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A Broken Glass Rerun
What is happening in policing, especially in Portland, is heartbreaking. Though it is not any better in cities outside Portland. I’m old-school when it comes to loyalty. Loyalty means supporting honest policing. Perhaps I’ve seen too much on the streets, and what matters to me is supporting officers that have seen what I have seen.
And on the dance floor broken glass
And bloody faces slowly pass
The numbered seats in empty rows
It all belongs to me you know-The Who
Make no mistake, I do not judge those that did not choose police work as being weak; I reserve scorn for journalists that present themselves as experts on policing. They, at the very least, should know who they are: David French and Radley Balko to name just two. One can criticize, but unless you are wrestling around in the gutter with a subject at 0200 hours you should temper your criticism with your lack of participation in making an arrest.
I do know that good police officers are leaving police work. Proactive police work in poor neighborhoods is important, and a well developed sense of curiosity is extremely important to good police work. I was compassionate when I could be, and I could plant someone on the pavement when I had to.
The Rerun
484 Traffic
Dispatcher: 484 go.
Me; I-205 and Columbia with Oregon plate, Adam Boy Charlie 123.
Dispatcher: 484 Copy.
The dispatcher will enter the plate number into the computer while I talk to the driver. My driver is a bit nervous, but that’s not unusual, and he has five teenaged girls in his VW Beetle. They’re not nervous, and they’re all smiles, and very chatty. They look like they are between the ages of 15 and 18.
I tell the driver I need his license, registration, and proof of insurance. As he’s retrieving them from the glovebox I ask him if one of the young ladies is his daughter. He looks like he’s in his forties. One of the girls in the backseat answers the question for him; Oh no officer, he’s a talent agent, and he’s going to take photos of us, we’re going to be models. We met him tonight at a party.” I look at the driver, who’s really nervous now and I say; Really, okay ladies I want you to get out of the car and stand on the sidewalk.
I have his paperwork, and I tell him to hand me his car keys. I don’t want him to become a frequent flyer as I’m talking to the girls. I open up my warbag. I always kept a roll of quarters in the bag because newsrooms monitored our radio calls in the days before cell phones. If I was involved in a sensitive incident I could make a call on a landline and speak to a supervisor without cameras and reporters rushing to get a story.
There was a gas station with a payphone right on the corner of our traffic stop. I hand each girl a quarter, and one of them gets a sticky note with our exact location. I told them to call their parents, and tell them to come and get them, just pass the note along to each other. The smiles disappear, and the tears began. One girl pointed at another and said; ‘We’re supposed to be spending the night at her house.” The young lady that was pointed out said; ‘I’m supposed to be spending the night at her house.” I told them, just make the calls, you and your parents can sort out all the stories.
As I keep an eye on the line at the phone the dispatcher calls me:
Dispatcher; 484
Me; Go ahead.
484; Your subject has an FTA (Failure to Appear), warrant for his arrest.
My reply; Well, there is a God.
I arrest the driver, call for a police tow to take his car to Seizure World. I watch as parents come to get their daughters. One mom asked me about the traffic stop. She started crying about what might have happened to her daughter.
As I was heading to booking with my talent agent I said, why don’t you tell me about this party that extends invites to teenaged girls. His reply was, I’m not talking to you.
I suppose you can’t please everyone.
That’s my rant.
Happy New Year.
Published in Policing
Have the best New Year you can, Doug. I hope we can meet again in 2021.
A Happy New Year to you as well. I hope that we can meet again as well.
This is one of my favorite stories by you. Thank you for being a knight in shining armor for those girls, their parents and your community.
OK, but if you did not have a strong reason for your decision, we’d probably all plead with you to reverse it. You wrote something that few of us could and none of us did, and everyone would be better off by reading.
Thank you, I’ve changed it to a possible promotion.
I like to read these stories with a Joe Friday voice. Good stuff. Happy 2021.
Quite so.
And if “I-205 and Columbia” meant the Columbia River, seems like the Mann Act would be involved.
In my day it was dimes. Before Jimmy Carter’s inflation.
I love these stories, Doug. Thank you for them. Happy New Year!
Yep, inflation, but there will always be a warm spot in my heart for MCSO Deputies.
Thx, Doug. Without your remembrances, some of us won’t be able to quite imagine being in that gutter, unless we’ve been someplace similar, maybe in some other uniform. Some of us weren’t in any similar situation in any uniform.
It’s a mutual self-help society. If I hadn’t suffered through the struggle of understanding theory of money (admittedly no gutter, no violent perp, no post-trauma BS paperwork, no threat of betrayal by the very society that one was risking one’s life to protect, but still: a struggle) I would not be able to share what I have learned with you. We are even. Approximately. Very, very roughly. (Humor)
[Draft copy. May be edited next year if I’m still awake.]
Columbia Boulevard parallels the river on the Oregon side.
Oh, that makes sense especially given the pay phone etc. I left Oregon 30 years ago, and I wasn’t in the Portland area very much. Especially not that far east.
The Warbag reference in my post contains Custody reports, Incident reports, as well as a one-way CPR mask. It also includes about 100 9mm rounds, a box of double-aught buckshot rounds, and 50 caliber slugs for the shotgun. Cars leaving the precinct have enough ammo to take a small Latin American country. Not politically correct, and you didn’t hear it from me.
Doug, you prevented those girls from having fabulous modeling careers. Shame on you.
As always, great work–the arrest and the story. Thanks, Doug.
I’ll add this to the list I plan to give to all those who believe that “the community” or social workers can and should respond to all suspected criminal activity, Doug.
This is one of many things from the last couple of years that will have a lasting impact on our country.
Thank you again for your work and the vignettes you give us of it.
What was the underlying offense re: the FTA?
Thou knowest why I ask.
I believe it was two traffic crimes, a DUII, and Attempt To Elude.
Oh. So it wasn’t a moral turpitude charge. I guess he might still have been a “registrant,” to use a generic term. Prolly not PC for a search warrant on his house then. Pity.
I did write an Incident Report (IR), and checked the distribution box on the report to be sent to detectives. You never know, but his vehicle, and physical description might have crossed their desks involving more than just his driving habits.