HELP! POLICE!

I'm going to say something here that is going to raise some hackles. Then I'm going to explain my statements and, hopefully, make everyone buy it. Here we go. Ready?

Buy a gun. Get a bat. Own some weapon and have enough skill to use it to save your own life and the lives of your family members. DO NOT RELY ON THE POLICE TO SAVE YOUR LIFE FOR YOU.

Wait. What's this? What heresy are you speaking of? Officer Smith, are you really telling me not to rely on the police to protect me? What about that "Protect and Serve" horse shit plastered all over the sides of their patrol cars? Aren't they SUPPOSED to protect me?

Now, let me explain.

Suppose some bad guy comes into your driveway and starts to attack you. When you (or perhaps your hopefully observant neighbor) call 911, what happens? The phone rings in some dispatch center and hopefully gets answered immediately. Now, let's assume for simplicity's sake that you are calling from your own home phone and your call is actually going to your local police. Remember that if you call 911 from your cell phone the call is usually routed to a mobile 911 call center, not to mention they will have the added chore of figuring out where you are if you're unable to tell them yourself.

Anyway, your call in this scenario is answered by your local police and a call taker begins collecting information from you such as your location, the type of emergency and what response is required. Elapsed time so far while you're getting your ass kicked: 2 minutes.

Now the call goes to a dispatcher who has to read the call, decide which officer(s) to send, and dispatch the call. On a good day: probably another minute.

So now you've been fighting for your life, or more likely laying there being beaten upon, for three minutes. The police are on the way. If an officer is immediately in your neighborhood, you may get a response within a minute or two. With four officers covering your entire city, figure 5 minutes is more likely. So you've now been under attack for 8 minutes. And that is under ideal circumstances. Longer times are far more likely. If your attacker is using a weapon of some sort you are most likely already dead or dying if that was their intent. Otherwise, they have most likely made whatever point it was they were trying to make and they have probably fled the scene. At this point the police arrive and find your bloody, beaten carcass in your driveway.

Where were the police? Why didn't they protect me? This is unacceptable! This is an outrage!

The police cannot be everywhere at all times. It takes time for you to get help when you call 911.

If the news this morning is any indication, people simply cannot grasp this concept. Berkeley cops arrived too late to save a man who was being beaten in his driveway. Now Berkeley residents are all in a tizzy because they think the police response was inadequate.

The response may not have been adequate to some people. But it was as fast as they were able to get there under the circumstances.

There were a lot of things conspiring against a good outcome in this situation. The police were short handed because of the occupy protesters. The neighbor who called was not clear to the call taker about what was happening. Who knows what else was happening at the time.

There are many other things that can cause a delay in police response. You may be in a fight and unable to talk to tell the call taker what's happening. Your neighbor who is calling for you may be hysterical and unable to tell the call taker what's happening. The call might be coming from a cell phone, which can add several minutes while the call is transferred to your local police. You may not even have a phone with you.

The bottom line is this. If you're depending on us, the police, to save your ass in any foreseeable situation, you're deluding yourself. You need to be able to protect and defend YOURSELF. Then, after you have taken care of business, you can call us to come clean up the mess. That way it'll be the person who attacked you who is bleeding in your driveway, instead of you.

Folks used to understand this, once upon a time. There has never been a time when the police would magically appear at the snap of your fingers. In fact, modern technology has made police response MUCH faster than it was at any time in the past. But people have somehow forgotten over the years that it is first YOUR responsibility to protect yourself. People have gotten soft, and come to the conclusion that any violence on their part is a bad thing. They don't want to be responsible for an injury to another person, no matter what that other person is doing unto them.

If you are such a person, I cannot help you. You have already come to your own conclusions. You have already decided you are just going to sit there and take whatever beating you're going to get. You have decided it's better to be submissive and hope you don't get hurt. You have decided the police are responsible for coming to your rescue. You're an idiot.

I believe every person should be armed with something, even if it's just some sort of training on how to use their fists and feet to protect themselves. If you are attacked, DO SOMETHING! Be self sufficient!

Even under ideal circumstances, by the time we get there it'll probably already be too late...

You Get What You Pay For...

I had a total "REALLY!?" moment a few days ago as I was leaving court.

I had almost made it out the door when a woman walked up and said "Excuse me Officer, can I axe you a question?"

Sure, have at it.

This woman proceeded to tell me all about how she got this ticket a long time ago, went to court for it and was found guilty, and then was paying it off a little at a time.

Then she lost her job.

After she lost her job she started getting G.A. (General Assistance - read "Free Money") and couldn't afford to make the payments on her ticket anymore, so the court added another $300 for failure to pay the fine. Only problem is she missed FIVE payments. Now the FTP assessment was $1500.

I told her she should have come to the court and put herself on calendar to talk to the commissioner and explain her situation and try to modify the payment plan so she was only paying twenty bucks or so a month.

