Blue

I'm looking forward to the summer.

We are doing some renovations to the house; I'm putting up a garage.

The only fall-back has been a caveat that the city put on my property 65 years ago for an intended drainage basin on the easternmost five feet of the lot.  It was never put in, and it's clear that it never will be.

Nonetheless, the city won't allow a variance.  Red tape is red tape.

We decided to move the garage over six feet and leave room for a greenhouse on the East side, which doesn't require a permit.

I suppose it could become a problem in another 65 years, if the city decides at that time that it is suddenly absolutely necessary to stop procrastinating and put in a pipe.

A Life Changing Moment

Posted by: Blue

Three nights ago I had an impaired driving arrest. He blew 230 mg% (.230 for the Americans). He was around three times the legal limit when we arrested him.

On the way to jail, he told us that we had ruined his life and that his marriage was over.

I looked him in the eye and told him I hoped his marriage was strong enough to weather the trouble he had got himself into. Then I told him that he had no one to blame but himself if it wasn't.

He hung his head and started to cry.

Dad

Posted by: Blue

My father died on February 17. He had a sudden pulmonary embolism.

It has been a hard month, but would have been much more difficult without loving co-workers, friends and family.

I have been reminded of the beauty in life and the things I have to be grateful for.

Numbers

Posted by: Blue

When a person is fingerprinted for a criminal offence, their fingerprints are numbered. Canada wide, the number is known as an FPS number for Finger Print Serial Number. Our service has its own serial number for each person. Generally, on a first offence, it will take some time to have the fingerprints numbered federally. If the charges are stayed prior to obtaining an FPS number, typically the person only has "inside" numbers for our service, rather than "outside" numbers as well. When they have both, they are often referred to as an FPS-er.

When we run people on the computer, generally a red-flag is when they have numbers.

Example:

Me: "Did you run this guy?"
JT: "Ya. He's got numbers. I'm just checking what they're for."

First Aid Details

Posted by: Blue

Some quick info from my tactical officer first aid course recertification:

• It takes as little as 90 seconds for catastrophic blood loss to occur from an untreated femoral artery bleed. As little as 150 seconds from an untreated brachial artery bleed.
• The most common death by a treatable injury in battle is a bleed-out from a femoral or brachial artery. 
• Chances of survival for a person whose heart and lungs have stopped functioning with CPR alone is between 2% and 5%. Survival chances increase to between 70% and 75% in the event that an AED is available and used appropriately. 
•  Tactical first aid changes the typical ABC (airway, breathing, circulation) of civilian first aid to  CAB, because catastrophic blood loss becomes more dangerous than breathing in the first four minutes. 
• A bleed from the torso is treated by packing the wound and applying indirect pressure. 
• A sucking chest wound is a hole in the rib cage area of the torso which allows air to enter the body, causing danger of collapsed lungs. An occlusive dressing prevents further air from compressing the organs. A gloved hand is one of the simplest ways to apply an occlusive dressing. 

A Broken Family

Posted by: Blue

Last week, our last call of the night had an officer on our shift deploy the new Taser for the first time. He hit the accused with both cartridges, after the first blast wasn't enough to convince him to get off of his ex-girlfriend, whom he was straddling and pummelling to a bloody pulp. 

We arrived on scene a few minutes later. I learned that the two shared children had been trying to pry daddy off of mommy. The four year old was seemingly OK. But the two year old had blood covering his face, from one of his father's back-strokes taken to his nose as he rained blows down on the child's mother while the toddler tried to wedge himself between the two. 

I asked the mother for a cloth. She was already more concerned about the whereabouts of her cell phone than the wellbeing of her bleeding baby. I cleaned the boy, changed his day-old diaper and then put clothes on him that I found in a pile on the couch. He had been shivering each time the door opened. 

By the time we were finishing the video statement with the victim, she was expressing regret that her baby daddy was going to be locked-up. She refused the hospital for her injuries, instead deciding to head home and not pick up her children from her sister-in-law's until the next morning, so she could get cosy with the guy she had been beaten for texting to that night. 

Dad won't be convicted, and will almost certainly be out on bail long before trial. She wasn't going to show-up to testify for his upcoming case from the last time he beat her senseless. This time won't be any different.