Raindogblue

Gauze and Magnets

“Where are you hurt?”

What?

“Where are you hurt?”

I try to focus, 

bring myself to consciousness.

What?

It’s Nine AM. I was dead asleep.

My wife is looming over the bed.

“There is gauze, hospital grade gauze,

and bandages in an open bag

on the kitchen counter.”

It’s was in my locker

from after the dog bite,

I brought it home last night

to replenish our supplies.

“Alright, you can go back to sleep.”

When I woke at Eleven, she told me, 

“Listen. Men who are shit magnets

should not leave open packages

of bandages for their wives to find

when they wake up in the morning!” 

Ten Crosswalks Late: A Guest Post by Ann T. Hathaway

 

 

It’s clash or near-miss on this set of blocks:

The texters shop for fresh foods and swerve

Widely past the woman who never does rock.

The homeless hawk papers on every curb;

And illegal workmen sit tight on crates

Until some foreman waves a twenty.

Nearby, the corner wine shop trades 

In lush-wine and the grapes of memory.

. 

Rush hour: I see crowds of lights flashing blue

Ten crossings away from documentary.

I head toward trouble, though I’m of no use

While drivers slow, abruptly wary. Some

Building’s surrounded. I pick up speed

Past dogs, drinkers, the closing King Pawn,

A bus. Every move I make is to see,  

But I’m late. Blue lights drift outward. It's done.

 .

Only wait:

the old building’s empty again,

Yum’s can fry eggrolls on the very next block.

For project and penthouse, order now reigns.

Householders and homeless can safely walk

Their way. Café-drinkers can flirt and joke,

Not thinking who preserves the life they know:

Two cops and one car sit: hub to the spokes

Of crosswalks, level ladders from high to low.

 .

The vested cop laughs. He leans down to banter.

Calm on the street radiates from that center.

Guest Post: PPG

I have state troopers sitting at my dining room table.  They knocked at the door 5 minutes ago, professionally dressed, a man and a woman.  "PPG, may we speak to you regarding..."  They're investigating a friend of mine - a state trooper and a fellow pilot- who has been accused of using the power of the uniform to coerce a woman into having sex.  

They're talking to all the women that fly out of our airport/flight school.  Not a difficult task as only 6% of pilots are women and our airport is small.  They're polite, careful to appear impartial.  The woman tells me she graduated from the academy with my friend.  I'm sure they're well aware of the predominant sentiment at the airport - that this is a witch hunt.  He's well-liked, respected, always willing to lend a hand.  He's a commercial pilot who recently applied to be attached to the state police's helicopter unit.

I fly, I tell them, with him as my eyes when I'm under the hood logging IFR hours - side by side in a tiny airplane.  I've spent innumerable hours sitting in his car at the airport as he patiently runs flashcard after flashcard, memory drill after memory drill with me on the information I'll need to pass my written and oral - both for my license and for my instrument rating.  I was date raped in college; I'm pretty careful to listen to my intuition since.  Not that it's any guarantee, of course, but he's never set off a single gut alarm for me.  And never, not once, has he been anything other than a gentleman, never anything less than respectful - even in the raucous male-dominated environment of the FBO where the air flows blue with ribaldry. 

It would be easy to dislike the pair sitting in my dining room on principle. I am nothing if not loyal.  I find I can't though.  I know they're doing their jobs and, to their credit, they appear to be doing it as fairly as possible.  I sign the statement summarizing my comments and never hear from them again.  Eventually, I learn through the newspaper that their investigation reveals a high-ranking member of the state police began the rumor to bolster his own choice of candidate for the helicopter unit by tearing my friend down.  It went further than that, of course; once a person decides they are above the law, the rot spreads like pandemic contagion.  

The accusations made will ruin a man's life.  There is no check desk from which to reclaim his reputation.  What has been said cannot be unsaid and, even when the allegations are proven to be politically motivated and not based in fact, there will always be those who will remember only the calumnies.  As he tells me later, "no one takes out a billboard declaring your innocence and apologizing!"   

No longer able to muster any faith in the people who had been his colleagues or their leadership, my friend decided to leave the police.  The man responsible retained his job for another year or so until convicted.  I know other troopers, other municipal police officers - all people I would trust with my life, my computer, and my children - yet it took a piece of my faith, too, that this good, honorable man - a gentle man and a gentleman - was driven from his watch by a deceit from which he may never recover.   

My friend went into long-haul trucking: his marriage and his belief in the world ravaged.  I don't see him anymore.  Neither of us can afford to punch holes in the sky these days.  I miss him.

