by Rosa Brooks
“You try to break down this door and I’m calling 911!” the woman shouted.
“We’re only here because somebody already called 911!” the mountain bike officer shouted back. “We’re the police, remember?”
“I know exactly who you are,” the woman snapped back. “And I know exactly what happens to black people when the police come barging into their houses! They end up dead, so I’m not letting you in, and I’m calling 911 and my city councilman to say I got police officers here threatening me for no reason!”
“I’m not threatening you!” The mountain bike officer was indignant. “Now you’re threatening me! We’re just trying to do our job and you’re making accusations and threatening to report us!”
Maybe, I thought, a female officer would be more palatable. “Ma’am, we understand what you’re saying,” I put in. “What if the male officers stand back, and I come in? Just me, one person, just to make sure everyone’s okay?”
“No one’s coming in here. Not them, not you, not anyone. You people can stand out there all night for all I care, but you’re not getting through this door without a warrant.”
I looked at Murphy for guidance.
“Come on.” He took out his phone and waved us toward the stairs. “Time to call Fremont.”
The mountain bike officer was fuming. He looked ready to kick the door in by himself, but he followed us down the stairs, fists clenched.
“The kid sound like he’s alive?” Sergeant Fremont asked when Murphy got him on the phone.
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Just leave. You got an unconfirmed report from an anonymous caller, and the child’s alive and talking? No exigent circumstances. I’ll call Child and Family Services so it’s logged. They’ll decide whether to follow up.”
We left, the mountain bike officer still muttering angrily to himself as he rode off down the street.
“He’s not a bad officer,” Murphy confided. “But he’s kind of a hothead. I wouldn’t want him in my apartment, either.”
“Do you think we’re doing the right thing?” I asked. “I mean, if it really was just a false accusation, I totally get why she wouldn’t let us in, but . . . what if the 911 caller was right?”
“No,” Murphy said. “You can’t think about it like that. No exigent circumstances, so no choice. You do what you can do. You think about it too much, you make yourself crazy.”
A little while later, we were dispatched to a call for an assault in progress. This time, the door opened instantly when we knocked, and a harassed-looking woman thrust a small boy out at us. “Okay, y’all are finally here, listen, he’s going after his brother with a butcher knife and I need you to take him away.”
Murphy put his palm up. “Whoa. Hang on, ma’am, we need to find out what’s happening here before we can take anyone away. Can we come in?”
Reluctantly, she backed away, yanking the boy back with her. “Mind your feet.”
I looked down. There was a pile of dog shit on the carpet. We stepped over it and into a room that was almost devoid of furniture, just a small table pushed against a wall. Four or five other children were wandering around the room, several in diapers, none older than five. There was also a small black puppy, and several other piles of dog shit.
I took out my notebook. The woman started telling us that her oldest son, who was eight and “has that ADHD and that bipolar thing,” was running around with a butcher knife, chasing his little brother. “I can’t take this no more. They was fighting over who gets to hold the puppy, and he just went wild and grabbed the knife.”
She wanted the boy gone. “You need to put him in the damn hospital, give him some kind of medicine for this; he’s all out of medicine. Don’t you send him home again with no medicine.”
“Ma’am,” I asked, “where’s the knife now?”
She looked surprised, but turned and went into the kitchen. In defiance of every officer safety lesson, I allowed her to reach into a closed drawer. She pulled out an enormous butcher knife and passed it to me politely, handle first.
I took it gingerly.
“Okay, how about we put this somewhere where none of the kids can reach it?”
We agreed that the top of the refrigerator might make a good temporary home for the knife.
By now two other 7D officers had arrived. One of them stepped in the dog shit and left again, cursing, to wipe his boots on the grass. The other, a woman, picked up the puppy and started cooing to it and waving at the toddlers, who waved back, giggling. The little miscreant at the center of it all just gazed at us, smiling beatifically, not saying a word.
“Come on, you wanna go with these nice officers?” his mother wheedled. “They gonna take you to get some medicine.”
The boy looked undecided.
The officer who stepped in dog shit returned, and we all had a discussion about whether we were even allowed to take such a young child anywhere without a parent present. No one was sure, and we debated the wisdom of summoning Child and Family Services. Finally Murphy called Sergeant Fremont again.
“You gonna arrest an eight-year-old?” Fremont asked. “Seriously? Because that would be stupid.”
No, no, Murphy assured him, we weren’t going to arrest anyone, but in this case we weren’t sure about calling Child and Family Services, either.
Fremont eventually said it was okay to just drive the boy to the hospital if we thought we were dealing with a medical or mental health issue rather than a criminal offense, but told us we needed to get the mother to come with us.
The mother was annoyed by this news, and pointed out that the other children couldn’t be left alone. She proposed that one of us “lady officers” stay and care for the younger children, and asked the toddlers, “Which one a these ladies you want to have stay, the nice black lady officer, or the nice white lady officer?”
The toddlers all giggled and waved some more at both of us, but we explained that we couldn’t stay and babysit. We suggested she call a friend or relative. Reluctantly, she agreed.
Finally, another woman showed up, carrying an additional toddler and a second puppy, apparently a littermate of the first. She looked cross.
