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