by Mike Fosen
Entering the station, Chris headed over to the roll call room where the watch commander was to go over the crimes and arrests from the last two shifts and the assignments for the officers working. As he entered the room, Chris observed his immediate street supervisor walking his way. His supervisor, a fat, greasy looking man, the type who got off on telling others what to do, fast walked towards Chris as soon as he saw him.
“Hey, Chris, we’re getting swamped with fight calls," he snapped. "I need you to hit the street right now and help out.”
“Roger that, Sgt. Henderson," Chris answered. "Let me check out a squad, and I’ll hit the street.”
As one of the less senior officers, despite nearly five years on the street, Chris did not yet have a take home squad. Budget cutbacks and the bad economy placed the department on a seemingly permanent hiring freeze. But he was just glad his job was waiting for him when he returned home from Afghanistan.
After filling out the paperwork and getting the squad keys, Chris jogged out to the motor pool lot where the spare high mileage and abused squads were parked. Starting up the older Ford Crown Victoria, Chris accelerated up to where he had left his truck and began loading his police gear into the squad. One thing Chris had gained from the military was his love of high speed gear. A large duffel bag that contained all the forms he might need during his shift was placed on the front passenger seat and buckled in. It also contained binoculars and a tool kit. His report and ticket tins he tossed onto the front seat as well. First Aid kit and ballistic shield were tossed into the trunk, along with his police issued 870 Remington shotgun. His emergency go-bag, filled with extra shotgun slugs, 9mm pistol ammo, extra magazines, medical supplies, energy bars and water was also placed into the trunk. Slamming the trunk lid, Chris advised dispatch that he was clear for calls. Immediately Chris was rewarded with a ‘several car accident with injuries’ in the 600 block of Gardner.
“Roger that. I’m en route,” Chris responded while activating the squad’s lights.
Before he had reached the accident site, dispatch advised Chris that several vehicles actually crashed through the guardrail of Interstate 80, which was elevated through that area, and landed onto the street below.
“Well fuck me,” Chris said to himself. “This call is going to tie me up for hours.”
When Chris finally arrived, he had a bit of a flashback to a similar scene from his recent past, an IED attack on his convoy in Afghanistan. Damaged vehicles were strewn about, but at least this time he wouldn’t have to worry about sniper fire.
“Wow!” Chris said aloud. “This looks bad, even worse than I guessed.”
There were at least seven or eight vehicles involved in the accident, each with varying types of damage, from simple fender benders up to flipped over and crushed. Joliet fire trucks and ambulances, as well as an Illinois State Trooper and a Will County Sheriff squad were already on scene when he pulled to a stop and blocked southbound traffic with his squad. There was already a very large crowd of gawkers doing their best to get in the way and take pictures with their cell phones. He took a bit of time to yell at civilians who were not staying out of the scene and chased them back a distance.
I might need crime scene tape for this mess, Chris thought while pulling his notepad from his pocket and turning back to begin to write down vehicle types and license plates.
Looking at the path of destruction from the street, up the dirt embankment to the interstate, Chris saw a jackknifed semi-truck on the interstate, which he figured was probably the cause of this mess. Chris started to make his way past the roaring diesels of the fire engines and ambulances all while dodging out of the way of running paramedics who were checking the occupants for injuries. Some obviously were hurt badly enough that after the stretchers were loaded, the ambulance took off with sirens blaring. Completing his survey of the scene, Chris noticed some steam coming from a large clump of vegetation that was up the embankment several yards from the main accident. Upon investigating, he observed a vehicle that was obscured from view at street level. The vehicle, an older green Ford Taurus, was upside down. The damage was considerable, and the vehicle made ticking and pinging sounds as the engine cooled. The steam was made by a busted radiator that had a large piece of guardrail stuck through it. Ducking down and pulling away several small broken trees, Chris could see a male Hispanic driver was trapped between the seat, steering wheel and door.
