Ghetto Cop: Rookie Year
By Don Geidel
Copyright 2012 Don Geidel
Smashwords edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the men and women of the National City Police Department, both sworn and civilian. I hope you enjoy the book as much as I enjoyed working with you.
Acknowledgements
Thanks most of all to my wife, Doreen, for her help and encouragement. To my brother Stan, for the same, and to all the first readers.
“Ghetto”
“(noun) An impoverished, neglected, or otherwise disadvantaged residential area of a city, usually troubled by a disproportionately large amount of crime.”
-- The Urban Dictionary
So he starts to roam the streets at night
And he learns how to steal
And he learns how to fight
In the ghetto
-- Elvis Presley (In the ghetto)
Preface
“124 John in foot pursuit westbound Division Street from Harbison.”
The radio call startled Ben after hours of quiet. They had been parked in the Walmart parking lot since 2:00 AM, Ben in the driver’s seat of the black and white patrol car, studying a detailed street map of the city and Corporal George Zobriskie, Ben’s Field Training Officer, apparently asleep in the passenger seat.
“Well don’t just sit there, dickweed, let’s go,” Zobriskie calmly stated.
Ben started the car and drove out of the parking lot westbound.
“Turn around numbnuts, Hopkins is up at Division and Harbison.” Obviously Zobriskie had not been sleeping.
Ben whipped a U-turn and headed eastbound, recalling now that Harbison Avenue was in the eastern part of the city. He had started out westbound because 124 Johns’ beat is in the western part of the city. What was Hopkins doing way off his beat? As he sped eastward Ben reached for the radio microphone to inform dispatch they were enroute. Zobriskie grabbed the mike out of Ben’s hand and said, “Stay off the radio. Screw dispatch. Hopkins needs the air and he can‘t talk if you‘re blabbing away with the dispatcher. He’ll know we’re coming when he hears our siren. Of course, he won’t hear the siren unless you turn it on.”
Holy cow, Ben thought. Not only did he start off in the wrong direction but he forgot to hit the lights and siren as well. As he hit the switch to go code three he heard other sirens starting up in the distance.
“124 John south on Drexel. HMA, black hoodie, 11350.” Wayne Hopkins was a ten year veteran who was badly overweight. He was already winded and talking in short bursts to save his breath. The suspect he was chasing was a Hispanic male adult wearing a black hooded sweatshirt who was in possession of narcotics, a felony violation of section 11350 of the California Health & Safety Code.
“124 John westbound south alley East 1st Street.”
By some minor miracle Ben pulled into the south alley of East 1st Street without any wrong turns or having to ask his FTO for directions. As the headlights lit up the alley he saw the suspect turn south and run into an open field. Hopkins was nowhere in sight. Ben turned to drive into the field but had to stop short when he saw piles of construction debris. Zobriskie was out of the car and running after the suspect.
“Tell dispatch we’re here,” he yelled over his shoulder.
Ben radioed “125 Edward 10-97 south alley East 1st Street, in foot pursuit southbound through a field.”
He put the car in park, turned off the lights and siren, and took off after his FTO. The field was pitch black. How could it be so dark in the middle of a city? Ben used his big Streamlight flashlight to illuminate the ground in front of him. He was unable to run very fast due to the construction rubble. Up ahead of him he could see Zobriskie’s flashlight bobbing as he ran.
Zobriskie was yelling, “National City Police, get on the ground.! Get on the ground!”
Zobriskie was getting to his feet when Ben caught up to him. The suspect was laying on the ground facedown, with his hands handcuffed behind his back, breathing heavily and making no attempt to get up.
Zobriskie told Ben, “Tell dispatch we’re code four and have one in custody.”
Ben radioed, “125 Edward code four, 10-16.” He heard several sirens abruptly cut off when they heard that Ben and his FTO had the suspect in custody and no longer needed any assistance.
Zobriskie said, “I’ll watch the prisoner, you keep your eyes peeled for other people. This is a bad area and we don’t need any of this guy’s buddies sneaking up on us.”
Hopkins finally came chugging into view. He was badly winded and sweating profusely, moving at a pace barely faster than a walk. Ben turned away from the prisoner and kept a lookout for any other dangers, as his FTO had ordered. He wondered why Hopkins was so far off his beat, and why he had never radioed that he was contacting a subject, per standard procedures, before the guy ran away. Behind him, Ben heard a thud and a loud “Oomph.” He turned and saw Hopkins standing over the prisoner, who was curled up in a fetal position on the ground, moaning.
“I told you not to run from me you piece of shit.” Hopkins grabbed the 10-16 by the arms and roughly jerked him to his feet. They all walked back to Ben’s patrol car. The prisoner was mumbling in Spanish the whole way. Sergeant Wilfred Ruffin was waiting for them at the patrol car.
Upon seeing the sergeant the prisoner nodded his head towards Hopkins and said, “This asshole kicked me when I was laying on the ground handcuffed, doing nothing. I want to make a complaint about him.”
“He’s full of shit, Sarge,” Hopkins said. “Zobriskie and his rookie took him into custody. I wasn’t even there. I just walked him back to the car.”
“He’s a lying motherfucker, man.” Jerking his head towards Ben, the prisoner said, “This cop here saw the whole thing.”
All eyes turned to Ben, and he thought, “My first week as a police officer and I’m already screwed.”
Chapter One
“Trainees are lab rats.”
