One thing that always surprised people about the University of Georgia Police Department while I was there was not only that they had a SWAT team, but also that they had a Bomb Squad. “A Bomb Squad? Why on earth are we spending money on that?”
I for one certainly have never heard of this so-called “foot ball”
Well, waaaaay back in 1996, there was this little sporting event called the Olympic Games. While Atlanta was the official hosting city, two events were held in Athens at UGa: Rhythmic Gymnastics (not likely to inspire a terrorist attack), and the Olympic Soccer finals (which scared the bejeezus out of God fearing Georgians who had certainly never heard of this “foot-ball” that used a ROUND ball, heavens forbid Bubba; have you ever heard of such a thing?). Warily eying footage from England and Europe and other weird places where soccer matches had turned into riots, state Law Enforcement grimly prepared themselves for the worst. At the end of shift briefing the first day, our Chief, noted for his dry sense of humor, poked his head into the room and told us all “Remember- save the last bullet for yourself” and disappeared.
I gotta give him points for that; that’s probably exactly what I would have said.
Now, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI, the state version of the FBI, and really a pretty professional organization) had a bomb squad, divided into several geographical areas; but they didn’t have one for NorthEast Georgia. For any response to bombs, we relied on the National Guard’s 4th Weapons of Mass Destruction; who our unit called on years later for recovered military ordnance. We also had some other National Guard units on hand to supplement manpower.
Remember this asshole?
If you’re wondering why we were worried about IEDs, I ask you to cast your mind back to Eric Rudolph, and the Centennial Park bombing that thrust Richard Jewell into the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Any highly public event will attract people trying to make a statement… something we better not forget in this day and age; when the numbers of axes people want to grind is legion. And with this mindset, every tiny thing became a suspicious package. Backpack left on the sidewalk in front of some public toilets? Better investigate… but with the 4th WMD guys hard pressed to cover everything, this response usually fell to under-trained officers under the command of exasperated command staff. That backpack call had an officer respond and ask over the radio (uhhhhh no radios please) “What should I do?” The response was a tense “Just kick it!”
Yeah. I later used that line in my training classes at the regional Academy as exactly how NOT to respond to a suspicious package.
One other incident led to the best line I ever wrote in a police report. A National Guardsman was stationed at the exit of Tanyard Creek, that ran through campus and through a tunnel under the stadium where the soccer finals were held. This tunnel was of concern because there was a manhole cover in the tunnel that led into the fenced perimeter of the stadium. The Guardsman who was sentenced to sitting in a folding chair guarding the tunnel exit reported some kind of torpedo-like tube sticking out of a manhole a few yards away. I got the call, still fresh from the Academy, and went to see what it was.
As it turned out, it was a flow meter the City had placed there and posed no threat. But it did give me the opportunity to describe it in the official police report as a “Long cylindrical shaft inserted into a man hole”.
*cue Beavis and Butthead chuckling*
As it turned out, the Olympic Soccer finals were a cakewalk; and those two weeks were far more peaceful than any UGa home game. But the PD was able to make a persuasive case to the University of the need of an EOD unit; citing the lack of any other units in the region, and an agreement with the GBI (who weren’t ready to staff and equip another unit for this area) for us, as another State agency, to handle any bomb calls in northeast Georgia; and after 2 years of wrangling, the UGAPD EOD Unit was born. The members were selected by the Command Staff based on the criteria set by the National Bomb Squad Commander’s Advisory Board (NBSCAB, pronounced “nab-scab”); to include decision-making ability, technical knowledge, ability to learn new concepts, calmness under stress, and- maybe the most under looked requirement- no predilection to claustrophobia. If you’ve ever been sealed up in a bomb suit, you’ll understand this one.
The first two technicians were selected at the end of 1998, and attended the FBI’s five week (at the time) Hazardous Devices School at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. I was selected shortly after they left for HDS, but had to wait until the end of 1999 for another slot.
My journey through HDS will be another section of this series; as will our first ever live call-out, that ended rather… ignominiously.
Saw a picture from the UGA/Ga Tech game with a couple of Georgia State Patrol Troopers on the sidelines; and was hurtled 25-some years into the past, when I was University cop during football season…
Live college football on a Saturday!What could be better? Hang out with (your team) fans a mile from the stadium at a tailgate spot you paid $120 for, gnawing on burgers, delicious ribs, queso and Frito’s Scoops, and all the effin’ PBR you can drink! Heckle the (other team) fans as they walk past towards the stadium; maybe get in a bro-down with one of them before you tape your flask of 151 proof rum to your inner thigh in order to sneak it into the stadium. Stumble your way across the mile to the stadium gates in early fall southern heat. Stop halfway to discreetly puke in the bushes… maybe that last shot of tequila was a bad idea. Enjoy; and thank you for your ticket!
