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.

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.

Summer

Posted by: Blue

I've been wiling away the summer somewhat lazily. Blog included.

We've been out to the beach and camping and fishing and BBQing and enjoying the short, hot months of summer up North here.

I had a rough winter this past year. I'm hoping that this one is a little less trying, a little less cold and a whole lot shorter.

Hope you are all well.

Cheers.

Blue

MHA

Posted by: Blue

The bi-polar patient we picked up two nights ago was in his manic stage.

He told my partner we had to kill Gretzky.

He also told the nurse he was going to climb down his v-neck, crawl up his crack and come out behind him to straighten-out his spine.

Then he threatened to rip my partner's head off with his bare hands and kick it around like a soccer ball.

It took 3 doses of Valium to put him out.

The Weight

Posted by: Blue

A story from The Spectator, written by an anonymous Hamilton Police Officer.  It is well worth a read if you'd like to know what it is like to live the life of a cop.  His words (though it may just as easily have been written by a female, I'll refer to him as male, because I see myself when I read the article) are very wisely chosen and paint the exact picture of what I have been feeling weighing me down this past couple of months.

I especially like the fact that at the end, he describes how he loves his job.  I feel the same.  It has been interesting to be enveloped in this lifestyle for a few years and to look back and ask myself if I would make the same choice over again, and invariably I answer "yes".

They say that ignorance is bliss.  I often tell my partner that we as police are among the few who have had that ignorance torn from us, never to be revisited.  It is a career where we see very clearly the things which contribute to the decay of society.  We see them over and over and over again and are unable to hide in ignorance of the horror of mankind's selfishness and depravity any longer.  As the officer said in the article, we are doomed to re-live certain things over and over again.

But I am happy to be a police officer.  I am happy that I continue to find the strength to serve, despite the hatred that I feel from so many people, despite the undue scrutiny, despite the impossible standard of perfection.

I believe I am still finding my balance as a cop, even after 3 years.  I know that I swing from over-caring to apathy at times.  I like to think that I have some good role models to look-up to.  Some of them are over on the right side of this webpage, writing their own takes on this life.  Others are my peers and superiors at work.  This is a hard job to adjust to.  Trust me.  My heroes are the ones who walk the Thin Blue Line and remain balanced, somehow overcoming the tendency to become jaded and apathetic.

If you see a police officer in the next while, it really does mean a lot to us to receive a simple thank-you.  I have had people come up to me and say something like that.  It makes my day.  Cheers to you people.  You are who we do this for day after day.

Escort

Posted by: Blue

A number of months ago, we were dispatched to a Check Wellbeing call.  The family of a young woman were outside of the hotel where she was staying.  They had tracked her there after clandestine communication with her through text messages to a phone number they had found listed with a picture of her in lingerie on Backpage - a common internet site for seeking-out escorts and hookers.

As the story unraveled, it became apparent that there were quite a number of women working out of this particular hotel, all under the oversight of their "manager" (read: pimp).

This particular newly 18 year old young lady was not willing to leave the hotel with her family.  They begged and pleaded with her.  JT and I explained all of the dangers.  She would not budge.  Our supervisor was assigned to the call.  He tried to smooth things over; to no avail.

In the end, we had to escort the family off of the premises, as they were not paying customers of the hotel and they had begun disturbing other customers.

In our country, it is not illegal to be a hooker or an escort.  It is not illegal to solicit hookers or escorts.  It is illegal to Communicate for the Purposes of Prostitution.  Communicating for the Purpose is a Summary Conviction Offence (similar to a Misdemeanor in the States).  We did not have any evidence of any communication directly relating to sexual services for the exchange of money, and therefore, in the Crown's opinion, there was no evidence to a crime.

According to the hotel manager, it was next to impossible to legally evict someone from a hotel room if they were still paying all of their bills.  He looked quite angry when I explained the circumstances of our attendance.  It was a reasonably nice hotel.

We submitted an intelligence report for Vice Unit.  A short time later, the unwelcome guests vacated the hotel, only to take-up residence in another nearby location.

The family yelled at us, took our badge numbers down and threatened our jobs.  It is impossible to explain the black and white of the law to someone who is watching a family member willingly partake in dangerous behaviour.  It is impossible to go home content with your work on a day like that.

