A Day in the life of a Patrol Assist officer.

I made a promise to myself that I would keep up to date on my blog and post at least once a week. So, here I am. The week was relatively uneventful. I did speak with a guy who is in the Executive’s Association of Greater Phoenix, along with my boss, who owns a big moving company. They have storage facilities throughout Florida and after the conversation with him, I feel a LOT less stressed about the move. Friday after work, I did my Costco and Walmart thing. Saturday am I picked up everything off the floor and vacuumed in preparation for the carpet to be cleaned. I’m afraid that the dogs are having more and more accidents as they get older. I also had the 5’ x 8’ accent rugs cleaned. They were just plain dirty. I think the last time I had them cleaned was a couple of years ago. I had signed up for a shift at the police department from 1600 to 2200 (2pm to 10pm) They ask you to sign up for a minimum of 6 hours, mainly because it takes you 45 minutes to get on the road and another 30 minutes at the end of your shift to file reports, return equipment, etc. So, I sign in and begin the preparation process which I won’t bore you with but it involves obtaining fresh supplies, checking out a citation book, inventorying the vehicle, checking the oil, testing the lights & siren, adjusting the seat, mirrors, etc; logging on to the computer system in the vehicle (for which I had to be certified as a “Criminal Justice Internet System” operator), and basically getting ready to hit the street. I am still in training and have to have a uniform to drive. My uniform won’t be ready until next week, so I rode with another officer named Mike. We weren’t in the car five minutes when we get dispatched to a fire. We get to the fire and our job is to protect the scene and not allow anyone onto the scene or drive over the fire hoses, which are quite expensive. Some punk kid had set the mulch at a playground on fire. The problem was that it was twenty feet from homes and could have spread very rapidly as it was a windy day. Fortunately, it didn’t spread, but the punk destroyed a $30,000 playground that had been built of wood and steel to resemble a tree house. That took us a couple of hours and we arranged to meet up with some officers for pizza around 7. Then, we tagged a couple of abandoned vehicles and ticketed a couple of vehicles for parking in handicapped spots. It was about 6:30, so Mike said “why don’t we head over to Venezia’s?” (the pizza place) I said OK and proceeded to put the code in to dispatch for “on our way to eat”. OOPS. We were a few blocks from the apartment when I realized that I hadn’t taken the dogs out before I left. No problem, I cancelled the “going to dinner” code and put in “out of service” code while I took the dogs for a walk. Then “back in service – but headed out for dinner” code. We go a couple of blocks and UH OH. We see plumes of thick black smoke. We knew it was a residential area, so we headed there and got officially dispatched a few seconds later. It was only about a mile from my apartment, the police station and downtown Chandler. We got there in mere seconds and Mike proceeded to park the car, blocking the road, and started setting out cones. I realized that the fire department was going to be putting their “lines” (a/k/a hoses) out down the street because there was a hydrant there. We guided the fire trucks into the staging area. The fire was literally roaring out of control, and the tension was very high. Sure enough, they put their lines out across a road that wasn’t blocked. People (“lookie loos”) were pulling in from a main road onto this side street to see what was going on. I stood in the middle of the road (yes, I had my police traffic vest on) and stopped vehicles from going any further where they would run over the hose. I made people turn around and go back to the main road. I was pretty proud of myself – they actually did what I told them too. It wasn’t long before I realized that I needed a patrol car at the entrance to the side street to block traffic. The sun was starting to go down and I don’t have an orange cone for my flashlight that is specifically used for directing traffic. I radioed for assistance and within a couple of minutes, a car came and relieved me. So, back to the car blocking the street that the fire was on. A few minutes later (now we’ve been there about 30 minutes so far), a lady came up to us telling us her husband had locked his keys in his car and could we help. “That’s what we do” I told her. Fortunately, Mike volunteered to do it. I’m standing at the car, protecting the scene when a huge truck comes straight at me. Slowly, thankfully. It’s almost upon me before I realize that it’s the fire department’s support truck. Whew!!! I let them run over my cones to the staging area. This is the truck that carries extra oxygen tanks, lighting, water, and extra supplies for the firefighters. We were there about two hours, in all. We can’t leave until all hoses are up and the fire department is leaving. So now, it’s 9:00pm. We put in the “out of service - eating” code and about 8 of us went to the pizza place. Dispatch won’t call you when you’re out of service eating unless it’s a dire emergency. They know that we need nourishment and a break. After eating, we get dispatched to an abandoned car complaint. We write a ticket and a report and are heading back to the station around 10pm. We hear a call for a 962, which is an accident with injuries – usually serious. Since we were the only Patrol Assist vehicle, Mike says “do you want to go, or do you want me to drop you at the station?” I was getting my second wind, so I said “let’s go”. BIG MISTAKE. We head for the accident (which was only about 1 mile west of my apartment) when we get the “ALL PD” message on the computer and tone on the radio. This means only one thing – BIG TROUBLE!!! They are dispatching the entire police department for one reason or another. We soon found out that the accident had knocked out all of the street and traffic lights for about five miles on THE major east/west road – Chandler Blvd. (Where I live) This is major chaos. They assign officers to every intersection to direct traffic. Dispatch couldn’t give us a specific assignment, so we drove to each intersection and spoke to the officer in charge to see what they wanted us to do. Seems that setting out flares and getting traffic vests was the biggest service we could provide. So, starting with the busiest intersection, we parked and set out flares for about 50 yards behind each of four police cars parked at each intersection. We literally ran. We drive back to the station for more flares. We replace the almost spent flares with new ones and set a fresh flare on the end of each active flare so that it will ignite when the other flare starts to burn down. Let me tell you, we had boxes and boxes and boxes of flares in our trunk. When we get the opportunity to take a “break”, we take it in the middle of the intersection with four cops – each directing traffic. Two for north/south and two for east/west. What was truly amazing was how many people driving through the intersection were talking on cell phones. Now this is 1:30 – 2:00 in the morning. Also, I’m sure there were many impaired drivers as the bars let out then. A few people said they “didn’t see the lights” and almost breezed through the intersection. The cops would yell at them “there are four police cars and multiple flares at every dam intersection and you didn’t see the lights???” When I say YELL – I mean in a big, booming cop voice. Long story short, I got home at 4:30 am. So, here I sit at 6:00 in the evening, doing laundry and cleaning house while everyone else is enjoying “cocktail hour”. I didn’t get up until 2:30 in the afternoon. I’m typing this in between my chores of cleaning the floors and doing laundry. I usually am sipping my “Sunday martini” by now. I just ate breakfast at 3:30. Guess the toonie will have to wait for another night. Or…maybe I’ll run a bath and sip it amongst fragrant bubbles. We’ll see. Another promise…future blogs will NOT be as long and they will contain pictures. This and the previous couple of blogs were just to bring you up to date as to what is happening in my world these days.