True Detective Stories

Sunday evening was a nightmare. We walked into a search warrant for a DNA gun swab, a domestic violence gun pointing incident which needed a search warrant, and a triple shooting which turned into a homicide. Thanks to the city’s mission to defund the police, we only had five detectives working.

No shooting teams, no domestic violence personnel.

At about 5pm, one of the dumber districts brought up a stolen gun report. The story was quite ridiculous, even for this division. The report read more or less as follows:

“The victim stated she was at her mother’s residence and placed a bag on top of her vehicle. The bag contained a handgun and $900 USC – totally believable. The victim drove away with the bag on top of the vehicle, and when she returned – inconceivably – the bag, USC, and firearm were missing.”

The young woman lives outside the city in a fairly wealthy suburb. She simply decided to visit her mother – who lives in one of the city’s most violent, drug-infested neighborhoods – while carrying a bag full of money and a loaded firearm.

I won’t even mention the idiocy of driving around with a bag containing a loaded pistol. Had she been stopped by police she would have, at best, seen her gun confiscated, or at worst, been arrested for firearms violations, since she had no permit to carry.

Although I am not the assigned detective, I can tell you with certainty what happened. The victim drove to Philadelphia “to see her mother,” but never stopped at the house. Instead, she hooked up with one of the local hood rats, and sold the firearm. She made a lot of money, the hood rat received a pistol and a butt-load of ammunition, and the gun will likely be used in a shooting by the end of the week.

Bank on it.

True Detective Stories

So Friday night was a special for me and my career. I was presented with my 25-year service plaque from the police department.

Unfortunately, I reached twenty-five years in 2019, but better late than never, huh?

The plaques were delivered in 2019, and when Covid hit, everything went to hell. A multitude of plaques were left in the captain’s office, and it took the administration two years to remember they were back there.

For the record, those who know me know I don’t like ceremonies, especially when I’m involved. It’s embarrassing, and I would just rather it be handed out and we continue with our day. My lieutenant presented the plague in front of my coworkers, and said a multitude of nice things about me, claiming I have “held this squad together for the seven years (the lieutenant) has been assigned here.”

The speech was very humbling.

My squad bought pizzas, Buffalo wings, and a lot of other goodies, which we could have scarfed down if there weren’t two active shootings. Either way, it was a nice evening for me and my coworker Tommy, who celebrated twenty years in the department.

True Detective Stories

You know, in a little more than a month, I will be “celebrating” twenty-seven years in the police department. In those twenty-seven years, I spent twenty-two in two of the worst, most violent parts of this wretched city. As a result, you would think I have seen everything.

You would be incorrect.

On Wednesday evening, a patrol sergeant called the division and stated they pulled over a driver for the ridiculously unconstitutional – in my opinion – crime of having tinted vehicle windows. Personally, I usually tried to stop vehicles blowing red lights, swerving in and out of traffic, or otherwise committing actual crimes. But I digress.

When the officers approached the vehicle, the defendant refused to roll down the window, or exit his car. Stupefied, these two super cops called a patrol supervisor to give them guidance. (If they had called me, I would have told them to release the guy because their probable cause was bullsh*t.) The supervisor arrived on location, and the defendant still refused to exit the car or roll down the window. The supervisor’s next move was arguably the dumbest thing I have ever heard.

The supervisor declared the scene a barricade.

Obviously, a barricaded person call almost exclusively pertains to an armed person holding up in a residence or a business. They refuse to come out of the structure, and the barricade is announced by the ranking supervisor. In nearly thirty years of policing, I have never ever heard someone call a barricade in a vehicle, because there is no such thing as a barricaded vehicle.

It’s ludicrous to even call a barricade in a car, because you can see exactly what the defendant is doing at all times. But hey, I guess the supervisor wanted to earn a Valor medal or some such nonsense.

This idiot supervisor then declared a staging scene, notified the upper-echelon bosses – who likely laughed all the way to the location – and frantically gave out information over police radio describing how the defendant was still inside the car.

Eventually the defendant’s wife came to the scene and asked him to exit the car – like the South Park “Trapped In A Closet” episode. The supervisor later claimed there was a firearm inside the vehicle, but by that time I didn’t care anymore.