“Can you hear me? Are you hurt?” Chris called to the man.
The only response that Chris received was moaning from a man apparently in considerable pain. Due to the damage on the vehicle, Chris was unable to get the driver out on his own. Several attempts to open the door himself proved futile as he quickly broke a sweat trying to pull it open.
Exasperated, Chris began to shout for the paramedics, but no one could hear him in all the commotion. He eventually gave up and ran down to grab the lone fireman who didn’t seem too busy at the moment.
“Hey, there’s a man stuck in a vehicle up on the side of the embankment!" Chris hollered, pointing up at the spot from which he’d just run.
The fireman trotted up to where Chris pointed and began to say something on his fire radio. A few seconds later, several additional firemen and paramedics descended on the vehicle with extricating tools and equipment. Within minutes, the sound of the saws and hydraulic metal cutters was deafening. Trying to get onto his police radio to advise dispatch of life threatening injuries, Chris backed away from the running fire trucks and saw a state trooper heading his way.
“Hey there, Officer,” the trooper called to Chris. “Are you taking the report for this accident?”
Chris stopped in his tracks and looked at the trooper in confusion, then looked at the several vehicles involved. He then followed the path of destruction with his eyes all the way up to the twisted guardrail of the interstate where State Police had jurisdiction and where this clusterfuck had clearly begun.
Chris turned back to the trooper. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Starting to lose his cool as the trooper gave some lame ass excuse about having some disturbance calls in his district and that he needed to clear out, Chris threw his hands up in the air angrily.
“Fine, whatever! We’re busy as hell too, you know!" he was yelling now. "At least get the drivers and vehicle information from the victim the fire department is working on.”
Not waiting for an answer, Chris stomped away from the lazy trooper, wanting to punch him out and wipe his ass with the trooper’s trademark hat.
Chris walked back to his squad, cursing every step of the way about the trooper trying to pawn this mess off on him. Reaching his squad, he took a minute to cool off mentally by taking a few drinks from his water bottle while standing next to his open car door. His mind was racing, and the more he thought about it, the madder he got. Then a light went off in his head, and he turned back towards the accident.
That’s it! he thought. I can’t take this report because it all started on the interstate. Where all the vehicles ended up is beside the point. And the highway is State Police jurisdiction.
Unbeknownst to Chris, the trooper he was referring to had reached the mangled Ford Taurus just as the firemen freed the trapped occupant. While the paramedics attempted to stabilize the victim, his head snapped forward, locking his jaws onto the medic’s arm. The paramedic screamed as the trapped occupant’s jaw ripped back and forth and tore a mouthful of meat from his arm. The paramedic looked at his bleeding arm in stunned horror as another fireman attempted to immobilize the driver with a chokehold.
“Goddamn! Are you okay?” the fireman yelled out of breath. “This fucker is strong!”
The driver tore himself free and sank his teeth into the bicep of the fireman who howled in pain while he tried unsuccessfully to free himself from the crazed man. The trooper, standing frozen in his tracks, looked on in shock. The injured driver, who should have been incapacitated from pain if not already dead from his clearly crushed lower
body, hungrily tore back into the fireman’s arm while he screamed for help. The trooper pulled his Glock .40 and ordered the driver to stop. The fireman tried to stand up, tripped over a piece of the wreckage, and the crippled driver shot up the fireman’s torso and began to savage his throat. Blood jetted from the fireman’s neck and into the face of the driver. Screams of pain and horror were abruptly cut off, replaced by choking, gurgling sounds as his vocal cords were ripped free.
The trooper snapped out of his daze and finally started to shoot the driver. He was so shaken that he put several rounds into the crazed driver with the rounds impacting on an upwards trajectory from the recoil. The last round hit the nearby fireman square in the forehead. Terror filled the trooper, who thought he had just accidentally killed an innocent man. As his mind tried to comprehend this, he didn’t register that the Hispanic driver was now crawling his way with a blood-crazed look in his eyes. He also failed to notice the other paramedic, who was first bitten and had shortly thereafter gone into convulsions, approaching from his right with a dead look in his eyes. The trooper didn’t realize any of this until teeth ripped into his right arm, and hands ripped at his face.
