Fixing their own roll over

One winter night in the freezing rain we had so many car accidents that we did not even get to go back to the station.  One area it was a almost constant activity of vehicles in the ditch, vehicles in the river, vehicle rollovers. We had the patrol car, ambulance and rescue truck sitting along side the road just waiting for the next one as it was a 30 minutes response time from the station.

Sure enough here comes a vehicle and loses it and slides across the road striking the other bank and here it comes back towards us this time, it bounces right between the ambulance and patrol car and back across the road it goes sliding faster and faster. It again hits the opposite bank and this time it hits an area that is not as slick and flips over and rolls over and back onto its side as we watch. It continues to slide down the middle of the highway on its drivers side.

We are all trying to run after it but can not maintain our footing either so we go off the road into the deep snow and continue to try and make it towards the vehicle which now is slowing down.

It finally comes to a halt, still on its drivers side and we see no movement.  All of a sudden the passenger door opens up and two great big black men in three piece suits start crawling out of the vehicle. They seem fine from where we are still struggling to get to them. They walk around the vehicle looking at it and then go over and shove and lift the car right back onto its tires and get in and drive off.

I don't know what they do for a living, dressed up like they were going to the prom with the strength of an elephant. They put that car back on its wheels as easy as we pick up a bag of groceries.

So glad no one was hurt as we stood there with our mouths hanging open watching them drive off in their scratched up dented car being the only damage we could see.

Woman down, unknown if breathing

A man called 911 to report a woman down in the middle of the field, he did not know if she was breathing because cattle were all around her. He was afraid the cattle had killed her.

The officer and the ambulance went screaming with lights and sirens to the address and sure enough there was a woman laying on her back right in the middle of the field with cows everywhere.

The officer jumped over the fence and ran to the woman while the EMT's were getting their gear and they were right behind him. The cattle scattered as they came running and the woman started yelling at them for scaring her cows.  She had laid down where they could come up and check her out to check to see if any of them were getting pink eye because one of them looked like his eyes were a little red. She had been laying there checking each cow as they came over. She was as mad as a hornet cause now she had to start all over to get the cows to come back that she had not checked yet and they were scared now so it would probably take twice as long or even wait until another day.

Once she calmed down she did apologize for getting mad and thank them for responding to check her out.

The calls in rural american............

Returning property

Sometimes in law enforcement I wish the old way was still around. We have so many laws now and some are stupid. People seem to think if they don't like something and they pass a law against it people will stop doing it, WRONG!  So they pass another law saying they can't do it with it explained in more detail because they are sure it was because it was not specific enough for them to quit, WRONG!  So they pass another law with even more specific stuff in it and the circle continues.  We need more common sense in laws. Make them simple and not so intrusive and stiff penalties when broken and jail should be jail not room service, maid service, laundry service, cafe etc. If you don't like the jail then don't go there. People should be treated fairly and humane in jail but they should not have a privileged life style that is better then our seniors and soldiers do....ok enough preaching for the day but I think the following way should still be in use.

A older single lady had a trailer court and people were always moving out and leaving tons of garbage etc for her to clean up. By the time she would pay someone to clean it she was losing money. She is older but very strong. It was a low income trailer court.  People would not take their garbage to the dump when they lived there they would just store it in the shed until the shed was full.

One such couple left the trailer court to another place and left a whole shed full of bags of garbage, broken furniture. They left a mess inside of the trailer of old broken down chairs, couch etc, clothes they no longer wanted and you name it.  She had enough!