- Corporal George Zobriskie, Field Training Officer
Booooring! Ben Olsen’s first two days as a police officer reminded him a lot of his first days as a new Marine Corps officer. Paperwork, gear issue, gun qualifications, and more paperwork. He never even left the police station. Finally, on his third day as a cop he started field training.
Corporal George Zobriskie was a sixteen year veteran police officer, married with two children. He worked the weekend graveyard shift, Friday through Monday, and was assigned as Ben’s Field Training Officer for the first four weeks of his training . He would also be Ben’s training officer for the last four weeks of training. In between Ben would have two other FTOs for four weeks each.
Ben started his first shift as a police officer by attending the pre-shift patrol briefing, held by the squad sergeant in the police station. He was introduced to the squad members and asked to say a little about himself. As was his nature, Ben said little and deflected any questions from his squad mates. At the end of the briefing, Sergeant Wilfred Ruffin welcomed Ben and said, “There’s only two kinds of people on graveyard shift - cops and assholes. All the businesses are closed. All the citizens are in their homes. Anybody you see on the street is up to no good.”
As Ben and his FTO loaded up their patrol car, Zobriskie took the opportunity to explain to Ben his version of the police department chain of command. “While you’re in field training, think of the PD as a laboratory. Trainees are lab rats. Experimental subjects in a maze. Your FTOs will guide you through the maze. Think of your FTOs as cats. Cats play with rats. Sometimes they torture them, sometimes they kill them, but cats never leave rats alone. If the rats learn from the cats they can find their way through the maze and finish field training. If not, the rats are discarded as laboratory waste. Sergeants are dogs. Dogs chase cats, but dogs will also chase rats. Rats that come to a dog’s attention are in trouble. Any questions?”
Ben was amused, and happy to see that Zobriskie was not going to be strictly serious all the time. “That’s it? What about the lieutenants and captains?”
“Okay, think of the maze as the city streets. The rats and cats and dogs all run around on the streets. Lieutenants and captains are cars and trucks driving around, randomly crushing any rats, cats or dogs that happen to get in their way. Avoid lieutenants and captains at all costs.
Laughing now, Ben asked, “And the chief?”
“The chief is God. Or the Devil. If you see him during field training it means you’re dead.” Ben was no longer amused.
Ben’s first two nights on graveyard shift were uneventful. The shift started at 9:00 PM and lasted ten hours, as did all patrol shifts. He filled the time by studying the department rules and regulations, trying hard to memorize every street in the city, and absorbing Zobriskie’s wisdom. He quickly decided that his FTO was a good cop and a good man who could teach Ben a lot. Of the hundreds of pieces of advice that Ben received his first two nights, a few stood out.
“Don’t be afraid to grab some nuts,” Zobriskie had said. “Criminals always hide stuff in their crotch, especially weapons and dope. If you feel squeamish about getting a handful of balls it might cost you your life. The same goes for a woman. Gang bangers love to have their girlfriends carry the guns, thinking that the cops won’t search them. Search a woman’s crotch with the back of your hand, and tell her what you’re going to do before you do it. That way you won’t get complaints and you will find the contraband. And if you do get a complaint, so what? There’s an old cop saying, “It’s better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.””
Another little Zobriskie gem of wisdom that impressed Ben was “Two is one, and one is none. When you’re out patrolling on your own, always assume that some essential piece of equipment is going to fail right when you really need it. Your backup gun or backup flashlight will save your life.” Ben was fast coming to realize that nearly everything Zobriskie told him related to simply surviving on the streets.
Ben’s third night as a cop he and Zobriskie responded code three (lights and siren) to assist Officer Wayne Hopkins, who was in foot pursuit of a suspect. Ben was not happy with his reaction. He started off in the wrong direction and completely forgot to turn on his lights and siren. But that was nothing compared to what happened when they all returned to the patrol car with Hopkins’ prisoner, where Sergeant Ruffin was unexpectedly waiting for them. Upon seeing the sergeant the prisoner nodded his head towards Hopkins and said, “This asshole kicked me when I was laying on the ground handcuffed, doing nothing. I want to make a complaint about him.”
“He’s full of shit, Sarge,” Hopkins said. “Zobriskie and his rookie took him into custody. I wasn’t even there. I just walked him back to the car.”
“He’s a lying motherfucker, man.” Jerking his head towards Ben, the prisoner said, “This cop here saw the whole thing.”
All eyes turned to Ben, and he thought, “My first week as a police officer and I’m already screwed.”
Ben felt Hopkins’ eyes burning into him. The sergeant and Zobriskie were looking at him expectantly. The prisoner was now looking at the ground, his shoulders slumped, as if he expected to receive another kick for daring to open his mouth. Ben realized immediately that Hopkins expected him to cover for him and lie to the sergeant. He had a bad feeling about the whole situation. Was this incident even real or could it be a training scenario, designed to test Ben’s integrity, like they did back at the police academy? Perhaps the supposed “prisoner” was actually a police officer himself, just playing a role for training purposes. Why had Hopkins been so far off his beat? Why had he not radioed that he was making contact with a suspicious person? How had Zobriskie taken the suspect into custody so fast and easily? How come no other patrol units showed up at the scene? Why was the sergeant here? All these thoughts flashed through Ben’s mind. He knew that if this was a training scenario and he lied to the sergeant he would be fired. He also knew that if it was real and he told the sergeant that Hopkins had kicked a compliant, handcuffed prisoner Hopkins would be suspended and Ben would be a pariah with all the other officers. His mind was reeling.
