WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A NAKED LADY

The Department had formed a Repeat Offenders Program (ROPE), and I was selected to be one of the supervisors. I had been promoted to Sergeant earlier and when this opportunity presented itself I jumped on it. ROPE was made up of Detective Investigators with a Sergeant as the immediate supervisor. The Sergeant reported to a Lieutenant who reported to a Captain. We had two shifts with two squads on each shift. One of the detective teams assigned to me received information on a guy who was dealing Methamphetamines, and after investigating further, they applied for a search warrant. Once we had the warrant it was decided that we would serve it early in the morning, trying for that element of surprise. For reasons I don’t remember, our van was not available, so we were driving plain clothes (unmarked) cars to the house. I was riding with Doug (the Detective who had obtained the warrant.) It was about 6 o’clock in the morning when Doug kicked in the door of the house where the doper lived with his grandmother. As was our procedure, Doug was first in, and I was right behind him as we were yelling “Police!” We had our guns drawn when from across the room, one of two armed guys sitting on a sofa, facing the front door, pulled up a shotgun, and shot at us. Doug shot back and continued to run through the room into what turned out to be the kitchen. I was still focused on the sofa, but I saw the gun fall out of the guy’s hands who had shot at us as he slid down to the floor, so I turned my gun toward the other fella, but he had already let his gun drop and lifted his hands. One of my men came up from behind me and handcuffed him while I checked on the one on the floor. I could tell that he was dead, and as I stood up one of my other guys came up and told me that Doug had been shot in the chest! When I got to where Doug was bent over in the backyard, I walked up and asked him where he was hit. He straightened up and pointed to his chest where you could see a round hole in the yellow parka. When I opened the parka, there was a perfect half inch deep, round dimple in the steel plate that sat over the center of Doug’s body armor! He developed one hell of a bruise, but otherwise he was OK, thank God! Much as I don’t like to think about it, it wasn’t always the bad guy that turned serving a warrant into a nightmare. One of my good friends was in the Narcotics Unit, and one day they were serving a “No-Knock” warrant which I have already described to you earlier. It was Richard’s warrant so he would be doing the kicking. He was in the lead with Danny and other detectives right behind him as they approached the house. The lead officer who was going to “hit the door” normally did not have his gun out but pulled it as the door gave way. The people behind him already had their weapons out, and all this was happening in a matter of seconds. When Richard kicked the door it didn’t open, and as he stepped back to get ready to kick it again, he bumped into Danny who had his Colt .45 in his hand and unfortunately had his finger on the trigger. The gun discharged hitting Richard in the back. Richard went down and everything went to hell! Before I included this incident in this book I called Richard and asked him if it would be OK to have it in here, and he said yes. He and I then talked for a few minutes, and he filled me in on what had been going through his mind as he lay there on the ground. He was aware that he had been shot but he kept telling himself that it was going to be OK. He didn’t want to acknowledge the seriousness of his injury and go into shock. He said he was holding it together pretty good until his partner came over and got down and pulled him onto his lap, and Richard saw that he was crying! He told himself that if Bob was crying, he had to be dying because Bob had about as much empathy as a rock! Bob was also my partner for a while when I was in Narcotics, and I knew exactly what Richard was talking about. I didn’t have to contact Bob or Danny to see if they were OK with me including this event. Danny died of a brain tumor he got courtesy of Agent Orange in Vietnam, and Bob took his own life not long after he retired. Richard will tell you that it was a miracle that he survived since the bullet missed the vital organs. He recovered and continued to work as a Police Officer. To this day in his retirement, he struggles with the wound’s scar tissue and many other “old guy” problems that all of us have to contend with, but as of this writing, he is still here with us. God bless you, Richard.