Instead of backing up the old dump truck and loading it all up and taking it to the dump and paying a fortune in dumping fees she found out where they moved too, loaded up that dump truck and took it back to them. They called the police cause some crazy lady had a dump truck and was dumping trash into their yard. The police officer arrived. She was very calm and said a very friendly "hi". The guy was yelling and hollering about her dumping garbage in his yard.  The police officer asked what she was doing and very sweetly she said that he had lived at her place and was moving out and had not had the time to get the rest of his stuff and she needed to rent the trailer so she thought she would help him out and load his stuff up and bring it to him. The officer had a hard time keeping the grin off his face. He asked the guy "is this your stuff?" the guys kind of stammered and stuttered and said "well yeah, but he hadn't wanted it"  The officer advised that there was nothing he could do, it isn't against the law for someone to return something that belonged to you, The lady and the officer said goodbye with a grin  on their faces and drove off with the guy standing there mad as a hornet.

potty break

One of the dispatchers had to run up to Portland one winter and was on her way back and had to have a potty stop and of course in our rural area there is no potty stops to be had. She kept driving and finally got to a stage that it was now or never. She pulled over to the side of the road and put her car at an angle and got behind the rear tire to squat.

Along comes one the officers she works with and sees her squatted by the tire and thinks that she has a flat tire so he pulls in and lights the area up and OH NO!  He was embarrassed, she was embarrassed.

A month later she goes again to Portland and coming home she has a flat tire would you believe in the same area. She pulls over and squats in the snow to change the tire and the police officer goes right by her and does not stop to help. She is so mad that he would drive by and not help her.  When she gets to work she asked him why he would not stop and help her. He said he was afraid it after the last time. It was the same officer.  He said she needed a flag to put up where he would know when to stop and when to keep going.

The day I almost got fired

We were practicing CPR at the fire hall one day with the doors open and the sound of flesh striking flesh caused me to immediately take off outside. The Sgt. was in the middle of the street trying to arrest an intoxicated driver and the driver did not want to go and the fight was on.  Even as an EMT the cop was still in me off duty so myself and my partner, a former cop, ran to help. We assisted getting the guy handcuffed and in the patrol car.

The problem being was the guys car was still in the middle of the street sitting kind of cross part of two lanes with the door open.  The Sgt. did not want to wait for 30 to 50 minutes for a wrecker to get there so he decided we could just push it off the road and lock it up cause the guy could not afford a tow bill anyway. Well it sounded like a good idea.

The Sgt. got near the door where he could steer and my partner and I got behind the car and started pushing. I looked up and noticed the door was going to hit a tree so I yelled “watch out for the tree!” The Sgt. looked over and saw the tree and jumped back and slammed the door shut where it wouldn’t hit the tree instead of jumping in the car and hitting brakes or steering away from tree. Whew, we missed the tree. He runs up to open the door and it is LOCKED!  Oh no, there is a slight downhill slope and the car is picking up speed and we can’t steer it and a steep hill is coming up.

In all of our minds now is pure panic, how are we going to explain to the boss let alone the newspapers why we had just shoved this drunks car that hit us off the cliff. Now is anyone going to believe we were trying to not dent the car. Nope they are thinking we did it on purpose because he was hitting us.

The Sgt. runs to the back of the car and grabs the bumper and starts trying to pull on it and stop the car. Well he might be a big man but he does not weigh enough to stop a car on the down hill slope getting steeper all the time. We are in a panic, it is amazing what is going through your head. We are going to get fired and sued both!

Luckily for us my partner still had a brain left. I am sure it was because he was no longer a cop and our boss could not kill him, he was an innocent bystander just trying to help the mean old cops and he did not know we were going to shove it off the cliff….lol   Anyway he kept his brain and ran and got a rock and threw under the tire and the car stopped.  So I say thank God for EMT’s, the help in many ways and we saved getting crucified in the newspaper for trying to save the man some money and us some time but we never shoved another car anywhere!

Another officer shot and killed

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.yahoo.com%2Fdeputy-shot-killed-arizona-172144298.html&h=3AQH0WmzM

Help, officer needs help

One day when we are all bored in dispatch a voice we don’t know comes on the radio and says “you had better get everyone you have downtown right away, your officer has been in a really bad wreck and there are wrecked cars everywhere”

We immediately tone rescue, ambulance and all officers to the downtown area. I sat there thinking “I have heard that voice somewhere before, I wonder who it is”. The officers arrive downtown and can’t find the wreck so they start looking everywhere.

All of a sudden I remember, that is the guy that called in the bomb threat that likes to call in disasters and watch the police run around.