“Officer Olsen, did you see Officer Hopkins kick this prisoner?” asked the sergeant.
This is it, Ben thought. Real or not, it doesn’t matter. I am not going to lie to cover for Hopkins. It’s just not the right thing to do. But maybe… “No, sir, I did not.”
“Aw, shit. You cops always cover for each other. This sucks.”
“Officer Olsen, this is a serious accusation. Are you sure you did not see Officer Hopkins kick the prisoner?”
“Sergeant, Corporal Zobriskie had taken the suspect into custody. He told me that we were in a bad area and ordered me to keep a look out for any people that might approach us. I turned away from the prisoner to follow his order. I did not see Hopkins kick anyone.”
“Hopkins, when you get your prisoner to the station let me know so I can have him fill out the complaint paperwork,” the sergeant said.
The prisoner said, “Just forget about it. I know it would be a waste of time anyway.”
The sergeant told Zobriskie and Ben to return to duty, and they got into their patrol car and drove away. His FTO told Ben to drive to the nearby 7-11 so they could get some coffee and discuss the incident.
Once they had their coffees and were back in the patrol car, Ben thought, here it comes. This is where Zobriskie tells me how badly I messed up and how much trouble I’m in.
“Ben, did you tell Sergeant Ruffin the truth?”
“Yes, sir, I did.”
“Good. You need to understand something. There are no cops out here worth risking your career by lying for them. And believe me, nobody is going to lie for you. But I want you to think about something. Did you notice that the sergeant did not ask you what happened? He specifically asked if you saw Hopkins kick the prisoner. And he didn’t ask me anything at all. The district attorney will tell you in your first court case that when you testify you never volunteer any information, you simply answer each question you are asked, no more, no less. All experienced cops know that, including our sergeant. I saw the prisoner rolling on the ground and moaning, just like you did. Did Hopkins kick him when he was laying there on the ground? Probably. Hopkins has a reputation for that kind of thing. But it’s also possible that the prisoner faked the whole thing to try to get some leverage against Hopkins and maybe get his charges dropped. We don’t know, and the sergeant was looking for facts, not opinions. Very few things in our world are black and white. We work in a world of gray, and all you can do is be true to yourself.”
Gray is right, thought Ben. He still didn’t know if this incident was real or if it had been staged for training purposes. All his life Ben had thought of himself as a straight arrow, a right and wrong type of guy. Even in Iraq things had been pretty clear - you killed the guys that were trying to kill you. Police work was going to be a much bigger challenge than he thought.
Ben got off duty Monday morning at 7:00 AM. He was still keyed up, thinking over everything that had happened last night, and he was not used to being awake all night and trying to sleep in the daytime. At the pre-shift squad briefing Sergeant Ruffin had announced that there would be an award ceremony for Sergeant Selby at 9:00 AM in the police station conference room, and he encouraged everyone to attend. Ben had always enjoyed award ceremonies in the Marines and he believed they were important for morale, so he decided to attend.
Still in his uniform, Ben entered the conference room. It was early and no one was there, but there were pastries and beverages on a side table. He had just sat down with a bagel and orange juice when a nicely dressed, good looking young black woman walked in. Ben stood and introduced himself. “Hi, I’m Ben Olsen, the new guy in field training.”
“Jackie Greene. Nice to meet you.”
“Are you a detective, ma‘am?”
Laughing, Jackie replied, “No, I’m not a cop. I’m just here for the ceremony.”
“Oh, you must be Sergeant Selby’s wife, then.”
“Nope, I’m his sister. The different last names should have clued you in to the fact that I’m not his wife. I thought cops picked up on stuff like that?”
“I’ve only been a cop for a few days. And sometimes wives keep their own last names for personal or professional reasons. So Greene is your married name?”
“Nope, wrong again. I’m his half-sister. We had different fathers. I’m not married.”
Now it was Ben‘s turn to laugh. “OK, I guess I need to work on my detective skills. You look like you’re dressed for work. What do you do for a living, Jackie?”
“Actually, I’m a full time student at San Diego State. I only work part time to pay for school.”
“I went to San Diego State myself. I loved the campus but I didn’t get along with most of my professors.”
“Oh really? Why was that?”
“I was there on an NROTC scholarship and I majored in poli-sci. Most of my professors were very liberal and anti-military so we didn’t get along real well. I just tried to keep a low profile and get through the semesters.”
Jackie smiled to herself, knowing exactly what Ben was talking about. “So, did you finish school and join the Navy? See the world, and all that good stuff?”
“No, after graduation I became a Marine Corps officer. The only part of the world I saw was Iraq.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Ben smiled. “Don’t be sorry. I’m not. It’s what I wanted to do.”
“You wanted to go to Iraq?”
“I wanted to do something. I had to do something. I just felt so helpless and outraged after 9/11.”
A few people started arriving for the ceremony. Jackie waited for Ben to go on but he didn’t, so Jackie changed the subject. “Do you work for Rod?”
“Rod?”
“My brother, Roderick Selby? The guy we’re here for today. Don’t you know him?”
“No, I’ve seen him around but I’ve never met him. I work on graveyard shift and have a different sergeant.”
“Then why are you here? Shouldn’t you be sleeping right now?”
“Well, I figure that if somebody does something to earn an award the least I can do is be there to see them honored.”
“Wow, you are new! Nobody goes to these things unless they’re ordered to or they work day shift and use it as an excuse to get a break from work.”
