I got a new temporary assignment the last couple of nights. Plain clothes surveillance, it has been awesome!!!

A breath of fresh air if you will, Patrol is great but it does get monotonous, after 10 years, going in, doing the same ole same ole. (Don’t get me wrong, you never stop learning at this job and most days you see something new)

But the plain clothes gig is something fresh, new and exciting.  I had a blast grubbing out (sweatshirts and jeans) and I have been told by more than one coworker that if they saw me walking down the street that they’d definitely stop and field interview me, or my personal favorite one cop gave me directions to the soup kitchen.

It’s been so fun rolling up without all the bells, whistles, sirens and lights that comes with being in a patrol car. We made a handfull of arrests and got some great intell.

The guy I am working with is really cool, we are polar opposites in our approach, but we think alike on the major stuff and I think we complimented each other well.

Theres nothing like cruising around listening to Christmas music (he drives so he gets to jockey the radio and it is actually quite soothing music) and fighting crime.

Peabody Police get a paid holiday for Sept. 11

I really have to say as a cop this disgusts me. Peabody Ma. is an above average income town in Massachusetts, I on the other hand work in a poor economically challenged city in Massachusetts. We have been working without a contract going on 3 years now. These officers are getting an above average pay raise that we can only salivate over. They also already have evacuation day and victory over Japan as paid holidays. I am all for police getting paid a decent wage for the work we do. But in an era where it is political sport to villify police officers and departments, this action was just stupid.

Hell, NYFD hasn’t asked for such a contract perk (and if they had I for one wouldn’t have a problem with it) They lost so much that day. NYPD and Port Authority Haven’t requested this consideration either and they lost brother and sister officers that terrible day.

As an American I am outraged that this podunk little police department in Massachusetts has the balls to ask for and the town fathers lacked the balls to slap them down for such an outrageous contract demand.

As a Massachusetts cop, who isn’t making anything close to the money the Peabody PD is making, all the while dealing with crimes far greater than they could ever fathom AND dealing with the aftermath of their stupidity, in the court of public opinion, because the public doesn’t distinguish one department from another, they just hear horror stories like these, see the badge and jump to the conclusion that they (us cops) are all alike, I am  livid. 

So in conclusion, thank you to the rich pampered selfish Peabody Police Department.

(I’m guessing this post will hinder me from getting a peabody PD patch for my collection, I’m not sweating it though)

I got a call last night for a dog bite investigation. That was what was given to me over the police radio. Ok, I’ve done a few of these calls before. Off I go to the reported location.

I get on scene with the ambulance and we find the victim, she and her friend were walking his pit bull and at some point the dog got agitated for some reason or another and whammo, the dog snaps and bites her twice. Once in the arm and once in the groin. They weren’t terribly vicious bites but there was discoloration and obvious injury. I handled the call and called in for a return to the station to write an incident report. It was granted and I returned.

Upon my return the calltaker comes over and quietly asks me where the victim had been bitten. Me, knowing all the right and wrong things to say in mixed company says “she got bitten in the arm and the cookie” The calltaker tells me I cleaned up the description from what she got from the 911 caller.

The 911 call went something like this:

Calltaker: 911 what is your emergency

Caller: Yeah, could you send someone, my sister just got bit by a dog and we dont know if it’s infected or not

Calltaker: Ok, we are sending assistance, where was your sister bitten?

Caller: right on the side of her Pu…..ssy

Calltaker: (long, long pause) Ahhhh, WHERE??????

Caller: You know, her pussy, right here (as if the calltaker could actually see her pointing to her goods)

CallTaker: Ok Ambulance and Police are enroute.

Yeah, you would have thought that the calltaker would have given me a heads up like call into dispatch for details or something but no. She figgured it would be funnier to send me in cold and let me fend for myself. I learned two very important lessons though

• Life on the job is never boring
• Calltakers can be so evil sometimes.

THE DAY THAT NEVER COMES

Its so freaking refreshing to see superstars who actually get it and these guys do. In a place and time in history where both sides of the political spectrum try to tear the other down and “superstars” who are so narcasisstic that they believe that just because they say something that we the unwashed masses should gobble it up like manna from heaven. Seeing someone that just lays the facts out there and lets the consumer make up their own mind is something to be applauded (and even brings the Enforcer out of BlogBlock)

THE DAY THAT NEVER COMES

I’m not saying Metallica hasn’t in the past been pollitical (Disposeable Heroes, even though it’s a great song does have a political bend to it) and least we forget their crusade against music downloads. But it seems to me that aside from being a great song that (without the video) is inspirational  (just listen to the words and the lyrics) but with the video is a tribute to every man and woman who wears a uniform and protects life and liberty. A subtle aknowledgement that someone understands and doesn’t believe the hype spewed forth from the Far Left that the military are all jolly green giant thugs with guns looking for personal payback.

On a personal note, thanks to all of you who contacted me and inquired about me while I was gone MIA. I still don’t know about constant posting like I had done before. I like to blog about the things at work that make me go hmmmm in a funny way and to put my sarcastic wit on the things that bug me. Somewhere I burned out a bit and nothing seemed blogworthy until I heard about this video and saw it for myself. Enjoy!!!

DUE TO BUDGET CUTS AND ELECTRICITY COSTS THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL HAS BEEN TURNED OFF. WE ARE SORRY FOR THE INCONVIENENCE……..

