The Shotgun Rider

"If it had been a woman, would you have done anything different? I mean, most women aren't that strong, are they?"

"It depends on the woman. Most aren't, but some would surprise you. They don't have to be strong though. I once had a woman bite me on the arm hard enough she drew blood. I had to go to the hospital to get that taken care of, and thank God she didn't have anything life threatening like AIDS or hepatitis. That's been known to happen. The cop who gets bitten ends up with something that's going to kill him down the road.

"Hopefully, you won't see anything worse than tonight, but it does get worse. We don't like using force, but sometime we have to in order to protect ourselves and the rest of the public from anything that might happen."

I figured she'd already made up her mind about what cops do and I wasn't going to change it easily. That wasn't my goal anyway. My goal was to do what I do every night. I wasn't really surprised when she smiled, but her smile didn't look like she really believed me..

"I see. Well, it's almost six thirty. If we're done for the night, I'm going to go home and get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow night."

The next night was a little quieter. My first stop was a little compact car that was weaving a little more than I thought normal. I turned to Valerie.

"See anything odd about that car in front of us?"

"Yes. They seem to be wandering a little. Are you going to stop them?"

"This is what I was talking about last night. Something is going on with the driver. I don't know what that is, yet, and if I let them go, they might cause themselves or somebody else to get hurt."

I flipped on my lights and yelped the siren a couple times. The car pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall and stopped.

"Sit tight, Valerie. You'll be able to see through the windshield and you'll hear everything through the radio. I don't want you outside the patrol car tonight, understood?"

"I'll stay here", she said.

The driver was a young girl who I didn't think was much over eighteen. She had her window rolled down when I touched the taillight of the car to leave my prints as proof I'd pulled her over, and then walked up to the driver's side door. She grinned at me.

"Hi."

"Hi. I'm Officer Ron James. How you doin' tonight?"

"Oh, I'm just fine."

It was then the alcohol fumes hit me in the face.

"Could you shut off your engine for me?"

"Sure."

I shined my flashlight inside the car to check for anything lying on or between the seats. It's surprising how many people will leave their drugs or a weapon in plain sight. If I see anything like that, it gives me probable cause to detain the person and search the vehicle. I didn't see anything except her purse.

"Ma'am, the reason I stopped you is you were sort of weaving around. Are you sure you're OK? I can call for some help if you're not feeling well."

"No, I'm fine, really. I'm just a little sleepy, that's all."

"Well, it smells to me like you've been drinking. Have you?"

"Just a little, maybe one or two drinks."

"Where was that?"

"Uptown."

"Where uptown?"

"At...uh...at that place where they have the horses."

That was my first clue she'd had too much. People can usually remember where they were only a couple hours before. If they're under the influence of alcohol or drugs, sometimes they forget.

"I don't think I know that place. Where is it -- Second, Third, where?"

"Third, I think -- no, Second...I think."

"You're sure you only had one or two drinks? It seems like you had more than that."

"I'm sure 'cause I counted the straws."

"And how many straws did you count?"

The looked like she was thinking hard for a second, but then she smiled sheepishly.

"Maybe there were three."

"I see. Do you have any identification?"

"Sure."

The girl dug into her purse. I held the beam of my flashlight on that purse with my left hand. My right hand was on the Glock on my right side until she pulled out a wallet. You never know what might come out of a purse, and I didn't want to get caught staring down the barrel of a pistol or trying to avoid getting stabbed.

She pulled her driver's license from the wallet and handed it to me.

She was Sally Vickers and the day before was her twenty-first birthday.

"So, Sally, yesterday was your birthday. Congratulations. I bet you had a party tonight, didn't you?"

She grinned sheepishly.

"Yeah, a little one."

"At that place with the horses?"

"Yeah."

"Well, Sally, could you step out of your car for me."

Her smile turned into a look of fear.

"Are you going to arrest me? That's what happens on TV when the cops ask somebody to get out of their car. I don't want that to happen."

"I'm not necessarily going to arrest you, but I do need to confirm you're OK to drive. Now, step out for me, please."

I saw tears in her eyes.