This department is surrounded with people who shouldn’t be allowed to carry a plastic knife, let alone a firearm, and I anxiously await for one of these geniuses to declare a barricade at a hot dog stand.

1,148 days.

Good Man Gets A Bad Rap

Greg Hallgrimson, the former police chief of Greenwood, Missouri, has pled guilty to assault charges after he allegedly beat a man who had just confessed to drowning his six-month old daughter.

Investigators believe that Jonathon Stephen Zicarelli’s six-month-old daughter had been in the water for approximately 10 minutes before he went to the Greenwood Police Department on Dec. 17, 2018, and flatly confessed to her murder.

“There was no emotion whatsoever,” Greenwood Police Lieutenant Aaron Fordham recalled, adding that Zicarelli was positive that the little girl was dead.

Greenwood Police Chief Greg Hallgrimson and Corporal Tom Calhoun immediately rushed out to the icy pond, where they spotted the unconscious baby floating face-up in the water.

They began administering CPR on the bank, and the baby miraculously began breathing again just moments later. They took off her wet clothing and swaddled her in Chief Hallgrimson’s shirt until emergency medical personnel arrived to take her to the hospital. She was treated for severe hypothermia and was in stable condition later that afternoon, he said.

The two officers saved this girl’s life, and because Hallgrimson lost his cool and doled out a truly deserved beating, he is apparently the villain here. I would expect no less from Missouri.

Zicarelli later told investigators that in the 24 hours prior to the attack, he went down to the water three times to build up the nerve to drown his daughter, according to court documents.

After the little girl was transported to the hospital, Chief Hallgrimson returned to the police station and placed Zicarelli under arrest. That’s when he threw the handcuffed man to the floor by his throat and punched him in the face, telling him, “You deserve to die.” (H/T – Smite)

Does anyone disagree? Look, I understand why Hallgrimson lost his composure, and I understand why he punched Zicarelli in the face. The problem here is the jurisdiction. Missouri isn’t exactly a cop-friendly state, and despite the fact I believe Hallgrimson should be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, plenty of other Missouri jurors will want to throw the book at him.

True Detective Stories

Thursday afternoon was my first day back on night work. Night work blows because we’re always so busy. The junkies wake up at the crack of noon, and everything goes to hell. We received thirty-one jobs and I had to dispense them over six detectives. One of which, was Diego the Asshole Detective.

*I changed his name for this post, because I hate this piece of shite.

As you all know, Diego is a fat, lazy moron – a title certified by the CDC – who spends his work day watching sports or listening to podcasts. Since he believes he doesn’t actually have to work at, well, work, he pays little to no attention to the jobs he receives.

Diego’s first arrest was for gun possession, which is a tedious, lengthy job which a real detective should handle, but sadly, Fatty McButterpants was next up. Since he was assigned an actual job, I laid off him for a bit so he could get his work done. About an hour later, I walked past his desk and he was watching the Phillies game. My first , and only thought was, “F**k this.”

True Detective Stories

Today will be an interesting day.

My division has several sections: Special Investigations (shooting teams), Domestic Violence, and the Line Squad (grunts like me who handle all the other jobs). Since we’re one of the busiest divisions in the city, we usually have plenty of detectives assigned here. However, since the city started defunding the police, the line squad has been running skeleton crews.

Today is a worse day than most, as there is one – ONE – detective working the line squad today. Well, technically two, because I will be working the front desk.

You see, the city has been defunding the police, but not at a rate fast enough for their liking. Enter our Soros-appointed District Attorney, Larry Krasner. Recently Krasner has decided nearly every single court case should be given the “Must Be Tried” label. That means if a detective is subpoenaed for court, the detective has to appear in person.

What happens is the detective appears, the ADA says, “I’ll likely need you to testify,” and four hours later they tell you, “Oh, I don’t need you. Have a good day.” They have been pulling this garbage for years, but it’s much worse now.

Since the city has been unable to force enough cops to quit, they decided to head in a different direction. If they call enough police officers and detectives down to court, there are less cops on the street and less detectives handling assignments. So today, we will have one desk person and one line detective.

I cannot wait to leave this horrible department. 1,160 days.

