The Shotgun Rider

After Central sent the call, I keyed my mike.

"Central, eight zero four niner. Seventeen at Elm and Claire, ETA three minutes."

"What was that all about", asked Valerie, the woman sitting in the seat beside me in the patrol car.

"Central got a silent alarm from the pawnshop on Elm. Somebody is probably trying to break in. Happened there last month, so I know the place. They're probably after the guns and gold jewelry like last time. I just told Central I was on the way and I'd be there in about three minutes."

"What will we do when we get there?"

I shut off the siren as I turned off Elm and onto Justin. Half-way down the block, I turned into the alley. I saw a blue Chrysler minivan parked behind "Everyday Pawn". I turned to Valerie.

"We... aren't going to do anything. I'm going to check out the pawn shop. You're going to stay in the car and not touch anything. You'll be able to hear anything I say back to Central on the radio because I'll leave the engine running."

After pulling the key from the ignition, I opened the door, took my flashlight from the charging station and made certain it was charged, then locked and closed the door. The engine was still running because car manufacturers modify patrol cars so the officer can take the key out of the ignition without shutting off the engine. That's so the electronics and lights can continue to work without running down the battery and the officer still has a key to unlock the doors. We always lock our doors if we're going to be more than a few steps from our patrol car. It's uncommon, but not unheard of, for a person to take a patrol car if it's not locked.

It was pitch black dark in that alley at one AM, but the take-down and alley lights on my light bar lit up most of the alley. The beam of my flashlight showed me the back door to the pawn shop was standing open. When I was about ten feet away, I pulled the Glock.40 from my holster and got ready to yell for anybody inside to come out. Before I could do that, a guy dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt came out the door carrying a gym bag that looked heavy.

He looked dazzled when the beam of light from my flashlight hit him in the eyes, and that's what was supposed to happen. It was supposed to blind him and make him give up. I yelled, "Police officer. Drop the bag, turn around, put your hands on your head, and don't move."

It looked like he was going to do what I asked. He gently sat down the gym bag and started to lift his hands. A split-second later though, he took off down the alley. I holstered the Glock and keyed my mike as I started after him.

"Eight zero four niner in foot pursuit down the alley toward Elizabeth. Suspect is white male, black shirt and pants."

In my ear bud, I heard Central reply.

"Eight zero four niner, be advised eight zero six one is at your location on Elizabeth."

I really hate chasing bad guys on foot. I'm in pretty good shape, but I'm no sprinter and my vest and service belt add about thirty pounds to my two-ten. Most guys into theft are in pretty sorry shape, so I'd have eventually caught him, but that was probably going to wear me out for the rest of the night.

The guy would have made it to the street if Will hadn't turned his patrol car into the alley. As it was, Will's flashing blue lights made the guy stop and look for some other way to get out of the alley and that let me catch up to him. He did try a couple of doors, but they were locked. That's when I tackled him and forced him to the ground.

When Will ran up, I had the guy on the ground on his belly with my knee in his back. I was trying to get my cuffs on his right hand, but the guy wasn't cooperating. He was fighting like hell and screaming "you're breakin' my fuckin' back. Let me up." I pulled on his arm again.

"Just relax and let me cuff you and I'll get off you. If you keep fighting, it's just gonna hurt worse."

He wasn't a big guy, but he was surprisingly strong. He tried to raise up and throw me off his back. Even the two of us were having trouble holding the asshole down and getting his hands behind his back. Will said, "fuck this", pulled the charge cartridge from his Taser, pushed it against the guy's thigh, and yelled, "Lay still or you'll be tased".

Either the guy wasn't listening or he was just plain fucking dumb, because he screamed "get the fuck off me" and pushed up again. His second scream wasn't rage. It was the intense pain of a couple thousand volts of electricity from the probes of the Taser. I know how much that hurts because when we were issued Taser's I had to submit to being tased so I'd understand the effect. Believe me, the effect will take your mind off anything and you won't be able to move either.

He stopped fighting me long enough I got my cuffs on his right hand, and when Will yelled, "Give him your left hand or I'll tase you again", he gave up and let me cuff that one too.

