that shit is always cool to see. The nuts on that guy. I have had civilians help me out in incidents that got hairy. The last time I ever worked in uniform, I responded to a fight. It was a gang initiation where some little punks were jumping out on people. This was the third night in a row: the first guy had his arm and his jaw broken, the second guy had his orbital socket broken, and this third time, it was a little homeless old man that they split the back of his head open like a melon.
I was first on scene and began collecting into. The neighbors were pissed off that this keeps happening and they indicated one house and said the kids (17-19) were hiding and responsible. We got the victim to the hospital and I was saying behind to gather one more statement form. All the other officers left to go do their reports as they were done soon and I had just started my shift. I told them “don’t go far, this is not over.” But, they said “fuck the lieutenant-what does he know?” And within minutes, the crowd formed and started yelling at the house and calling them pussies. Soon, the pussies came flooding out to fight the crowd. I got in between them and for a minute or two, they seemed to listen. I said “we’re not doing this shit-stay the fuck back!” The citizens listened but the little gangbangers kept jumping and barking and running they moufs. So fights began to break out. I kept getting in between them, taking just enough time in between shoving people to call some officers back to the scene. I said “it’s getting bad, I need help here.” Then it got worse and punches were being thrown. I keep shoving the same guy back-lanky, 19, 6-3, 180 and he starts getting mad at me telling me to move my bitch ass the way. I told him he had his last warning. I go and break up another fight and homeboy is attacking someone and I throw him off of him and the little sprat comes at me with his shoulder lowered, so I got lower and just blasted him into a car. I fought with him for moment to get him handcuffs, ignoring the threats that he was gonna fuck me up, got him handcuffed when I felt something whiff past my forehead. It was his brother trying to punt my head from my shoulders. I hear the woman I got the last statement off of screaming in the phone to dispatch “they’re going to kill your officer-send help now!!” It wasn’t quite that serious, but it was a spicy scenario. He stepped back and lined up the shot and out of nowhere, this big white bear of a man reaches down, bear hugs him and picks him off of the ground-kicking out and making threats.
I had seen this guy the last two nights and spoke to him about these incidents. I promised to increase patrols when we could and he shook my hand.
The other cops arrive, I chewed an ass or two about not going far and leaving me in that situation. I told them I would have been absolutely ashamed to leave a single officer behind on such a call. It burned some asses because some of those guys still don’t like me to this day-maybe because of it, hell, maybe they didn’t like me before this and that’s why they left me alone-who knows?
I found a very large dent in the wheel well of a vehicle and I was sure it was from the dude’s head. He had no injuries and denied he hit his head. We called the prosecutor to advise on charges. Big shocker, just get names and statements since no one would admit to being hit by any of them and most were under 18. I tried to have a man to man talk with my dude and said that if he continues to be a shithead, the next time he goes to big boy jail and will probably catch an ass beating by a less friendly officer than myself. He just said “whatever man, you didn’t do shit.” I pointed out the noises he made while he was being handcuffed with minimal effort-but don’t worry about that, prison will make you stronger and tougher.
So I went to thank my savior. He had some nice things to say about me getting in between twenty people trying to take each other’s heads off and some not so nice things to say about the younger officers (not my shift btw, I was “flexing” my hours and started a few hours early so I could finish around 0200 and this was another lieutenants shift-who was nowhere near this fracas). We shook hands again and I laughed and said “same time tomorrow night?” And he said he would throw some burgers on the grill for me.
Then I went back to hq, high on adrenaline and started typing and my left arm kept missing keys and hitting more than one key and then it fell completely off the keyboard. I knew what that meant. Went to the doctor and after telling them and telling them that physical therapy wasn’t going to repair whatever I tore, they did an mri and they said I had torn my labrum again(I had that same shoulder fixed two years prior). Got the surgery, worked a few weeks of light duty rewriting policies and running my shift as much as I could, but I wasn’t a cop on the streets-I was spurned admin.
Sleeping in a recliner for six months waiting for the surgery made my back get worse and worse and after the surgery, I found out my back had now gotten pretty bad. My legs kept giving out on me and they said “we have to do this now or you can lose the use of your legs.” So there it was, the end of my police career from one incident.
