I am sorry folks, I took a break for awhile to catch up on work around the house and just didn't feel like staying up to catch up on my blog, but I am back and have stories to tell!!!
This past Friday night my wife and I were able to attend the Bill Engvall concert in Columbus, GA and I have to admit I have not laughed so much in a long time. Now granted, I had heard alot of the material before but somehow just hearing it in person made a difference. He is truly one outstanding man and if you ever get the chance I would highly reccomend going to see him. Of course his signature saying is "HERE'S YOUR SIGN" and god does that fit with working in law enforcement. There were thousands of times I would have loved to have used that line and I KNOW the dispatchers of the Lee County Sheriff's Office would have loved to be able to say that on several occasions a shift. Especially for the dozen or so calls that come in everyday: Dispatcher: Lee County 911 what is your emergency? Caller: Can you tell me the number to 911?" HERE"S YOUR SIGN!!! I mean come on!!!
I know it seems that since I have retired I have become cynical of the human race and that is not true - I got there a LONG time ago!! It seems that well meaning people can be just plain stupid at times. Now I admit that I am no better myself at times and as we all do, sometime stupid things come out of our mouths before we can pull them back and you know the second you say it, it was stupid. However, there are those amongst us that have no idea that what they are saying is stupid and to them we are stupid for not understanding. Like the time I was asked by a gentleman of good standing and apparent common sense: "Can you tell me why cops carry guns?" Now I must admit this statement caught me off guard and I was stunned for a moment, then I looked at him and said " We carry guns to balance the weight on our belts" and I just turned and walked away - HERES YOUR SIGN.
Now to prove that I am not above getting the sign, here is something that just happened to me the other day. I was meeting a lady in the parking lot of Krogers the other day to purchase a paintball gun she had posted on Facebook. She had given me the description of the car she would be driving and we arranged a time to meet. Well I got there at the appointed time and as luck would have it, the first 10 cars i came across looked just like the one she had described but no one was around and the parking lot was packed!!! So I drove to the end of the parking lot and pulled up beside the store where I could see the entrance and waited for awhile in hopes that I would see her pulling in. After a few minutes I sent her a text message that I was in the parking lot next to the store. She immediately sent me a text saying she was in the parking lot and gave me a general area where she was located. So I drove in that direction in an attempt to find her. I drove by a vehicle that was not the color she described and there was a lady standing out beside it but it appeared she was putting groceries in her car so I drove on by. I parked at that end of the parking lot and decided to call her. I got her on the phone and asked her where she was and as I was talking to her ON THE PHONE I saw a lady on the next row talking on a phone and before I could think I said " Are you the one on the phone?" DUH - HERE'S YOUR SIGN!!!
We just can't help it as human beings, sometimes we are just stupid or we say things before we think. As a law-enforcement officer an officers mouth can get him or her into or out of trouble in a hurry. It has long been established that the more an officer talks while on a traffic stop the more apt they are to say something that will either be taken the wrong way or the situation may esculate to something it shouldn't be. Now having said that, there are of course instances of course where the more talking that is done the better chance of uncovering a crime or criminal may occur. The reason I bring this up is because of a bad habit I developed early in my career. When I first started working at the Lee County Sheriff's Office writing tickets was just something that was looked down upon but in the real world there were times that it just had to be done. So I developed a habit of telling the person I wasn't going to write them a ticket until I learned a valuable lesson. When you cut someone a break - you get screwed and from that point on things were different.
I had been taught early on by a great man - Captain Danny Gaston - either you write them a ticket or you give them a chewing out but never do both. Now he was from the old school but he never forgot where he came from and he understood that sometimes a deputy just had to write someone a ticket and more times than not he would stand behind us. The incident that turned things around for me was one night while on patrol I was dispatched to a fight in progress with weapons involved, so I activated my blue lights and siren and made a U turn on a 4 lane road with no divider, no sooner had I turned around than a car pulled directly into my path and I had to swerve and hit the brakes hard in order to avoid hitting the other car. Well I must admit this pissed me off and I stopped the car, it was a college student (my first clue that trouble lay ahead). I approached the car and was immediately hit with an attitude that just pissed me off more but I also knew I had a call I needed to get to so I took the high road and told the young man he needed to watch when pulling into traffic and I let him off with a warning and I proceeded to the call which of course turned out to be nothing. After I left the call I was told to call the supervisor and when I did I got the shock of my life - the college kid had called and filed a complaint on me for stopping him and not writing him a ticket!!!! I couldn't believe it, here I had cut the guy a break and then he calls to complain on me, now the complaint wasn't because I was rude or unprofessional, it was because if I wasn't going to write him a ticket I shouldn't have stopped him in the first place. Now cops are human too and sometimes we just want to warn someone about a traffic infraction and give them a break, maybe in hopes of saving a life and saving them the hassle of court or the cost, but not this guy, he wanted a ticket!! So the supervisor instructed me to drive to this guys house and write him a ticket, so I did and he was found guilty in court - HERE'S YOUR SIGN and may GOD bless you Captain Gaston - you will forever be remembered.
I remember once I was dispatched to a suicide call, a man with a knife threatning to kill himself. I arrived on the scene and sure enough, standing in the parking lot of a local gas station was a young man with a knife to his throat. Well what to do? I did the natural thing and pulled my gun and told him to drop the knife or I would shoot, wait a minute, isn't that what he was trying to do was kill himself and here I was offering to do it myself! HERE'S YOUR SIGN! Well after a few minutes of me shouting and looking like an idiot (now this guy was more than 30 feet from me so deep inside I knew the knife was no threat) I put my gun down to my side, finger still on the trigger just in case and I just started talking to the guy and after a few minutes he dropped the knife and I was able to get him some help but boy did I feel stupid for a while after that but hey you learn from your mistakes right? Wellllllll sometimes you do and sometimes you don't, now fortunately for me I did but on another call we weren't so lucky, at least at first. We got a call of a lady acting eratic and that there were young children in the house. When we go to the residence we encountered the young woman holding a baby and acting weird. Now it turns out we had warrants on the young woman so she was going to jail one way or the other. I was with a partner at the time and we began talking to her. There were no weapons involved at this time, just talking or screaming on her part. This went on for several minutes until the mistake occurred. Of course we were concerned about the baby she was holding and sure enough the baby came into play very shortly. As we were talking to the young woman she approached my partner and started to hand her the child, good right? NOPE, instead of giving her the baby she dropped the child to the floor which distracted both of us of course and in that split second she pulled a kitchen knife and stuck it to her throat. GOD here we go again!! I of course pulled my weapon but instead of pointing it directly at her I held it in my hand and told her that if she didn't put the knife down I was taking the baby away and she would never see her again. Holy crap it worked! She put the knife down right away and as she stepped towards my partner to take the child I took her into custody - the good guys win again! - HERE'S YOUR SIGN!
Now let me end this with just saying that most people are good caring human beings but that small percentage of idiots out there, like the ones that run this country screw everything up for all of the rest of us. Wouldn't it be nice if just for one day, you could go up to someone - especially a politician and put HERE'S YOUR SIGN around their neck, they will know what it is for!!
Jack (Tommy) Carter
www.livethegoodlife.ws
www.southernbellemarketinginc.com
No comments:
Post a Comment