LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

the guy so seriously. Granted, I’m glad he didn’t hit me in the face with that one pound rock. If he had, I might be the one in the hospital waiting on the neurologist.

      I had only been with the police department a little over a year and had, so far, avoided having to deal with Internal Affairs. I showed up at their office at the appointed time and met with Sergeant Mike, who was going to interview me. He had read my report and had interviewed the witnesses. This made me feel better because I knew that he at least had all the facts in front of him. He asked me a few questions about the incident and about what we did at the scene.

      The next thing Sergeant Mike did, though, was to give me an update on the suspect’s condition. He told me that the neurologist had diagnosed him with a serious medical condition. The brain had been damaged when his skull smashed into the pavement and he would never fully recover. He would require some type of care for the rest of his life, or as Sergeant Mike so tactfully put it, “He’ll need someone to water him and turn him towards the light a couple of times a day.”

      I was devastated. I had not intended to injure the man. He had tried to punch me and I managed to get him first. I quickly went over the scenario in my mind and really could not think of any other way it could have been handled. That did not make me feel any better, though. Here was a man that I had essentially robbed of the rest of his life. The look on my face must have shown how bad I felt.

      Sergeant Mike then reached into a manila folder and pulled out a sheaf of six or seven sheets of paper. He handed it out to me and said, “I want you to read this. It is the suspect’s criminal history.” As I started to read, I began to feel better. I came to realize that this had been a very dangerous man. He had been arrested on multiple occasions for assaulting police officers, resisting arrest, assault and battery, public drunkenness, as well as many other offenses. The only surprise was why he was not already in jail. Some of the charges had been reduced to less serious ones to dispose of them.

      When I finished reading the Criminal History, Sergeant Mike said, “I know you feel bad about this. None of us wants to hurt anyone. But I want you to know something. By taking this guy out, you may have saved another police officer’s life. You might have saved a citizen’s life. This guy was a powder keg just waiting to explode. Because of your actions, Officer Spell, we do not have to worry about this man anymore. He will never cause anyone another problem.” Sergeant Mike’s words were exactly what I needed to hear. The cloud lifted off of my mind and I left that interview room knowing that I had done my job and had done it well.

      4

      Church Burglar

      I was working another winter’s night in 1985. It was after midnight and was very cold. There was nothing going on. The police radio was silent. There was little traffic on the road. It was a good night to drink coffee and maybe read the newspaper. It was not to be. The police radio crackled to life and dispatched me and Officer Georgia to a Burglary in Progress at a nearby church. Officer Georgia had been one of my academy mates.

      I was close by and was on scene within five minutes. I pulled into the lower parking lot of the Lake Lucerne Baptist Church with my lights off. I intended to park and walk around the church until I found the point of entry. As I got out of my police car and started walking, I could hear voices and yelling coming from the upper parking lot. I ran up there and saw a group of people standing in a circle around four men fighting with another man who was on the ground. Actually, they weren’t really fighting him. They were holding him down and punching him every time he tried to get up. One of the punchers was yelling at the man they were holding down and said, “You sacrilegious piece of . . .” The rest was covered by the rest of the crowd chiming in. Someone in the crowd saw me and pointed at the man who was being held down and said, “He’s the one, Officer. He’s the one who was breaking into the church.” This group of people that had apprehended the man were incensed that this fellow had tried to burglarize a place of worship.

      One of the onlookers told me that they had all been at the bar directly across the street from the church. They were all drinking and having a good time when they heard several loud crashes and glass breaking across the street at the Baptist Church. They looked out and saw the man they were restraining smash out the light fixture near the front door and then try to force the door open. The witnesses called the police and waited, maintaining a visual on the burglar. The witnesses saw me pull into the lower parking lot, but so did the suspect. He slipped around the far side of the building and might have escaped had not these concerned citizens jumped into action.

      Several of them ran across Highway 78 and tackled him so he could not get away. My police car was now parked about one hundred yards away, almost on the other side of the building. The burglar was still resisting as the four men held him down. Rather than try and walk him all the way around to my car, it would be much easier to bring my police car up to the upper parking lot.

      I said, “Hey, can you guys hold him for a couple more minutes while I go get my police car?”

      One of them replied, “No problem, Officer. He’s not going anywhere.”

      By the time I got back with my police car, the suspect had had enough. He was no longer resisting and said, “Please, just take me to jail.” I handcuffed him and secured him in my car. I noticed a marble vase lying next to where the burglar had been lying.

      One of the witnesses handed me another one and said, “He had this one in his jacket.” These marble vases were the kind like you might find flowers in at a cemetery. The weighed a couple of pounds apiece. The suspect also had a plastic beer pitcher that said, “Oliver’s” on it. Oliver’s was another bar about half a mile up the street.

      Officer Georgia had arrived and had checked the outside of the church. She found a screen pried off in the back and some other lights broken out. One of the pastors was called out. After checking the building, he told us that it did not look like the man had managed to get inside. The front door had also been damaged but no entry had been made. The pastor told me he had never seen those two marble vases before. They had not come from the church.

      I attempted to interview the suspect. That was a waste of time. He was very intoxicated and nothing he said made any sense. He did seem grateful, though, that I had rescued him from the mob that wanted to pummel him for trying to break into a church. I asked Officer Georgia if she would check the businesses up Hwy 78 back towards Oliver’s Bar and see if she could find any other evidence of criminal activity. Within just a few minutes, she returned and told me that our guy had been at the monument company just up from the church. This company made tombstones, memorial plaques and other items, like vases, out of marble. It was obvious that was where he had gotten the vases. The one-man crime spree had also done a substantial amount of damage at the monument company, smashing a number of marble accessories in the parking lot and knocking some of the larger tombstones over.

      We were finally able to piece together that this guy had been at Oliver’s most of the evening and had had quite a bit to drink. He either did not have a car or was just smart enough not to drive. He lived about a mile away and was walking home. He decided to stop by the monument company to smash some stuff and steal some vases. When he got to the church, he decided that he needed to get inside. Maybe he needed a place to pray, but I doubt it. He was probably hoping to find something else to steal or vandalize. For his trouble, he was charged with two felonies and a misdemeanor. This was a wonderful instance of citizens being willing to get involved and not allow a criminal to escape.

      5

      Drunk Prowler

      It was almost 6:00 in the morning. The next shift would be coming on at 6:30 and then I could go home and go to bed. Instead, the call from radio meant that I would not be getting to bed on time: “Be enroute to a Prowler attempting to force entry at a residence. The description of the perp is a black male wearing a black jacket.” I hurried to the address that dispatch sent me to. A big, fat white male met me at the door wearing nothing but his white Fruit of the Looms. I could see his wife holding a baby standing behind him. I thought, You could have at least put some pants on!

      As he told me what had happened, however, it was clear that this poor fellow had just been awakened by the black guy banging on his front

Скачать книгу