"Officer, I just can't get arrested. Please let me go. I'm only about two blocks from home. I'll go there and go right to bed, I promise."

I shook my head.

"Sally, I can't let you do that. You've been lucky so far because you haven't gotten into an accident. If I let you go, you might. You don't want to be responsible for hurting someone else, now do you?"

"No, but I promise I won't."

"I know, but I still can't let you go. Please step out of your car."

She looked up at me with a frown.

"Can I say no?"

I shrugged and switched from my friendly voice to my command voice.

"Sally, here's how it is. One way or another, you're going to get out of your car. You can do it by yourself, or I can help you. I don't want to have to help you, and I'm pretty sure you don't want that either. You won't be having a very good day if I have to do that."

Sally frowned.

"I don't have much of a choice then, do I?"

"No, not really."

Sally opened her door, and started to get out. She didn't make it because she'd forgotten to unfasten her seat belt. She looked up at me.

"I guess I should undo my seat belt first."

Sally was cooperating, so I went back to my "friendly, I just want to help you" voice

"Yeah. That usually helps. Just unfasten it and then walk back to the rear of your car please."

Sally was pretty slow and pretty awkward when she finally got out. She giggled when she stumbled a little on the way to the rear of her car.

"The road isn't very smooth here, is it?"

I chuckled.

"Well, I think you're probably not very balanced either. Look at me and follow my flashlight with just your eyes."

I moved my flashlight from side to side and Sally followed it by turning her head.

"That was good, Sally, but this time just move your eyes, OK."

I moved my flashlight again, and Sally moved her head again.

"OK, Sally, now put your feet together and put your hands at your sides ...", I moved mine together and showed her with my flashlight, "just like this. Then I want you to raise one foot and count, like one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, until I tell you to stop, OK? It doesn't matter which foot."

Sally had to put that foot down to keep from falling after counting to two.

"Wow. This is really hard to do."

"Well, I always give people a second chance. Let's try that again. Put your feet together and look at me, then lift one foot and start counting."

Sally made it all the way to four this time before she started to fall down. I was already sure she was over the limit, but I thought I'd give her one more test just for confirmation.

"OK, Sally. Do you remember the alphabet?"

"Sure."

"Well, start with A and tell me all the letters."

"OK. A, B, D, E, F, G... G... G... H, I, J, K, L, N... M... O, P, Q, R, S, T, UVWYZ."

There were other parts of the field sobriety test I could have tried, but I knew it wouldn't make any difference. I stepped closer and closed my hand around her wrist.

"Sally, you're under arrest for driving under the influence. Turn around and put your hands behind your back for me."

She sobbed, "Oh, God, no", and started to cry, but she turned around and put both hands behind her back. I put the cuffs on her and walked her back to the patrol car and opened the back door.

"Sally, have a seat while I call for a tow truck to tow your car. It'll be in the city impound lot when you're ready to pick it up."

Once I had a tow truck on the way, I ran Sally's driver's license number through the state database. She didn't have a record of anything before tonight, not even a parking ticket. I got out, walked back, and opened the back door again.

Sally was still sobbing. I tried to calm her down.

"Sally, there's no need to cry. You haven't hurt anybody so it's going to be only the DUI charge. It's not the end of the world. I'm going to take you to the station and give you a breath test so we both know for sure. Then they'll put you in a cell to let you sober up a little. After that, they'll issue you a citation and a court date, and then you can call someone to come get you. You'll probably be back home in a few hours."

She looked up at me.

"The only one I can call is my mom and I can't call her. She'll kill me."

I chuckled.

"Nah, I doubt that. She'll probably be mad, but she'll come get you. Mom's are like that."

Valerie went with me when I took Sally to take her breath test. Sally blew 0.09 blood alcohol level, just over the limit. I left her and my report with booking and Valerie and I went back on patrol. We'd just left the station when Valerie asked why I'd been so nice to the girl.

"You spent almost ten minutes talking to her before you got her out of the car. Why didn't you just drag her out?"