The ceremony was brief. Sergeant Selby was given an award for saving the life of a heart attack victim by giving him mouth to mouth resuscitation until the paramedics arrived. After the ceremony people milled around, talking and snacking, and congratulating Sergeant Selby. After talking with her brother Jackie looked around for Ben but he was gone.
As Jackie walked to her car in the police station parking lot she saw Ben in civilian clothes walking towards his car. “It was nice to meet you, Ben. You’re different than most of the cops around here. Good luck with your training.”
Ben walked over to Jackie and said, “Jackie, I wanted to ask you something, but I’m not sure how to say it.”
Here it comes, Jackie thought. Every time I go to the police station some cop hits on me for a date. And I thought Ben was different. “I’m very busy, Ben. I go to school full time and work part time, remember? And you’ve got to be super busy with training.”
“Oh, sure. But I wanted to ask you… When I interviewed with the police department the hiring board was concerned that as a former Marine officer with a college degree I wouldn’t fit in well with the patrol cops. They were worried that I wouldn’t take orders well and that I would resent having to start at the bottom of the ladder again. They almost didn’t hire me because of it. Except for the internal affairs cop who did my background investigation none of the guys here know what I’ve told you. So, I wanted to ask you not to tell anyone. I can’t believe I even told you. I guess I must be tired from being on duty all night, and you seemed genuinely interested.”
Jackie, embarrassed that she had misread Ben’s intentions, said, “OK, Ben. Your secret’s safe with me.”
Ben spent his second week of field training responding to infrequent, routine calls for service. He had plenty of time to study the policies and procedures manual, or P & P, as it was universally known. The P & P was the bible of National City police procedures, and it was several hundred pages long. As long as a cop followed P & P he was pretty much guaranteed not to get himself in trouble, either with his superiors or a citizen. If he strayed from P & P he opened himself up to disciplinary action. In addition to trying to memorize the P & P Ben also had to memorize all the police unit call signs, the police radio codes, and of course all the city streets. It seemed like an impossibly overwhelming task but Zobriskie assured him that everyone learns it all eventually.
“Or they don’t learn it,” said Zobriskie. “And they get fired.”
At the end of week two Ben was in the locker room changing into civilian clothes, prior to going home to get some sleep. He overhead some of his squad mates discussing choir practice and asked them what they were talking about.
Scott McFadden, the beat 3 officer, said, “At the end of each work week the squad meets somewhere, everyone drinks a few beers, and we kind of decompress from the week. It’s a good way to start your three days off and it builds squad unity. Sometimes we discuss the hot calls, or unusual calls, so we all learn a few things, too.”
“You guys go out and drink beer at seven in the morning?”
McFadden said, “Yeah, rookie, we do. After you have more than five minutes on the force you’ll understand. When you spend an entire year on graveyard shift your nights are days and your days are nights. You get used to it.”
“Why do they call it choir practice?”
“It started way back in the day in the LAPD, I think. Some of those guys didn’t want their wives to know they were out drinking instead of being home with them, so they told them they had formed a squad choir and had practice once a week after shift. Somebody wrote a book called The Choir Boys and after that police departments all over the country started using the term.”
Ben wasn’t interested in going to choir practice. The thought of drinking beer at 7:00 AM turned his stomach, and he was exhausted after another week of being up all night and not sleeping well in the daytime. But, he figured, in order to fit in and to get to know his squad mates better he probably ought to go. “Where’s choir practice at?”
Hopkins walked over and said, “It ain’t none of your business where we do choir practice, boot. Rookies aren’t allowed to attend. Sometimes things get a little wild and we wouldn’t want a probationary employee to be fired for some goofy stuff. A year from now, if you’re still around, you can go to choir practice.”
McFadden was nodding his agreement. “That’s the way it is, man. Always has been.”
Ben tried to look disappointed but he was smiling inside. Now he could go home and get some sleep.
After a few hours of poor quality sleep Ben got up and decided to go to the beach. He had three days off and already loved working a four day week. The other graveyard patrol squad could keep the city safe while Ben goofed off. He loved the San Diego weather and he loved the beaches most of all. It was beach weather in San Diego almost all year round and today was no exception. He packed a beach umbrella, a cooler, and a portable radio and headed off to Coronado. Once he got set up he broke out his copy of the policies and procedures manual and started studying. It wasn’t long before he was sound asleep.
The next afternoon Ben was at home trying to decide if he wanted to go to the beach or go fishing at a lake when his cell phone rang. “Hi Ben, it’s Jackie Greene. Do you remember me?”
“Of course I do, Jackie. How are you? Is everything OK?”
“Sure, everything’s fine. I hope I didn’t wake you up?”
“Nope, I was just trying to decide what I want to do today.”
“Good. If you don’t have any plans, I wanted to talk to you about something. I’m in my senior year at SDSU, but my advisor just informed me that I’m lacking a social science class that I need to meet the graduation requirements. The only classes available are poli-sci classes, and since you were a poli-sci major I wanted to get your opinion on what class to take.”
“I’d be happy to help you out, Jackie. I was thinking of going to the beach. Would you like to meet there?”
“Perfect! I love the beach. How about we meet in an hour or so at the Children’s Pool in La Jolla? I like watching the seals and it won’t be crowded on a Wednesday.”
“Okay, I’ll see you there,” Ben said. “Bye.”
