Another Satisfied Customer

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

This last week I had the chance to show that I had learned from my past experiences. Last Saturday I had backed another officer up in dealing with a very drunk person. She put the drunk man into a taxi and sent him home. Well about two hours later I see the same man staggering along the side of the road. Before I tell you how the story ended up let me tell you about a call I answered my second night solo.

March 11th 2007
I was dispatched to a call of a guy passed out in someone’s yard. I got on scene and sure enough this guy was very drunk and very asleep in someone’s yard. Well I woke him up and realized that I actually had met his guy before. I had arrested him for fighting a few months back. Another unit arrived and I told them his name and they went to check him for warrants. He returned clear and as we talked I decided I didn’t really want to put him in my car. Did I mention that he had urinated all over himself? So I asked if he had any money , he responded yes and pulled out a clump of wadded up bills. I summoned him a taxi and sent him on his way home……well almost
About 45 minutes later the call went out that the train had hit someone. My first though was don’t let it be the guy from earlier. I responded to the call and began walking the tracks with the rest of the shift. Eventually an officer found the mans body under a bride about a quarter of a mile from where we had been told he would be. I drove my car to the location and as I parked the officer that had been out earlier came up and said what did Juan have on? My only reaction was to say don’t even joke like that but as I walked toward the body I realized he wasn’t. The emt’s took out the man’s wallet and I instantly knew it was the man from earlier. He had apparently been laying on the tracks when the train came along. It hit him cutting his legs off and tossing his body approximately 10 feet. Apparently the money he showed me added up to a grand total of 4 dollars which got him as far as the railroad tracks. Despite his intoxicated state he managed to walk about half a mile before being hit. This was the first time I was listed in the local paper as “a police department officer” The second time I would be referred to as a local police officer was in the case of the murderer.

Back to our drunk stumbling down the road. I did not want to be listed in the paper again this soon so I got out with the man. I could not perform traditional sobriety test on him because we were standing on the side of a steep hill and he was very drunk. I didn’t want to baby sit a drunk at the hospital after he landed on his face after attempting to stand on one foot. He did fail one test he referred to me as his homeboy about 100 times. Which is not something sober people do. He blew a .236 on the breath test. Despite his begging me to let him go home I took him to jail. Surprisingly he did not thank me for preventing his sudden demise by train, but instead insisted I was the reason that cops get shot.
I guess Law Enforcement isn’t a career where the customer is always right.