Chris stomped his way back to the accident scene and had just walked past one of the fire trucks when he heard units getting dispatched over the radio to a very large fight in progress in one of Joliet’s housing projects.
Great! he thought. It was perfect timing. He’d make the trooper handle this scene and go assist with the fight.
As he passed the engine of the truck, he swore he heard gunshots. Unable to pinpoint where they came from, Chris hurried around the back side of the fire truck. Looking up the dirt embankment, he saw the trooper go down, wrestling with two or three men. Looking closer as he ran towards the fight, Chris made out that two of the combatants were paramedics, and the third appeared to be the injured driver. About fifteen feet from the melee, he saw the trooper stop moving, but the other three continued to assault him.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Chris snapped, pulling his service pistol from the holster.
All three blood-covered heads snapped up from the trooper’s body simultaneously. In a fleeting instant, Chris could tell the trooper was dead, covered in blood and his intestines hanging exposed above his gun belt. He next eyed up the enemy. With a savage look of hunger in the eyes of all three and blood dripping from their mouths, they gave away their intentions for young officer Jacobs.
* * * * * * * *
The blaring of my cell phone ripped me out of a dream that was just starting to get interesting, as usually happened when they involved a hot MILF. Fumbling for my cell phone, I finally hit the right button.
“Hello?” I croaked, wiping the sleep from my eyes.
I initially thought I’d overslept for my midnight shift but after checking the time saw only an hour had passed. The reply I received was full of swearing and obscene things that were probably illegal in most countries. Looking at the caller ID, I saw it was Stephen.
“Calm the fuck down, bro. I can’t understand you,” I replied calmly.
“Don’t tell me to calm down, jackass!” he shouted. “Thanks for leaving me hanging, with Roy as my only backup. Where the hell are you anyway, Mike?”
“Roy? Ouch!" I chuckled. "I’m in bed, taking a little nap before work, what’s up?”
“I’ll tell you what’s up; the city is going up for grabs,” he snarled. “They are calling out all off duty cops they can find to help with the dozens of pending disturbance calls. I know for a fact they have tried you several times. I personally threw you under the bus and told them you were home.”
“What the hell are you talking about? What’s going on?”
“Half the shift is injured, and the rest of us are running our dicks off. Just get your ass here now!” Stephen brayed, and then hung up.
I stared at the phone for a few seconds, seeing all the missed calls from the watch commander’s office, then shrugged and swung my feet out of bed. I pulled on my uniform and boots. Grabbing a freshly charged battery for my police radio, I replaced the old one with one from the charger. Walking into the basement, I opened the gun locker and grabbed my duty pistol and patrol rifle in its soft carrying case complete with five extra magazines attached. Putting out a fresh bowl of food for the dog along with clean water, I said goodbye to the huge shepherd and told him he was back on guard duty again until I returned. Walking out to my squad, I turned on the police radio and immediately heard units getting dispatched to fights all over the city. In the distance I heard the blare of emergency sirens.
“Man, Stephen wasn’t kidding! Wonder what’s in the drinking water this time?”
Finally there was a gap in the radio traffic, and I was able to advise dispatch that I was on duty and available for service. I was assigned sector 2, which had been manned by Officer Sherman, by Janice, an out of breath dispatcher who sounded a bit frantic. I was then immediately sent to a domestic battery that had a runaway thirteen year old involved on the north and mostly Hispanic end of my sector.
"Great! I got out of bed for a runaway who doesn’t like to get disciplined by his parents."
En route to the address listed on my computer, dispatch advised that an ambulance was also on the way for several injured persons.
“10-4,” I acknowledged.