"Well, she wasn't really resisting. She was just scared. If I'd tried to pull her out of her vehicle, she'd probably have fought me. That would have added resisting arrest to her charges and if she'd tried to hurt me, that would add assault on a police officer. That wouldn't have done any good for either of us. All I wanted to do was get her off the road, not put her in jail. She's young and made a mistake. With just the DUI charge, she might be scared enough to not do it again."

Valerie shook her head.

"I don't know if I'd have been as patient. My sister got hit by a drunk driver and spent a week in the hospital."

"Yeah, I've seen that happen, but each case is different. If I'd run her license and found out this was her second violation, I might have done it differently, I don't know, but I try to keep focused on the situation at hand, not on what's happened in the past. If I don't do that, pretty soon I'll be guilty of the things you keep writing in your paper."

"You know about my articles?"

"Yeah. I don't like them much, but I do read them."

"They're based on fact. I never write anything that I can't back up with facts."

I'd told myself I wasn't going to get into an argument with Valerie. I was just going to show her what life is like for a cop in a patrol car. This was going too far though.

"What facts? Like the arrest you wrote about last week -- the guy who robbed a convenience store and was shot trying to get away? You probably didn't stop to think that he pointed a pistol at the officer, or didn't you hear about that?"

"The police report just said they saw him raise his hand when they told him to stop."

"You did read they found a pistol in his hand after they shot him, don't you?"

"Yes, but that doesn't mean he was going to shoot at the officer."

I was starting to get mad. Valerie seemed to be defending the guy who got shot instead of being thankful the officer had put him down before he hurt somebody.

"Why the hell else would he start pointing a pistol at them if he wasn't going to shoot? He could have just said he had one and stood there while the officers disarmed him. Why was he carrying a pistol anyway? He didn't have a carry permit."

"Maybe he had one for self-defense. That area of town is pretty rough. Maybe he thought the officer was somebody else."

"So, he didn't see the flashing lights and didn't listen when the officer yelled that he was a police officer and told the guy to stop running. That's what the officer's body cam recorded. How could he not know it was a police officer?"

"I don't know, but there was no reason for the officer to shoot him since the man didn't shoot first."

"How long would it take you to decide if he was just raising his hand or if he had a pistol and was going to shoot? Remember, it was dark and the officer had only his flashlight to light up the suspect."

"I don't know. Maybe a few seconds."

"If the officer had waited until the guy shot, he might have been laying on the ground and the guy would have been running away. Is that what you think should have happened -- the officer lying there wounded or dead and the suspect running away?"

"No, I didn't say that in my article. All I said was the officer didn't have any reason to shoot the man until he knew for sure. Since the man is dead, we won't ever know what he was thinking. We only have the video from the officer's body cam and dash cam and neither is clear enough to see what really happened."

"There's the testimony of another officer who came on the scene just as it was going down. He testified he thought the man had a pistol and was turning to use it. He said he'd have fired too if the other officer hadn't been in his line of fire."

"Well, I'd expect any police officer to defend one of their own."

It was useless to continue arguing with her.

"All I can say is I hope you never find yourself in a similar situation."

I was still steamed at the end of my shift. Evidently Valerie knew that because she didn't say two words to me for the rest of the night. She didn't even comment when I stopped a pickup for a broken taillight and then let the guy go with a warning. She didn't say goodbye when I took her back to the station.

The next night started out pretty quiet. For the first half of the shift, I just drove my patrol route without seeing anything suspicious.

Valerie still wasn't talking to me even though I tried to start a conversation over lunch at the same hamburger place. She just nodded and said "I'm OK" when I asked how she was doing.

We were just pulling back out on the street in front of the burger place when a blue sedan pulled into the parking lot. The sedan had tinted windows I was sure were too dark to be legal because even with the outside lights of the restaurant shining through them, I couldn't make out the driver. I turned to Valerie.

"See that blue sedan? I don't like the look of the windows."

"Why? Because they're tinted? Lots of cars have tinted windows. It doesn't mean anything so why are you going to harass him?"

"I understand windows tinted for styling, but those are so dark I can't see the driver and they didn't come from the factory that way. They're tinted that way because the driver doesn't want to be seen. I'm going to go ask him why he doesn't want to be seen."

