Apprehensions & Convictions

by Mark Johnson

  LD is closer than me and puts himself at the scene when I’m still a few seconds out. It’s cold enough to see your breath in the first light as I roll up to see LD’s idling cruiser parked at the curb, exhaust fumes curling up from his tailpipe. LD advises over the radio that he’s attempting to contact the subject, whom he spotted in the blue Cutlass parked just in front of his own Crown Vic. I put myself 10-23 (at the scene) with Dispatch and stop next to LD’s cruiser just as LD begins yelling and beating on the driver’s side window of the Cutlass. Evidently, Mr. Odom had heard his baby-mama talking on the phone to Dispatch and was trying to dip on us. Unfortunately for Mr. Odom, when he had arrived to terrorize his baby-mama, he had parked his big ole ghetto sled a little too tightly behind a big ole Expedition, and now LD had hemmed him in by pulling up real tight behind him. Parallel parking makes quick getaways a bitch.

  Mr. Finest Odom is not about to be defeated by a tight parking spot, however. He reverses his Cutlass hard into the grill of LD’s Crown Vic, shoving it back a foot or so, then shoots forward, crumpling his own grill into the rear bumper of the Expedition in front of him, skidding the heavy SUV forward a few inches. Finest’s escape plan clearly is to simply bumper-car his way to freedom. He pops it into reverse again and jolts LD’s cruiser back another few inches, prompting LD to draw and point his Glock and yell, “Stop fuckin’ up my car man!” which falls on deaf ears with Mr. Odom. Finest cranks his wheels hard to the left but still lacks the space needed to exit the slot he’s in, and gets the right headlight of his beloved Cutlass all up into the Exped’s left taillight. Tires screech again into reverse, a cloud of pungent rubber smoke rises as Finest disengages from the Expedition and rams LD’s Crown Vic back a few more inches, despite LD’s pointed Glock and commands to “Stop! Halt! Freeze, Muhfucka!” Finest was having none of it.

  I had started to get out of my car to assist LD but thought better of it; LD wasn’t meeting with much success persuading Finest to un-ass his Cutlass, even with the point-blank threat of lethal force in the face. In fact, it appears now to me that Mr. Odom might have just demo-derbied enough space to squeal away on us this time. LD realizes simultaneously that the gate to the corral has now swung open. In a last-ditch effort to keep the pony in the pen, LD jumps from the side of Finest’s Cutlass to the space directly in front of it, in the hard-won spot just created by Mr. Odom’s beyond-Bondo, body-shop wet dream. I’m thinking, jeez, LD, you gonna stop all that Detroit horsepower with just your “Command Presence”? LD assumes his most fearsome stance, about a pace from the hood ornament of the battered Cutlass, the stance we practice at the firing range: feet planted squarely on the pavement, bent slightly at the knees, leaning a little forward at the waist, weapon gripped with both hands, pushed out at full arm extension directly from the chest, pointed at the center mass of Finest Odom, seated behind the steering wheel. For a long moment they simply glare at each other.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot!” LD barks.

  Then a bunch of things happen at once: Finest Odom shifts his Cutlass from reverse to drive and stomps it, LD jumps two giant steps backward while maintaining his fierce firing stance, I pop my Crown Vic from park to drive and stomp it, my push bar and grill caving in Odom’s driver door and driving the front right quarter panel of his Cutlass into the hapless Expedition, immobilizing everybody. Despite (or because of?) nearly being mowed down by the Cutlass, LD remains frozen in “ready-fire” position; Finest Odom’s desperate, still-spinning wheels let out a deafening, piercing shriek but get him nowhere, and my own wheels join in the howling chorus, my foot to the floor pushing my cruiser ever tighter into the Cutlass, the Cutlass ever harder into the Expedition, all in a tenuous effort to keep Odom pinned and LD whole.

  For another long moment it’s just a ridiculous standoff, with LD pointing and bellowing, acrid rubber smoke billowing from four tires screeching. I’m not sure how long I can keep the Cutlass stopped. With no plan other than to somehow extract Finest from the squealing, shimmying Cutlass before it flattens LD, I jam my shifter into park, stomp on the parking brake, jump out with my gun drawn. There’s no way to pull him out through the driver’s door, which is full of my Crown Vic’s push bar. The only access to him is through his passenger door on the other side. I pick the quickest, most direct route and clamber up onto the hood of my cruiser, then to the roof of the straining Cutlass, and jump down on the passenger side between the Cutlass and the wrecked Expedition. Miraculously, Odom’s passenger door is unlocked; I won’t have to shoot out its window. I jerk it open and lean inside, Glock extended, the barrel little more than a foot from Finest Odom’s right ear.