Unfortunately for everyone, it happens more often than not that we are handcuffed by the letter of the law.

Motivated

I am not today.  - Blue

The Burden

Posted by: Blue

Yesterday, there were two small children found dead in a bathtub.

My shift mate was doing a favour for a friend and working when she should have been off.

She was first on scene.

Tomorrow, she is going to see the service counsellor.

I don't know entirely how she is handling it, but she seemed in decent spirits while I was texting with her last night.

I started crying at dinner tonight while looking at my littlest boy and thinking of those two in that tub.

No one should ever need to experience that.

Gone Fishin'

Posted by: Blue

I just got back from 4 days on my favourite lake with 4 of my best friends.

I am relaxed.

Tomorrow I'm in court bright and early.  Nights start Tuesday.

Morale Patches

Posted by: Blue

I was at the local tactical shop today.  I picked up some Mil-Spec Monkey morale patches for my duty bag.

I liked the first one so much that I bought one for JT too.

False Perspective

Posted by: Blue

Last night we responded to a male holding a knife to his throat in the shower.

We got there moments after my Patrol Sergeant did.

The guy was locked in his bathroom and the shower was running.

"John, come on out here.  Put the knife on the floor and show us your hands.  We have a taser."

"Just use a nail or something on the door.  It's one of those locks you can open with a nail."

"I don't have a nail, John.  Open the door or I'm gonna kick it down."

"Am I going to jail?"

"Well, John, you haven't hurt anyone have you?"

"No..."

"And you haven't threatened anyone have you?"

"No..."

"Then why would I take you to jail?  But I need you to open the door so that I don't have to kick it down and taser you."

"Just a sec.  I'm gonna put my robe on."

John finally came out of the bathroom.  We cuffed him and searched him and then took him into custody under the Mental Health Act.

On the way to the hospital for a mandatory psychological evaluation, John said "I just wish my wife hadn't come home.  She's so crazy.  She makes everything worse.  She's just so crazy."

Safety Lesson

Posted by: Blue

The other day, we responded to another district for a high priority domestic.  The wife was calling in on the husband, stating that he had been threatening to play Russian Roulette with his revolver and "take a bunch of people out".

While on scene, the male was calm but obviously depressed and emotional.  As we were clearing out the gun safe of the firearms that he had agreed to turn over to us for safekeeping, he asked one of the other district's cops if he could go and change.  The officer agreed and the male went into the study.

I was looking through the safe with some of the other officers at the time and hadn't seen him go into the room and close the door.

I came around the corner to find no sign of the male.

"Where'd he go?" I asked.

"Changing." Said the other officer, gesturing towards the closed office door.

"What!? No! Hey, c'mon out of there bud. I don't want you behind closed doors with no one around you right now.  It makes me nervous."  I said, giving the senior officer an admittedly dirty look.

He came out and looked frustrated.  I told him he was welcome to change in a few minutes when we got things sorted out, but one of the officers would need to be in the room with him.

Later on, we discovered a loaded revolver in a holster under the coffee table in that office.

Parentless Children

Posted by: Blue

In our province, there is one service which takes care of children.  It governs all of the smaller off-shoots and the variety of levels of care which are needed for the variety of concerns.  CFS (Child and Family Services) is the organization, and it is mandated to care for children whether in temporary care, emergency care, foster care, or as long-term wards of the state.

In a city of just under three quarters of a million people, there is one locked facility of an emergency nature where problem girls can go if they have not broken the law or are not intoxicated, but have become a danger to themselves due to behavioural issues (running away from care etc.)  It is frequently full.  Police are not given power to determine to place the run-aways in this home.  I don't know exactly how many beds are available for girls there, but they number in the low double digits, possibly even single digits.

Runaway girls are at exceptionally high risk for exploitation.  They are also far, far more frequent to run away than boys.  Girls as young as 10 frequently leave their CFS mandated homes to prostitute themselves for money, crack, meth, booze or other drugs.  It is not surprising that suicide risks often accompany young girls in these situations.

The CFS workers do nothing to stop the girls from leaving.  Indeed, it is in their policies and procedures that they may not physically stop a child from leaving a house, whether they are threatening suicide with a razor blade in their hand or just going down the street for an ice cream at the corner store (though this policy is contrary to both the Criminal Code of Canada, which grants the use of reasonable force by a legal caregiver or guardian to enforce rules and discipline and to ensure the child's safety).  Ironically, the policy could also result in criminal charges, as Failing to Provide the Necessities of Life to a Minor.