I immediately call the city police and tell them that I think that is who it is. The dispatcher says “oh no, I wonder what happened because he was with the Lt. The Lt. was taking him up to the hospital”. She starts trying to call the Lt. on the radio with no response, they call and call. The cops are now trying to find the Lt.s car instead of a wreck.

They find the Lt., he is in the Post Office and the guy is in the back seat of the patrol unit. He is a little skinny guy and he has got himself wedged in little window between the front and back seats just far enough he can reach the mike. He was grinning from ear to ear as the patrol units come swooping in to surround the car.

The look on the Lt.’s face when all the cops in town come swooping in with lights and sirens going and he is coming out with a hand full of mail for the police department was precious according to the guys.

A fun time the guys had at the Lt.’s expense for years over that one.

Help, officer needs help

One day when we are all bored in dispatch a voice we don’t know comes on the radio and says “you had better get everyone you have downtown right away, your officer has been in a really bad wreck and there are wrecked cars everywhere”

We immediately tone rescue, ambulance and all officers to the downtown area. I sat there thinking “I have heard that voice somewhere before, I wonder who it is”. The officers arrive downtown and can’t find the wreck so they start looking everywhere.

All of a sudden I remember, that is the guy that called in the bomb threat that likes to call in disasters and watch the police run around.

I immediately call the city police and tell them that I think that is who it is. The dispatcher says “oh no, I wonder what happened because he was with the Lt. The Lt. was taking him up to the hospital”. She starts trying to call the Lt. on the radio with no response, they call and call. The cops are now trying to find the Lt.s car instead of a wreck.

They find the Lt., he is in the Post Office and the guy is in the back seat of the patrol unit. He is a little skinny guy and he has got himself wedged in little window between the front and back seats just far enough he can reach the mike. He was grinning from ear to ear as the patrol units come swooping in to surround the car.

The look on the Lt.’s face when all the cops in town come swooping in with lights and sirens going and he is coming out with a hand full of mail for the police department was precious according to the guys.

A fun time the guys had at the Lt.’s expense for years over that one.

Police Officers shot in Utah

Today once again I start my day sad as I hear that 6 police officers trying to serve a drug warrant were shot in Utah. One was killed and the other five range from serious to critical. We just have to figure out something to do with the drug problem.

We went forever with no officer shot and then that routine call came in. I hate routine calls because the officers are not on their guard as much.

An older couple use to have a domestic every month when their check came in. He would drink and then it would start. They would yell and scream at each other until someone would call the cops. They would go up and talk to him (I will call him George). George would calm down and agree to go to bed and it would be over with. This continued for years and never once was it violent.

Payday came and sure enough, George was yelling and screaming again and the wife was crying.  The officer responded with a rookie partner. They arrived and George’s wife was sitting at the kitchen table crying and George was locked in the bedroom. The senior officer was well acquainted with this routine so he starts to talk to the wife and tells the rookie to go knock on the bedroom door and ask George to come out.

The rookie goes over and knocks on the door and says “George, come on out and talk to us”  George blows the officer away through the closed door with a shotgun and kills him.

The senior officers is stunned!  This has never been violent!  He radios for help and an ambulance, officer down, shots fired and crawls over and pulls his rookie partner off to the side but it is to late he is gone, his death was immediate.

The senior officer almost did not make it, he almost drank himself to death. The department carried him for a couple of years and gave him office time duty. After two years he started pulling himself together. He continued to be a good officer after he got straightened out again but he was bad also as he always had to be the one that took the dangerous job as he was to afraid of losing his partner.

To this day that is the only officer they have lost. You can go years without losing someone, think you know the people you are dealing with and one day it happens.

To all the officers out there NO CALL IS EVER ROUTINE. Be safe, go home to your family, they need you, your fellow officers need you, the world needs you. Thank you for the job that you do, you are much appreciated. Losing an officer affects every one at the department. My heart still aches for the pain the officer that lived faces every day of his life.