  “Shut it down, shitbag!” I scream over the keening of the tires.

  Odom’s eyes dart from me to LD and back to me, but still he stands on the pedal, his hands gripping the wheel, the banshee howl of his tires driving us all insane. Odom is as frozen at the wheel as LD is out in front. With my free hand I reach in to pull the key from his ignition, and a visible electric tremor hits me when I spot a silver .38 lying in Odom’s lap. I snatch the gun and jerk the key all in one strike, then stuff them both into the front of my pants.

  An abrupt silence washes over us, over the wreckage, over all of Woodlawn Apartments, in a soothing wave of quietude, giving all three of us permission to exhale.

  “Hands up. Both hands off the wheel. Let me see ’em,” I instruct. “Now reach your right hand this way toward me.” Odom, just moments ago a crazed, cornered animal, is calmly compliant now. I snap a cuff onto Odom’s right wrist and, backing up out of the Cutlass, drag him across the front seat with the other cuff as LD climbs over the hood of the Cutlass to join me. I pass the prisoner off to LD to finish the cuffing and pat-down, and slump against the trunk of the Cutlass, holster my Glock, and light a Camel.

  The radio crackles, “Three-thirteen?”

  “Three-twelve for 313,” I answer.

  “Checking on your situation.”

  “Subject in custody, so far?”

  “So far.”

  “Start 1 Sam 3 to our location, along with Traffic Investigators. We have a four-car signal 7 involving two police vehicles. Also, start the Impound wrecker for a Blue Cutlass.”

  “Ten-four. Copy, Sam 3?”

  I hear the groan in Sarge’s reply, “Ten-four, en route from Precinct,” and look at my watch. The sun has just climbed over the eastern horizon: 0630, end of shift. I survey the wreckage and am filled with dread: hours of paperwork await us.

  “I’ll go see if I can find the victim, get her statement,” I tell LD as he inserts Finest Odom into the cage of his ruined Crown Vic.

  It may be end of shift, but we’re still a long way from quitting time.

  Finest Odom’s mama arrived on the scene even before the Impound wrecker; she had been called by Finest Odom’s baby-mama, who was having second thoughts about having called the police in the first place. The neighbor whose Expedition’s rear end had been smashed, her whole family, and most of her neighbors (now claiming to have witnessed the entire incident) were outraged, demanding the city pay for the Expedition’s damages; Finest’s mama furiously demanded an explanation for her son’s captivity and to know when the city would pay to fix her battered Cutlass. When Sarge informed her that not only would the city not repair her Cutlass, but that the city was seizing it as evidence in an attempted assault on an officer, to say nothing of the original domestic complaint involving menacing with a firearm, the gloves came off. Or rather, the cell cameras came out. “We recordin’ dis. Gettin’us a record a e’rthang y’all do!” “Yeah! We callin’ ’Ternal Affairs raght nah. We gon have all y’all officers brought up on charges!” Additional units had to be called to disperse the crowd. Finest’s mama bonded him out after his mandatory twelve-hour lockup for the domestic complaint—at about the same time LD and I were reporting to roll call for another twelve-hour night shift.

  Three months later, there was a bench warrant for Finest Odom for failing to appear on a previous domestic
charge involving the same baby-mama. LD received a tip from Odom’s probation officer that despite dipping out on his court date, Odom had been religiously attending the weekly Wednesday night anger management classes that were among the conditions of his probation. “He probably takes those classes a lot more seriously than he does me, or the judge, because they’re the key to baby-mama’s good graces,” the PO observed, speaking as one who had seen it all too often before. When LD had suggested to her that the anger class might provide us an opportunity to pick Odom up on the bench warrant, the PO had enthusiastically supplied him with dates, times, location, and contact information for the instructor.

