At my first job, the worst day to work was the homecoming event. You had to show up early to work to start the day in preparation for the homecoming concert to be attended by thousands of young adults. On top of that some of us had still had to complete our regular 12-hour shift afterwards; and that was just my luck on that particular day. Also shift that night was bound to be more intense because the whole city would be partying. The shift started rough. I was stationed at the entrance of an venue and repeated the same phrase for 4 to 5 hours; “tickets, please. No weapons, drugs, or alcohol pass this point.” Then I had to search every person who walked through the metal detector. Many of the women had tasers and pepper spray on them. When I told them that they couldn’t bring these inside they looked at me confused. I would then repeat “no weapons inside the building.” They would all ask me the same question “well, what am I supposed to do with it?” I responded the same way “ I don’t care but it can’t come in here.” The college administrators knew that this was going to be a problem so a few feet in front a giant trash can was strategically positioned. They would walk to the trash can to dump the weapons and after being subjected to the search again were allowed to then head inside if clean of course. Before long the trash can was full with tasers and pepper spray. There were at least 50 tasers by my quick count. After 4 or 5 hours of doing this exercise, my voice was hoarse and I felt tired but still had about 10 hours of work left after the concert had ended to complete my shift. For the first hour or two after the concert, things were going well. SGT. James and I were riding in the same patrol car just making sure people weren’t acting unruly. And for the most part, everyone behaved well. If I had to guess this was due to the fact that probably a lot more cops were working than usual. While parked in an area where a lot of the college students were walking James and I saw a car fly through the walking area and almost ran some of the students over. I threw my car in drive and chased after the vehicle. As soon as I hit my blue lights the vehicle turned on to a set of train tracks and began driving on it. The car then turned abruptly off the tracks and stopped at this park. The park was pretty famous and known as “the pit”. The park was so named because it sat about 10 feet below street level. James and I carefully approached the car and when we got to the front there was a young man, roughly 18 or 19 years old, sitting in the driver seat. As soon as he saw us he said with a heavily slurred speech “I’m just picking up my friend. She needed a ride.” I asked him to step out of the car and as soon as he got out he could barely keep upright. The young man who went by Chad also reeked heavily of alcohol. It was obvious that Chad was drunk. After a short investigation, Chad was arrested. As soon as I put him in handcuffs he began to try. This wasn’t just a little bit of tears but Chad began hysterically screaming and crying. I had him walk over to my vehicle and while we were walking towards the direction of the park, Chad tipped forward and began to fall face-first into the pit caused of course by the ten-foot drop. I reached out and grabbed the only thing I could reach, which were his handcuffs. As soon as Chad felt the handcuffs jerk against his wrist he turned to me and yelled “you already arrested me! You don’t have to be a jerk and use the handcuffs to hurt me!” I stared at him completely shocked. He didn’t even realize that he was I saved him from slamming head first into the dirt. The other officers thought I was trying to simply hurry Chad to the vehicle but once they realized what happened they laughed at me and wished me good luck dealing with him. I drove Chad to the jail and on the way, he continued to cry non-stop. As soon as we got there another officer had to come out and give Chad a special breath test (known as an Intox) to see how much alcohol was in his system. Every time the office tried to do the test Chad would cry into the machine causing it to not get a reading. Eventually, I heard the officer yell “if you spit into this machine one more time I’m adding more charges! Stop crying and just do it!” Through his never-ending tears, Chad said ok and tried again. Finally, they got a reading and it turned out Chad was very very drunk. He was way over the legal limit. After leaving Chad at the jail I went to the office to get a snack. That was my first DUI arrest so the officers there began to congratulate me. I grabbed some leftover pizza and before I could finish a bite another officer came over the radio screaming for help…
Originally posted on my blog (https://ourstoriesfrombehindthebadge.wordpress.com/)
