True Detective Stories

There is a much more entertaining True Detective Stories coming up later today, but this tale of woe needed to take precedence.

I walked into work at 6:30am on Sunday, started entering Saturday’s late jobs, and smiled that there were only three jobs to assign. It was going to be a very good day.

While searching through the unassigned jobs queue, I saw a report from the worst district in the division. They cops who work in this particular district are the worst of the worst. They tape phone conversations when they call the division – a felony in Pennsylvania – they call us and ask stupid questions they should be asking their supervisor, and they take hours to bring in priority reports.

The report I spied was a firearms arrest. This is a priority job, and it needs to be brought to us expeditiously because we need to run a gun trace, swab the firearm for DNA, and obtain a search warrant for the swab. What used to be a one hour arrest is not a three-hour chore…

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 Thursday night we had the A-Team on the street. Nearly every single cop in the division was doing their Streisand impersonations. Officers were getting entirely too excited over a probation arrest, bragging about a shoplifting pinch, and upgrading an infinitely minor retail theft.

The last two officers have maybe a year on the job, and they treated this random act of whimsy like it was the Lufthansa heist. Apparently, a male entered the Family Dollar – the Fort Knox of Retail Stores – selected several items, including bottles of Febreeze – and tried to flee the scene. An employee decided to play Gary Cooper and tried to stop the thief, who immediately punched him multiple times in the face and head. Normally, we would call that an “Aggravated Retail Theft,” but it is technically a robbery.

Not that the District Attorney’s Office will approve robbery charges, but whatever.

I told the officers to get everyone out of the store and hold it as a crime scene until we get out there. Guess who was the assigned detective? Diego.

Earlier in the day, a call came in and claimed they wanted to speak to a detective. I was busy putting in seven old jobs from the night before, and I asked Diego to take a message. He left the phone on hold – because he’s an a-hole – and I finally had to answer it. Imagine the joy I felt when I saw Diego was up for this cluster…