  LD set it up with the instructor. One of us would arrive at the class early, in scruffy plain clothes, and sit in the back of the classroom posing as a newly sentenced domestic violator attending his first anger class. The other would be in uniform, waiting in a blacked-out marked unit behind a building two doors down. When Finest arrived, the inside guy would punch his cell speed-dial to the outside guy, who would pull around and enter the building and the classroom from the front, as the inside guy closed off any attempt by Odom to flee out the backdoor. We’d simply scoop him up and whisk him off to Metro.

  We debated who should be the inside guy and who should be the outside guy. We both wanted to have the pleasure of cuffing Finest once again, which would most likely be done by the outside guy. But we worried Finest might recognize the inside guy, turn and run out the front before the outside guy could respond to the speed-dial signal, so LD decided that since “all you white guys look alike,” I would be best suited as the undercover inside guy.

  It worked like a charm, except not exactly as planned. I’m a real Luddite when it comes to anything techie, including even the humble cell phone (which we purchase and pay monthly charges on out of our own meager earnings). I carry only the simplest, cheapest twelve-buck Walmart version, having ruined one in a foot chase that ended in a creek, cracked the screen on another when it slipped its holster and I stepped on it while aiding a fellow officer with one resisting arrest, and drowned a third when I accidentally dropped it in a precinct urinal. (I’m not exactly a whiz at multitasking.) I don’t text, I don’t e-mail, I don’t take pictures with my phone. It’s all I can do to place and receive calls, and that’s fine with me.

  So when Finest entered the classroom and took a seat two rows in front of me, I reached into the back pocket of my jeans to speed-dial LD but discovered I had somehow already butt-dialed my wife, who was loudly saying, “Hello? Hello?” Finest and several others seated around me turned to see what the disturbance was, and I decided I’d better just improvise. I jumped up with my Glock in one hand and cuffs in the other. Guys dived under their desks. Odom froze, just as he had the last time I’d had a Glock to his ear.

  “Finest Odom, I have a warrant for your arrest. Remember me?” He was speechless, paralyzed. “Put these on,” I said, handing him the cuffs. He snapped one on and I snapped the other one to the arm of his classroom desk. The instructor approached to help.

  “Just make sure he doesn’t try to run out the door with your desk while I’m trying to call my backup.” As several of my anger classmates recovered their composure they encircled Finest, who remained seated and mute.

  It was sweet.

  I’ve learned to savor the sweetness when I can, because it’s often short lived. At Finest’s trial several months later, his baby-mama testified that they had since reconciled and she wished to drop the case. It was a joyful thing to see: they positively beamed at one another in court.

  And several months after that, I was delighted to learn from other guys on my squad that my patrol buddy LD had received an “Excellent Police Conduct” medal, ribbon, and citation from the chief for his courage, initiative, and professionalism in the two arrests of convicted felon Finest Odom. I guess modesty had kept LD from telling me.

  11

  Mudbug

  Pride goeth before the fall.

  —Proverbs 16:18

  She was probably no more than a hundred pounds, tops, barely 5 feet tall (her height was hard to judge while she rode her old beat-up, fat-tired one-speed bicycle). Though her size and mode of transportation were typical of adolescents and young teens, I knew she was probably closer to forty than fourteen, just from pacing my squad car slowly behind her for a block, before I ever saw her face. She wore dirty blue jeans and a stained white tank top. It was about an hour or so out of roll call, and the sun was bright and warm, but the night’s chill still lingered on this bright, sunny March morning, just a few weeks past Mardi Gras. The sleeveless cyclist had to be cold. Her afro was shaggy and wild, not shaped or brushed, but shooting straight up from her head like a cluster of celery stalks. When she sensed me following behind her and stole a quick glance over her shoulder at me, I recognized the feral look of an addict.

  What caught my attention was neither her clothes nor her hair but her cargo. A large purse dangled from a handlebar, bulging so full that the zipper remained open, and objects not resembling a cell phone or hair brush jutted out—they were pipes and odd-size hunks of metal. Even more suspicious was the filthy canvas sack, easily twice the size of her purse, propped horizontally across the handlebars. The rucksack could have accommodated a couple of sawed-off shotguns, a few tire irons, and enough baseball bats for a little league team.

  She was attempting to hold the canvas sack in place with the thumb of each hand, but its weight and bulk were hard for her to manage, especially with the laden, clanking purse swinging from the handlebar, bumping her left knee with every downward stroke on the pedal. Her shifting load was unsecured and unevenly distributed, and the bicycle rocked and lurched precariously.