I drove around the block and turned off my headlights when I turned onto the street beside the burger place. I wasn't sure what was I was going to find, but I knew if they saw the patrol car, they might run and I didn't want to chase them. Car chases any time are dangerous for all involved. Car chases at night are a lot worse.

The street lights were out on that side of the burger place, so I parked on the street a little way up from the blue sedan. After cautioning Valerie to stay in the patrol car, I walked across the street to talk to the driver, but one look through the window of the burger place sent a chill down my spine.

Two guys wearing hoodies were standing at the order counter and the young girl behind the register looked terrified because one of them had a pistol pointed at her. I keyed the mike on my radio.

"Eight zero four niner. I'm at Buddy's Burgers on Eighth and Jones. Armed robbery in progress. Request immediate backup."

Before Central could answer, I heard the response from another patrol car.

"Eight zero four niner, eight zero three seven enroute your location. ETA about four minutes."

I walked backwards to my patrol car, keeping my eyes on the two people all the time. When I got there, I walked around and opened Valerie's door.

"Valerie, there are two men in there with a pistol pointed at the counter girl. I've requested backup and they'll be here in a few minutes. This could go south in a heartbeat, so do not under any circumstances get out of the patrol car."

"What are you going to do?"

"Nothing until they come out. If I try to go in, they might kill the counter girl or use her as a hostage. Even if that doesn't happen, they wouldn't have a second thought about shooting me."

There were two other cars in the burger place parking lot. I figured they belonged to the counter girl and probably a cook because there was nobody else in the place other than the two guys. I crouched down beside the car that would let me watch the door and give me some cover and waited.

The two guys didn't waste much time. The guy with the gun shoved it in the girls face and said something. She was shaking and looked like she was crying when she opened her register and handed them the money. The guy with the gun handed the bills to his partner, then waved the gun. The girl ran back inside the kitchen area. The two guys then ran out the door and started to get into the sedan.

I raised up a little and yelled, "Police officer. Put the gun on the hood of your car and get down on the ground."

The guy with the pistol raised it in my direction in that dumb-ass sideways position you see in the movies and fired at the same time I did. He was still standing when I fired twice more.

The guy with the gun fell down. The other took off running. I'd run up to the shooter, kicked the pistol to the side and was checking to see if he was still alive when Jack pulled his patrol car into the lot and ran up beside me.

"Hey Ron. Got here as soon as I could, but it looks like you don't need me after all", he said.

"No, I still do. I got this guy but the other ran off down Sixth. He's wearing brown pants and a black hoodie. I didn't see a weapon, but he may be armed like this one was."

"I'll call Central for another car and the coroner and then start looking. This asshole must have been a really lousy shot. He hit your patrol car and it's twenty feet to the right of where he is now."

"He hit my car? Oh, God, no. Valerie's in there."

I ran back to my car. The driver's side window was just shards of glass all over the driver's seat. When I opened the door, I saw what I'd hoped and prayed hadn't happened.

Valerie was still sitting there, but she had a strange look on her face and she had her hands over her right breast. She tried to say something, but coughed up blood instead of words.

I keyed my mike.

"Eight zero four niner. I need EMT's at Buddy's Burgers on sixth. I have a civilian woman with a gunshot wound to the chest."

Jack ran up to my car with his first aid kit.

"How bad is she hurt?"

"I don't know. The guy only had a.22, but she got it in the chest and she's coughing up blood."

I looked at Valerie.

"Valerie, you've been shot and I have the EMT's on the way. I have to stop the bleeding. Just try not to move."

I ripped her blouse open then and saw the blood running from the hole in her bra. I felt around her back, but didn't find an exit wound. Evidently, the window had slowed the light bullet enough it only went in and didn't come back out.

"I know it hurts, Valerie, but it can't be helped. Just stay with me. It's not bad and we'll get you fixed up in a couple of minutes."

I'd lied to her, of course. Any chest wound is life threatening. I couldn't tell if the bullet had hit anything vital or not, but Valerie was gasping for breath. That meant it was a sucking chest wound and she couldn't breath unless I could seal the wound somehow. I'd learned how in one of the first aid classes all officers repeat each year but I'd never had to do it. I hoped I remembered right and yelled back at Jack.