“My sister,” the mother explained.
Abandoning the sister to manage the room full of toddlers and puppies, the rest of us left. The nice black lady officer, whose name was Warner, said she would drive the boy and his mother to the hospital while we took her still-cursing partner back to the station to wash the dog shit off his boots. Throughout the whole encounter, the knife-wielding boy hadn’t said a word, just smiled shyly at everyone.
Our next call was for a burglar alarm at a school. It was dark by now, and we took our flashlights and walked all around the building, stopping at each door to rattle the handles. We shone our flashlight beams through windows and into alcoves, but didn’t see anything.
“So what do we do now?” I asked Murphy.
“Nothing. We’re done.”
We got back on the radio to report the lack of information.
“7022.”
“7022, go ahead.”
“Ma’am, no signs of intruders or forced entry; the building appears secure. We are 10-8 from that call.”
“I copy, 7022 is 10-8.”
That seemed to be that, so we went on to another call. There was a female prisoner at the 7D station who needed to be driven to the hospital, and the dispatcher wanted a unit with a female officer to return to the station and take the prisoner. We should probably take that call, Murphy said, since Warner was the only other woman in our PSA right now and she was probably still at the hospital with the little boy.
Back at the station, we were directed to one of the cells, where a morose middle-aged woman lay on a metal bunk, hands over her eyes. She was clad only in beige Spanx-style underwear, the kind of compression garment meant to smooth
away all the bulges so your clothes fit better. She was overweight, and her breasts spilled out over the garment’s top.
“Okay, Jasmine, these officers is gonna take you to get some medicine for your headache,” the officer in charge of the cells called out. With a small moan, the prisoner readjusted her breasts and rose, waiting to be let out.
“You gotta cuff her,” Murphy told me.
It seemed absurd to put cuffs on this half-naked moaning woman. But you knew this was going to happen, I reminded myself.
When the prisoner came out of the cell, I took a deep breath. I was very aware that both Murphy and the station officer were watching me.
“Okay, ma’am . . . Jasmine. Do me a favor, turn around with your hands behind your back.” She obeyed, groaning quietly. I fumbled the cuffs onto her wrists, then glanced back at Murphy. He gave me a quick nod and we led our prisoner out to our car. It was a cumbersome process, because guns can’t be brought into the cell area, so we each had to check our guns on the way in, then retrieve them on the way out.
By the time we headed to the hospital, Jasmine was leaning back, eyes closed, in the back seat. “Migraine, huh?” I asked her through the grate that separated her compartment from ours. “That sucks. I get those.”
“Yes, this is a really bad one,” she whispered, letting out a slow breath. “I just knew I was going to get a migraine.”
“How’d you end up in the lockup tonight?” I asked. I wasn’t sure of the etiquette when it came to transporting prisoners, but Murphy didn’t comment, so I assumed it was okay to ask.
“Domestic violence,” Jasmine told me. “I shouldn’t have done it, I know I shouldn’t have done it to him, but I just couldn’t take it no more.”
I made a sympathetic noise, one that I hoped combined an appropriate mix of sorrow for her current headachy, imprisoned state with an affirmation that no, she probably shouldn’t have done it.
When we got to the hospital and I liberated her from the back seat, she pointed her chin down at her chest. Her breasts had once more popped out of her compression garment. She glanced at Murphy, who had his back to us, and whispered, “Can you help me get these tucked back in?” With her hands cuffed, she was helpless.
“No problem.” I stuffed her breasts back into her Spanx, and we proceeded into the hospital. She was checked in and put in a small room, where Murphy told me I had to cuff one of her arms to the bed rail.
This time, I protested. “Seriously? She’s not exactly poised to make a run for it, and we’re standing right here keeping an eye on her.”
“Rules,” said Murphy. “Gotta secure prisoners at the hospital.”
I shook my head, but lifted Jasmine’s wrist and attached the cuffs, as gently as I could. “I’m sorry about this,” I told her. “I know you just want to lie down and rest.”
“That’s all right, officer,” she said kindly. “You just doin’ your job.”
Murphy wandered off to find a vending machine while we waited for the doctor, and I guarded my prisoner. “Can I get you anything? Water, a blanket?” I asked.
“That would be nice,” she agreed, voice faint.
Fuck this, I thought. Jasmine wasn’t going to try to make a break for it while cuffed to the bed. I recalled Hannibal Lecter pulling off something similar in Silence of the Lambs, but Jasmine didn’t look like a cannibal, so I left her alone while I went out to find water and blankets. A helpful orderly provided both, and I returned and covered Jasmine with the blanket, placing the water on the table closer to her uncuffed hand.
“You know what, let me turn off that overhead light for you,” I offered.
She thanked me again, voice even fainter than before. “I appreciate it, officer.”
She was being awfully nice to me, considering. I sat with her, wondering what exactly she’d done to get arrested wearing nothing but Spanx. Hit her boyfriend? Husband? Brother? Son? Stabbed him? Shot him? I couldn’t think of a polite way to ask.
After a while the doctor came in and gave Jasmine an injection, and she fell asleep. Murphy made some calls, and an hour later, another officer came to relieve us. We tiptoed away.
