A Night of Gettin' Lucky

A man was in his living room watching TV when he heard two gunshots in front of his house. The large picture window behind him shattered. A bullet pierced the window and got stuck in the curtain directly behind his head. The bullet must have been slowed down enough by some bushes and the thick glass to get stuck in his curtain instead of his head. We found the spent shell casings but nothing else.

A young woman working alone at a check cashing store was getting ready to close for the night. A man walked in with his hands in his jacket pockets and told her he had a gun. In this state, simulating a weapon during a robbery is treated the same as if using a real gun. He demanded money and fled on foot. I was shocked that she was working alone in that part of town. I then learned she had too much money in her drawer and would probably lose her job for not putting the excess cash into the safe. We searched the area but did not find the felon. We did, however, find his backpack in a nearby alley containing his disguise. He apparently ran to the alley, changed clothes and escaped the area. He just forgot to take one thing: The cash. In his discarded backpack we found all of the money taken in the robbery.
(As an aside -This particular alley is used frequently by transients as a 'dumping' ground. I'm not talking about broken appliances and old furniture. I mean homeless men empty their bowels onto the ground. The placed reeked and was dotted with little human crap piles. The backpack happened to be placed on top of a somewhat fresh deposit. My partner picked up the backpack and was bringing it to his car to impound as evidence when we saw the disgustingness stuck to the bottom. He set it down and then saw the money inside. He told our sergeant over the radio,
"Sarge, we found the backpack sitting on a pile of poop in the alley and all of the money is here." "Okay, great; Save it so the detectives can test it for biological evidence.", she replied.
"The backpack, or the poop?" , he asked.
He and I then busted out laughing at how stupid that must have sounded over the radio.)

A citizen called about a teenager in the neighborhood walking around pointing a gun at people. I arrived first and saw two boys in the street. I pulled up a safe distance behind them and angled my patrol car to put the engine block between me and the two boys. I got out of the car, drew my gun and commanded them to stop. "Put your hands up and face away from me!", I shouted. They raised their arms and turned their backs to me. "Which one of you has a gun?" I yelled. One of the boys reached down to his shorts pocket. "HANDS IN THE AIR!!!" I shouted again. He quickly moved his arm back over his head. If he had been facing me and reached for a gun, he may have been killed. Other officers arrived and I approached after getting him to get on the ground. I pulled a plastic BB gun out his shorts pocket. He was coming home from school and told me he was going to scare away anyone that tried to mess with him. We tried to explain to him that ordinary citizens carry real guns and would have been justified in shooting him if they felt threatened by his realistic toy. He has no clue how bad things could have turned out if he pulled that toy out of his pocket.

Not Gettin' Lucky:
A woman called to complain about a middle-aged man that repeatedly walked down the alley behind her house and stashed a plastic grocery bag in some bushes. A while later, a teenage girl would come to the alley and retrieve the bag. This had been happening sporadically over the last few weeks and she was convinced it was some kind of drug trafficing operation. I walked over to the hidden bag and found two VHS video tapes (Where the Boys Aren't #4, and Tae Blow) and a packaged condom. I have no idea what kind of wierd arrangement this was to have a drop spot for porn movies and different people coming and going. I had no way of following up on the ages of the man/girl and can only hope it's not as bad as it looked.