Went to a hockey game tonight, leaving Bub and Pooka with a babysitter. Got a text from the sitter that said, "Bub just jumped off the couch and yelled, 'BLONDES AWAY'!"

Spammers

Somehow, making a comment about the asshole spammers prompted even more of them to start commenting on my blog. I'm sorry I had to limit commenting so much for real people, but DAMN THAT SHIT IS ANNOYING. What I want to know is how the spambots are getting past the word verification?

Grand Jury

So I've been absent a while again. This time I have a great, blog-related excuse though. I was on jury duty for two weeks of that time! I wish I could talk more about it, but it was grand jury. It was genuinely fascinating. I was bitter about being summoned at first, but once it started I appreciated being able to see that part of J's job. For those of you not familiar, grand jury is basically the presentation of felony cases by the prosecution. Typically the arresting officer, investigator, or a case presenter present most of the case to a jury, and the prosecutor asks relevant questions. It's fairly informal, and the jury is allowed to ask relevant questions as well. There are no defense lawyers or defendants. Well, typically, anyway. We actually had one case where the defendant personally called the prosecutor and asked to come testify. That was pretty strange actually.

On an unrelated note, is mine the only blog getting spam comments from Asia? Ugh. I hate having to turn on complete comment moderation but this is getting irritating!

Another candidate for the Darwin awards

http://www.wlwt.com/news/23766921/detail.html

Really folks...just...really?

Sometimes you have to do what you have to do

Last week J and I were talking shortly before I went to bed. As we got off the phone, he mentioned that he had to go back up another deputy on a DUI accident.

A few hours later when he got home, I woke up enough for him to tell me that the accident had been caused by friend of J's family. Someone he'd grown up across the street from. Someone whose parents still had dinner with J's parents from time to time. He was fine, no injuries, and his car was the only one involved. But by the time J arrived at the scene, the friend was refusing to do any tests, including the breathalyzer. In Ohio, that's an automatic suspension of your driver's license.

Not only does J have no recourse because he wasn't the responding officer, but he wouldn't have had a choice anyway. There is damaged property, and the friend is refusing to comply with the other deputy. At this point he will be arrested. When J shows up, the friend naturally sees an old familiar face, and feels safer, thinking he won't be in as much trouble now. Even asks for J once he's in the back of the cruiser, cuffed.

Obviously J has an internal conflict about this situation. It's only natural to want to help a friend out, but the damage is done and the consequences need to be paid.

We chat about it for a few minutes in the dark of our bedroom. I reach out my hand to him, to let him know I sympathize. The tone of his voice is heavy with a unique mix of emotions, some sympathy for and disappointment in his friend's actions, his duty and obligation as a LEO. We drift off to sleep.

Two days later we happen to be having dinner with J's parents and sisters. The family of the arrested friend just so happens to come up in conversation, and without even thinking, I start to mention that J has a story about him. J immediately interrupts with, "No I don't."

This isn't the first time he's arrested or been aware of the arrest of someone that his family knew. And in those situations, he's never shared gossip either. I don't know if my brain just forgot that fact, or what. I may have mentioned before, that the neighborhood J and his family grew up in was somewhat Norman Rockwell. The parents of several of the families were all friends, the daughters grew up going to prom together and participating in each other's weddings, the sons raced their bikes up and down the streets and played hide and seek games spread over several back yards. It seems only natural to me that they would be interested in the arrest, even from a sympathetic point of view.

J was quick to shut down the conversation and make it known that he wasn't going to be sharing any sort of information, but obviously there's already some damage done. Later I apologize for the gaff and he forgives me, but it's been weighing on my mind over the last week or so. I betrayed a spousal confidence.

S.W.A.T.

Special Weapons and Tactics. Technically J's team has another acronym they go by, but it's the same thing. They are specifically trained for the types of cases that aren't routine police work. Too often that means they train for any and all situations in preparation for all the unknown factors.

For example, they can't possibly be prepared for the layout of every building floorplan in existence. Or for the great unknown of people in those aforementioned buildings. Where could they be, are they armed, are they dangerous, are they innocent, etc.

My brother is on the SWAT team for his county too, so sometimes it's interesting for the two to compare the differences in their training approach.

A particular situation that comes to mind is when they serve a warrant on a meth lab. The sheer volatility of these labs is such that the team is forced to rethink their approach, and severely reduces or eliminates a number of the tools they typically rely on. No flash-bangs, no tasers, even their gas masks can be rendered obsolete.

Meth labs are scary shit in their own right... it makes me nervous when I hear about those warrants.

DUI arrest - Man blows .373

WOW. Here's the news story. .373 is four times the legal limit here in Ohio! The journalist found court records indicating a similar charge in 1990 for this man...I want to know how he went twenty years without getting caught again.

Only with this type of job...

It's funny when you talk to some one who said their engineer husband was too busy to talk while at work. The other day I called J, who picked up the phone and immediately said "I'll call you back," sirens blaring in the background. My response has become a quick "loveyoubye" in those cases.

An interesting night

So Monday night, J and some other deputies respond to a call about a bar fight. They arrive to find the instigator of the fight, bloodied and bruised. Apparently he lost. HA! The other fighter is not around, so technically there's no victim. They have the paramedics check this guy out, whereupon they tell him he will need several stitches. Guy refuses to go to the hospital, so they bandage him up and go on their way. At this point the deputies don't want to fully arrest him and take him to jail, so they issue a citation.

Now, a logical person would at this point realize he's just gotten off easy and go home. Not Senor Froggy though. He starts getting belligerent with the deputies, threatening to call his lawyer-cousin, telling J he remembers him from an arrest in Hamilton (a place J has never worked), on and on. The deputies continue trying to get rid of him. Froggy throws his citation on the ground and refuses to go to his rent-a-home (the motel).

Finally the deputies decide to go ahead and haul him off to jail. They not only will have to book him into the jail but because of the paramedic visit, they will need to take him to the hospital too. Once Froggy realizes he's about to be handcuffed, he bolts. Except in his fully drunken state he isn't getting very far. When J tackles him, his wounds re-open. Suddenly Froggy wants to be very cooperative, tells them he will go straight to his room, won't give them any trouble, etc.

As soon as he is in the back of a cruiser, J realizes his tie is covered in blood. He throws it away. Later, while writing up his report, he discovers his shirt is bloody too. (Ohio deputies wear black shirts so you can imagine that at night you wouldn't see it)
This shirt now goes in the trash, too. On the plus side, I don't need to figure out how to sanitize a black shirt without bleach!

Back to the story...the deputies head up to the jail, only to be told there's no room at the inn. Supervisor calls in, is told the same thing. No space in the jail. After all this trouble, they're going to be forced to set Froggy on his way with the citation. Except suddenly someone realizes this man doesn't even have a green card...

Morton's Salt joins the thin blue line

This weekend was fabulous. J and I and the boy all had 72 hours together, CONSECUTIVELY. He had a vacation day on his "Friday" due to a health insurance incentive (let us find out exactly how much of a burden you are on the insurance system and we'll give you a day off!), and I was off Friday thanks to the union at my work selecting Catholic holidays for a lot of our paid vacation days.

Unfortunately (depending on your outlook), due to it being a holiday weekend, we were busy the entire time.

Wednesday night, though, J had gotten a DUI arrest. Last night he discovered it would possibly go to pre-trial tomorrow. Tonight he has a regular shift, then an extra detail. It just seems to always work out this way. The detail he's working after shift tonight is a nice extra paycheck, but it always causes a backlog in our daily routine. Add court time to that and it just goes completely haywire.

It is what it is, we're not really complaining. Just seems like all the 'extras' pile up together.