We stood him up then and walked him back to my patrol car. I noticed that Valerie was standing there watching instead of being inside my car like I'd told her. There wasn't time to say anything about that now, but I would later.

We stood the guy up against the side of my patrol car and while Will held him there, I asked him for his name. He wasn't very cooperative.

"I don't have to tell you nuthin' 'cause I wasn't doin' nuthin' but walkin' down this alley."

"Yeah, I know. You've been to the all night gym and that gym bag you dropped at the pawn shop was just your gym clothes, right?"

"I ain't never seen that fuckin' bag before. It ain't mine."

I smiled.

"You know, of course, that my dash and body cams are gonna show you walking out of the pawn shop with that bag and then dropping it before you ran?"

He still wouldn't own up.

"I don't give a good fuck what you say. I wasn't in there and I didn't do nuthin'. Why'd you tackle me, man? I scraped my fuckin' face on the ground and it still hurts."

"When a police officer tells you to stop running, you're supposed to stop. You didn't so I tackled you. Wanna tell me your name now?"

"I ain't saying shit until I talk to my lawyer."

"Well, if that's how you want to play this, OK. We'll find out who you are once I get you down to the station. Once we know who you are, we'll let you call a lawyer. It'll probably take a couple days, but we'll find out. While we're waiting, you can sit in a cell and wait with us, well, unless you change your mind about talking."

I searched the guy but didn't find anything in his pockets, not even a wallet, so I put the guy in the back of my patrol car. Will walked up then and handed me the gym bag. It's no wonder the guy ditched it. It would have slowed him down a lot. The damned thing must have weighed sixty pounds.

When I opened it, I had to whistle. It was full of guns. The first one I pulled out was an older 1911 Colt. I held it up for Will to see.

"Damn...it's a 1911. I haven't taken one of these off a suspect ever. They usually have a nine mil, sometimes even a.380. A.45 weighs too much and it's hard to hide."

Will grinned.

"Well, maybe he wanted a little more stopping power, or thought somebody else would pay more for it."

I pulled another pistol out of the bag, this time a Glock.40 just like the one on my side. By the time the bag was empty, there were twenty-one pistols and revolvers on the hood of my patrol car along with a dozen boxes of cartridges. I walked back and opened the back door of my patrol car to talk with my suspect.

"Hey there, buddy. Looks like you wanted to start your own gun shop."

He glared at me.

"I don't know what the fuck you're talkin' about."

"What I'm talking about is all the guns in that gym bag you were bringing out of the pawn shop, the guns that are sitting on the hood of my car right now."

He shook his head.

"They ain't mine. Told you that already. You must have planted them."

"If they're not yours, why'd you run?"

"I know cops. You're just looking to haul somebody's ass to jail to make it look like you do something. I didn't want that ass to be mine."

"That minivan probably isn't yours either then."

"Never saw it before I ran past it."

"Well, you just sit tight while I see if you're telling me the truth."

I checked the minivan for a key since I hadn't found one when I emptied the guy's pockets. The ignition switch had been popped, a sure sign it was a stolen vehicle. The slide hammer laying on the floor he'd used to pop it was another. I went back to the patrol car, sat down in the front seat and keyed the license number of the minivan into my terminal. A few seconds later, the owner's name and address popped up on my screen along with the notice that the vehicle had been reported stolen a few hours earlier. I went back and opened my back door again.

"Well, you were right about the minivan. Unless your name is Florence Abrahms, it's not yours. It was reported stolen tonight though, about a dozen blocks from here and the ignition has been popped. I'd bet the crime scene techs will find your prints all over it. Want to tell me if I'm right? Might go easier on you if you do."

He just looked at me and growled, "Fuck you."

I closed the door on him and walked back to the minivan with my flashlight. I was looking in the driver's door when Valerie walked up behind me.

"What are you looking for?"

"Anything that doesn't belong. This car was reported stolen a couple hours ago. A lot of these guys are stealing to pay for their habit so there might be drugs or drug paraphernalia somewhere. If I find anything like that, I can charge him with that as well as car theft and burglary."

