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THE DIARY
NOTE; ALL ENTRIES IN GREEN INDICATE AN ENTRY INTO THE DIARY ON DAYS THAT LAWMAN DID NOT WORK.
March 5, 1999
Sorry I had to put the web page down a few days. This semester has been hectic. I did ok on my finals I think and am glad to be done with this session. I don't think things could have gotten much tougher in school this session. One of my classes was an English class. I thought that one would have been an easy class, it wasn't. The final was all essay and covered 44 literature pieces, such as Hamlet, Oedipus Rex, and a novel. The other class was Visual Basic programming. It was fun, but the final project had a lot to it.
Tonight I worked 'tact' shift, and I enjoyed myself. No answering calls, just go out and look for trouble. It took me awhile, but I eventually did find the trouble I was looking for. I stopped a fella on an infraction motor vehicle law. I ended up arresting him after which I found two small baggies full of what looked like rock cocaine. Turns out it was soap. Oh well, the fella was still wanted in state computers. He now has an additional charge of Possession With Intent to Sell and Deliver Counterfeit Cocaine. He was given a $7,000 bond and put into the gray bar hotel (jail).
I wrote 20 tickets in all tonight. That is unusually high even for me.
Thanks for listening. I am off a few days but will be making entries.
March 7, 1999
I still haven't identified the suspect in the shooting from February 12th, and I still haven't been able to serve the warrant on his accomplice. I have looked everywhere, and even hung around outside the bar where the shooting took place. The bar owner still isn't very happy with me.
I don't like the bar owner at all. Last time I spoke with him he was telling me to get off his property, and I was asking him if I could put wanted posters on patrons cars in the parking lot. It would have been ok with me if he would have simply said 'no,' but he was intent on being vocal about the request. It is evident that he isn't willing to offer any assistance to catch the shooter, even though I am convinced he knows the identity of the shooter. I know he at least is aware of where the accomplice works, but won't tell me. Sweet Justice will hit him soon I found out. It turns out that he has also caught the attention of a state agency which is about to indict him on federal charges, and will soon be closing the bar down.
One thing I have always found it hard to understand is the unwillingness of many to step forward to help catch people like the ones I am after. Nobody wants to be a 'snitch,' even if the bad guy who they are protecting shot someone else in the back. It is the norm for people to withhold information, not talk to the police about what they know, and even hide people from the police. Some are afraid, a reason I can understand, while others simply don't like the police and feel good by hiding someone like a drug dealer, domestic violence suspect, and the like. And yet we are the first they call when things go wrong for them, and wonder why we can't catch the bad guy who transgressed them. It is a frustrating cycle, and one that just doesn't make sense. The unwritten code of the streets, don't be a snitch, is just plain stupid. My feeling is that if you don't want to help your community by helping the police, don't call us when you need help.
Anyway, thanks for listening. Til next time...
March 11, 1999
Yesterday I had a little fun. I was in one of our local drug areas when I saw an old El Camino leaving the area. This particular area is a black neighborhood, but the two occupants were both white. Another clue that something was a miss was the look on the drivers face as he drove past me (I was on a sidestreet). I decided to run the license plate (I have recovered several stolen vehicles from this area, but almost always they are unoccuppied). It kind of shocked me when I saw the computer screen in my patrol car indicating the vehicle was stolen. In short the vehicle had been stolen from out of another city within my state. The driver was arrested for Possession of stolen Vehicle and put in jail.
I hope I don't offend anyone when I point out the driver was white in an all black neighborhood. The area in which I am assigned is predominantly black. Of course it isn't illegal for a white person to go into a black neighborhood, or vice versa, but it does set off some flags. Unfortunately in our Society blacks and whites tend to seperate. There are a few integrated neighborhoods (the neighborhood in which I live being one of them). For those areas I wouldn't have thought twice about seeing this particular fella driving through. But, for the drug area, it was noticable. There is only one way in and one way out of this neighborhood, and since the two roads in this neighborhood that lead out of and into the neighborhood don't go anywhere else, seeing him or any white person there will catch my attention.
I have so many opinions on the race issue. It comes down to this:
I wish the world wasn't so divided, but reality is that the world is for many. I have always thought there is to much fingerpointing and far to less constructive talk between races. Race is an issue that never seems to be talked about without fingerpointing. So the world goes on, divided as ever, and in my opinion ignorant as ever...March 13, 1999
This shift shift is the last day of tact shift. Next week I go on dayshift, my least favorite shift. There's something about getting up at 5:00 a.m. that just doesn't set right with me. It wouldn't be so bad if I were on one shift all the time, but with rotating shifts days get confusing when I have to get up that early. I have never been much of a morning person.
Anyway, this shift I played traffic cop all shift and had fun doing it. I had a couple motorists lie to me about thier name. People are sometimes shocked when they give a false name and I still arrest them. They figure, since I am not giving him any Identification, how will he know? We have a nice statute here that allows us to take someone into custody for not carrying thier drivers license. Before you get really concerned, I only use this statute when I am not sure if the driver is telling me the truth. If they don't know thier own social security number (we have the capability of looking someone up in our computer by social security number if we have had contact with them in the past using our in house database) then generally they get arrested. Then I can make telephone calls, look up jail pictures, use fingerprints, or other things to get them identified. If they turn out to be telling me the truth about thier name, they generally are released. A vast majority of the time if I arrest a person under those conditions they are not telling me the truth. None of the persons I arrested this shift gave me the right name and they now live in jail. Two of the persons were suspended, and the third just didn't have a license. In all three cases I would have written them a ticket and sent them about thier merry way if they had given me thier right name to begin with.
I also wrote a bunch of tickets this shift, including a slew of warning tickets.
Until next time....(dayshift, ugh!)
March 23, 1999
I finally got one of the two suspects in my shooting I have been working (mentioned in previous entries). When I interviewed him, he admitted to being at the crime scene, and also to being drunk, but not to seeing or being involved in the shooting. That doesn't surprise me, and in fact denying something is usually the norm. The following days did surprise me though, and got under my skin a little.
I was called in by a Judge into the suspects first appearance in court. This is highly unusual because the First Appearance is only to ask the defendant what he wants to do about a lawyer (hire his own or ask for a court appointed lawyer). Officers are never there at the First Appearance and here I was being called in to one.
When I got there I was surprised to see the victim in the court room. Usually, since the First Appearance is only about what the defendant wants to do about a lawyer, the victim doesn't even know about the defendants first appearance. If anyone shows up to a First Appearance, it is the defendants family. I wondered, and still wonder, how the victim knew the defendant's First Appearance was on this particular day and time.
To make a long story short, the victim was there to tell the judge that he made a mistake when he identified the defendant as one of the two suspects. This was despite him picking the fella out of a photographic line up and knowing the suspect by his nickname, and the defendants admission that he was there the night of the shooting! I pulled the victim out of the court and talked with him. He stuck to his story.
I think what really happened was that the defendant made contact with the victim and in so many words told him to shut up.
So, there went my case. There will be a next time I am sure. Hopefully next time no one will get killed when the defendant gets out. I believe him to be a violent fella, especially looking at his past.
Thanks for listening, until next time....
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