Their procedure instead: call the police.  That way, the responsibility is entirely off their shoulders.

Now a child threatening suicide is a reasonably simple procedure for the police (when they are in immediate danger of following through).  We form the opinion that they are a danger to themselves and have them undergo mandatory psychological examination.  The doctor has a brief meeting with them (around 5-10 minutes in the emergency room) and then almost always releases her.  Very, very, very few are admitted to hospital psych wards.  I have repeatedly had teenage girls in the hospital waiting rooms with cuts to their wrists or rope burns on their throats who have been stitched or bandaged up and released without being admitted.

The wait before seeing the doctor is frequently between 4 and 10 hours.  All while in the custody of the police.

When a child is not an immediate danger to themselves or to others, they are not able to be forced to undergo this typically meaningless examination.  Ergo, a child thinking of suicide rather than planning it is not able to be taken into custody as it is not a police matter.  This is where everything gets very fuzzy.

A child who is not able to be taken into custody because they are not a danger to themselves, because they haven't committed a crime and because they are not intoxicated, but who has shown that they will run away from their caregivers as soon as the police leave, with no restraint from the caregivers is a major problem.  And it happens far more often than you think or would like to believe.

There is only one organization who can lock a child such as this up.  And they are always busy.  And there are often no more beds.

In short, if a child of any age less than 18 wishes to leave their mandated housing and prostitute themselves for money, drugs or alcohol, there is almost nothing that police can do.  We just search for them, hopefully find them (alive), and bring them home, praying that this time, they will keep their promise to stay.

The most interesting thing to me is that if that child turns up dead or raped or beaten, it is always the police who are blamed first, not the legal guardians who allowed the child to leave the safety of the home in the first place.

So what the hell should a cop who cares about kids do?  Maybe the police should start adopting children and showing these "caregivers" how to parent.  We are the only ones they ever hear "no" from in many cases.  I guess there's a reason they learn to hate us and run from us and fight with us.

It makes me sad.

Answers IV

Posted by: Blue

Courtesy of Jordan:

11. Are police in your area required (or encouraged) to take any mental health training, such as suicide intervention training or courses on mental illnesses? 
12. Has your opinion on human nature changed since becoming a police officer? If so, in what way?

11. Yes.  We are required to take both mental health training and suicide intervention training as well as courses on mental illnesses and the frequent addictions that come with them.  
Of course, compared to the realities that we deal with, the simple part-day courses are borderline useless, not to mention taught by "experts" who frequently have no real-life experience talking a person off a ledge (literally or figuratively) or dealing with the aftermath of a complete suicide.  
Most officers become experts in their own right at dealing with people who are both legitimately suicidal (a very low percentage of suicide threat calls), and those who are attention-seeking, manipulative, and spiteful.  One of the most common reasons for a suicide threat call to be entered in my opinion is that people have limited or no coping skills and are angry at themselves or those around them and wish to lash-out, knowing that hurting themselves or threatening to is a very quick way of hurting others.  The difficult thing for officers is to try to help people in these situations and in legitimately life-threatening situations.  The health care system does not care, nor do their family or friends often, if they even have any.  Often times mental health issues combined with increased vulnerabilities to addictions provide for a combination which effectively isolates the person from anyone who would wish to help them.  They are constantly pushed through a revolving-door health care system which provides no long-term or follow-up care.  Without the ability to forcibly treat persons who do not wish to be treated for their illnesses, the cycle continues.  
Police, doctors and judges all have the ability to determine legally that a person is a danger to themselves or to others and cause them to undergo mandatory psychological evaluation, however it is only the police who take that person into custody forcibly if necessary, including under the orders of a doctor or judge.
It is rare to show-up to a suicide threat call and have someone who is genuinely suicidal.  Just like someone who is truly homicidal, there are few things that will convince a person who is determined to commit suicide not to.  People threaten to kill others all the time out of anger or in the heat of emotion.  The same is true with suicide threats.  Genuinely suicidal people are the ones that are often unreported.  These calls are usually Sudden Deaths - Suicide.  One who is determined, succeeds.  Instead, the calls frequently walk a fine line between medical issues (poor medication or lack of medication or misdiagnosed or undiagnosed mental health issues) and police issues (active cutting, attempted hanging, overdose, standing on a bridge etc.)  In my opinion, there is no classroom training that prepares you properly to determine the difference.
We respond to suicide threats at the very least once a week per crew, often once every two or three days.  Dozens of calls are entered city-wide daily.

