With apologies to LawDog, first post.

[Pulp]

First of all, I’m not a cop. I am a Cowboy Action Shooter and I saw a link to Lawdog’s stories over in the SASS Saloon. As I read these stories, I thought about my one experience with what Lawdog calls a ‘critter’.

Several years ago my wife was City Clerk and part time dispatcher in our little town of Valliant, OK. One fine day I gave her a call about 4:30 to see if she wanted to go to my mother’s house for supper. The phone conversation went like this:

Her: “CITY HALL!”
Me: “Do you……..”
Her: “GET DOWN HERE NOW! OFFICER NEEDS ASSISTANCE!” click

The following is a conversation between myself and common sense:

Self: “Bull %#$%, I ain’t a cop, and I don’t wanna git shot”
C.S.: “Your wife is down there, and they obviously need help.”
Self: “Should I take a gun?”
C.S.: “First of all, a civilian can’t carry a firearm in a government office, second of all the only loaded gun you have is an 1860 Army. Just go.”

So, common sense wins out, and I drive (unarmed, of course) from the west side of Valliant to City Hall. Fortunately, traffic was light, so I made the three blocks in pretty good time. I come running in, ready to duck a hail of bullets. My wife and the PWA secretary are sitting calmly in their offices, and no officer in sight.

Well, it turns out; the PWA secretary is also the day jailer. In the rare occasions that Valliant has a prisoner, she is required to do a welfare check on the prisoner each hour. So at 4:00 she makes her rounds, as they actually have a prisoner. She opens the door to find the prisoner has made a noose from his T-shirt, tied it over the top bar on the door, and commenced to hang himself. She yells at him in a very authoritative voice, “YOU BETTER STOP THAT RIGHT NOW, OR YOU’RE GOING TO BE IN BIG TROUBLE!” Apparently, the prisoner decided BIG TROUBLE was a fate worse than death, so he stood up straight and removed the noose. Cassandra then 10-19nd the day officer back to City Hall.

The day officer, Dennis, decides he needs to put restraints on the prisoner until they can transport him to county. But he can’t do it alone. That’s where I come in. So I go back to the Chief’s office and find Dennis sitting in the Chief’s chair. “Need some help?” I ask. “Yes we probably will.” he replies. I look around and it’s just him and myself. “Who’s we?” I ask. “Don (the Chief) will be here in a minute to get the leg irons out of the evidence room, and then we may need help subduing the prisoner.” “Hmmnnnnn” I think.

About ten minutes later Don arrives. He gets the leg irons out of the evidence room, (he’s the only one with a key, I don’t know what they do with evidence collected when he’s not on duty) looks at Dennis, looks at me, and says, “Let’s go get it over with.”

I’m thinking, “Bull#$#%, I don’t wanna get beat up,” but I figger it’s three on one so maybe he’ll be worn out by the time he gets to me. So in we go. The perp is lying on the cot, face up. He swears we’re not gonna put them dog chains on him, however, he does not resist when they put the leg irons on. But he refuses to roll over for the cuffs. So Don and Dennis begin attempting to roll him over. Now remember, I’m not a cop, I’m not trained in subduing perps, but a light finally flashes in my brain. “Control his legs, so he can’t kick Don or Dennis. So I sit down on the cot and put a bear hug on his lower legs, with my back to Don and Dennis. I don’t realize you cannot roll some one over if his legs are tightly held. Don and Dennis are tugging and pulling and yelling for him to roll over, and I’ve got a death grip on his legs, preventing him from rolling over, either on his own will, or under the physical urging of Don and Dennis.

Then another flash of brilliance hits my brain, and I think, twist his legs and he’ll have to roll over. So I put the twist on his legs in a clockwise direction, not realizing Don and Dennis are twisting his body in the opposite direction. And of course, my back is to Don and Dennis. Anyway, it doesn’t take the perp long to realize he’s in a world of hurt now. “You’re breakin’ my legs!” he screams. I finally realize the error of my ways, and I think that if I pulled his legs off the bed, and get his body away from the wall, Don and Dennis would have a better approach to him. So I quit twisting, let go of his legs, and grab the chain, stand up and pull his legs away from the bed. This does give Don and Dennis a better angle of approach. I’m holding the chains, wisely keeping his feet off the floor so he can’t get any extra leverage. The perp is off the bed from his waist down, just his stomach and chest still on the bed, and I feel like I’m in control.

Now for some reason, Dennis decides the perp’s knees need to be on the floor, but he doesn’t communicate this to me. Dennis drives his knees into the perp’s knees in an attempt to put him on the floor. I don’t realize this, and I’m holdin’ the chain, holdin’ him off the floor and thinkin’, “Damn, his feet are heavy, these chains are diggin’ into my hands.” Did I mention Dennis weighs 300+? Don is still pulling on the perp’s shoulders, trying to roll him over. I finally can’t hold any more and down goes the perp’s knees, driven into the concrete by Dennis’ 300+ pounds. At this point, the perp yells. “I’ll roll over if y’all will just let me!” So Dennis gets up, Don lets go, and the perp meekly rolls over and offers his hands for the cuffs.

And that folks, is my one time experience in subduing criminals. Except for the Code 500 when I worked at Wal-Mart, but that’s another story.

[yorec]

Uh... Er.... That is.... Yes.



Welcome to TFL anyway!

[Tamara]

Welcome to TFL!

[NSO_w/_SIG]

That sounded like three monkeys trying to F*** a football

[patent]

lol

[IZinterrogator]

ROFLMAO!!!

Now you have to post the code 500 story.

[KSFreeman]

Welcome, new friend.

[TallPine]

Good story!

I wished I had a recording of the chatter I heard on my VFD pager the other day. LE uses the same channel (we have a repeater at the fire station) when out in this end of the county.

It seems some truck[trailer?] rig didn't quite get the tailgate door closed. They were scattering sheep all along the hiway.

A hiway patrol and sheriff's from two counties were keeping occupied dealing with dead and injured sheep. They had to put one or more down (sheriff quipped that one of his deputies "just wanted to shoot something" )

Some private citizen apparently came along with a horse trailer and loaded up some of the walking wounded until the owner(s) could be found.

I bet they don't teach you how to handle that stuff in POST

[KSFreeman]

So, the sheep were in protective custody?

Wow, Pulp, that's good qin na! Got to write that one down! Twist and bend on two different ends. Since qin na holds always have funky names, we'll call it "Hands seize the Mope".

Speaking of wierd cop stores: one of my guys (family law matter) is a cop. He told me that the strangest stop he had was a motor vehicle accident involving a courier car from a large pharm company (gee, wonder which one) going to the lab in Indy from the lab in West Lafayette.

The car contained a cage of white lab mice. The cage had, unbeknowst to him, become damaged during the accident. He opened up the passenger side of the car to get the insurance info out of the glovebox and maybe a dozen white mice ran out and off into a housing addition. He said he jumped into the air at least 3 feet as the courier screamed that she would get fired for losing the mice.

Don't know what those mice are up to now. Maybe I've watching too many Night Galleries or Twilight Zones, but I've always wondered if some day Lafayette, Indiana will be taken over by genetically mutated white lab mice. Eh, some would argue that it would be an improvement the way things are now.