True Detective Stories

Occasionally I start these True Detective Stories with something along the lines of, “This doesn’t mean to be a bitch post…”

This post is exclusively a bitch post, so if you don’t feel like reading it, that’s cool.

Yesterday ended my two weeks of night work. As one of the pretty police officers downstairs always says, “Last day, best day.” Sadly, yesterday was nothing of the sort. I walked into the division at 2:40pm, and the floor was a ghost town. There was one detective left from the early shift, which was odd because there are usually a handful of detectives at that time of day.

I didn’t lose my mind about the lack of manpower, because screw them; if they want to run a skeleton crew, that’s on them.

Sadly, it was on us.

My desk was covered with paperwork from the early shift, which usually gets placed into their inbox. The only time we have to handle jobs from a previous shift is when they are priorities. Unluckily for me and my squad, there were three robbery reports on the desk. One of which was taken at 12:25pm, which was two and a half hours before my shift began. Where the f**k were the detectives, and how can they get away with leaving us three robberies which occurred on a different shift?

…

As the aneurysm was traveling through my brain, I decided to simply assign the cases to my detectives, and apologize before doing so. We had six detectives on the floor, so we could manage the workload. Or at least I thought we did. One of my supervisors had a detective finish up a job from the previous day, and the administrative lieutenant took another detective for his pet project.

For the record, the admin lieutenant has a bevy of his own detectives, but why use them when he can steal them from me?

So now I’m down to four detectives, and only two were present. So I gave the two detectives the robberies, and the third one could pound sand. It’s from the worst district in our division with the worst cops in the state. I went over radio and effectively told them to sit and spin until we get there.

So now I have no one available until 4pm, but the jobs keep coming in. A commercial burglary, a stolen gun, a robbery/rape that Special Victims passed onto us. My bosses are asking, “Who’s up for this job? Who got that job?” and I’m trying to explain that I have no one available. So, as I’m at my wit’s end, one of the admin detectives stop by me desk, and she’s carrying a lot of paperwork. I know how this conversation ends.

“Oh hey, we have COMPSTAT on Wednesday, and all these jobs need to be entered, mmm-kay?”
“Okay, how many of them are from my squad?”
“None.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured.”

So now I have to put in jobs from the other shifts because these cock-holsters won’t do their job. And this is a constant proposition; whenever something needs done, head to Wyatt, because he won’t say no.” The supervisors are asking, “Oh, what’s that job?” and I have to tell then they aren’t our jobs, but the captain’s office need them entered.

The bosses give me a look, and actually say, “Why didn’t you say no?”

“Gee, I don’t know; maybe because I don’t feel like heading to Internal Affairs for ignoring an order?” Or maybe I want to stay on until 2024 so I can get every single cent this horrible city owes me, and sitting out for a five-day suspension may seem awesome, but I really like getting paid.

The last straw was from the quietest district in our division. The captain of the district – who was in my academy class – is a very nice guy, but dumber than Kim Kardashian. He sent us a stolen car report – which we do not investigate unless it’s a carjacking – to the admin lieutenant, who gleefully gave it to us. When I inquired about WHY THE F**K ARE WE GETTING THIS, I was told to simply to assign it to someone.

I should have let that captain fail out of the academy when I had the chance.

Now, I know there was a point to this, but I was typing it while at work, and I was kinda angry. Oh yeah, the point of this fiasco is that this police department is exactly like living in Biden’s America. You can be a bum in this department, but if you know the right people, you can do whatever you want. If you’re a worker, you get shat upon, because you don’t know the right people, and twenty-eight years of service means nothing to the hoi polloi.