Ben and Jackie met in the parking lot and carried their few items down to the beach. Jackie was struck again by Ben’s good looks. He was 6’3” tall and 235 pounds of solid muscle, with classic Scandinavian features and blond hair. It was a beautiful July day but neither one of them was in a swim suit, since swimming is not allowed at the Children‘s Pool. Jackie wore short pants and a yellow tank top edged with lace. A floppy sun hat and sandals completed her beach attire. Despite her casual dress, Ben couldn’t help but notice Jackie’s trim, athletic figure and pleasant face.
Ben wore shorts and a T-shirt with flip flops on his feet. He grew up wearing snow boots in the winter and work boots in the summer, so he relished the opportunity to wear flip flops. They were his standard footwear in San Diego.
“This is one of my favorite spots in the whole world,” said Jackie.
“I like it, too,” said Ben, “although I’ve only been here once before. I usually go to Coronado. The beaches there are always less crowded and parking is easier. Do you know any of the history of this place? Why is it called the Children‘s Pool?”
“Actually, the story of this place is fascinating. It was built in the 1930s by a wealthy civic minded woman who wanted there to be a safe place for children to swim in the ocean without fear of being swept away by the surf. Using her own money, she had this large concrete and rock breakwater constructed to form a small cove. Once it was completed she donated it to the city. It served its intended purpose wonderfully for many years until the local seals and sea lions started using it as their playground, and eventually as their place to have pups. For many, the presence of the seals and sea lions made it even better, but then it was determined that the prodigious amount of fecal matter constantly produced by the seals had badly fouled the water in the cove. Federal laws passed in the 1970s made it illegal for people to co-mingle with the marine mammals, so the city placed it off limits to people. As long as the seals were there it could no longer be used as a place for children to swim in the ocean or even use the beach. Years of legal battles between those who wanted the pool restored to its original use and those who wanted it left to the seals resulted in an uneasy truce of sorts. The pool is still off limits to swimming, as you know, but people are allowed to use the beach provided that they remain a certain distance from the seals. Neither side is very happy with the result, but to me and thousands of others it is still one of the most beautiful spots in southern California.”
Ben was impressed. “Wow, Jackie, that was quite a history lesson. Did you learn all that at SDSU?”
Laughing, she said, “No. I don‘t recall where I heard it. Maybe from my mom. Anyway, that’s enough about the seals. I want to hear about you, Ben. Tell me about yourself. We didn’t have much time to get acquainted at the police station.”
“There’s not much to tell, really. I grew up in Barron, a tiny town in northwestern Wisconsin, on my parents’ farm. The life options there are either farming or working for Jennie-O, which is a huge turkey farming company. My two older brothers both work for Jennie-O. I guess everyone was expecting me to take over the family farm from my Dad when the time came. I wasn’t interested in that or dealing with turkeys for the rest of my life. I was really starting to hate the long winters, so I accepted an NROTC scholarship to San Diego State. After my time in the Marine Corps I wanted to stay in the San Diego area, so here I am.”
“How was your time in the Marine Corps?”
“At the start of my junior year of college 9/11 happened. Call me old fashioned, but it absolutely enraged me. Three thousand innocent Americans killed, just because they were Americans. Did you know that some of the terrorist hijackers lived and plotted in San Diego before going to New York? We might have bumped into one of them somewhere! I felt I had to do something to avenge the deaths of all those innocents, so I changed my NROTC program from Navy to Marine Corps. I knew it wouldn’t be long before we were fighting them somewhere, and I wanted to get my licks in.
“After graduation from college I was commissioned as a Marine Corps officer and eventually assigned to a unit at Camp Pendleton, just an hour up the road from here. My unit deployed to Iraq three times in the four years I was in. On my first deployment we fought in the battle of Fallujah. I don’t like to talk about it, so I’ll just say it was very bad. War is not like in the movies.”
Ben went quiet. Jackie could see that he was disturbed by his memories, so she changed the subject. “Why did you decide to become a police officer?”
“I enjoy helping people, and I’ve always had a strong sense of right and wrong, which I must have inherited from my Dad. Let me tell you a story about him. When I was very young, one of our neighbors had a family emergency and had to leave Wisconsin to deal with it. He asked my Dad to take care of his animals for the two days he would be gone. That night we had the worst blizzard in years. Power was out everywhere and all the roads and airports were shut down. It was six days before our neighbor was able to come home. We were okay with Mom and my older brothers taking care of things, so Dad spent six days trudging back and forth to the neighbor’s place through the snow, feeding his animals, milking his cows, keeping his house warm with a wood stove so his pipes wouldn’t freeze all kinds of things. When the neighbor returned Dad refused to accept anything in payment for all his work. He said he didn’t do it for money; he did it because it was the right thing to do. It made such a strong impression on me that after that when I was in town I started carrying groceries for elderly people, and I shoveled Mrs. Knutsen’s sidewalk every winter until I left for college. Never took a dime from her, though she always offered. So, being a police officer seemed like a natural career for me. At a career fair on the base a lot of law enforcement agencies showed up. The FBI and CIA were especially interested in me because I was an officer with combat experience, but I was tired of huge bureaucratic organizations. Even the Los Angeles and San Diego police departments sounded too big for my taste. National City was perfect, a small police force in a mostly inner city area with a high crime rate. I felt I could do a lot of good there. People call it “Nasty City.” Geez, you already know all this from your brother. Sorry.”
Jackie laughed. “That’s OK, Ben. You’re right about National City, though. Rod calls himself a ghetto cop.”
“How about you, Jackie?”