12. My opinion on human nature has not changed.  I have always believed that people are selfish, perverse, liars, violent, and hurtful to others.  I just have more opportunity in this job to see these things embodied.  That is not to say I don't also believe that there is the ability for people to choose good, only that it goes against the grain of human nature to do so, and that there are varying degrees of the vices I mentioned.  It is clear to me, however that there is no difference to one side of the law than the other other than that those on this side of it seem to try a little harder to stifle their bad instinct.  It still comes seeping out though in the mistakes we make when we lose our tempers or in the selfishness we show when we do things like judge a situation based on our own emotions towards it (whether consciously or subconsciously).  Those on one side of the law - in general - wish to choose right over wrong and they sometimes don't.  Those on the other side do not necessarily wish to choose wrong over right, but they often do.

P.S.  These are loaded questions with loaded answers (though I took further liberties with the scope of the first question than the second) and I do not intend to begin a debate by posting either.  I am welcome to civil responses and disputes, however understand that I am posting my opinions based on my experiences and beliefs.

Code

Posted by: Blue

Our Service's radio chatter is made in plain speak.

If we need another unit, we say: "We need another unit."

If we're chasing someone, we say "Foot pursuit."

If there's an armed robbery we're responding to, the dispatcher says "Delta 203 responding to an armed robbery."

There is no ten-code or twelve-code as many departments and services have.

There are however a few relics of code kicking around from back in the day:

• 99-06: Subject with mental health issues (there are also "99" codes for gang association, drugs, violence and family violence but only a few of the longest-serving members use them and I always mix them up).
• 10-33: Officer(s) taken hostage.
• Code 69: Plainclothes officers on scene.
• Zulu: Prefix for unit who has activated one of the many emergency buttons on their vehicle or personal radios, ie.: "Zulu Delta 203, what is your location?"
• Tango-Zulu: Used when you're about to Tazer someone and you don't want them to know and you want to ensure fingers are off triggers to avoid sympathetic responses to a trigger pull on the Tazer.

We have incident cards that we provide to complainants which have our report number on them along with telephone numbers to the non-emergency line for dispatch, as well as the responding officers' badge numbers.  It has long been practised to provide the badge number of 9906 to any "difficult" complainants to alert anyone on the other end of the complaint phone call that the complaint is likely unfounded.  I always put the proper incident number however, which links to our badge numbers anyway.

Recruits

Posted by: Blue

The new recruits are out on field training.  I am no longer the junior officer on our shift. 

The new recruit has already been in her first tussel with a Mental Health patient.  Her field training officer was happy because she jumped right in without hesitating. 

Top marks for the most important category: Officer Safety.

Mental Health

Posted by: Blue

The cruiser car fishtailed around a slick corner slightly as I accelerated out of a turn.  The night was lit up in all directions with the reflections of red white and blue lights.  The siren wailed, then yelped, then wailed again as I went through red lights on the way to our call.

Dispatch came over the radio again: "For the information of all units on the priority two weapons call: the female is now stating that the male with the gun has it against her head and he is going to kill her unless police came right away."

The rpm's climbed.  The brake fade started to become evident as we neared our call location.

One after another, within about 30 seconds, the five crews sounded-off that they were arriving.  We were third on scene after our supervisor and a downtown car. 

None of us were in our home district.  We had come flying in from all different corners of the city.  The South cars were all tied-up.

We ran up to the door, myself and another guy from downtown standing on opposite sides of the door, the other cops covering the back exits and windows.  The house was in darkness.

I knocked.  There was a delay, then a rustling heard inside.  I waited.  My earpiece chirped "For the information of all units on the gun call, the female is now giving a different address across the street from the original address she gave.

The front step light came on.  A sleepy middle-aged male came to the door in his underwear.  "Can I help you?" he asked groggily...

