True Detective Stories

As I walked into work Friday afternoon, I felt pretty good. There were no pending jobs on my desk, Diego the Idiot Detective was off for the rest of the tour, and my physical therapist thinks I may be able to avoid shoulder surgery.

Yep, I was feelin’ fine… and then they came into the building.

Two members of the BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) waltzed in and said they had a job for us. My first instinct was to tell then to f**k off, considering how awful federal agents have been, well, forever. Instead, I suggested they contact our Major Crimes Unit, since federal cases are usually handled by, you know, federal agents.

Apparently, these two clowns observed two males purchasing firearms in an adjoining state, followed them through said state and halfway through Pennsylvania. They finally had the car stopped in my division – but of course they did – had our police officers arrest the males, and demanded WE write up their search warrants.

Yeah. No.

True Detective Stories

I apologize for two TDS posts in as many days, but this woman perfectly encapsulated everything wrong with modern-day policing.

A female officer and her male partner brought in a firearms arrest an hour before our shift ended. This is always a problem because we are not allowed to accrue overtime for these jobs. A detective has to start the paperwork, then dish it off to the next shift. It’s frustrating because you don’t want to start a job and just leave it for someone else.

A few months ago, the Soros-appointed District Attorney decided we had to use a DNA swab on every person arrested for firearms possession. One oral swab for the offender, and another to swab the gun. Obviously, we need to apply for a search warrant, take it downtown to be signed, and execute it afterward. In short, the D.A. turned an easy forty-five minute job to a two hour nightmare. We adapted, but whatever.

After the DNA order went out, another order was made for my squad. We will not assign any gun arrests until all the officer’s paperwork is finished. The order is not flexible, and if an officer brings in a gun without paperwork, they will wait until everything is completed.

Mind you, this has been policy for a few months now…

True Detective Stories

So the other day I was sitting in my Man Cave playing NHL 2020 when I received a text message from one of my coworkers. The detective sent a photo of four dozen donuts in the kitchen, sent in by a victim who actually thought Diego the Idiot Detective did a good job.

Yes, we were all shocked and appalled.

The detective called Diego and told him what happened, and because Diego is the dumbest person currently living on the planet, he freaked out. Apparently, even HE didn’t believe he did a good job, and told the detective he thought someone accessed his credit card and purchased the donuts with it.

Oh, they’re Beiler’s Donuts – very expensive and very delicious. Too bad the victim sent them on a day Diego was off. I’m surprised he didn’t drive to work.

The detective texted, “Right now, Diego and his wife are looking over their credit card statements. LOL.”

Oh, and since yesterday was my first day back on night work, my fellow detectives left me sixty-four – SIXTY-FOUR! – unassigned jobs.

True Detective Stories

I cannot stand this paste eating imbecile.

Diego the Idiot Detective asked, and was approved for a vacation day Saturday. I was overjoyed by this, because weekend day work is usually not as hectic as weekdays. The bosses aren’t around, the drones all have the day off, and it’s usually quiet until noon.

I arrived at 6:30 – yes, I always arrive early on day work – and started entering the day’s jobs. I was entering a job when Diego walked past my desk. I looked up and asked, “What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you are in the book as being off vacation today.”

Diego pauses, turns around, and looks at the vacation book. His name is right there with the letters “VAC” next to it. Diego then actually says, “Oh, I forgot I took the day off.”…

R.I.P. Chicago: 1833-2021

The Chicago Police Department took another hit after Mayor Lori “Groot” Lightfoot and Superintendent David Brown have effectively banned all police foot pursuits. The defunding of the policy – both monetarily and procedurally – continues apace.

Chicago police will be adopting a new foot chase policy that looks to limit when an officer can engage in the tactic. This comes after two cases of policy killing someone they were in pursuit of on foot.

Well, that’s extraordinarily vague. Were the shootings justified, or were the suspects murdered?

The new policy, which goes into effect on June 11, prohibits foot chases in connection to minor traffic offenses or for criminal offenses less than a Class A misdemeanor, “unless the person poses an obvious threat to the community or any person.”

The policy says that foot pursuits are now “appropriate only when there is probable cause for an arrest or it is believed an individual has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime.”

In nearly twenty-seven years on the job, I can tell you 95% of foot pursuits fall into the above category. No one is chasing people for public urination or spitting on the sidewalk.

Foot pursuits are to be discontinued if someone requires medical attention, if the officer loses the suspect’s location, if the officer believes they wouldn’t be able to control the suspect in the case of a confrontation, and “if the need to apprehend the subject is not worth the risk to responding officers, the public or the subject.”

And there it is. Mayor Groot’s new policy effectively eliminates all foot pursuits, because the Superintendent and the Internal Affairs investigators will claim chasing that homicide suspect wasn’t worth the risk.

True Detective Stories

It’s been a while since I posted about Diego the Idiot Detective; not because he isn’t still stupid, but because none of the dumbass things he has done lately really angered me.

So much for that streak.

The division was stacked Friday, with nearly every detective in my squad present. Within an hour, three detectives were called to court, two more detectives had to go to Trenton, NJ to get an interview signed, and two detectives were catching up on jobs which were due a week ago. For most of the day, four of the eleven detectives were in the building – one of which was Diego.

