Apprehensions & Convictions

by Mark Johnson

  “So Mr. Johnson,” he summarized, “I don’t want to discourage you, but I don’t want to give you false hope, either. You just need to recognize the fact that the whole enterprise could be quite costly and time consuming, with little prospect of success.”

  It was a no-brainer. I would simply take the matter into my own hands.

  8

  Runnin’ Code

  By grace alone are ye saved, not works, lest any man should boast.

  —Ephesians 2:8, 9

  Some of the best fun you can have as a cop is driving fast, lights ablaze and sirens yelping. Of course it’s fun just to drive fast as a civilian in, say, the family Caravan, but it’s also a little nerve wracking because of maybe getting a big fat speeding ticket, or causing a wreck. But driving fast as a cop is really nothing at all like driving fast as a civilian, for a number of reasons. Sure, it’s scary, too, as a cop, because you can get into wrecks, and those wrecks can be your fault and can really fuck up your career (to say nothing of your health or that of the people you collide with). In fact, cops get into lots of wrecks. Compared to the civilian population, my guess is most cops routinely drive 20 to 25 miles per hour faster (and civilians routinely drive 10 to 15 over the limit) and cops probably wreck way more often than civilians. I’ve had more than my share. More cops are injured or killed in car wrecks than any other way, on or off the job.

  But as a cop you don’t have to worry about speeding tickets, or points on your license, or hikes to your insurance premiums, which takes a lot of the dread out of driving fast, leaving mostly just exhilaration. And even without my lights or siren on, it’s always a pleasure to see the traffic in front of me brake and peel off, parting like the Red Sea for Moses, as I cruise down the interstate on my way to, oh, anywhere: to a nuisance dog-barking call, or to get a cup of coffee and piece of pie at Denny’s, or to take a dump at the precinct.

  The thing is, the tension and worry of civilian speeding that is absent from cop speeding is often replaced by chest-pounding adrenaline mixed with a series of terror jolts, when the cop speeding is legitimate and purposeful, as in a hot call or a vehicle pursuit. The sheer volume of drivers who don’t hear or see an emergency vehicle, or don’t know that they’re supposed to yield, or get confused and unpredictable and yield first to the left and then to the right, or just don’t give a damn at all, produces little tingling nanoseconds of shock several times a minute. You swerve and screech and slam the brake to the floor spilling all your gear everywhere because of some oblivious idiot, then watch the bad guy pull away. You want to jump out and choke the jerk who made you lose visual of the bad guy, and you’ll be damned if you radio that you’ve lost visual because your chase will be canceled, so you shake your fist at granny in her Studebaker, put the pedal to the floor and your Crown Vic seems to growl and rear back and leap anew into pursuit, your wheels smoking and squealing, and as the terror jolt subsides, you’ve got a fresh boost of fury powering you through rush-hour-choked intersections, scanning for the bad guy and hoping a pedestrian doesn’t step out into the crosswalk.

  If you’re lucky, though, your hot call or your chase will be in the dead of night when the streets are empty and headlights indicate cross traffic a block away. You scream down Springhill Avenue under the canopy of live oaks, the fine old mansions blurring past you on both sides, you and your buddies going 90 behind some desperate schmuck dumping dope and guns out his window, and you know this will end when he either wrecks or bails, and you’re hoping he bails so you can jump out and run him down and maybe tase him as he tries to clear a fence. There’s nothing like it.

  My first and perhaps most memorable such chase was with ol’ Portly Porter, my first FTO. He may have been a pedantic blowhard at times, but in a car chase he had NASCAR skills. One night well past midnight we found ourselves behind a stolen vehicle. “Three-thirty-seven, we got a gold Monte Carlo, tag 2B-boy, 4-2, A-Adam, 6-1, refusing to stop, tag comes back stolen.” Porter lights him up. The chase is on. But after just a few blocks, our quarry manages to slip across some railroad tracks seconds before a freight train blocks our path. Before I can even tell Dispatch that we have lost visual due to the train, Porter jerks us 90 degrees to the left and stomps the gas. We’re paralleling the train and I’m thinking to myself, surely he doesn’t think he can get ahead of it at the next crossing, but when we make another 90-degree turn to the right in a four-wheel drift, I brace myself for impact until, to my shock and relief, we dip into an underpass and glide beneath a trestle as the lumbering freight groans and clanks overhead. Porter hardly lets off the gas as he cranks another hard right, rockets us back a block to our original route, and slices the corner by bouncing us to the left through a gas station’s parking lot, and we’re back in the chase in time to catch a glimpse of our fleeing felon’s taillights. Our suspect is turning east onto Springhill Avenue’s wide five lanes and blazes his way toward downtown.