Cop baseball

The cops used to play the fire department every year a game of basketball and a game of softball. They charged admission and the money went to buy sports equipment for the school.

The whole crowd would always cheer for the firemen but the police wives are a rowdy group and I swear we made just as much noise as they did. It was always a fun night and we always had a big crowd.

The police stood a chance in softball and actually won sometimes but we were always the loser in basketball. I swear the cops spent more time on the floor then upright. We kept yelling at them it was not a fight, you can’t tackle the guys. You would have had to see it to understand.

Then the cops that coached women’s soft ball had an end of the season game where the men had to stop at each base and take a swallow of beer.  They soon were not running enough that we could win.  The officers that did not drink had to drink Pepsi at each base.

Fun times with great people. In Alaska softball and baseball are still very popular and they have like 13 women’s teams alone.  They don’t do much playing between cities even with the high school as all out of town games you have to fly to and it is to expensive so everyone gets involved and you play each other.

It was a fun time in the summer in Alaska and many happy memories.  Cops are just regular people who have a job that is like living in front of a camera and people just looking for something to pin on you if you say or do the wrong thing.  They are just family people that want to help people

Pulling a gun on the dispatcher

We had an agreement with the police officers that if we got in trouble in dispatch we would hold the mike down where they could hear what was going on.

One night the new dispatcher, first night all by herself was working away logging things in this big ledger we had. (back before computers did it)  She accidentally had the corner of the book on the mike. She was opening file cabinets, she hit her knee on a file cabinet and yelled ouch etc.

The officers did not hesitate a second they responded to the dispatch center. They came flying in, one through the back door and one through the dispatch window and one through the front door with weapons drawn.

She was more surprised then the officers to be surrounded by officers. She started crying and they were trying to calm her down. She grabbed her purse and ran out and never did come back, they had to dispatch until they could get another dispatcher up and in to work. She called in the next morning and resigned.

She understood why they did it and she said it made her realize they would protect her but that she was terrified to even walk in the place.

Police officers killed to start the new year

The New Year has not started good as we have already lost police officers. Tears came to my eyes when I heard about the lady Park Ranger who has two kids pre-school that was shot and killed in Rainier Park in Washington.

As a society we need to find some why to support and protect our officers as they support and protect us. I really wanted to throw up when I hear another one bites the dust.  Pretty soon it is going to be shoot first and ask questions later.  Society wake up before you start having more people killed because the police have no choice but to shoot early to stay alive.

SUPPORT YOUR POLICE!  Start writing letters to your newspapers, write to your congressman, talk to your neighbors. Write to the TV stations. Tell them you are tired of this, that laws need to be made that protect the officers lives instead of standing up for the bad guys. Call your local police, your state police and your sheriff and ask them what you can do, what letters you could write etc.  Form neighborhood watch groups and watch for danger in your area and call and report it. Most police have a line that you can call you don't even have to give your name,. Giving your name and being a witness helps them be able to bust the drug house. Just because they know it is a drug house doesn't give them the right to bust it with today's laws. Monitor that house, send in all license plates that come and go. Get descriptions of people, get good descriptions of what you saw. Keep a notebook. Most of this can be done behind closed doors or shades. If you see a weapon describe it to the police and in your notebook. Document times, dates and anything and everything just in case.  If you hear cars in the middle of the night stopping in an area they shouldn't be, peek out without turning the lights on and note everything you can see and document it in your watch book.  If you hear anyone making remarks about thefts, dangers, drugs anything illegal document that in your watch book.

The one officer killed just a few weeks ago was just stopping to help a stranded motorist on his way home from work. He was not even on duty, he was just trying to help and they killed him. Is this the type of officer you want killed.  Also document any actions of officers that are unsafe or bad in your watch book. It is time for us to take back our nation from the bad guys!

CALL ALL YOUR LOCAL POLICE TODAY AND ASK WHERE THEY WANT YOU TO WRITE LETTERS TO BUT ALWAYS WRITE TO YOUR NEWSPAPERS AND TV STATIONS AND CONGRESSMAN!    Write everyday until someone listens!  Send emails every day!