File that under "needed to know"

So every morning when J is on his way home or gets home, I always ask how his night was. More often than not lately it's been "Rainy. Boring." It's been a wet fall so far here in southern Ohio, and people don't do as much stupid shit when it's raining. Or at least they stay home to do it.
During the week I'm already at work when he gets off, so it's usually a shorter conversation, and he'll give me the full details when he wakes up and I am off work. On weekends I am home, duh, so more of the details come out in the morning.

This morning he came home and I asked how his night was. I got the usual "Wet and boring" response at first. He finished tearing down his uniform (Saturday nights are his 'Friday') and hopped in bed. There's always wind-down conversation when we are going to sleep, so I said "Nothing happened, huh?" and he replies, "My gloves are on the dining table. Don't touch them."
Hmm, I think. All I can say in response is, "Ew."

Turns out they pulled over a drunk couple, the female passenger was so lit she was vomiting out the side of the jeep. On the highway. I don't think I need to explain the laws of physics and moving vehicles to you guys, but the back window was open. I think you get where this is going. Fortunately J had the wherewithal to put ON his gloves. Which is fortunate because he didn't even know what it was, thought it was mud. Then another deputy, who didn't have gloves on, touched the door. EW EW EW!

I said "At least she wasn't driving!" J responds, "Yeah but her boyfriend was drunk too. Blew a .215." I'm fairly sure in most other states that's over the limit. Ohio law is .08, which means this guy blew almost three times the driving limit.

But at least he told me about the gloves before I got up...why he put them on the DINING table I do not know.
Kind of like the day I came home and there was a brown paper 'Evidence' bag on the kitchen counter...I was afraid to go near it. Turns out it was extra bullets for the rifle. Could have been much worse, right?

disappearing blogs

Well Cathy mentioned it and she's darn right; Tim at Cop's Cop hasn't posted in about a month, and suddenly today his blog is gone. I know it was there earlier in the week; I routinely check all the blogs I 'subscribe' to. I may not comment often unless I have something constructive to add, so some of you guys might think I don't stop by, but I'm there.

Anyone know what happened to Cop's Cop? Cathy said he mentioned something about getting a new position...Kind of sad to see a LEO blog fall off the radar.

Speaking of sporadic posting, I haven't posted juicy stuff lately because there's been drama going on at J's post. He's not allowed to talk about it since it's under investigation, but he did get dragged into the internal since he was present when the drama 'hit the fan' so to speak.

J also found out this morning he's definitely going to court services. He's pretty bummed about it, since the only thing he says he'll be doing is running the x-ray machine at the courthouse. I'm pretty sure that's not the only thing, but it's probably the worst. It's just the way it happens at their S.O. with rotation and new guys on probation and such, but he just got stuck with it this time. Hopefully he won't be doing it very long, but there's no telling. But there is a silver lining....we'll actually be on the same schedule while he's doing this, AND he gets weekends off! hee hee...pardon me while I have a gleeful little giggle about it.

Oh and the other big news at our household .... (drum roll please)... I'm pregnant. About 8 weeks along now. Been sick as a DOG some days. Which is ironic because my dogs are actually pretty healthy, so who knows where that phrase came from. So on or around May 4 of 2007, we're going to have a little badge baby running around here. J's pretty darn excited. I think he is going to be an EXCELLENT father. Turns out two of the other officers at his post are also expecting around the same time next year, so there will be many men out on paternity leave. Must be something in the water up there...

anyway, I imagine while he's in court services I may get some intriguing stories of court cases to share with y'all. If there's ever any drama IN the courtroom. On another plus side, he's going to the county's main court, which means he won't be dealing with the bad judge anymore.

PS, Cathy I did get your 'tag' the other day, and I promise I will get around to it!

Bad judgement

So there's this judge that J has to take cases to fairly regularly. He bitches about this guy almost every time he has a case. He calls it Mickey Mouse court because it's such a joke. The judge turns over cases where it's obvious that the criminal should be convicted; he allows drunk drivers to go free, and he leaves children in dangerous situations.

Today there's an article about the judge in the Enquirer.

I asked J about some of the other allegations made in the article.
Do other cops really wait to pull people over in other jurisdictions to avoid him? Yep. J's actually *heard* guys say that very thing, "Oh I'm not pulling anyone over there." Which says to me people are probably not getting tickets for violations when they should be.
Have the number of felony cases declined because of him? Yep. Numbers speak for themselves.
The prosecutors refuse to take child endangerment cases to this court because the guy REPEATEDLY allows children to stay with parents who are known drug users, or have patterns of leaving their children unsupervised or in dangerous situations. Furthermore, there have been many cases later found guilty in appeals court which this judge acquitted the first time around!

