True Detective Stories
By Wyatt Earp | July 11, 2010
So, how is your weekend going? Mine has been chock full of idiots, especially on Friday night.
We close our wheel – meaning we don’t accept new jobs – after 10pm. Anything that comes in after 10pm is held for the next shift, because we are not allowed overtime anymore. Seriously. Any hoo, an officer walks in and says, “I have the paperwork and the complainants for the carjacking.”
I reply, “The what?”
The officer says, “The carjacking in the 39th. The one that happened at 7:45.”
Again, I ask, “The what???”
The officer gives me a dirty look and says, “There’s a scene being held out there. They called you, right?”
You know those old cartoons where the character gets so mad you see a mushroom cloud above his head? Yeah, that was me.
“No, they didn’t call!” I half-yelled. “You guys have been out there for more than two hours and no one thought it was a good idea to let us know?!!!”
The officer went into typical idiot cop mode. “Well, I’m just the messenger. The officer on the scene should have called.”
Too late, I was on a roll. “Were you on the scene, officer?”
“Well, yeah,” he deadpanned.
“Then you could have called!!!” I screamed.
By this time, my co-workers were throwing in their snarky comments, too, and the sergeant walked up. Normally a very even-keel guy, when he heard what happened, he hit the roof:
“Officer, get your supervisor on the phone. Right now.”
The officer did so, and the sergeant spoke with the district supervisor. He told him that they would have to hold the scene until the overnight shift came on, and we were doing nothing with it until that time. The patrol sergeant was not happy, but frak him. This was his mess, not ours.
But it wasn’t over yet. The jackass female officer who was holding the scene called a few minutes later.
“Yeah, this is Officer Jones. I need an assigned detective and a control number for this carjacking.”
I barely contained my glee when I responded. “Sorry, but per my sergeant, this is a last out job now. I can’t give you a number or an assigned until then.”
The officer – the stupid female waste of oxygen that thought it would be funny to hold a scene for two hours without notifying the detective division – replied thusly: “Oh, what the fuck? Are you fucking kidding me?”
I held my cool, and figured I’d bury her with kindness. “Sorry, but that’s the sergeant’s order. If you had called fifteen minutes ago, it wouldn’t have been a problem.”
The stupid bint threw out another F-Bomb before hanging up. Heh.
Topics: True Detective Stories | 16 Comments »
July 11th, 2010 at 10:36 am
The ones that irritate the heck out of me (and a few sarcastic comments, to boot) are the ones that see me trying to feed my face at my desk during lunch, catching up on required paperwork, and ask me highly technical questions (usually with several associates of mine doing nothing nearby).
And they wonder why I am sometimes hard to work with…
July 11th, 2010 at 11:21 am
Robert B.,
it’s probably because you are one of the only ones who know what to do and do a good job. I will admit it can be frustrating.
July 11th, 2010 at 11:28 am
Darwin moves too slowly.
July 11th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Darwin likes to watch you sweat.Old fart’s got a mean streak.
July 11th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
I disappear at break time so nobody cancome over and say “I know you’re on break, but this’ll just take a minute…” and then go tell my boss I was rude to them when I say it can wait until I’m done.
If I sit by myself at lunch, it’s open season, even with the stated threat to bill the offender for my time, so now I have lunch with the heads of a few don’t-mess-with-me departments.
July 11th, 2010 at 2:09 pm
I agree with Lergnom- I just leave the building entirely, otherwise it’s 20 questions EVERY day…. And yeah, she deserved to have to sit on the scene
July 11th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Yep I have walked in the door at like 2:00pm starving to death with a bag of fast food and been intercepted on the way to my office with a question that could easily wait 15 minutes for me to eat. Or have some clown follow me to my office and start asking me stupid questions that could wait.
July 11th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Sadly, calling in a scene is probably a textbook thing. Kind of like knowing you have to tie your shoes or you’ll trip kind of thing.
July 11th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
That’s about as bad as having an officer not assigned to you call you to report an accident where he totaled his service vehicle. On your Friday. At the end of the shift. When you were about to go home.
July 11th, 2010 at 9:46 pm
Robert B. – Probably 75% of the cops in my division hate my guts. Why? Because I don’t baby them when they’re being stupid. I pretty much release the snark.
LDIV – Pride in your work. I have that character flaw, too.
Proof – Dragging his damned feet.
Richard – He’s just waiting until the aneurysm.
Lergnom – I was watching the World cup during lunch on Saturday. An officer came up to me and I said, “I’ll be with you in exactly 5 minutes and 23 seconds . . . if the game doesn’t go into extra time.”
Old NFO – If my other sergeant was in, we would have handled the job. The sergeant this time has cojones, and sticks up for his people before some idiot cop.
Ingineer66 – I like when they follow you, asking questions as you walk. GET AWAY FROM ME!
RT – It’s like the first week of the Academy. She must have been doing her hair.
Enano – And of course your boss won’t dole out the overtime because your officer is too stupid to inform you in a timely manner. Supposed to work for free, I guess.
July 11th, 2010 at 10:39 pm
One of our newer officers smashed the healight out of his vehicle, and instead of calling the supervisor for the area, calls me instead. Since he contacted me, I gotta start the paperwork, investigate the accident, take pics, file the reports, etc. Not a big deal, but still pisses me off.
BTW, if you’re ever down in AZ, let me know. I have enjoyed your blog long enough that I guess I owe you some refreshments. If I ever get out of the office.
July 12th, 2010 at 12:01 am
Good deal. F-em.
July 12th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Enano – Hopefully, it won’t be long. I can’t wait to go back.
Captain – She could wait. It was her mess, so she can wait while we cleaned it up.
July 12th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
That sucks about the OT Wyatt. Our plant started a no OT policy last year and it about tanked some people. They went from 60+ hours to “No more than 40, PERIOD” in one week.
Now we’re back to free rolling. 68 was the new max.
July 13th, 2010 at 2:52 am
These people are everywhere, “Here’s a problem I created. YOU solve it.”
July 13th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Wyatt:
Time waits for NO ONE…or ANY shift change…so there ‘ya are.
(Be nice to have a pull string in the office that EVERY TIME some crap like this happens, a banner comes down with a HUGE, honking “WTF???” on it!
YOU did it right…God bless ‘ya!
And stay safe out there.