“Well, my mom and her husband lived in San Diego and my brother Rod was born here. A few years later his father was killed in a street robbery when he was walking home from work after an overtime shift. I don’t think he would admit it, but I believe that’s why Rod became a police officer. I never knew my father. My mom wasn’t married to him and he disappeared when I was still a baby. I don’t know where he is now. Rod kind of took over as the man of the house. He’s as much a father to me as a brother, even though he‘s only ten years older than I am. Just like your Dad, Rod made quite an impression on me when I was young. One time some of my friends made this crazy plan to go into Walgreen’s and steal some cosmetics. We were like eight years old. Even though they razzed me a lot I refused to go along. Later I told Rod about it, expecting him to praise me. He scolded me instead, saying that I should have talked them out of it, or turned them in.
“My mom started living with a guy a few years ago. It just felt awkward to me. I guess I wanted them to get married, and I kind of felt like I was in the way all the time. Shortly after I started college mom’s boyfriend’s company transferred him to Atlanta, and mom went with him. I couldn‘t afford a place of my own so I moved in with Rod.”
“You wanted to talk about poli sci classes,” said Ben. “What are you majoring in?”
“I’m majoring in early childhood education. As part of that program I’ll get certified to teach elementary school. I’d like to go on for a master’s degree but that would be very difficult financially, so I think I’ll start teaching after graduation, at least for a few years, then hopefully go back for a master’s. Somehow I messed up and never took a social science class that I needed. Now the only classes available are political science classes. That‘s why I asked for your help.”
“Well, in that case I’m glad you messed up then. I thought with my being in field training and you so busy with school and work that I’d never see you again. You made it pretty clear in the parking lot last week that you weren’t interested in seeing me.”Laughing, Jackie said, “I felt a little silly about that later, Ben. Every time I go to the PD some cop hits on me for a date. I thought you were going to do the same. I swear, cops are all horn dogs, even the married ones. It gets old pretty fast and I guess I just go into an automatic mode to stop it. You struck me as different, though. Maybe it was the fact that you called me “ma’am.”” Jackie laughed again. “I think that might be the first time in my life anyone ever called me that! I realized later that I wished you had asked me out, so I got your phone number through Rod and called you up. I really do want your opinion on which poli-sci class to take, though. I don’t have any interest in politics, and I don’t want a hard class or a bad professor.”
Ben and Jackie spent a pleasant afternoon with the seals, getting to know each other. They discovered that although they were raised in completely different circumstances they were both kind of old fashioned and shared a similar outlook on life.
When they were back at their cars getting ready to leave Jackie said, “Ben, I had a great time. I hope we’re going to see each other again.”
“Count on it, Jackie. This was one of the best days I’ve had in a long time.”
“Good. I wanted to ask you a favor, though. I told you that I dated a few cops before. One in particular became pretty demanding and controlling after a while, so I broke it off. I made the mistake of telling Rod about it and he got very upset. If we’re going to be dating I’d like to keep it just between us.”
Ben said, “Of course. Now we each have a secret.”
The last two weeks of phase one field training went by fast. Ben was getting to know the cops on his graveyard squad and some of the cops on other squads as well. Swing shift and graveyard shift overlapped by several hours so the officers on those squads frequently ended up on the same calls. National City cops work a ten hour shift four days a week. As Zobriskie had explained to Ben, each shift has a weekday squad and a weekend squad, with one day where the two squads work together. “We call it the “barrel day.” Barrel day for graveyard shift is Friday, so double the number of cops are on the street every Friday night, and we usually need them all. Friday nights rock and roll.”
For those not used to it, the four day work week can be confusing. Cops call whatever day they start their work week “their Monday” and whatever day their work week ends is “their Friday,” regardless of the actual calendar day. So, Ben’s Monday was really a Friday and his Friday was really a Monday. His “weekend” was Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday.
No one was allowed to go on their three days off without having all their paperwork reviewed and approved by their squad sergeant. If you didn’t get your paperwork done on time you had to stay on overtime to finish it. That irritated the sergeant and especially irked the civilian bean counters who always screamed about the overtime pay. Worst of all, it meant you got a late start on your weekend.
“You don’t want to get a reputation as a booger eating spazz,“ Zobriskie told Ben. “Spazzes are constantly making traffic stops and pedestrian stops and getting into all kinds of crap that screws up the whole squad. Remember, every time you make a stop another patrol unit has to cover you. If they’re trying to get their paperwork finished or even just on a coffee break they’re not going to be very happy with you. New cops are always gung ho and can’t wait to get into some action. We all understand that, just don’t go crazy about it and be a spazz.”
There was no need to worry about being a spazz in phase one of field training. With the mountain of material that Ben had to memorize, every minute he and Zobriskie were not responding to calls from dispatch they were parked somewhere safe and Ben was studying.
One Sunday night about midnight Ben pulled their patrol car into a 7-11 parking lot. There was already another NCPD police car parked there, and Ben could see the patrol officer inside the store. Ben went in to get some coffee while Zobriskie remained in the car, filling out the never ending reams of paperwork that all cops must do, but especially field training officers.
All the convenience store employees in the city loved it when cops dropped in for coffee. The presence of a marked NCPD patrol car in the parking lot guaranteed that the store would not be robbed. All the clerks tried to give free coffee to the cops to encourage them to stop by, but NCPD regulations did not allow the officers to accept gratuities. Ben recognized the officer inside as Allen Gerhardt, a swing shift guy who would be getting off duty soon. They had met a few times on calls but never had a chance to talk very much.