Since he's one of the very few Ohio judges to be facing potential disciplinary action by Ohio Supreme Court, you'd think it would speak for itself, wouldn't it? I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he gets thrown from the bench before his term is up.

Incredible Stupidity

Why doesn't this happen more often?

Man tries to carjack someone, only to realize, AFTER tapping on the window with his gun, that he was trying to carjack a police officer, still in uniform, on his way home from work.

You've heard of the Darwin awards, right? I'd like to propose a new award, for criminals SO stupid they turn themselves in from the get-go. Anybody got a good name suggestion?

Tasks that cops hate

Well J found out the other day he might get assigned to court services soon. Just depends on the way the cards are falling, but it seems likely. He's mad. Court Services here means he will be running the x-ray machine at court, picking up prisoners, standing guard at court, etc. It's M-F 8-4, which (hee hee) means we will be on the same schedule FOR ONCE in our lifetime. But I can't be too happy about it because he really really doesn't want to do it. I think he'd rather be on the road during the daytime than do court services. Plus he doesn't know how long he'll be stuck doing it.

What about you guys, what part of your job do you detest the most?

I remember Clive Ian Thompson

Clive Ian Thompson was known as Ian to everyone who knew him. He was born on the 5th of July, 1958, in England. In this picture he looks like a kind, gentle man. He looks like a family man. He is survived by his wife Lucy, and their daughters Ella and Rachel. In 2001 they all lived in Summit, New Jersey. Reading other sites about him, it seems to me he must have had a lot of friends, both in America and in England. He liked to cook for his wife and daughters. He played golf recreationally, liked to play cards, or watch movies. I picture him sitting on a couch with his arm around at least one of his daughters, watching his favorite movie, "Life is Beautiful." If you have seen this movie, Roberto Benigni's character helps his son survive WWII Nazi camp by keeping life fun. Ian strikes me as the type of person who would make a child laugh to make her forget her arm is broken and being set.

Ian worked at Euro Brokers for 22 years. He started at the London Office in 1979, and transferred to New York in 1992. This means he worked in the towers when they were bombed in 1993. Ian helped an asthmatic down the stairs to safety from the 31st Floor of the North Tower where the Euro Brokers office was then located. In 1999, he helped pull a man out of a burning car on the Pulaski Skyway on his way to work. This says to me that in all likelihood, Ian was trying to help people on that infamous day in 2001. I haven't a doubt in my mind that he was. His office was on the 84th floor of the south tower. The north tower was hit first, and Ian called his wife Lucy to tell her he was OK after the first plane hit. Ian most likely helped calm people as they witnessed the horror through the windows, watching the first tower burn.

Ian volunteered with a local Volunteer First Aid Squad as an EMT. People who do this sort of volunteering are the people who genuinely want to help other people. He wasn't paid for that work. He just wanted to help people. Posthumously, he is recognized in the 2002 New Jersey State EMS Memorial as having died in the line of duty. He was known for being very gentle with people he was helping, and was often assigned to help babies and children. To me, he definitely looks like the face you would want to see rescuing you, or holding your hand on the way to the hospital. He's the kind of person who probably got thank-you notes from people he assisted.

This picture makes me smile. Ian is in the center, and looks like he is having an excellent time. Someone who dresses up like this knows how to have a good time with his buddies. At a service held for Ian shortly after 9/11, his wife requested that everyone wear brightly colored clothes in memorial of him. He liked to have fun, and would have wanted people to be happy, not mourn. He is remembered by friends and family as being someone who had more fun than most people, often allowing himself to be the target of good-natured jokes, such as being pummeled with water balloons.



Ian started a carpet cleaning business on the side, Albright Carpet Cleaning. He became a master carpet cleaner. Friends of Ian remember him as being a renaissance man. He had a lot of interests, and a lot of friends. Hopefully some of them will see my tribute. Hopefully I have done a good job of remembering Clive Ian Thompson. I am sure that his friends and family have no problem remembering a man full of life, a soulmate, a wonderful father, brother, uncle, and a great friend.
I remember Clive Ian Thompson

Here are links to the other tributes. Fortunately more than 2996 people signed up, so some people are remembered by more than one blogger.

9/11

On 9/11, J and I were sleeping in. The phone rang, and we ignored it. It rang again. J crawled out of bed and answered it. It was our good buddy Scott. I could tell from his tone of voice that something was wrong. He was in the living room, and turned on the TV. He told me to turn on the TV in the bedroom. The second tower had just been hit by another plane. At the time, there was a lot of confusion. Nobody knew it was a terror attack yet. There was speculation that it was a horrific accident. Of course nobody suspected we were really under attack, not *really*. It was too impossible to believe.

