Rookie's First Day

Posted by Vicki

Gary's first night on the job turned out to be a pretty good introduction to life on the city streets. His first call was to remove an unruly drunk from a Jack-in-the-Box parking lot. When Gary and his partner (the field training officer he'll be paired with for the next 12 weeks) arrived, this beligerent drunk had a turtle-neck pulled up to his hairline, letting a corner of it down enough to see out one eye. They later discovered under the turtleneck a badly mangled eye that they guy had been, for some reason, trying to hide.

In the course of trying to get this gentleman to leave the premises on which he was trespassing, Gary and his partner were subjected to cussing, spitting and racial slurs (Gary's FTO is black). Gary was impressed by his FTO's patience and calm demeanor during the attacks. Even when a giant loogie was hurled all over his face and front, he simply sighed. Calmly, the FTO tried to plead with the guy to just leave. At this point, the drunk, dwarfed by the goliath-ness of the FTO, decided he wanted to fight. He went for his first punch and was promptly met with handcuffs. He was now being arrested and charged with aggravated assault and trespassing.

Once placed into the squad car, the FTO went into the restaurant to speak to the manager. This left Gary outside with the crazy whino. Gary said the guy stared him down, then said, "F--- you, you dumb rookie." Apparently, even in his inebriated state, he had caught onto the fact that this was Gary's first week! Gary ignored him, so, like an attentionless child, the drunk began kicking the crap out of the door of the car. Gary, putting his fathering skills into play, opened the door and said, "Knock it off!" The drunk then proceeded to kick more and spit all over everything. Even our kids -- at the height of their 'terrible twos' -- never resorted to such juvenile behavior!

Spitting and kicking the door was a new one for Gary -- not one of the simulated scenarios from class. So, he retrieved the FTO and asked how to handle the situation. The FTO called for backup and in no time, two additional officers arrived with some restraint device and a spit mask. The spit mask does not prevent the criminal from spitting; only from the spit going anywhere except inside the mask. I imagine this stops the spit-fest pretty quickly ;)

They brought the drunk to the precint, to be picked up and taken to jail, but when he got to jail, they refused him pending a medical clearance. Apparently, his eye was a potential liability and they need to be sure it checked out okay. This meant four hours of Gary, the FTO and the drunk sitting at the ER. At this point, the drunk was sobering up and beginning to regret his actions. His demeanor changed and he began to try and "shoot the breeze" with Gary and his partner.

The only other call they were able to respond to due to the length of the first call, was one for a stolen watch worth $10,000. The woman reporting is missing said the last time she had seen it was on Halloween. She did not know the brand, make, or model of the watch -- only that it was silver and appraised for $10,000. Gary took the report, but found it hard to believe someone would think property could be recovered with such few details.

The end of his shift was spent writing reports. He had to write an aggravated assault report on behalf of the FTO (due to him being spit on and almost punched). Apparently, this is one of the more detailed reports, so it took him awhile. However, it paid off in the end, as his FTO called several other officers over to see what a great job Gary had done on his first report.

When all was said on done, his first shift was 12 hours long -- already 2 hours of overtime!! I think he was shocked that one pretty inocuous call could take an entire shift to handle. No wonder there are so many cops out there!