  Porter calmly advises Dispatch that we’re still in pursuit, now eastbound on Springhill approaching Broad, approximate speeds 75. I steal a glimpse of the speedometer and it’s well to the right of 90. Other units are on Broad, approaching its intersection with Springhill. When our thug spies the flashing blues of the other units on Broad, he spins a 180 and comes screaming back at us. Not just in our direction, but aiming right at us. Porter doesn’t brake, doesn’t swerve. Once again I’m bracing for impact, arms covering my head. The gap is closing fast for a horrific head-on when the bad guy loses his nerve at the last second and jerks it to the left. He blows by in a blur just inches from my door as Porter expertly steers us between two oncoming units in pursuit of the bad guy. The chase ends when Mr. Car Thief, who had oversteered his last-second break from the head-on, jumps a curb and wraps his headlights around the trunk of a huge old live oak. Much laughter at my expense was enjoyed around the check-off desk at shift change, as Porter reenacted my cringes and wide-eyed terror.

  A good chase is even more exhilarating when you know your bad guy has active warrants for really serious crimes, wrecks, and then bails out on foot. (Our train-dodging, high-speed chicken-match loser was too stunned to run.) When they jump out on foot, you know they’re really desperate, and they may be armed as well as dangerous, but the adrenaline goes through the roof and you know you have free reign to pull out all the stops and rain all kinds of hurt down on them because they’ve got it coming and it’s your job (and your privilege) to bring them to justice. The danger and risk, if you think about it at all, make it all the more exhilarating. But you probably don’t even think about it. You just want to be in on it, you want to get there before they’re cuffed or dead and it’s all over.

  Those are the chases you live for. But most of them aren’t that pure. Most of them are complicated with uncertain justification or dangerous conditions or both. If it’s dark and rainy, or you’re nearing a school zone in midafternoon, or the fleeing suspect has children in his car, it’s probably not worth a high-speed chase, especially if you only lit him up for an expired tag or failure to signal, in the first place. You’ll get your chase canceled by most sergeants, and for good reason. Unless of course you minimize the speeds and the risky conditions when you go over the radio with the pursuit. But if you do that, and then you wreck, or run over some kid on a bike, you’ll have to live with that for the rest of your life.

  One spring morning I’m sitting at a Circle K sipping a cup of coffee and finishing up a report when a bounty hunter comes up to my patrol car window and says he’s just seen a bail jumper he’s been hunting down the road at the Superfoods grocery. He says the guy has active warrants for drugs and domestics and other felony warrants in next-door Baldwin County, describes the car the guy’s in, and says he’d appreciate some help since his fugitive has a companion and he doesn’t want to be outnumbered. Off we go, the skip tracer leading the way, but I vaguely recollect something in the General Orders forbidding us from getting involved in the “fugitive recovery” operations of bail bondsmen. I call Sarge on my c
ell and tell him what I’m doing, and he says I shouldn’t be doing it because we can’t get all tangled up in bounty hunter bullshit.