True Detective Stories

There is no question I think Diego the Idiot Detective is the dumbest person I have ever met. It’s not even close, and I would say the illegitimate president is galactically smarter that this imbecile.

Let’s take example 3,879.

On Monday, there was a gun arrest waiting for us. The overnight shift got stuck with two shootings, so they had to hand it off to us. Diego the Idiot Detective was up for the first arrest – which made me smile – and that meant he would be busy most of the tour.

According to the report, two thugs were sitting on the offender’s steps smoking weed all night. The offender, an Asian man who is in his 70’s, has to sleep in his lviign room because he cannot climb stairs. After a few days of this, he apparently had enough. The “victims” claimed the man walked out the door, threatened them with a shotgun, and said, “I’ll kill you.”

True Detective Stories

Well, after returning to work from vacation, it only took two days for the stupid to kick in. Actually, that’s not entirely correct, because I had 53 unassigned jobs waiting for me when I came in on Friday.

The bulk of the stupid, however, took place on Saturday morning.

So we’re sitting in the building, working on jobs, when a police officer called from the street. She said she responded to a report of a Person With A Gun, and when she arrived, she was met by a Good Samaritan inside a park. The man was walking through the park when he found a pistol lying on the ground.

The man claimed he didn’t want any of the kids getting hurt, so he called 911 for someone to recover the pistol. Apparently, the Good Samaritan was getting antsy waiting for the officer, so the Samaritan picked up the firearm.

Try to guess what happened.

The Good Samaritan picked up the pistol, put his finger on the trigger, and fired off a round. It would appear the Good Samaritan is not so good at listening to directions. Thankfully, no one was hit, but perhaps the Samaritan learned a little something about firearms safety.

1,166 days.

True Detective Stories

So yesterday a gaggle of bosses were congregating around my desk talking about the state of the department. I almost always ignore those conversations, because 1. it’s boring, and 2. there’s nothing we can do to fix this police force.

The conversation continues, and one of the bosses claims the city’s manpower is much worse than we were told. The department always claims we have a 6,000 member police department. No one believes that statistic, because it’s 100% false. Between officers who are injured on duty, posted to irrelevant “teat jobs,” and those under investigation, we’re actually looking at 5,000. At least that’s what I thought…

True Detective Stories

I’m fairly certain I have not concealed my complete distaste and disgust of Diego the Idiot Detective. Wednesday night, he was assigned to a narcotics arrest with a gun possession. It would have been a night-long job, which would mean he wouldn’t be bothering the rest of us. An hour passed, and there was still no paperwork, so I asked what was going on.

Diego replied, “I called the Narcotics Unit, and they said they would handle the job.” My jaw dropped. I asked him why he would do that since, 1. he is not a supervisor, and 2. it was not a job big enough for Narcotics to grab. Diego responded with, “Well, I go on vacation tomorrow.”

Eh, what?

Diego is a very stupid man, but even he knows you cannot start your vacation until your previous tour is over. Tonight would have been his last night, and his vacation would have begun at 11pm this evening. So I did some checking, and apparently, this prick went to the daywork supervisor and asked if he could have Wednesday off. This is a major no-no, because you are supposed to ask your own supervisor for a day off.

The daywork supervisor is a good guy, and he approved the day. The funny part is dumbass didn’t realize he was also supposed to work today. You see, Diego only asked for a day off on Wednesday, but he is due in work at 3pm today. I cannot wait until my supervisor asks me, “Hey, where is Diego?”

I may actually videotape my supervisor’s rage when he realizes what Diego pulled. Since he didn’t officially ask for a day off today, he could be entered as AWOL.

There are only two good parts of this story – besides Diego’s idiocy. First, since he passed off his first arrest to Narcotics, so he was up for another arrest. That arrest didn’t come in until 9:45pm, so he ended up having to stay late to do the paperwork.

Second, Diego took three weeks vacation, and the day he returns is the day I start my vacation. So, I won’t have to deal with this assclown for five glorious weeks.

UPDATE: I sent Diego a text claiming he wasn’t in the book for today, and when he argued that I was lying, I sent him the computer entry and the empty vacation entry. I told him he needs to call the division immediately, and the sergeant ranted at him for his stupidity.