It sounded like it was brewing up to be a real clusterfuck.
Arriving on scene, I walked up to the solid looking two-story brick home. I could tell that when it was new back in the day, it was a beauty. Now it looked like it had been divided up into a two-flat. Locating the correct entry door, I entered and announced myself. In the family room, I saw the mother and several children ranging from about two to fifteen years of age. Once they saw me, they all began to holler at me what had happened, and of course it was in Spanish. I did not understand a word they said.
“Okay, okay, I‘m officer Thorsen, but you can call me Mike. I’m here to help," I said. "One at a time please and preferably in English.”
An older kid, who I learned was a neighbor, stepped up and said he spoke English.
“Outstanding,” I replied. “Can you tell me what went on here, and why everyone’s bleeding?”
I began to take down notes as the neighbor kid related through translation what happened and how they all got injured. It appeared that the father, Javier Garcia, along with the rest of the family, had recently arrived in country from Mexico. Today, Javier had an argument with his oldest son Jose about Jose not listening to his mother Maria, going out all hours of the night, and hanging with the local Latin King gangbangers. At one point Javier, who was still sick from their long trip, began to physically fight with Jose. The fight quickly escalated while the rest of the family watched Javier became enraged and bite Jose’s ear. Jose then ran out the front door. After the rest of the family returned from looking for Jose outside, the oddly enraged Javier began to fight with the rest of his children and his wife as well. Javier was jaundiced and bleeding and had scratched and cut everyone else in the house, with the exception of the youngest, who was also still sick from the journey and in bed. They were all scared, as Javier had never acted this way before. The neighbor kid finished the story by relaying that they were able to lock Javier into a second story bedroom, barricade the door, and call the police.
While I was listening to him relate this story, I heard dispatch send several units to the housing projects in nearby sector 1 for a very large fight in progress. Just then, Joliet paramedics arrived on scene and began to administer first aid to the family. Saying that the bite marks looked infected, they insisted on transporting them all to nearby Silver Cross Hospital. One of the medics asked me how long ago the injuries were sustained.
“About 20-30 minutes ago,” I replied.
The medic advised that couldn’t be possible as he pointed to the red and black streaks that were starting to fan out from the cuts and scratches.
“No way the infection coulda spread this fast,”
he said with a frown.
When checked, the victims were running fevers and had blood pressures through the roof. I told the paramedics and the family victims that I would meet them at the hospital for domestic battery photos after I placed the father in custody.
I next keyed up my radio. “Joliet, from sector 2, can you send me a unit to assist on an apprehension for domestic battery?”
“Negative, all units are tied up at this moment, I’ll advise when I have a free car,” Janice from dispatch advised.
“10-4,” I acknowledged and then released the transmit button. “My day just keeps getting better.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out what I called my beat down gloves. Black leather gloves lined with cut and puncture resistant Kevlar. I didn’t want to have split knuckles and get some of this asshole’s blood all over them. I pulled them on as I turned and headed back into the strangely ominous house as the overloaded ambulance drove off with lights and siren screaming.
* * * * * * * *
Esteban had only arrived in Joliet this week from Mexico, but already he had learned a few things. Despite being set up in a decent house, it was located near low income housing projects, and Esteban figured out right away that it was not a good place for him to be. He stayed clear of them and started his new job soon after his arrival. They had him sorting boxes in a small warehouse located just south of the downtown area of Joliet. It was going well, but Esteban had started to not feel well as of late. After his splitting headache caused him to lose focus and smash his hand pretty good at work yesterday, he was sent home by the foreman, who first helped him stop the bleeding from the large gash.
Today Esteban was delirious with fever, and his head was pounding even harder. His roommate was also sick in bed, and all Esteban could think about was how thirsty he was. Esteban left the house, intending to walk to the nearby corner store but somehow ended up in the housing projects instead. As he walked by helplessly, a small crowed of young black men gathered around him.