College football brings in a LOT of money to any college or university; and UGA was no exception. The UGA Athletic Association, the group that funds the Bulldogs, is a private, nonprofit corporation somewhat under the control of the University president and a few members elected by UGA faculty. They control ticket prices and fund things like stadium expansion… and Sanford Stadium has a voracious appetite for high-dollar skyboxes. In 2017, they had a surplus of $11.2 million, from expenses of $119.1 million and revenues of $130.1 million; taking into account their payment of $4.5 million back to the school for academics.
$4.5 million gives you a lot of say in what goes on at the school.
So, our highly inebriated football fan who spent $50 for his ticket and $120 for a primo tailgate spot is having the time of his life, and his ticket helps pay for higher education. Very nice.
But what about us poor schmucks who had to keep the lid on this simmering stewpot of football rivalry anger?
Well, it was overtime pay for a 12-16 hour day of sweat and despair for the state of humanity. The following Sunday day shift for the UGA Police Department was predictably subdued, because we were all asleep on our feet.
Our 8-hour shifts in the PD rotated- backwards for Sergeants, like me, and Corporals and Officers; forwards for Lieutenants- every 4 months. This meant that every Fall, I was the 7a-3p shift Sergeant; and the Shift Commander on Saturdays, as that was the Lieutenant’s day off- it’s good to be the king. He was working; but inside the stadium, where most of the overtime people were.
That meant that it was up to Day Shift to handle everything that happened outside the stadium and on UGA property. Sure, there were Athens-Clarke County cops on duty as well; but they had all they could handle taking care of traffic and downtown. Everything else, from Broad Street south, was taken care of by the 6 of us and 3 others on bike patrol.
And that’s where 45,000 drunken college football fans descended most Saturdays in the fall.
Now, if you’re one of the millions of people who goes to college football game and DOESN’T act like an ass, then keep in mind that you’re not the reason that I don’t personally go to tailgates. But, there’s enough of your fellow fans who DO act like 200 pound drunken toddlers in and around the stadium to make game day weekends an eternal hell.
For Day Shift, the day starts at 0700 and shift briefing. The night shift guys we just relieved, after a long night of dealing with drunks and DUIs, were headed home for whatever sleep they could get before they had to report back. I gave the shift briefing with the usual handing out of road and parking lot closures, as well as traffic plans for before and after the game, and timetables for all this. Vehicle and zone assignments made- I always kept my corporal as All Zones with me- notes on expected issues; scalpers selling counterfeit tickets, which frat house has been a pain in the ass lately, areas likely to be hit by entering autos. If it was an early game- which we all liked, because we not only got to go home early; but the fans wouldn’t have as much time to drink beforehand- the Chief and Major might poke their heads in the room for a quick word; after which we’d end shift briefing and go to work.
(Each Lieutenant and Sergeant had their own way of ending shift briefings… no doubt influenced by Sgt. Esterhaus from Hill Street Blues; we all thought
In Memory Of Standing Order #1
we needed a catch phrase like “Let’s be careful out there”. Mine was to hold up a dollar bill and ask “Who wants to get Standing Order #1?”- which meant, who wants to run the convenience store close to the station and get me a 22 ounce fountain Coke. That seems a little… master/slave; but it started out as a joke. Everyone knew I would get a Coke and return to the station to do some last minute paperwork before heading out on the road; I was really busy one morning and someone volunteered to get it. It quickly became an in-joke; and when I finally left for another agency, the officers presented me with the pictured plaque.)
The disadvantage to an early game is that we had to get out and hustle to make sure everything was ready; which meant prowling the parking lots that were reserved and supposed to be empty (to call tow trucks and remove cars still in them; tow companies made BANK on game days), and start checking the popular tailgating parking lots. Parking Services (a completely separate entity that issued parking tickets-and believe me, there were feuds between them and us) hired people to act as security in these lots; but occasionally conditions devolved into brawls and we had to respond. Others were setting up barricades pre-placed the night before, or ensuring buildings that we didn’t want fans wandering into were locked. And always, somewhere in the middle of this, there was a tenured professor demanding that we tow the car parked in his reserved space RIGHT NOW! All while the Major is bitching over the radio that the reserved lots weren’t empty yet.
