Guess who can't sleep?

It's 1:43 in the morning and I can't sleep. It's my work schedule! It's completely screwed up my sleeping schedule. Oh well.

Not that all I ever want to talk about is my job, cause trust me I don't. I did have one of the scarier moments in my life happen last week.

At one of the local dance clubs that is notorious for gangs and fighting we get this call that someone over heard some guys saying "something was going down at closing time." So it's about 2:20 in the morning and we go wailing up the lights and sirens a blaze in order to get to the area before 2:30 when it closes.

I get up there, there is already about 10 cops and we just sit off and wait. There is a huge crowd forming of drunk guys and girls all pushing and shoving each other outside of the club. Then some of the more loud gang bangers start to yell. They are pushing people around and just generally trying to cause major problems. We hold off until we can get more officers because going into a situation of about 100 drunk people versus 10 cops is just not a good idea.

So finally we get some sufficient numbers on our end, not as much as we'd like, but enough to start moving in. The clubs security officers are getting out of hand as well. Tall guys wearing "SECURITY" shirts that are too small for them start pushing the drunk guys and start macing people. So needless to say things got crazy.

We all form up into a giant man-made wall and start moving people out. Yelling at them to go home, get out, and just generally to get out of the parking lot. Some people are sober enough to understand the situation and leave but most people just keep running there mouth.

So we do this for a good 10 minutes or so until people finally start to get the message. But then I hear the gun shot. Or at least what sounded distinctly similar to one. I'm thinking, hmmm....it could definitely be a gun shot, this place is notorious for shootings and stabbings. So I start looking left to right as all the drunk club-goers start screaming and running to their cars. Then we hear it over the radio. "Guy with a gun, guy with a gun!" So now, as my good friend would say, It's on like donkey kong.

We have our guns drawn and start walking to wear our guy is calling out his foot pursuit. Walking, yes, you read it right, because we have to scan every inch of what's going on. Finally we track this guy into a house up the street. Somehow, somewhere along the way he's managed to throw his gun out.

So we start looking everywhere. In the grass, in the weeds, parking lots, trashcans....nothing. Can't find a thing.

We're screwed. We don't have much of anything to go of off. So this wanna be gangster gets to go back out tomorrow and do it all again.

Toy Truck Yellow to Rigamortis

Well this past week was quite a doozy! On my long weekend we finally tackled this kitchen project we'd been talking about. We painted our kitchen a bright, colorful yellow. It went from pale and blah to....basically a "toy truck yellow." Ivan and I put up bead board along the lower half of the walls and painted blue accents throughout the rest in order to match our countertop. And the best of all? Ivan and I miraculously never got into an argument throughout this whole process! Pictures will be posted soon.

Next on the agenda? Wheewww, what a week so far. Yesterday at work was crazy. It's still really tough being a rookie and the biggest problem for most rookies across the board is the geographical orientation, and I am no exception. It becomes very hard trying to get from point A to point B all while driving 70 mph, thinking about the call and how you will handle it. Not to mention I am not from this area so I am basically starting from scratch. It's OK though, I've got a feeling I'll get there eventually.

But yesterday, oh yesterday. We got to help a suicidal jumper from off of the bridge. She was schizophrenic and was really contemplating the idea. She was on the outer perimeter of the wall, but not the outermost, which was a good thing. As we were talking to her, I just kept thinking, "Oh crap, please don't jump, I'm not sure if I could handle that this morning." She was a very large woman so there was no option to even think about trying to grab her from off the edge in case she did start to go over. We've been having a rash of jumpers in this city. My partner and training officer just physically grabbed another jumper from the bridge last week. Must be the weather.

I also saw my first dead body today. DOA. It's quite a weird feeling when you're poking and prodding at a cold stiff body behind close doors, while the family sits in the other room and sobs. Not too bad though. She was almost 97! Plus she already looked a bit skeletal.

Lets see what today has to offer me.

Here comes the weekend!

Ahhhh....I just finished a loooong work week. But I can't complain, after all, five days on and five days off isn't bad at all! I had to hold over an extra four hours on my Friday (really Wednesday morning) because we responded to a big call. Two really nice cars got stolen from the same house and we ended up finding them within the hour! That doesn't happen much. Can you believe this...this really wealthy family just leaves their keys in the ignition of their cars, leave the car unlocked and leave the garage unlocked! I thought it was a little crazy myself but at least we were able to get them their vehicles back, unscathed mind you!

Well, cop work isn't my entire life right now, but it does seem like it. I have alot of studying to do in my freetime. Last week I was able to relax a bit and I enjoyed myself. I took whitewater kayak lessons and that was very fun. Scary, but fun. It's a bit of a weird feeling when your being held into a boat and you purposely flip it over so you can attempt to flip it back. Well, I'm not to that point yet, but I'm getting there. It's a crazy feeling.

So now with my time off this week I find myself doing more work! Yard work all morning and for the evening I just got done pressure washing our house. Tomorrow I plan on starting to paint our kitchen. It will be a brighter yellow than the pale yellow it is right now. I'm hoping to brighten up the house a little bit.

July 15, 2008 Two days and counting...

Well, I've been on patrol now for two days. I have an FTO (field training officer) who does most everything right now. I mainly just shadow and learn. I have got to engage myself a few times though. On Sunday night/early Monday morning, after a few SWAT guys executed a search warrant, all us newbies were able to go route around through this guys house looking for any guns or ammunition. Afterall, he got arrested for making threats to kill his neighboors below him. It was very interesting.
On my second night we responded to another gun call involving parties who were protected from another. This was pretty intense for a short period of time. My FTO who is also in SWAT, responded with a few other SWAT and TAC guys into the house while the rest of us had our guns drawn and watched the windows and doors for anyone trying to avoid our 1 a.m. greeting. Well, not much came of this call in the end, but it was exciting while it lasted.