Today Was a Good Day.

Running sort of late driving in after my first day back from 4 days off. Saw two notices for an Amber Alert...child abducted, suspect vehicle 95 Jeep Cherokee, license 4AXJ....crap. Passed it. Mental note, that. Must get to work and get changed.

I was assigned a rookie but we were assigned a Z-Car. No radio calls, just directed patrol at the beach to prevent idiot gangster problems. And the rookie doesn't need ratings, he is past that phase of training. (Thanks, God!) Met with the Z-Car sergeant, formed a plan of action to target the beach - Zero Tolerance. All Z-Car units have a hasty breakfast and head out into the Memorial Weekend Saturday morning.

We wrote some tickets, some moving violations and parking tickets and had some fun.

Around 2:30 pm, we responded to a Code 3 radio call of a vehicle wanted from an Amber Alert. You know, the message boards broadcast on the freeway with child abduction and suspect vehicle information. Well, guess what? A citizen saw the alert on the freeway, looked over two lanes and THERE IT WAS. She called it in to CHP and stayed on the line as she was transferred to LAPD dispatch.

And the chase was on. We had Z-Cars, patrol units, bike units, beach units, loaned units from Wilshire Division, everyone in the world enroute to this vehicle as the broadcast progressed from the 90 freeway westbound to Lincoln Blvd. The caller relayed the suspect vehicle information. Southbound Lincoln past Admiralty...past Fiji Way...Units, including myself, are responding Code 3 from all over the west side of the division. Continuing south past the Culver tunnel....approaching Jefferson Blvd.

We all caught up to it at the same time. Dispatch said, "PR (caller) sees officers. Suspect vehicle is in front of you, black cherokee. I look over to my left...two cars over and one car ahead there it is....stopped at the light.

Is she gonna run when the light turns? Will this become a pursuit back to Newport Beach where the drama started?

The light facing southbound Lincoln Blvd at Jefferson Blvd has never seemed this long.

Green light! She's on the move. Everyone has sirens on as we converge around the vehicle. All other traffic stays back as we fan on the roadway. She goes about 100 yards and pulls over to the right. She knows.

It's over. Whatever she had planned, whatever escape she had formed to take her daughter away from the rest of the world, it had failed. It was over.

She exited the vehicle with officer's guns drawn at her back, from a distance. The felony stop and prone we call it. She is compliant and follows all our orders. We can see movement in the back seat of the vehicle. A car seat. Officers clear the vehicle and take the suspect into custody. More officers recover the little girl from the backseat. Crisis over. All well with the world. Amber Alert works.

Thanks to a sharp-eyed citizen, we were able to do what we need to do. We can't do it without that support. We can do so much with the citizens behind us. And today, it worked beautifully.

And I wrote some more tickets, and went to a backup and got off on time.

And little Symphony Sarah Aiton will be safe and sound.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/crime/la-me-child-found-20100530,0,6060396.story

Schedules, Days Off and Other Monsters

Sorry I haven't posted in sooooo long, but it has been crazy!

Ever ask your wife what days off she wants you to have about 1 hour before submitting your schedule? Oh sure, you may have talked about Timmy's baseball game or Jenny's soccer game, or the doctor's appointment or whatever...but honey, what days do you want me to ask for?

Well guess what? It doesn't matter. Because no matter what you ask for, it will get royally F*&$ed up beyond any recognition by the time you get the approved schedule back. And it isn't your fault. And it isn't even the sergeant's fault. Sure you asked for the right days, but with Maximum and Heavy Deployment days, citizen protests, training days, court, Memorial Day, etc........good luck.

Don't know what a Max Deployment or Heavy Deployment day is? Well, let me tell you. This is a day that you can't get off because they need EVERYONE to work. Like July 4th. Or Memorial Day weekend...that's right, the whole damn weekend. Or 9/11. Or Cinco De Mayo. Or Labor Day...aaaah, Labor Day. Where I stood directing traffic in the hot sun for about 8 hours at Vista Del Mar and Imperial Highway as Joe Citizen, his wife, three kids, toy poodle and cooler full of snacks breezes up to my car at 3 in the afternoon and ask, "Are there any parking spots left at the beach?" Really? Really.

And god forbid this agency come into the 1990's and use software to make the schedule based on haves/needs/seniority/requests/etc. It's much more cost-effective to take a highly-trained field sergeant OUT OF THE FIELD for a day to work on the schedule for the guys on his shift. Let's see, (1 sergeant per watch) X ( 4 watches ) X (5 hrs. time wasted minimum) = 20 hours of lost sergeant time...and this kind of nonsense is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of time WASTED and LOST at LAPD.

But...somehow, things can still change. After years of frustration over schedules (mostly my wife's frustration), I can be pissed but I have to tow the line. I'm the senior training officer on the car. And balance your car? How? With four people? And one of them is a rookie tied to you because you need to train that guy and write his daily and weekly ratings? Of course we all want a weekend off. And to me, weekend means a FRI-SAT, SAT-SUN, SUN-MON or any combination thereof. This is the police department, not the offices of AIG.

But this is the best part. Doesn't matter whether you're a guy or girl, this applies. Rest assured, when the schedule is printed, signed, approved, and the sergeant did everything he or she could to help you out - someone in your house won't like it!

That's right. You'll get all the days they wanted you to get, but when you have 4-5 day stretch of days off, (what seems like a mini-vacation) your husband will be out of town on business. Or your girlfriend will be studying for finals. Or little Johnny has an out of state hockey tournament and you have to take the team. Or it's that time of the month - every day. Or your mother-in-law comes to visit. The dog needs a hip replacement. Little Susie's pet iguana dies. The house has to be tented for termites. The batmobile gets a flat tire. God has a funny way of testing our patience!

But in the end, you'll still get a few hours where the kids aren't around and you can sit in the garage watching old Adam-12 episodes on DVD, drinking a cold one on a Tuesday night. All you can do is laugh about it, and I'm happy to be employed. I feel like one of the lucky ones.

Be safe out there.