But this is the relative calm before the storm. On late game days, the tension built inch by inch as we approached kickoff; as people who have been marinating in alcohol all afternoon finally pack shoulder-to-shoulder into the stadium. Anger flares; small disputes have to be settled before they become big ones, and the 6 of us can’t possibly arrest all of the people committing minor crimes right now- with as overworked as the jail is on a game day, one arrest will tie up one of my 6 officers for an hour at least; right when we need them.
And then there’s the stupid shit– someone put their tailgate coals in a dumpster and set it on fire; here comes the fire department. Seen more than one expensive RV go up that way. Then the complaints- I just bought this ticket from a guy on the corner and the ticket booth told me it was counterfeit; what are you gonna do about it?
OK, got a description of the guy?
Oh, he was a black guy; you know.
…
No, I don’t know. Anything distinguishing about him? Clothes, glasses, hair, mannerisms?
Nah, man; he was a black guy.
…
Gosh, thanks, that’s really helpful. Here’s your case number, and here’s your “they all look the same to me” racism; maybe next time don’t give $200 to some stranger yelling “I gotcha tickets right here!”
Where do you think the memes come from?
Sometimes there’s outright brawls; that can usually be traced back to- once they’re separated and calmed down- one really drunk guy who we reluctantly arrest to get him out of the way someplace he can’t hurt himself or someone else. Or property damage done by a drunk college freshman, who has an automatic underage charge in addition to whatever he just broke. Or, a medical emergency- in the middle of campus, through streets closed to traffic but packed with football fans.
One such call was on a hot September afternoon, 30 minutes before kickoff. It was a late game; and, predictably, everyone was drunk, hot, and tired long before they got to their seats. The Man Down call, elderly female passed out on the sidewalk, was less than a mile from where I was; and I was the closest unit- but I was surrounded by shoulder-to-shoulder fans, all slowly zombie-marching their way to the stadium. Medical emergencies are lights-and-siren calls; 10-18, Code 3, whatever you call it where you are. And, considering that even though our ambulance services had excellent response times, even on a game day; odds are I’d get to the scene long before them… and so I needed to get there right now.
…5 miles an hour, red and blue strobes going full blast, yelp on the siren at 130 db, blasts of the air horn… and the crowd only reluctantly parted to let me through. More than one person yelled “Is the siren really necessary?!?”
Well, yes, actually; it is. This could be YOUR grandmother dying on the sidewalk that I’m going to, you selfish prick.
Five agonizing, white-knuckled, tongue-bitten-through-to-keep-me-from-yelling-what-I-REALLY-wanted-to-say-over-the-PA minutes later, I arrived at the scene.
And there is, in fact, a very frail looking elderly female laying on her side on the hot concrete sidewalk, surrounded by a few concerned fans not related to her. One of them ran up to me as I got out of the car and told me she was moaning, very weak, and had vomited. Heat stroke? I wondered as I pulled on my latex gloves; not the first pair I’d used that day. Head injury from a fall? There was a puddle of vomit by her mouth, and her eyes were closed. I wondered if she was already dead; she was deathly pale and still.
“Ma’am?” I asked as I lightly shook her shoulder. “Can you talk to me? Are you OK?”
She coughed, and rolled over on her back slightly, and looked at me; mouth struggling to gasp out words:
“Fuck you, you son of a bitch!” she slurred out; getting a little bit of extra air on the last word to fling some spittle skywards.
The ambulance arrived about that time, and I quickly turned the scene over to them; concentrating on keeping the area round them clear.
My… great grammaw…
…just told me to go fuck myself.
That’s why I don’t watch college football at the stadium any more.
(Part 2 coming: What about afters? Followed by Part 3: Inside the stadium)
A man came up to me the other day, big man, yuuuuuge muscles; and he said- tears in his eyes- “Sir! Sir, please tell us about all the dangerous stuff you’ve seen at a shooting range!”
…Well, no; not really . Not even Trump could make that line work.
But you’re gonna hear ’em anyway, because I’m a clout chasing bitch. Posts titled “Tales from the range” will be, mainly, about the kinds of people you encounter as a shooter and an instructor at a shooting range and other places. They don’t inspire a lot of confidence, honestly. Yeah, I know; “not all”. I know there a LOT of people who treat shooting a gun as the serious business it is, and who place safety paramount. But there’s plenty of others who have no business being anywhere NEAR a gun.
These are their stories *DUN-DUN!*
And since the term “accidental discharge” got used in yet another news article, this time involving Atlanta Hartsfield Airport, the first Tales will be about that very topic.
