BREAKing and entering

A fellow squadmate stopped at an abandoned building to show his trainee how thieves had stripped it of copper piping and wiring. It used to be an upscale restaurant in a very pricey part of the city. The owner up and left one day and it has been sitting vacant ever since. For the past few years, the place has been vandalized, burglarized and used by transients as a high rise apartment.

As the officer and his trainee drove up to a rear door they saw the padlock had been cut. The y walked up, opened the door and looked insided. They could hear a few people talking and then heard footsteps coming down the staircase towards them. They drew their guns and waited for the burglars to come around the bend in the stairway. Soon, a man and two women appeared on the steps carrying buckets of wiring and pipes. The officers commanded them to drop the items and come down the stairs. Two of them complied but one woman ran back up the stairs to hide in the building.

The two compliant burglars were arrested and several other officers arrived to set up a perimeter around the building. We had the place surrounded and were awaiting the K-9 officer to arrive. We knew it would only be a matter of time before the police dog found her inside.

As we waited for the K-9 to arrive I heard a woman's scream from inside the building followed by a loud crash. Then we heard her yell "Help!" a few times. Believing this to be a possible ploy, we all held our positions outside the building to await for an entry team to arrive with the dog to go in and get her out. A few minutes later, however, she came crawling out covered in blood. She said she was hiding in the ceiling when the tiles gave way sending her crashing to the floor. She cut herself on debris and was complaining of neck pain. She was taken to the hospital and found to have a broken neck. I wonder how she felt lying in a hospital bed with a police officer posted next to her knowing as soon as she was discharged she would be heading for jail for felony burglary.