"Can I help?"

I shook my head.

"No, Valerie. If you touched anything, his lawyer would claim you'd contaminated the evidence and he might get off for the vehicle theft or any drug charges. Just stand back and let me do my job."

I didn't find anything, but that wasn't surprising. He wouldn't have had much time to leave anything. The crime scene techs would find out if he left prints or hair or other DNA containing material in the minivan or in the pawnshop. I put in a call to Central and asked for a tow truck to take the minivan back to the lab, and then another to request the crime scene techs to check out the pawnshop. A detective would contact the owner of the pawn shop in the morning for a list of serial numbers of the guns to use as evidence.

Two hours later, the nurse at the station had bandaged up the road rash he'd gotten when I tackled him, and he'd been booked for burglary and evading a police officer. His fingerprints were on their way to the state and FBI databases for identification. His DNA sample was in our lab waiting to be analyzed and then cross referenced to known criminals. I asked Valerie if she was ready for lunch.

The burger place where I usually have lunch isn't on my patrol route, but it's one of the few places close that's open all night so that's where I usually go. I let Valerie finish her meal before I asked why she'd gotten out of my car.

"Valerie, what you did back there could have gotten you hurt or even killed. You should have stayed in the patrol car like I said."

Valerie frowned.

"But I couldn't see what was going on."

"Well, the guy had twenty-one guns in that gym bag. What if he'd decided to load another one and stick it in his pants before he came out? If he'd shot at me, he might have hit you."

"You didn't seem too worried about getting shot."

"Valerie, I get paid to do what I did, and I've been trained how to do it. It's my job, but it's not yours. If you're going to ride with me, you have to do what I say. It's for your own safety as well as mine. I can't do my job if I have to be worrying about you."

Valerie promised, although I could tell she wasn't happy about it. I'd have to watch her pretty closely when I made another stop. Hopefully, I'd have quiet calls the rest of the week.

It had all started with a complaint and a fucked-up suggestion by the party who didn't hold the Mayor's office. According to the complaint, some people were saying the police were abusing their power, using excessive force, and in general, targeting people who'd done nothing wrong. They wanted an independent review of each case involving police use of force by a committee of private citizens.

The Mayor had enough sense not to go for that idea. A committee of private citizens would have stretched out the arrest and trial process for months. His counterproposal was to put people respected by the community in patrol cars for a week so they could see what we did everyday. They could then tell the community what they'd seen and hopefully satisfy everybody. Those people consisted of a few managers of local businesses, several people high up in community politics from both parties, and Valerie, a well-known reporter for the local newspaper.

Valerie had been offered the opportunity because she'd been pretty critical of the police department in several of her articles. She seemed convinced the police force drove around looking for people to arrest and if we couldn't find a reason, we'd antagonize that person until they fought back and gave us probable cause. Then, we'd arrest them for resisting arrest, search them and their vehicle or home, and find something else to charge them with. The fact we found a lot of drugs and people with outstanding warrants during routine traffic stops and by stopping people who looked like they were up to something didn't seem to matter to Valerie.

Now, to anybody except a police officer it probably does sometimes seem as if the police are out to arrest as many people as possible. I have no doubt that in a department as large as the Nashville Police, there are a few officers who do tend to watch some people more than others. The thing is, we're not out to find a reason to arrest anyone. What we're trying to do is uphold the law and protect the citizens of the community by using our experience and training. Once you know what to look for, bad guys are pretty easy to spot. Some get extra scrutiny because we've arrested them before and they usually don't change once they get out of prison.

By the time an officer has spent a year in a patrol car, he or she has seen a lot of things, and we start looking for those things so we can stop trouble before it happens. A vehicle moving slower than normal traffic might mean the driver is talking on his or her cell phone and could be a hazard to other drivers. It might also mean the driver isn't in any shape to be behind the wheel. All incapacitated drivers don't drive erratically. Sometimes they know they're drunk and drive slow hoping they won't attract attention. It might just mean the driver is elderly and being cautious.

