In the world of patrol, simplicity is a far away land. The simple task of learning a child's name because he is suffering from a potentially life-threatening head injury can present a challenge that makes K2 look like a walk in the park.
Yesterday, a young boy and his friends were riding their skateboards up and down a street. During one of the downhill portions of this usually fun activity, the boy accidentally ran his skateboard under a parked vehicle, giving himself a decent whack on the head. Head injuries usually bleed with a frightening amount of efficiency, and this kid's head was no different.
He was with several friends, so, easy? Right? We'll get his name, address, call Mom and Dad and get this show on the road. Ha! Not in the inner city.
We tried talking to this kid and his friends, and quickly realized, he does not speak English. Not even a little bit. And his friends do not speak English. We are not even lucky enough to be dealing with a kid who speaks Spanish. I say lucky, because we have an abundance of well trained Spanish translators on the department.
The frustration mounted because we wanted to help this young man, but the simple tasks were kicking us in the face. The kid looked like he was of Asian decent...should not be to hard... What language will be the right one? Cambodian? Laotian? Vietnamese? All easy enough, as we also have an army of skilled translators in those languages.
The ambulance arrived. Well, at least the medical part, and really, the most important part, of this puzzle is covered. Medics asked us, "Hey, do you guys know his name? What about his parents?" We had nothing. One of the victim's friends directed us to an apartment complex, and a specific apartment where this kid lived, but no one was home. To add yet another layer of confusion, the neighbors insisted no one lived there. Ugh, wall. bang head. against.
And then we learned; He is from Burma. Our young victim speaks Burmese. Any Burmese speakers in the house? City wide? No. Other divisions? No. Mega no. AT & T has a language line that police officers may use for translation, but the rush of a slight medical emergency is not the best time for this service. One of his friends speaks just enough English to give us his name. I quickly told the dispatcher, so when the missing person report was called in from Mom and Dad, we could let them know, hey, junior is okay, but he is at Children's Hospital with a busted noggin.
The medics took off with our young man from Burma. I wondered for a moment, what the heck kind of political nonsense has he seen in his very green years? Burma is not necessarily the most stable place right now.
Then the lady blessed me. A stern, but jovial looking lady who lived in an apartment complex on the street where the incident occurred walked up to me. She thanked me for my service and told me she was disgusted with some of the residents on her street she sees dealing and using drugs. She was a retired elementary school teacher and spoke with the passion of old school-Baptist-god-fearing religious conviction about told me she did NOT allow any disrespect in her classroom, and that she is appalled when she sees the criminal element creating discontent in the neighborhood.
This lady was a character. She wore a bright blue flower print dress and wool bowler-type hat. She placed her hand on my shoulder and said, "Brother Roark, I bless you! No one crosses Brother Roark, I can tell. Brother Roark don't let anyone mess around!" I laughed out loud. I thought, the criminals on this street will hurl all the insults in the world at the coppers, but this woman, this woman, they wouldn't dare cross this woman. And not because she is armed with a gun and taser and pepper spray. This woman would bring fire and brimstone and fear DOWN to their beings and tell them the way it is. This is a fascinating part of my work. Fear. Who fears who. A hardened gangster will puff out his chest to an armed cop any day, but the harsh disapproval from a grandmother will reduce the same man to a shrinking violet.
***
"HE CALLED ME A F****** C***!!!! AND THEN HE TENSED UP HIS BODY!!!!!"
Oh dear.
The call came in right after the sun went down. Our interest immediately peaked as the address was in a neighborhood that is known for being not well known to us. Translation: a nice neighborhood.
We walked up the driveway to a beautiful two-story home and there she was: Cruella Deville, minus the coat. She had long stringy blond hair, lips puffed to size of garish pillows, and implants that heaved out of her tank top like choked blobs with each angered, hyperventilated breath. A wave of the odor of alcohol emanated from her direction.
Her voice seethed under the heavy influence of too much drink and thus too much anger as she explained how she allowed her daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter to rent house, but they were behind one month on the rent and she wanted them OUT.
A conversation with the daughter and son-in-law revealed they were in fact behind on the rent, due to a recent job loss and financial constraints, but the daughter was going to school to obtain a master's degree in public administration, and the son-in-law had three job interviews in the next two weeks. Fair enough. They further explained this is not their first go around with Mom. Apparently she has a habit of drinking herself into a stupor, driving(!) to her kid's house, and then making a drunk, crazy scene.
"I OWN THIS HOUSE. I PAID CASH FOR THIS HOUSE!!!! I WANT THEM OUT NOWWW!" Said the drunk, harpy, who harbored under the misconception that she had fooled everyone into thinking she looked like a 24-year old gal. She shrieked away about her son-in-law calling her a f* c*. Lord, oh lord, grant me self control. I wanted to say, yeah, I agree with the poor guy. If someone showed up at my doorstep ranting and screaming like that, I would lose my temper too.
Instead, I calmly explained that ultimately, this was not a police issue. Name calling is annoying and rude, but our founding fathers saw fit to let people tell it like it is. I also told her she could not simply barge onto the property at her whim. Landlord/Tenant laws in my state protect privacy and frown upon property owners tromping around a person's living space without proper notice. Oh, and eviction? 30 days notice.
As I spoke to this lady, I noticed she was breathing heavy and gritting her teeth, I wondered if she was going to started wailing on me and I briefly considered taking her to jail for public intoxication, but a sympathetic (and sober) family friend who was also at the house offered to drive her home. Cruella Deville put up an argument, saying she was not going ANYWHERE and she wanted them OUT and so on and drunken so on. I quickly shut her down with two options, jail or home.
She sobered up just enough to realize I had just uttered the "j" word, and stepped into the passenger seat of her car. The family friend, who was obviously familiar with this woman's issues, drove her home.
Be safe out there.
No comments:
Post a Comment