My sincere thanks to RD for allowing me to share my friend's story here.

PPG

Guest Post: Sister Copinherhair

My heart belongs to a hero.

He doesn’t wear a cape, but a vest made of Kevlar. 

Beneath the Kevlar, he is human.  A heart of gold.  

Beneath the Kevlar, next to his skin, lies a St. Michael medallion.

It can’t hurt, can it?

Please, St. Michael, protect my hero.

Keep him safe and bring him home to me.

Out of uniform, his gun still resides at his hip.

I lie next to it, my head on his shoulder.

His fingers lightly stroke my back.  

My anxiousness already ebbing.  Soft fingers.

The same that can pull the trigger of the weapon between us. 

If need be. But not now.  Now we are safe.

A thought enters me.  

Am I his safe haven?  His home base?

Does he come here to bathe in calm quiet?

Do I protect him as much as he protects me?

Does St. Michael bring him to me asking me to protect his heart?

In such a way that Kevlar cannot?

Overtime Opportunities

Returning to my car from a call,

I saw a message on the box.

It's from the Nights Sergeant.

"Want to work E-Shift

OT on Saturday?"

I typed,  Thank you, 

but I have out of town 

plans this weekend.

Hit send.

He replied, "How about next Friday?"

I checked with my wife.

Sure.

On Saturday, while I was away,

the Night Sergeant called,

spoke to my wife,

"I see your husband

is signed up for OT

next Friday.

Do you think he'll work

Saturday, too?"

She said, "No."

She knows the money

isn't worth a missing weekend.

 

The Blessing of Rain

Rain falls after the evening rush

washing the calls away,

driving the citizens inside,

and clearing the box

with the first measurable 

amount of rain in month.

Guest Post, H: You're like Alice after the Rabbit Hole

PTSD isn't simple.

Sure there's the rage and the night terrors,
the sleeplessness, the panic attacks, 
the irrationality, and the crippling anxiety,
but there are also the little subtle things
that eat at a family like midges.

There is so much you've seen, done, experienced.  

Really, does the day to day crap
everyone else does mean anything?
What did everyone else do
while you were out there?
The drawing your child made, 
really is that important?  
Playing legos, does it matter?  
That dinner your wife made,
it's just food isn't it?
It's just sustenance, right?
It's all just sustenance for the body, the soul.
When you've been doing Survival all week, 
sustenance is hard to swallow.
Sure you try to tone it down,
to see what is around you, 
and then to move through the glass wall
from observation to interaction,
but some days it is awfully hard.

Guest Post, Claude: Funding

Funding

 

People don’t seem to want to pay for anything anymore if they do not see immediate benefit for themselves.

 

We as a people seem to forget the emergency services are there IF we need them not just when we need them. 

 

Over the course of my life here in the West Coast, I have seen funding bleed out of all of the State and Local services and the dependency on Federal dollars increase with that decline.

 

The amount of pressure on the services has a direct correlation with what is seen on the ground.  Response times suffer; investigations are slow, preventative actions cease.

 

Stumptown is running very lean on Law Enforcement personnel.  When I did my ride along years ago, the force was about 25% stronger then it is today.  I see the strain in my friends that serve as they try to hold to the level of service they once provided.

 

Angry letters to local papers show that the expectations are high.

 

For the average citizen investment in the potential need is very low.

Guest Post, Claude: RAL.

Ride Along

I went for a Ride Along with RD a long time ago and have been trying to schedule a second one for some time to no avail.  We are all so busy and now I want to wait a bit until the latest consolidation mess has settled a bit before I volunteer as dead weight on a night’s work.

Not sure what to expect on my first ride along, I signed all of the waivers the administration required, watched the preparations for the evening shift change and really felt like an outsider inside of the Precinct, officers and staff moving with purpose through, what I thought was, cramped quarters.

Equipment check, vehicle check, list of ‘if you have time’ priorities and outstanding calls, and then we were off.

Now honestly, for the first half of the night it was pretty much a blur but relatively calm.  Evidence pickup at an auto body shop, response to a cold call about a stolen car, and a backup to a couple of stops before a mid-shift break.

The second half of the night was much more ‘exciting’.  A couple of stops for violations, more assists, a high speed race across town to assist in the search for a suspect on foot cordoning off a large area to allow the dogs to track the perp, and a scare at a local college.

“Is it always like this?”