We watched TV all morning. I remember emailing my mom, who was at work and had no clue what was going on. She usually listens to the radio at a very low level, and told me that she'd heard some joke about two planes crashing, but hadn't bothered to turn it up for details. I emailed her back immediately to tell her it was no joke, and to turn up the radio.

We had the TV in the living room on one news channel, the TV in the bedroom on a second channel. I had CNN.com up on one computer, andMSNBC.com on the other.

J's childhood friend, Jared, attended Wagner College at the time, on Long Island. We spoke to him online later that day, and he told us he watched the towers fall from a dorm room. He must have been upwind.

My best friend at the time, Meagan, was from New Jersey. She had cousins who worked in the towers. She and I talked all day. She lived in South Beach at the time. If you've ever been to Miami, you see shipping containers EVERYwhere. For every cruise liner you see, there are just as many international shippers around. She told me the ports were a disaster because that afternoon they weren't letting any of the ships in.

I remember going to work later that day; I had to work from 2 to 11 at Home Depot. I remember thinking it was surreal, that we shouldn't be working. I remember thinking everything should be shut down. I also remember more than one customer buying multiple filter masks. I helped paint the empty paint cans that we put on every available counter space, for people to make donations. Home Depot made overwhelming donations, and I remember being proud to see on the news all the orange buckets used at Ground Zero to haul away debris as they looked for survivors in the rubble.

Prior to 9/11, I had nightmares. J had always wanted to be a cop, and I had nightmares of losing him to the call of duty. They were sometimes strange dreams; I remember one where a school gym was basically a hell-hole, kind of like something you'd see in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Obviously I'd had too much pizza late that night. In the dream we'd hear screams coming from the building, and I'd desperately try to hang on to J, to stop him from going in. His response was always something like, "But I have to go, people need me." I'd never see him again in the dream. Often waking up in a cold sweat, making sure he was still next to me. Other times they were more generic dreams, but I still lost him to the call of duty. After 9/11, I never had one of those nightmares again. It had come true for so very many people.

I want Clive Ian Thompson to have a few days of tribute, so I probably won't be updating for a few days. I can't believe five years has gone by already.

Police Videos

So I come home for lunch fairly often...it's cheap and I get to escape work. When I do come home, often Spike has the Wildest Police Videos, or some such show on. And I get a kick out of watching them, because they always make the cops look good. Or at least they try. Sometimes if you know what you're looking at, you wonder why that cop stood in front of the car's open door, with the driver in the driver's seat and the car still on. But the show would never point that out.

My favorite part, though, is watching people get their comeuppance after doing stupid crap. Is it wrong to laugh when a criminal wrecks the car he was running away in? I don't deliberately wish people harm, of course. But it's very satisfying when they hurt themselves trying to do something stupid. This means they succeeded in being very, very stupid.

My favorite clip these days, though, was of a guy who had been arrested for multiple things, but included was public intox. So the guy is toasted in the back of the car, and the officer turned the camera around to film this guy's antics. The idiot is in the backseat, yelling "False Arrest!" over and over, as well as some other things. The officer actually has quite a level head and ignores him. The guy calms down for a minute, then fires it back up. He just won't shutup. Personally I'm thinking the officer is going to brake-check him or something (a.k.a waffling). The idiot hocks a loogie and spits it at the officer. The car stops, and the officer says something along the lines of "That's it." And gets out of the car! Then he gets the suspect out of the backseat. I'm thinking Hooray, he's going to smack this guy around! You can hear the officer talking to the guy, saying something like "Now you're not gonna do that anymore." And puts the guy back in the car. Once the guy gets himself upright again, you can see that the officer pulled the guy's shirt over his head! HA!

Quite possibly the best, most level-headed reaction possible. I love it.

Rain, rain, go away

Well last night J was driving to work, in the rain, on the highway. Was next to a semi, which you know creates all sorts of drafts. Hydroplaned. Spun out. Hit the wall. Ended up back out in the lane, facing oncoming traffic.

Thank GOD he didn't hit the semi. Nobody hit him after that. So he's fine. Truck is pretty damn banged up, barely driveable, but he's fine. Even went to work after. Didn't even call me! I was asleep already though, so I realize there was no reason for him to call, but still. I am just soooo thankful he is OK. Driving next to semis in the rain at night on the highway could have been disastrous.

Someone was looking out for my hubby today...

Troopers Ambushed

I almost never update from work but I had to put this link out there. Two Troopers were ambushed by 'Bucky Phillips', who has been on the run and is also wanted in connection with another trooper shooting. The two troopers in this story are both alive, but listed in critical condition. One was shot through the vest, and the other took a hit to the thigh, in the femoral artery. He suffered massive blood loss. Keep them in your prayers.