Around noon, the phone rang, and while Diego hadn’t picked up a phone the entire day, he decided to answer this call. After a few minutes, he came up front to talk to our supervisor, claiming a man was arrested after breaking into a house and there was a crime scene. The supervisor, who knows how stupid Diego is, asked him to give the phone to the assigned detective. After a few minutes, the assigned detective came up and said, “It’s a residential burglary, and there is no scene. I don’t know what Diego told you, but as usual, he got the story entirely wrong.”

Philadelphia Has Become Thunderdome

The Philadelphia Police Department will be implementing a pilot program which will make it nearly impossible to conduct pedestrian investigations and vehicle stops. As part of the 2011 Bailey Agreement – where the NAACP claimed police were stopping blacks at a disproportionate rate – officers had to jump through hoops to stop a pedestrian for nearly any reason.

The irony of the Bailey Agreement is most of those stops were in the most violent parts of the city, and the majority of the people in those neighborhoods are black. Fun fact: you stop more white people in white neighborhoods, and you stop more black people in black neighborhoods.

The police commissioner is now doubling down on Bailey, and her pilot program would include the following measures. Officers will not be able to frisk any pedestrian for any reason; even if the radio call claimed the pedestrian is armed. Officers cannot stop someone solely by race (which I would agree, but rarely happens in my division).

Officers cannot stop someone who fits the description of a person with a gun. Officers cannot stop someone for narcotics unless there are other mitigating factors. (I agree with that, too, since Philadelphia effectively legalized drugs.)

The newest bright idea concerns city ordinances. Officers cannot stop someone for panhandling, public urination, or any similar offenses. I mean, if you believe in the Broken Windows Theory, you know the minor crimes usually lead to major crimes.

“This plan does not abandon enforcement of low-level vehicle violations but does modify how enforcement will occur by utilizing primary and secondary offense protocol, similar to the manner in which the current seatbelt laws are enforced.”

So if an officer observes someone running a red light, the offender also has to be speeding, or swerving, or not wearing his/her seat belt. In effect, the city has prohibited car stops, effective immediately.

You see, while the city was defunding the police – the department lost $33 million from the budget – they were also working to prevent police officers from doing their jobs. In a city overrun with homicides and other violent crimes, the city handcuffed their police officers and placed them on the bench. The city was already a war zone, but now it’s turning into Thunderdome.

Also, this happened yesterday…

This is how the city treats its workers. 90 f**king degrees.

True Detective Stories

Obviously, I understand many of these True Detective Stories are little more than bitch-fests. That said, this is the bitchiest bitch-fest I have ever written since I started blogging in 2005.

(2005? Holy crap, I’ve wasted sixteen years of my life!)

After two glorious days off, I returned to work Thursday afternoon ready to roll up my sleeves and put in the usual twenty unassigned jobs my coworkers left me. The good news is there were not twenty unassigned jobs in the queue, there were sixty-one.

SIXTY. ONE.

After seeing the list, I stood up and walked downstairs, went out the door, and walked around the building before I literally murdered someone. I came back, notified my supervisor, and started entering the jobs. So I was looking at sixty-one jobs, plus the current jobs which were coming in. I worked from 3pm to 9pm, only stopping to use the bathroom and a very quick scarfing of my salad…

Dangerous Curves Ahead

A British Transport police officer was spared dismissal after allegedly sexually harassing a woman, hugging her, and claiming she was “too curvy to be Asian.”

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), which conducted the investigation, said Imran Aftab had inappropriately used his status as a police officer to harass a female jogger and make “sexually inappropriate comments” while he was off-duty back in April 2020, reported The Mirror.

Aftab reportedly told the victim she was “too curvy to be Asian,” showed her his warrant card and asked for her phone number. He also tried to hug her, which the probe found to be a breach of coronavirus restrictions.

A breach of coronavirus restrictions? How about a breach of dozens of other skeevy actions?

The woman, who eventually complained about receiving racist and sexualized comments, sent the message, “help me,” to a friend. After she gave her number to Aftab, with plans to block him later on, he sent her six text messages.

Also, not for nothing, but there are plenty of curvy Asian women around the world; and I’m sure Aftab will be approaching those women, as well. Dumbass.

True Detective Stories

Getting old sucks. Or blows. Or whatever. When it comes to departmental training, few things are better than pistol requalification. You’re out of the office, you don’t have to deal with humans, and you’re shooting in the fresh air.

For the past 26-plus years, I have been a decent shot. Not terrific – I think I scored five or six perfect scores – but I’m always scoring in the high 90’s. I’d never make the SWAT team, but I’m also in my 50’s. With only seven other officers shooting with me, I felt confident I would do well.

Holy crap, was I wrong.

When we went out on the line, the first thing the instructor told me was my grip was wrong. It’s the grip I was taught in 1994, and the grip I have been using for 26 years. I’m left-handed, so my right thumb was always atop my left thumb while shooting. Now, as I’m about to shoot, the instructor wanted me to undo everything I have been doing – fairly well – for nearly three decades.

(They did the same with our stance a year or two ago. “Sure, you guys have been using the Weaver Stance for two decades, but now we want you to use the Isosceles Stance.” And… go!)