  We roll into the parking lot and the bounty hunter points to the car. One guy’s in the driver’s seat and his buddy is coming out of the Superfoods with a grocery bag and opening the passenger door. I figure I better roll up beside the bounty hunter and tell him I’ve been dispatched to another call and can’t help him, but Bad Guy sees my blue and white and slams it in reverse, the open passenger door sweeping his buddy off his feet and directly into my approach path. I nearly run the guy over before I jerk into reverse, do a hard J-hook, and the chase is on. Without thinking I hit the lights and the siren and start calling my chase, describing location, direction of travel, the vehicle and its tag number, and what little description of the driver that I could glimpse. We’re northbound on five-lane Dauphin Island Parkway from the Superfoods, and my fugitive is pulling away, weaving in and out of traffic, running mostly in the center turn lane at about 70 (which I lowball at “about 50”) in a 40 zone, and I don’t know who he is, have no probable cause, don’t really know for sure if he’s even got active warrants, and I’m doing all this based on unconfirmed—and probably unreliable—information from a gray-area operative on the fringes of the justice system with whom I’m forbidden to cooperate by my own General Orders—no doubt to prevent exactly this kind of circumstance. Uh-oh.

  Dispatch asks me the reason for the pursuit. I got none (but, dammit, he’s running from me for some reason!) and I sure don’t want to quit. He must be a desperado to’ve burned out of the Superfoods lot with his door flapping like that. I know Sarge knows what’s going on ’cause I just told him on my cell phone. The radio code for telephone traffic is 10-21. In response to Dispatch’s query about the reason for the pursuit, I say, “Previous 21, per 1Sam3.” I’m figuring Sarge will cancel me, but it doesn’t happen right away so I fill the radio with location, direction, and speed updates. Nobody cancels me, and I’m starting to gain on him, but he blows right through the red light at Old Military Road, and I’ve gotta slow down to avoid T-boning some idiot who doesn’t hear my siren or see my blue strobes (or doesn’t care), and by the time I clear the intersection the bad guy’s cresting the I-10 overpass and I have no visual.

  I should report that I’ve lost visual, but I’m hoping I can make the crest of the overpass in time to get a glimpse of him, so I step on it and keep mum on the radio. Still no cancellation, and other units crowd the radio traffic to report they’re heading my way and I’m hoping somebody else will see him before he disappears and the chase is stopped.

  I top the overpass in time to see Bad Guy try to make a 90-degree right turn onto Delta Street and wrap himself around a telephone pole at 70 miles an hour. It’s a doozy. I report the location of the wreck and slow down, thanking God that he didn’t hit another car or one of several pedestrians in the parking lot of the Dollar General, just steps away from the wreck. I’m about to tell Dispatch to start medical because the guy’s gotta be all mangled up inside when, Shit! He climbs out of the steaming twisted hulk and begins limping off around the corner of the Dollar General. I can’t believe it.

  “Subject has bailed, running eastbound on Maryvale.”

  Now my heart’s really pounding and I’m like a ’coon hound with the scent of blood. I stomp down and round the corner of Maryvale in a four-wheel drift just in time to see the guy disappear down the alley behind the Dollar General. I try to make the turn into the alley with every intention of running the shitbag over, but it’s just too tight a turn at my speed and I take out about thirty feet of wooden fence between the alley and a fire station. The Crown Vic stalls. I can’t back up and renegotiate the turn. I can’t even open the goddamn door because the collision has jammed my front left quarter panel back into my door. I yell into the radio that I’ve just had a 1-car signal 7 with the damn fire station fence and I climb over my center console and out the passenger side door just as the asshole rounds the corner at the south end of the alley and disappears.

  Now I’m really pissed, and I know I’m in deep shit. I’ve caused one wreck with a telephone pole, damaged and disabled my own cruiser, destroyed the Fire Department’s fence, and the sumbitch is about to get away. I’m blind with rage and dread and adrenaline, and I’m running after this asshole whom I have no probable cause to pursue and don’t know who he is or why he’s running, all because I took the bait of a damn “fugitive recovery agent.” I’m screwed and I know it, but at least I can catch this dickhead and make him suffer along with me. I round the corner at the end of the alley in time to see him running east through a backyard at Delta and Brook. He either is starting to get winded or is hurting from his wreck, or both. He slows and I get within Taser range and I really want to give this bastard the electric ride, but he drops to his knees and puts his hands up. I gallop up behind him and plant a boot in his back and he hits the ground and I put a knee between his shoulder blades and cuff him.