Ben got his coffee and went to the register to pay for it. The clerk, as usual, told him there was no charge, but Ben pulled out his wallet anyway, telling the clerk that he would pay for both his and Gerhardt’s coffee.
Gerhardt said, “That’s all right, I already paid for mine,” and he winked at the clerk. The clerk smiled back and rang up Ben’s coffee.
Ben wondered what that had been about but Gerhardt interrupted his thought with, “Let’s go outside and talk for a few minutes, Ben. We haven’t had a chance to get to know each other.”
Once outside, the two cops stood in front of the store entrance drinking their coffees. For the clerk, it was like having two armed guards posted outside the store, and she loved it. She had been working here for less than a year and the store had been robbed twice already. She really needed the money and wanted to keep her job, but she was terrified of being robbed. Thankfully, she had not been working either time.
Ben said to Gerhardt, “I’m surprised you’re drinking coffee so late in your shift. Aren’t you going home in an hour?”
“I am, but it’s my Friday and the squad’s doing choir practice. The coffee won’t keep me awake because I’m planning on balancing it out with a few beers.”
After a few minutes of idle talk, Gerhardt said, “So, I heard that you backed up Hopkins on a foot pursuit a couple of weeks ago.”
“Not really. Corporal Zobriskie chased the suspect down and took him into custody so fast that by the time I got there it was all over. I didn’t do anything.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. Hopkins told me that you backed him up with the sergeant. I think that’s cool. People need to know who’s got their back.”
Ben felt his face flush with shame and hoped that Gerhardt didn’t notice it. Gerhardt thought that Ben had lied to the sergeant to cover for Hopkins, and he was praising Ben because of it!
“Allen, I told the sergeant the truth. If Hopkins kicked that guy I didn’t see it, and that’s what I told the sergeant.”
“I gotcha, Ben. There are lots of things that I don’t see, either.”
Now Ben was getting angry. “Look, Allen, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I didn’t lie to the sergeant, and I would never lie to a sergeant. He asked me what I saw and I told him. Period. If Hopkins thinks something different happened he‘s wrong.”Gerhardt looked at Ben like he was something that he had scraped off the bottom of his shoe. “Okay, rookie. I hear you. Since you’re up on your high horse maybe you ought to start calling me Officer Gerhardt while you’re in training, as the P & P manual requires, and I’ll call you shithead, since that’s how you strike me.” He walked away shaking his head.
Ben took a minute to think about what had just happened. He knew this conversation would get back to Hopkins. Should he discuss it with Zobriskie? Maybe Ben had misread Gerhardt, but he didn’t think so. Still, he decided to not mention it to Zobriskie. Ben completed phase one of field training without having experienced anything out of the ordinary. He and Zobriskie had responded to burglary alarms, prowlers, street robberies, drunk and disorderly calls, gang fights, traffic collisions, prostitution complaints, suspicious persons calls, and of course, numerous narcotics complaints and domestic violence situations. Domestic violence and narcotics calls were the bread and butter of policing in National City, and it was a rare shift when an officer went home without responding to one or both of them.
Chapter Two
“Crooks drive cars.”
-- Corporal Alberto Salazar, Field Training Officer
For phase two of field training Ben was assigned to weekday day shift. He was pleased to find out that Sergeant Selby would be his squad sergeant for the next four weeks. Ben and Jackie had gotten together twice more since their first date at the Children’s Pool, and Ben was curious to meet Jackie’s brother.
Corporal Alberto Salazar would be Ben’s field training officer for the next four weeks. Salazar was a six year veteran of the National City PD and one of several highly motivated young FTOs. He was born and raised in National City and still lived in the city, a rarity on the police department. He was married with one young child.
Their first day together Salazar told Ben that the difference between day shift and graveyard shift was like night and day figuratively as well as literally. “Graveyard shift is pretty much cops and robbers, as you know. Day shift is completely different. All the bad guys are still out there, but there are lots of good people on the streets as well. And of course, all the PD bosses and their bosses, the city politicians, work during the day. That means that as cops we always have to be on our best behavior. You never know when a lieutenant or captain might be watching you. This is a small city. The city council members and the mayor are out and about all day long, and they always eyeball the cops. Some of the city council members are very anti-police. Most of our citizens support the police and are friendly towards us, but there is a segment out there that doesn’t like the police and they are always alert to any police misconduct. Citizen complaints are common on day shift. A frequent complaint is that a citizen saw too many cops at Starbucks or Denny’s, so we’re not going to spend any time on coffee breaks. If you need some coffee we’ll stop in a 7-11 and drink it in the car.
“Another big difference between graveyards and day shift is the amount of traffic in the city. Even with lights and siren it is difficult to get anywhere fast during the day. There’s just too much traffic to deal with.
“We don’t get a lot of violent crimes on day shift, the bad guys usually stay in their hidey holes until it gets dark, although we do get some robberies once in a while. Mostly we deal with homeless people and traffic collisions, and whatever we can dig up on our own. Fortunately we have several officers right now on light duty status. They can’t work in the field so they get a temporary transfer to day shift and work as a telephone reporting unit. They handle a great number of routine case reports over the telephone, which allows us to stay in the field and do real police work.”
Salazar asked Ben, “Do you speak Spanish?”
“No. I took a year of Spanish in high school but I never used it and I forgot everything I learned.”
“Well, if you going to make a career as a National City cop you need to learn to speak Spanish, the sooner the better. Pick up one of the law enforcement Spanish booklets and start studying.”
Great, Ben thought. Just what I need - more stuff to memorize. I don’t think I did this much studying in college.
