One step forward two steps back

With the summer hitting full swing our weekends have gotten more interesting, not to worry, our weekdays are still a never ending ball of boredom. I’m gonna try and get caught up on about two weekends worth of stories.
Two weeks ago.
I was working in a heavily Hispanic area of town when we received a call of a disturbance in progress at some apartments. It was occurring in apartment #37. We arrived on scene and began banging on the door but got no answer. We could hear arguing inside but couldn’t decipher the drunken Spanish screaming through a door. We were about to call our sarge to get the authorization to kick in the door (oh yeah this rookie was itching to kick in the door, that is one thing i haven’t done yet. That and this door looked like it would be real easy, so a nice boost for the ego.) when my partner said do you hear that. we could hear breaking glass and he said make sure their not going out the window. I ran down stairs and he joined me looking up at the second story when I heard a distinctive noise. The sound of shoes on metal stairs is a sound that I think anyone would recognize, however it took my slow mind a minute to figure out what was going on. Then I turned with what I can only assume was a really stupid look on my face and yelled he's going out the back. My partner and I ran around the back to see a guy taking off down the block. We yelled for him to stop, and in a move that only made sense in his drunken stupor he did. We ran up and found him covered in dried blood. I went ahead and put handcuffs on him until we could figure out what had occurred. I sat him in the back of my car and went back up stairs to get to the bottom of the story. We found a really drunk girl and guy. We figured out in broken Spanish that the guy in my car was her boy friend and he had been beating her up.
While we were getting the story Dispatch asked "Gumpcop, we are getting a 911 call from apartment #39 about banging on the door. Is that going to be involved with your case? I advised negative and headed to figure out the problem. I assumed it was a call about all the noise we had made earlier trying to get into the apartment next door. I walked up to the door and knocked the door opened to reveal a young woman almost in tears. I came in and talked with her and she told me banging on the kitchen door. I tried to reassure her and then checked out the door. When I did I found a drunken man stumbling around at the bottom of the steps. I quickly told her to lock the door back and went down stairs. I got the man and took him up to the front where my partner saw me walk around pulling this drunk man with me. I eventually arrested him for public intoxication. I then went back to the woman's door. When I talked with her she told me that she was just trying to fix her baby a bottle.
A quick note about this woman. (not to cloud the waters of immigration debate, but)
She was in her twenties and was relatively pretty. She had the look of terror in her eyes when I first met her and when I told her he was going to jail i saw the relief come over her. When I looked around her apartment I saw a home that could easily have passed for your house or mine. This was obviously a woman that took pride in her family and her home. This was in sharp contrast to most of the homes I go into which are one step above a pigpin. I’ve been in houses where the roaches don’t even run when you turn on the lights. As I continued talking with this girl She became uneasy when i got her information. She was worried about her information being turned over to the INS. The cruel irony is that I deal with Hispanics that are American citizens everyday that are gang members and thugs and then I run into this seemingly hard working woman trying to make a life that is illegal. Man it defiantly made me realize that the "Immigration Debate" is not as black and white as everyone thinks.
That call made me feel like a real Cop I got to help someone in their moment of weakness and I feel I handled myself well in a crazy situation. But proving God has a sense of humor as soon as I start to feel more confident I quickly learned rookie lesson #58

The other night I had the opportunity to deal with three very drunk 17 and 18 yr olds. We had gotten a BOLO on these kids and I spotted them walking behind some apartments. I got out with them and realized they were drunk. We had them blow on the alco-senosor and confirmed they were all intoxicated. Everything was going well and I was handling it like a professional until i stepped off to confirm with my fellow officers. This is the point of the story where i should let you know that my dashboard camera is on because I turned on my lights to stop the boys. I of course being the ohh so intelligent rookie did not realize this little fact. I proceeded to walk over and begin talking to my fellow officers. I say something along the lines of I think I should arrest them, wheat do you think? But I couldn’t stop there no I had to get my foot into my mouth. I then said you know what happened to the last drunk I let go (http://gumpcop.blogspot.com/2007/05/another-satisfied-customer.html)
Then in an ohh so classy move I proceeded to make a train noise. Yeah and thanks to the wonders of wireless technology it was all caught in crystal clear digital video.
So Rookie Lesson #58 is don’t say stupid things especially with sound effects. Or if you do at least make sure the camera is off.

Wow the life of a rookie, God makes sure he keeps me humble.