  Whew. I’m praying he’s really got warrants as I search his pockets and pull out a fist-size bag of cocaine. Without warrants there’s no probable cause and even the dope does me no good—it’s merely “the fruit of the poison tree” and I can’t even make a possession case on him.

  Sarge arrives just as the bail bondsman does, too. Bail bondsman’s all excited, saying, “Great job, Officer!” and I give him a “Get lost, motherfucker” glare, which he gets, and he melts away into the gathering crowd. “Sorry, Sarge. I screwed up bigtime, I know. It all just sorta got on a roll, y’know?”

  Sarge, to my amazement, dismisses my whining. “What you said on the radio about the reason for the pursuit? Something about a 21?”

  “Yeah, I said ‘previous 21, per 1Sam3.’ I didn’t mean to get you all caught up in this mess, too. I was referring to the 21 with you on my cell, right before all this shit started.”

  “No you weren’t,” Sarge says, a stern look on his face. “You were referring to a previous signal 21, right? A concerned citizen tipped you to a guy with warrants for dope and a previous assault. Signal 21, not 10-21.” He put a firm grip on my shoulder and waited for me to comprehend.

  “Yes sir!” I reply. It’s nu’n but grace, pure and simple.

  The following week at roll call I was surprised to receive the following Commander’s Citation, signed by Sarge, and my lieutenant, and my captain:

  “On October 14, 2006, a citizen advised you that a subject wanted on outstanding warrants was in a nearby parking lot. You located the wanted subject in the parking lot and as you approached he sped off in a vehicle leading you and other officers on a pursuit. Being tenacious and persistent, you pursued the subject in your patrol car until he abandoned his car and fled. You then chased the subject on foot, eventually apprehending him. The subject was not only wanted on two felony warrants for narcotics, he was also in possession of narcotics at the time of his arrest. Further investigation determined he was an unregistered sex offender.

  “Your dedication to the police profession removed this criminal from the streets of Mobile. Your actions, which led to the arrest of this subject, are a credit to you and bring great honor to the Mobile Police Department. Therefore, your supervisors and I proudly present you this Commander’s Citation for a job well done.”

  The squad whooped and hollered and made lots of wisecracks about my driving like a senior citizen, endangering the public, and the mess I’d made of my car and the fire station’s fence.

  “In regard to that matter,” Sarge said, interrupting the chatter, “I have a performance observation for you as well.” Mercifully, he didn’t read that one aloud, although most of the squad seemed to regard the performance observation as the real badge of honor. It reads:

  “On October 14, 2006, you were involved in a traffic accident while operating your assigned vehicle. A subsequent investigation determined the cause of the accident was driver not in control. This is your second at fault accident within a 2-year period. Your actions pl
aced you in violation of Rule 26.30.05 of the Mobile Police Department General Orders.

  “While you are to be commended for your actions in the apprehension of a felon, you cannot overlook your responsibility to operate your vehicle in a manner that does not endanger yourself or the citizens of Mobile. While this accident only resulted in property damage (in the amount of $1,674.00) your failure to maintain control of your vehicle could have resulted in far greater consequences. While in the pursuit of a suspect or vehicle you must maintain your situational awareness, constantly scanning for danger and innocent bystanders.”

  Sometimes, at least in the Police Department, you can have it both ways.

  9

  A Pot to Piss In

  Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.

  — Zora Neale Hurston

  . . . Or into it

  —Addendum mine.

  I’m on the way to Metro with a domestic-violence offender in my cage. He’s a raging bully who had been threatening the mother of his children with a foot-long kitchen knife (in the kids’ presence) because she had “disrespected” him. While my backup partner had written up the specifics of the incident, I had offered the still-trembling victim the opportunity to accept or decline immediate escort to “the beat-up wives place” as my sponsor Red referred to Penelope House, a United Way agency providing secret and secure housing for victims of domestic violence (per MPD protocol for DV calls). She declined. I had then, on my own initiative, taken the opportunity to offer the offender a referral to Lifelines, a United Way agency that offers anger management and family counseling on a sliding-fee scale. He also declined. Or rather, made no response but to stare wordlessly, fixing me with a look of incredulity that slowly morphed into palpable contempt.