My radio chirped again "Dispatch, that second address doesn't exist.  Can you confirm please?"

"Sir, we've had a 911 call to this address regarding guns.  I'm going to need to come inside and check the well-being of everyone here."

Eight officers pushed past the male as he stammered "okay... but I don't have any guns!"

The house was cleared and as we were apologizing to the homeowner, dispatch came on again; "The female is now stating that she isn't sure of the address, but she is demanding that police come soon before she's dead.  Cell triangulation shows she is somewhere over in the East Division."

"Dispatch from street supervisor, I'm just looking at historic calls from this female... it seems she frequents an address over in the East Division.  We'll head down there."

Again the cruisers jumped to life and roared across the city.  We were there in four minutes.

The address had a suite in the basement.  We went around back and knocked on the door, only to find it was ajar.  We slowly descended the stairs, turning on the light as we went.  There was a female figure hunched-over on her phone in the dark, whispering into the microphone.

We approached her carefully.  My partner softly said "Ainsley?"

She spun around, a fearful, confused look in her eyes.  I spotted the meth pipe next to her on the arm of the couch.  I grabbed it as she tried to swat it away.

We calmed her down and brought her to the hospital.  She begged us not to.  She said she had Schizophrenia, anxiety and she was bi-polar.  She said she was just having a bad night.  Her boyfriend usually calmed her down and helped her with the voices in her head, but she didn't know where he was.  Hadn't seen him in a few days.  Hadn't been on her meds in a week.

We sat with her at the hospital until the psych doctor could see her.  She had a conversation with people we couldn't see the entire time we were there.

The doc said it had been more like a month that she had been off her meds.  And they took a full week to begin to work.  They were going to release her until my partner requested the doctor speak to her a little more in depth.  The doc reluctantly agreed. 

Ten minutes later, he came out of the room and said "Yeah... we'll be keeping her."

She was 29 years old and she must have been beautiful before the meth took control of her.

Day Shift: Tour # 2

Posted by: Blue

Today was traffic court.  For my partner.  He told me to find something better to do with my time than sit around waiting for him.

I took the car a few blocks over and met for breakfast with another half of a cruiser car, a school resource officer, and a guy out of a specialty unit in one of the districts to the South of us.

I like breakfast.  It's my favourite meal to eat at a restaurant.  But our household is on a tight budget with the new career and the new cut in pay that comes with it.  I just had a water.

Now, just so you know I didn't do nothing all day, the rest of my day was filled with:

• Info on a Warrant: Probation Officer called it in.  While enroute, the suspect left the dispatch location.  Another unit picked him up.  We showed up, with another unit and the supervisor.  The unit who had found him had court in twenty minutes.  I played "paper/rock/scissors" with the third unit to see who would process him on the warrant.  They lost.
• Suicide Threat: Other end of the city.  Mom called concerned about her daughter.  Daughter was fine, just mad at mom because mom was threatening to stop paying her bills.  We told her not to text her mom things like "maybe I'll just kill myself" just to get her mad.  Then we called Child and Family Services from the car to notify them that this mother might just need a little bit of care as she seemed to be overwhelmed with her children as a single parent.  When we returned to give her some resources and phone numbers, she slammed the door in our faces, telling us "not to bother her with that stuff".
• Wellbeing Check: Assigned as we were cruising by right after clearing the Suicide Threat.  Suddenly cleared before arrival by dispatch, sent back across the city for a high priority Domestic Dispute.  Cleared again by dispatch five minutes later and half-way there, put back on our Wellbeing Check.  Arrived shortly thereafter, female complainant gone.  Security guard on scene advised she had been "tripping out", running around naked.  They kicked her out.  She left on the bus.  We checked all of her known hang-outs, no luck.
•  Traffic Stop: On the way back to the station to type all of our paper.  The driver passed a bus in the oncoming lane while it was picking up passengers, narrowly missing an SUV directly in front of our cruiser.  I was going to tag her fiercely, but my partner convinced me to give her a warning because of her sterling driving record.  I conceded, and just wagged my finger for a while before telling her to thank my partner for the break.  She did.  Sincerely.
• Report Writing: By the end of the day we both had a few reports to write, including a couple from yesterday.  I finished 12 minutes after quitting time.

It was a bit slow today.

Tomorrow we will see how the weekend is going to start.