She said she had a "$400 car note", had to pay "$150 for insurance" and her rent was "almost $800" so she couldn't afford to make a $20 a month payment.

I thought "Maybe you should dump the $400 a month car payment, and thereby get rid of the $150 insurance payment so you can pay the fines for your non-driving ass." You shouldn't be driving with a suspended license anyway, and your license is CERTAINLY suspended with that much money outstanding for that long.

I said I THOUGHT all that. I had to put on a happy face and make her believe I was sympathetic to her plight.

I mean, really? You get on GA so you can use my tax dollars to drive a car with a $400 payment, but you can't afford to make a $20 payment to the court? And then you bitch when the court adds to your bill since you couldn't be troubled to keep up with paying your fine for the violation you committed, probably while driving the aforementioned $400 a month ride?

Bullshit...

San Francisco...

The only place where you can buy medicinal marijuana...

But you can't buy a Happy Meal...

Hard Times...

Damn.

I know times are tough, but I have never before today seen a seagull picking the chunks out of a puddle of vomit.

I say again...

Damn.

Is it too late to warn the squeamish and the weak stomached not to read this post?

Damn...

Take it to Go...

Moose asked me to take him to Toys R Us today so he could spend a little of his allowance money.

He picked out a small Lego set and carried it up to the cash registers. The guy behind the register rung up his purchase, and Moose handed over his cash. The cashier handed Moose the receipt and asked Moose if he wanted a bag. Moose picked up the Lego box and said...

"Nah. I'll eat it on the way."

The boy is catching on...

Stopping Slowly...

With your permission, I'm going to occupy a moment of your time to clarify the definition of the word "STOP".

A stop is a complete cessation of motion. As in not moving. Wheels not turning. Do not pass GO. Stopped.

Slowing and stopping are not the same thing. Some people just cannot comprehend this. Five miles per hour? NOT STOPPED. Ten miles per hour? Definitely NOT STOPPED. When the lights come on in your rear view mirror, and you pull over to the side of the road, THEN you are stopped.

At least once per traffic court day, I hear a defendant say "But I stopped. I guess I just didn't stop enough for the officer."

I guess I just didn't stop enough?

A stop is not a quantity. It is a yes or no question. You don't stop more or less. You either stop, or you don't.

Some people even say "I stopped, but I guess it wasn't for three seconds." I still have not been able to figure out where people get the notion that they are required to stop for three seconds. There is no time limit on a stop. All that is required is that you actually do STOP, then you may proceed when it's safe to do so. That may be right away, or it could be a long time while you're waiting for cross traffic to clear. If you stop for the proverbial three seconds then you pull out in front of a car you may as well have not stopped at all. On the other hand, if you stop for a split second and there is no cross traffic, you can go. You don't have to wait three seconds.

Then there are the defendants who ask the officer if he / she saw their brake lights. When the officer says "yes", the defendant will latch onto this and insist that if the officer saw their brake lights they MUST have stopped. I'm sure this will come as a complete shock to some, but simply stepping on the brake does not equal a stop. The brake lights come on when you step on the brake pedal, not when you stop.

Everybody's heard of the copper who stopped the guy for running a stop sign. The driver says "I stopped." The copper says "Sir, you slowed but you most certainly did not stop." Driver says "It's the same thing." So the copper has the guy step out of the car and starts whacking his knees with a baton, then the copper says "Now sir, do you want me to slow down or do you want me to stop?"

It's a tired old story, but I still can't think of a better demonstration of the difference between stopping and slowing down. Also, it's just that. A STORY. I am not condoning this as an ACTUAL way of demonstrating the difference between a slow and a stop. So nobody get their undies in a bunch.

On that note, I think I'll stop...

Peek-a-boo...

Recently, several drivers have given me shit for not sitting in plain sight.

"You were hiding!"

"That's entrapment!"

"I couldn't see you, so how could you see me?"

What? You want me to sit out where you can see me so you can stop breaking the law before I catch you? Not likely. Sitting a bit off the beaten path is one of the primary tools I use in my business.

People say "hiding" like it's a bad thing. I prefer to think of it as "creative positioning". I'm not hiding from anybody, I'm just parking in a place that's not directly in front of them. Everyone else in the area can see me just fine. Funny thing how I can look over their shoulder and see them on that cell phone, and they never even notice I'm there until I ride up to their window.

As for entrapment, I do not entice people to do things they wouldn't normally do. They take care of that just fine on their own.

The bottom line is, I don't want to know how you're going to drive when there's a cop next to you. Everyone is on their best behavior then. I want to know how you're going to drive when you DON'T know there's a copper there.

So, don't blame me for your mistake. Don't try to turn the situation around to be my fault. YOU chose to drive without a seatbelt. YOU chose to drive too damned fast. YOU chose to hold your cell phone while you were driving. I just happened to be there to see it.

Grow up and learn to accept responsibility for your own actions instead of blaming me because you didn't see me until I caught you.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to participate in some "creative positioning"...