“More often then not”

-Claude

Instinct

On the ride along, I noticed the way in which Raindog was always watching the environment without actually paying full attention to it.  I, of course, asked a crud load of questions, and he answered me while driving occasionally pausing to listen to the radio traffic.

Lights go on, the siren blurts a short burst…before I know it we are accelerating around the corner of an intersection that we had been approaching, pulling up behind a moderately well kept sedan which picks a side street, and pulls over.

“What did he do?” I ask.

“He didn’t stop fully at the intersection.” RD replies.

“Lots of people don’t stop.”

“Yeah, but this guy is driving without a license.”

“How do you know?”

“Just a gut feeling.” He replies shortly as he types in the plate number into the computer and reads the vehicle and owner profile.  “He has several citations for lack of insurance.” 

All business, Raindog approaches the car, talks to the driver then comes back to the prowler.  “Expired license” he says before he radios a tow truck.

I have asked many questions of him over the years on how that works. 

He can’t explain to me it is just a fact, just instinct.

-Claude

Guest Post, Jade: Burg-in-Progress

We were house hunting in early 2004, and D and our real-estate agent were
taking me to a house they'd already visited earlier in the week.  The house
was unoccupied and had the real-estate key box out front, so it was
unnecessary to make a specific appointment.  As such, we figure we'd squeeze
it in while we were in the neighborhood.

We followed our agent in our rental car, pulling into the driveway beside
him.  Walking up to the front step, we found the real-estate key box was not
attached to the door... nor was it on the porch.  We tried the door and
found it locked, and as our agent went to call the owner's agent we heard a
loud noise from inside the house.  D thought perhaps the owners were home,
so he walked up and rang the doorbell.  No answer, but through the glass on
the side of the front doors D saw a man peek from the kitchen, duck back
into the kitchen, and then walk quickly from the kitchen through the family
room and into a back hallway.

Still unsure of whether or not this was the owner, or an agent, or maybe a
family member straightening up before we got there, we stood back and waited
to see if he would answer the door.  We heard an engine start, and then the
garage door opened.  The guy was attempting to leave, but our rental car
blocked his path.

Our agent went to go talk to him... he made it sound as if he was there
straightening up - the agent asked where the key box was and he answered "by
the microwave."  While they had this conversation, D stood to the side,
writing down the license plate, make and model of the car.  He had me move
the rental car out of the way and told me to stay in the car with the engine
running across the street.  The man pulled out of the garage and left
without incident, so I parked our car and walked into the house through the
garage.  As I approached the family room, however, our agent was ushering me
back out of the house, telling me not to touch anything.

The kitchen had a built-in oven and microwave on one wall.  The microwave
was missing entirely, and the oven had been ripped out of the wall and was
sitting in the middle of the floor.  

This was the noise we'd heard.

D called 911, told them the city name, and said "I think we just walked in
on a burglary in progress."
The local dispatcher paused and said... "Really?!?  Here?!?  What's your
location?"  

The police arrive within 3 minutes of our call.  D spoke to the first
officer on the scene, describing the man and the car, and the officer's face
broke into a wide grin.

"That's Jose... and now we've got him red-handed."

Another police car arrived and Officer 1 told Officer 2 the news.

Jose was familiar suspect, and something of an informant for local
detectives, but the officers had never managed to get him directly connected
to the scene of a crime.  The officers were very professional as they called
the owner of the house to break the news of the break-in, and checked the
house over... but I noticed as Officer 1 was typing my statement, every so
often he would break into a grin and shake his head a little... in an "I
can't believe we caught this break" sort of way.  They also spent a great
deal of time telling us that this kind of thing is highly unusual in our
area... when they received the call from dispatch they could hardly believe
it themselves.  Most of the crime in our area is mail theft, or stuff gone
missing from a garage left open overnight.

We ended up not buying that particular house (it didn't have a den anyway)
but we moved instead into a neighborhood about 6 miles south of there.  

In 2006 I went to a neighborhood watch meeting which was given by the local
police department.  The officer is normally stationed at one of the high
schools, but she came to talk to us basically about common sense.  "Get a
locking mail box."  "Don't leave your garage open at night."  "Don't leave
your purse/ipod/laptop/briefcase in plain site in the back seat of your
unlocked car in your driveway overnight"  At the end of the presentation she
asked us if any of us had ever had an encounter with the local police.  I
raised my hand and said "We walked in on a burglary in progress while we
were house hunting."

She paused and said, "Oh that was you?  I remember when that happened, we
couldn't believe it!"