It felt so good to be out of here for a while. I went back to work last night, full of piss and vinegar to get back into the swing of things. Refreshed and ready to go. It lasted for about two hours. After the first few hours it felt like my vacation was a distant memory. And so it goes, back to the grind.

I did make my first arrest since being back. About 20 minutes into my shift, I was approaching a signal light and watched as my light went from red to green I then saw a Ford Explorer coming from the other direction do a 180 through the intersection right in front of me. I pulled the guy over and lo and behold he didn’t have a license.

It’s like shooting fish in a barrel sometimes around here .

I’m baaaaack, anyone wanna take a guess where I went????

As you all could probably tell by a lot of my previous posts, work was getting to me a bit so me and the EnforcerClan hit the road and went to Disney. We drove (yes you read right, we drove down the eastern seaboard from Mass. to Central Fla. We left right after I got off of work on the 4th of July.

On the 4th I was detailed to the Party Car, me and another guy (Both of us bald, plus sized party poopers) roving around keeping the revelers in line. Funny with all the parties we were at, I didn’t hear The Star Spangled Banner, Proud to be an American,God Bless America, America the Beautiful, or My Country Tis of  once. I heard a lot of rap and RockT though…..

The shift was fun, but busy and exhausting with the thought of a 20 hour car ride with 3 pre teens looming literally on the horizon. So what do I do, I end up making a dope arrest at 10 minutes before the end of shift. We got a call for  trespassing, supposedly a bunch of kids having a party in an abandoned apartment. When we got there, long story short, the guy who owned the place was being evicted but had till the end of the month, but when we got there he was being a dick head and couldn’t show us identification. he told us that his ID was in the bedroom and when I went looking for it I found his stash of drugs. I looked at the drugs, looked at my watch, looked at him and a single tear rolled down my face as I cuffed, cursed and stuffed him in my patrol car.  I wrote it up, got home, took a shower and we were on the road by sunrise. Several hours later than I wanted to be.

It took us 23 hours of driving to get to paradise. The name of paradise was the Saratoga Springs Resort in Disney. Oh My God it was a nice place. I got to relax, pool hop, and not have to think of good guys, bad guys, court, or crime. It was awesome.

It is funny though, while down there I ended up meeting two nurses, a jail guard from New York, and a retired cop from Kentucky. I swear public safety people put out some kind of vibe or something. The kids made friends with other kids from Colorado, Scotland, and North Carolina. The girls went to the Bippety Boppety Boutique and were princessified (they looked adorable) while the boy got to go on a real life Pirate Adventure (ship cruise, buried treasure, maps and such) all the things a young boy thinks are cool.

Throw in a pirate wench or two,some plundering, a keg of rum and big boys like me would be lining up for that ride.

Ya ever have one of those days. I went into work tonight, and I’m tellin ya it was hot humid and sticky at the beginning of the shift. The patrol car I was assigned to was in the shop for repairs so I had to find another one. Detectives had me come up and compare notes on an initial investigation I had done a few nights ago (which is really cool) because I appreciate that (to me it seems)  they are comfortable with my assessment of situations and ask me for my input.

I inspected and got on the road about 45 minutes after roll call, the dispatcher asked me to make a coffee run for them. I did , partly because I’m a nice guy, partly because the dispatcher offered to buy my coffee. I made the run and brought it back. I still had some piss and vinegar (as my grandpa used to say) left in me and was ready to do some pro active police work. Dispatch calls me back into the station, it seems as if the donut shop left out one coffee and it was the dispatchers (I’m no dummy, a happy dispatcher is a good thing, an unhappy, uncaffinated dispatcher can screw you in so many ways) So I trudged back off to the donut shop and got the dispatcher a coffee. I brought it back and finally hit the road about an hour and a half into the shift. I fielded a bunch of alarm calls and a surprising amount of  “the kids are being noisy outside calls”  Now I can see if they were blasting music out of boomboxes and having impromptu block parties, but one of them was sitting on his stairs talking to a friend dribbling a basketball.

The call of the night award goes to the person who called “not for someone lighting fireworks” but because they left the cylinder in the roadway” and “absolutely no one would stop to clean it up” so could we be a buddy and send a car over there to clear it away?

Yup, that was my call and the thing that pissed me off the most is that it is trash collection night, the caller couldn’t have gotten off their happy ass, picked it up and deposited it in the trash pile 5 feet away from where it was left. Add sanitation specialist to my resume.

Come to think of it, most of my job is to get the riff raff and garbage off the streets. So from now on instead of letting people know I’m a cop when I’m off duty and they ask me what I do I’m  just telling them I’m a garbage man.

Not all loud bangs heard on the 4th of July Weekend are gunshots.

Also, even though the peoples republic of Massachusetts has outlawed fireworks, (unless you are a Kennedy) there  is no right of arrest and very few options to combat said nuisances.

As much as I’d like to jam the brick of fireworks down the revelers pants and light the wick for you, the law says I can’t.

So if the fireworks bother you, remember that they are much more bothersome to me. I will be out there going from loud bang, possible gunshots call to loud bang, possible gunshots call to loud bang, possible gunshots call  all night long. I will then go home and sleep right through the 5th of July hopefully.