In the Wagon
When responding to a Fire/EMS incident, members shall:
- Respond promptly to the scene of all fires to which they are dispatched or observe while on patrol.
- If arriving prior to firefighters or rescue workers, quickly assess the scene to determine: a. What has happened; b. The number of people injured/trapped; and c. The extent of injuries . . .
- Clear the immediate area and prevent interference by pedestrians and traffic. Note: Wear reflective clothing at all times when directing or controlling traffic, regardless of the weather or time of day.
—MPD General Order OPS 308.11
One evening in November, I was assigned to “the wagon.” Some of the patrol cars in DC are set up for prisoner transport, but most lack a safety grille separating the front of the car from the rear passenger compartment, so when officers assigned to one of these “non-transport” cars make an arrest, they need to summon the wagon—a specially outfitted prisoner transport van—to bring the arrestee to the station for booking. After booking and a short period in the station holding cells, arrestees are transferred, again by wagon, to the city’s Central Cell Block to await arraignment.
Many officers hated wagon assignments. “You’re just a taxi driver,” Murphy complained. The wagon wasn’t dispatched to ordinary calls for service, and if you were driving it, you weren’t supposed to conduct traffic stops or do much of anything aside from drive prisoners around when needed. Other officers loved the wagon, for the same reasons. “I’m sick of chasing kids over fences and getting in between people who want to kill each other,” one older officer told me. “Give me a nice quiet night driving the wagon, anytime.”
I didn’t mind being in the wagon for a night. For me, just a month out of the academy, everything was still new, so it was all interesting. And I knew I needed more practice handcuffing and searching people. If I was going to be a cop, I needed to get comfortable with applying cuffs, and not every arrestee was likely to be as accommodating as Jasmine.
You might think there’s nothing to it, but for the neophyte, handcuffs are not as simple as they look on TV. MPD used the Smith & Wesson Model 100 Lever Lock handcuffs (issued with nickel plating, but available commercially in both nickel and black for the fashion-forward officer). It is possible to put cuffs on someone with a single decisive tap of metal on each wristbone; if you start with closed but not locked cuffs and you get the angle just right, a firm tap will make the arm of the cuff swing around completely and snap quickly into place around the wrist. If you get the angle wrong, your prisoner will instead howl in pain and be left with an unpleasant bruise. (Academy training often left me with banged-up wrists.) Experienced officers make this look easy, but I was nervous about accidentally hurting someone, so I rarely tried the tap-swing method; instead, I’d stand there and painstakingly maneuver the cuffs around to the correct position, then gently close each one. (With real prisoners, this tended to induce cursing, as it often took me longer than it should have to get the cuffs in place.)
At the academy, we were taught an elaborate method for approaching those we planned to cuff. There were different techniques for standing, kneeling, and prone subjects. For a standing subject, you were supposed to begin by standing off at a safe distance—far enough away that the subject wouldn’t be able to land a kick or a punch—and order the subject to turn away and bend slightly forward at the waist, with feet spread more than shoulder-width apart and toes pointing outward. This was supposed to ensure that the subject would be in “a position of disadvantage,” off-balance and unable to effectively lash out with a foot or arm. The trouble was, the proper position was hard to remember and harder still to explain; in real life, I soon found, even the most cooperative subjects becom
e quickly confused and annoyed by the long series of directions. (“Wait, you want my toes pointing this way? Or that way?”)
Also, though being off-balance undoubtedly made it tougher for a combative subject to strike out at the handcuffing officer, it made it equally difficult for a subject to get his arms into the right position and keep them there. “Place your hands at the small of your back, palms out, thumbs up,” you’d command.
This generally led to more questions and/or curses. “You say palms out, thumbs up? The fuck does that mean? How’m I supposed to do that while I’m all bent over like this?”
The instructions were complex:
Once the subject is placed at a disadvantage, the officer will remove the handcuffs from the pouch on their belt and approach the subject from the rear at a 45-degree angle. The officer should position the handcuffs in the same hand as the side they are approaching from (e.g. if the officer is approaching from the left the cuffs should be in the officer’s left hand). Once the officer reaches the subject, they should:
Grasp with the free hand, both of the individual’s index and middle fingers firmly to prevent the individual from pulling away.
Apply the handcuff to the near wrist.
Apply the handcuff to the far wrist.
Just when you finally had palms and thumbs and cuffs lined up just right, however, the subject, being off-balance, would stumble forward or backward, and everything would be off-kilter again.
Getting the cuffs closed around a pair of wrists was only step one. After that, the cuffs needed to be adjusted: too tight and they’d hurt, compressing circulation and causing bruising; too loose and an agile subject could wriggle his wrists out. Then, when the cuffs were just right, you needed to lock them with the tiny, almost invisible lever lock, which was impossible to manipulate while wearing gloves. Failure to set the lever lock would allow the cuffs to tighten on their own, potentially causing injury and lawsuits. Once the lock snicked shut, however, the subject would usually announce that one or both cuffs was digging painfully into his flesh, so you’d then have to find and manipulate the tiny handcuff key, unlock the cuffs, and readjust them.