  We were headed southbound on Pinehill, not far from the WhatABurger across from police headquarters, and approaching the bridge over Eslava Creek. She quickened her pedaling, despite the instability of her loads, after the quick, over-the-shoulder glance at me. The neighborhood comprises numerous abandoned or vacant homes. Soaring scrap metal prices made the wiring and plumbing fixtures of unoccupied houses prime targets of crackheads. My bushy-headed bike rider’s load, if it was mostly copper, would probably fetch her more than enough to buy a day or two’s supply of crack rocks for her and her boyfriend. What was unusual was that she was female. Most copper thieves are male; it’s hard, dirty work to cut, pry, and wrench copper out from behind sheetrock walls, from filthy crawl spaces creeping with insects and vermin, and from sweltering attics. I figured her boyfriend did the wrecking, and she did the trekking, so he could lay low from the Po-po.

  I continue to pace my quarry, who I’m guessing is headed to a nearby scrap recycler popular with copper thieves because he asks no questions, requires no photo ID of his scrappers, and keeps no records.

  Over my PA speaker I inquire, “What’s in the bag, ma’am?” She ignores me and pedals harder. I smile at her determination and intone “Ma’am? Ma’am? What’s your hurry? Please pull to the side of the road.” Not only does she fail to comply, her pedaling becomes a furious blur. I check my odometer: we’re up to a blazing 7 mph.

  I activate my blue lights and give her a couple “whoop-whoops” from the yelp setting on my siren. She’s standing to pedal now, leaning forward over her handlebars like Lance Armstrong in a Tour de Maysville, nothing but elbows and butt bones from my perspective, and she’s not looking back.

  When she crosses the Eslava Creek bridge, she hooks a sharp left down a rutted, bumpy dirt road that parallels the creek. I follow, my Crown Vic rocking and scraping bottom on the uneven, unpaved surface, used by Water Board and Public Works trucks. “Three-twelve to radio, I’m following a signal 63 black female subject on a bicycle, refusing to stop. We’re eastbound on the dirt road just south of the Eslava Creek bridge on Pinehill, the utility road that comes out by Ward’s Recycling at Halls Mill and Fairway.”

  “Ten-four, 312. We have no backing units at this time,” Dispatch replies.

  “No backing needed,” I an
swer.

  I’m familiar with—and fond of—this road, which runs through the heart of my beat. Eslava Creek is a typical urban waterway: largely neglected, unseen, obscured by residential backyards and the rear loading docks of strip malls. It often stinks, especially in the heat of August, of sharp chemical smells and sewage. Choked with discarded tires, the rusting hulks of long-abandoned cars, half-buried shopping carts from behind the Food World, floating plastic Faygo and Fanta soda bottles and soiled Huggies, the creek’s course was long ago “stabilized” by the Corps of Engineers and Public Works, who lined its banks at the crooks and bends with chain-link-encased ric-rac rock and hunks of broken concrete to inhibit erosion when spring and summer rains turn its normal six inches into a swollen, churning brown torrent.

  The levees along each side of the straight parts are a gently graded 30-degree slope covered with tall grasses and reeds, inhabited by at least one granddaddy-size ’gator and many graceful white and blue herons, who seem unperturbed by their habitat’s scents and sights of decay.

  I’ve recovered more than one stolen car from the banks of Eslava Creek. They are often torched by the carjackers before being pushed ablaze down the gentle slope to the water’s edge. It’s favored by carjackers because in many places the tall weeds and vines along the banks fully obscure the vehicles for weeks before neighborhood kids or the occasional fisherman will discover and report them.

  The two-track down which I’m now in active pursuit is one I typically bounce along several times during a twelve-hour shift, when the radio traffic is slow. I may happen upon a drug transaction, or a stolen car, but mainly it’s simply a welcome departure from the streets and from the watchful eyes of the public, a place that’s quiet, and calm, where I can step out and take a pee, pick my nose, read the Press Register, ask an old fisherman what he’s catching, and what he’s using to catch it with, or just gaze at the waterfowl for ten or twenty minutes. It also provides me some strange small pleasure to take a road posted with signs at each end declaring “Authorized Vehicles Only.”