We'll pull that car over just to see what's going on. If the driver is just driving slow, cooperates and does what we ask, the worst he or she is going to get is a "Be careful and have a nice day" from us. If he or she was talking on a cell phone or texting and admits to that, they'll just get a ticket and be on their way.

If he or she is under the influence and cooperates by either admitting it or by taking and failing our field sobriety test, we'll take them to jail to get them off the street. They'll sit in a cell until they sober up enough to understand what's happening, and then be booked. It's rare for them to have to post bond unless it's a second offense or if they've had an accident involving injury or property damage. They'll just get a citation and court date, and have to call someone to come get them.

When those traffic stops escalate is when the driver won't cooperate or when it appears drugs or some other crime are involved. We'll try to talk the driver and any passengers into cooperating, but it they start becoming abusive or threatening, we'll respond by doing what it takes to protect ourselves and any other people and property in the area. That's when the routine stop becomes something that makes the news and the newspaper, and because the details don't come out until later, sometimes not until the trial, it seems like we stopped the person without reasonable cause.

There are other scenarios, of course -- the driver who is driving fast but slows down and seems nervous when he sees a patrol car behind him, the guy walking down the street who suddenly runs into a place of business or down an alley when he sees us, or the half-dressed woman hanging out on a street corner who sees us looking at her and then starts walking away as fast as she can.

Most people don't do those things unless they're afraid they're going to be arrested for something they've done. Usually they have something to be afraid about. That's why they try to walk or run off. We recognize that and stop them to see if what we suspect is true. It's not targeting individuals. It's just recognizing the signs that someone is trying to hide something illegal, and our job is to find out what that something was and stop the person from doing it again.

Anyway, I'd drawn Valerie for a week, and this was only the first night. I didn't know Valerie, but I knew of her because I read her articles in the newspaper. I'd envisioned some overweight plain-Jane who had probably never had a date in her life and was trying to get some recognition by creating animosity for the police. I was sure she probably wore her hair in one of those really short pony tails that look more like a duck's ass end.

Valerie wasn't a plain-Jane at all and she didn't wear her hair like that. She was about medium height for a woman and her figure was pretty inviting, or at least, her snug jeans and knit top made her look that way. She also had a pretty smile. When we first got into my patrol car, I thought maybe it might be fun having her ride with me. She seemed to be pretty intelligent, and I hoped when she saw what a police officer runs into sometimes, she might change her mind.

By the time I got the guy back to the station, booked, and started trying to find out who he was, my shift was about over, and so were my hopes of changing Valerie's mind. Valerie sat with me while I looked at the mug shots of known thieves in the area, and after I found Walter Hastings, aka, Willie Harmon, she started asking me questions.

"So, the guy looks like this Walter Hastings. Don't you have to prove that?"

I nodded.

"Yes, but he was arrested three years ago for a purse snatching. That means his DNA will be on file, so all we have to do is compare the sample I took tonight with that record."

"I thought you had to consent to having your DNA taken. Isn't that a violation of privacy?"

"No, not since 2013. Every person who gets arrested for anything serious like robbery, assault, or worse gets a DNA sample taken and those samples end up in our database as well as NCIC. It's no different than a mug shot or fingerprints. DNA is just a newer technique for identification."

"Why were you so rough on the guy? His face was all scraped up. You even used a Taser on him. Why?"

"He resisted arrest, and if we hadn't controlled him, he might have gotten away or hurt one of us in the process. If he'd just cooperated, we wouldn't have gotten physical with him and we wouldn't have tased him. In case you haven't noticed, I ended up with a few scrapes out of the deal too and both Will and I would probably have had a few more before we got him subdued. We didn't know if he had a weapon either. It's a lot better to find a weapon once he's in cuffs than to find out when he shoots at us or tries to stab us.

"I've experienced both, and it never turns out well for either the cop or the suspect. The suspect is going to get shot and most likely killed because we're trained to aim for the largest target, the torso. Even if the cop doesn't get shot too, he's going to have to live with the fact he killed another person for the rest of his life. That can work on you. I know."