Police Beat: Patrolling the city can be enough to keep one busy
Posted on Thursday, September 4, 2008
Welcome Again Readers I hope all of you had a great Labor Day weekend. Coming to the ìofficial end of summerî brings new beginnings, such as the kids are back in school, yard grass will be dying soon and temperatures will become more comfortable.
Now for a quick report on the first two weeks of school traffic. You drivers are doing a much better job this year. So far, your police officers have worked fewer wrecks, fewer bus-passing incidents, and there have been less-than-normal numbers of speeding citations issued in the school zones.
Being on vacation for the past week has left me with zero to write about in this column, or so I thought.
I was informed, upon my return, that all was not well in the scheduling world. The news hit me that I had one officer down due to illness, two on vacation, and we have not yet replaced the part-time patrolman we recently lost. I had kind of forgot what it is like to work an entire shift alone.
I usually have one or two officers to order around and send here and there and to answer calls. Today, it was just me, and boy did I know it. In all fairness to them ó and me ó when I was on patrol duties, I didnít have all this paperwork to keep up with. I surely do miss those days, or so I thought.
I had planned on catching up on office paperwork, department bills, 2009 fiscal-year budget and reviewing some notes on a couple of way-cool ideas I had recently and, generally, getting back into the swing of things.
No ! I started my day off with the usual patrolling of the city, decided all was quiet and went to the office to begin working on what I expected would be a large backlog of paperwork.
As I began going through the last weekís information, a dogat-large call came in. I never located the suspect or his owner. After searching for this doggie-desperado a while, I headed back to the office. But just as I got back to my office for some much needed desk time, I received a call from another agency in reference to a man at the emergency room who had been the victim of a violent beating.
Donít worry. After nearly three hours of investigative time by two agencies, it was determined by a third police agency that the man was not involved in any beating at all, except for the part where he beat his head against a tree during a wreck while escaping on the four-wheeler he had just stolen.
After this, it was time for a quick lunch. After a quick bite, I patrolled for a bit more with no activity to report. I went back to the office and thought I would settle in for a little paperwork. Moments later, the phone rang in a call of a breaking and entering at a storage facility.
After finishing up this call, I patrolled for a while and, with nothing going on at the moment, thought this would finally be the right time for paperwork.
Before beginning, I took a few moments to peruse information of some goings-on involving several different police agencies across the country. I thought you might be interested to know, with gas prices spiking at an all-time high and police budgets short on money, the Holly Springs Police Department, in Georgia, has passed a city ordinance requiring drivers caught speeding to pay a $ 10- $ 15 surcharge in addition to their fine and court costs.
I wonder if that duck would fly here. Iím not exactly sure how I feel about it just yet, but someone there is certainly on the cutting edge of cutting budget deficits.
In Flint, Mich., the police chief has activated a department policy in which officers are to make contact with persons wearing their pants too low. Under the new policy, officers would charge offenders with ìdisorderly conductî or ì indecent exposure, î depending on the verticality of the top of the pants and / or the amount of buttocks displayed.
Wow ! And some people think Iím a hard case. What do you think ?
Until next time, have a great day.
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online