Salazar went on, “Most of our population is Hispanic, Ben. Many of them speak English but many of them don’t, or don’t want to. It’s never a problem when you’re interviewing a victim, there will usually be a family member or friend to help with translation if needed. The victims want justice, so they will work hard to communicate with you.
“Hispanic crooks will almost never speak English to you. Why should they? They have no interest in telling you anything, other than to get stuffed, and they’ll say that in Spanish as well. You need to know some Spanish right away. I’ll teach you some key Spanish phrases for your safety. Stop. Put your hands up. Get on the ground. Don’t move. Police officer. That type of stuff, not what you learned in high school. When giving orders to a Hispanic suspect always repeat your English commands in Spanish. If you don’t, and he truly doesn’t understand English, you might have a tragic misunderstanding. Let me give you an example. I usually tell a suspect three or four times to get on the ground. If he refuses, then I use force to take him to the ground. Say you tell a Hispanic suspect to get on the ground in English several times, and he refuses, so you use force to take him to the ground and handcuff him. Was he really refusing your order or did he simply not understand what you said? If he truly didn’t understand you and you used force, he might have a valid complaint against you. Experienced Hispanic criminals will pretend that they don’t understand you even if they speak English well, to confuse you as things happen or to file a false complaint against you later.”
After Salazar explained the need for law enforcement Spanish Ben understood it and felt better about having to learn some phrases.
“I got a pretty good report on you from Corporal Zobriskie, Ben. He says you wanted to do more proactive policing. Well, that’s never gonna happen in phase one of training, but on phase two and with the telephone reporting unit sucking up most of our routine reports we should be able to scratch that itch for you.”
“Here’s my philosophy in a nutshell - crooks drive cars. The more traffic stops we make the more crooks we’re going to find, and crooks are stupid. If they don’t happen to have any active warrants for their arrest they always have something illegal in their possession. It’s just their nature. They can’t be on the street without a weapon of some kind - they wouldn’t last very long here in National City without one. And they usually walk around with dope, too. Either they are addicted and carry it for their own use, or they carry it to bargain with. Dope is the same as money here, maybe even better, since money is just a means to buy dope.”
Ben was excited about proactive policing, but he was also somewhat confused. “So, we sit around and wait for someone to run a stop sign and then what? I guess I don’t see how we get from the traffic stop to finding guns and dope.”
Chuckling, Salazar replied, “You have a lot to learn, Ben, and it’s not all in the P & P manual. And it’s surely not like the politically correct nonsense they taught you at the police academy. A cop’s best friend and greatest tool is the California Vehicle Code. It’s about a million pages long and lists violations that most people have never even heard of. The vehicle code is your ticket, sorry about the pun, to stop anyone you want to stop. You don’t need to wait for a driver to commit a moving violation to stop him. If you really know the vehicle code you can find an equipment violation of some sort on any car or truck within seconds, and that’s all you need to pull them over. Once you pull them over, then you have the legal right to demand identification, and all the fun starts from there.”
“Corporal, I don’t want to sound like an ACLU lawyer, but this is all new to me. Is what you described even legal?”
“It is perfectly legal, Ben. And call me “Berto” unless we’re with a sergeant. What I described is called a pretext stop, and even the United States Supreme Court has ruled that it is legal and is a valid policing technique. You can’t pull over a motorist for no reason, but any reason, no matter how nitpick a violation, is all you need. As I said, once they are pulled over, since they’re driving a car they are required by law to have a driver’s license and to carry it with them. Naturally you have the legal right to see that license. If they don’t have a license they must produce some form of ID. They also must carry the car registration and proof of insurance. If they claim not to have it you have the legal right to search any area of the car where those items are commonly kept, such as the glove box or the center console, to look for it yourself. Nearly everyone will give you permission to search their car and their person if you ask them. They either don’t know that they have the legal right to refuse or they feel that if they do it will make them look like they’re hiding something, which they usually are. And as I said before, crooks are stupid. They actually think that they have hidden their gun or their dope so well that the cop won’t find it. I’ll show you all the most common places criminals hide things in their cars and on the persons.”
This was sounding better and better, but Ben knew he was missing something here, because he still didn‘t quite get it. “Don’t you get a lot of citizen complaints doing this? You stop John Q. Public for some minor equipment violation that he didn’t even know about and then you ask him if you can search his car?”
Shaking his head sadly, Salazar told Ben, “I think maybe you listened too closely in the police academy, Ben. You’re in the real world now. We don’t stop John Q. Public at random. We use our training and experience to recognize the signs of criminal behavior or gang activity on the part of a driver, and that’s the driver that we stop for whatever reason we can find.”
“So what you’re saying is that you profile people. They taught us in the academy that profiling is illegal.”
“Ben, I told you that you listened too closely at the academy. Profiling is illegal, but that was not what I described. I’m your FTO and no FTO is going to teach you things that are illegal. Now, maybe some lawyer might try to make an issue of it, but if you stick with what I said, your training and experience, to observe a pattern of criminal or gang behavior, you’ll be fine. Here’s an example: you see a young Hispanic male dressed in gang attire driving slowly through a known gang neighborhood at midnight. You watch as he drives aimlessly, circling the block several times. Okay, if the driver is granny with her grand kids, maybe she’s lost or looking for an address. But he’s not lost, he’s a gangster looking for a dope dealer, or a rival gang member, or a prostitute, or casing a business that he wants to rob or burglarize. Do you see the difference?”