One that’s rather personal to mebecause it involved my leg comes to mind immediately. We’re back in around 2006 or so. The agency I’m with carries Glock 23 .40S&W as the standard sidearm, and I’m the departmental armorer and rangemaster. Officers would often ask me to work on their personal weapons, or ask for approved modifications to their duty weapon (extended mag releases, sights, that sort of thing.) I’m in the CID (investigations) Captain’s office with the Captain and our crime scene Sergeant. His office is in the basement of the county jail, with carpet over a concrete floor. He’s sitting behind his desk; an enormous hunk of ’50s wooden office furniture whose sides reach to the floor. The crime scene Sgt. is seated to my left on the other side of the desk from the Captain; I’m on the right. The Captain is also on the SWAT team with me, and was wanting to talk to me abut something to do with that (I don’t remember exactly what); the Sgt. was here because he wanted me to replace the sights on his gun because he thought they were too dim (all of our duty weapons came with Trijicon low-light fixed sights). Tritium sights DO lose brightness over time; so it was a fair request. He unholstered his pistol and, while keeping it pointed at the floor, removed the magazine and locked the slide to the rear, ejecting the round in the chamber. He put the mag and loose round on the desk and handed me the pistol with the slide back. I took it from him, checked it empty, and looked at the sights; keeping it pointed at the floor.
His sights WERE pretty dark; the weapon was probably 7, 8 years old. We talked about whether or not he wanted standard replacements or did he want to buy some on his own and have me install them, and the pros and cons of different types, and then I handed it back to him. He reloaded and reholstered it, and the Captain and I talked.
While we were talking, the Sgt. decided he wanted to look at his sights again. He unholstered and pointed at the floor in front of the desk, sighting down the top. The Captain and I, intent on our conversations, didn’t notice.
And then he figured he’d dry-fire it.
“Dry-firing” is pulling the trigger on an empty weapon; or one loaded with dummy rounds. Since “every gun is ALWAYS loaded” is a fundamental rule; when you are doing deliberate “dry fire” (very important for developing trigger discipline), you imagine there’s a powerful laser coming out of the end of the gun and don’t point it at anything you don’t want to destroy… Rule 2; so if it IS loaded, at least you didn’t shoot another person.
Do you see the problem here? He reloaded and reholstered the gun… and then pulled it out again. He never unloaded it.
Now, this isn’t an idiot. The Sgt. was a pretty intelligent guy, and had never been a safety issue on the range. He knew the rules of gun safety and followed them. But he let himself get distracted between putting the gun away, and later deciding he wanted to look at the sights again. So when he pulled the trigger on a gun his brain told him was unloaded…
My first immediate thought after the gun went off was “God DAMN that was loud!” The Captain was doing his best impression of Sylvester the Cat flying up to the ceiling and hanging by his claws. The Sgt. was frozen, gun still pointed at the floor. I distinctly remember the smell of smokeless powder.
That’s when I realized I had felt something hit my pants leg. I looked down with some trepidation.
The round had shattered on the concrete under the carpet and sprayed the desk and my leg with fragments. There was a tiny scratch where one fragment had made it through the fabric of my pants leg and a scar on the desk; but no further damage.
At least the root-cause analysis on this one was pretty cut and dried.
Fast-forward another 5 years or so and I’m at another agency, also departmental armorer and rangemaster and the ONLY instructor (and a zillion other hats I got to wear), taking the Sheriff himself out for annual qualification. Firearms qualification for the heads of agencies is always a little fraught, if that head doesn’t like shooting very much. In this case, the Sheriff knew he wasn’t a good shot, and was very nervous about qualification. In these cases, it is good to be the king; so the Sheriff got a range session all to himself. If he’s afraid of showing his troops he’s a bad shot because there’s an audience, he’s not going to do well. And even without an audience, he was nervous. Visibly nervous, and I was doing my best to be soothing and reassuring.
The Georgia Double-Action Course has stages at 25, 15, 10, and 7 yards. At the 15, you start at the “low ready”- weapon pointed in front of your feet- and on the whistle, you raise it to the firing level and engage the targets. The Sheriff was on the 15, weapon at the ready, when I realized I didn’t have my stopwatch; so I told him to hold steady while I went to the bench and retrieved it. I turned back from the benches in time to see him fire one round off into the dirt in front of his feet.
“Cease fire!” got yelled by reflex, and he turned towards me with a surprised look on his face. He did, at least, keep the weapon pointed downrange. “Let’s just go ahead and re-holster and take a break for a minute” I said; because at this point both of us needed to calm down.
This is why all the safety rules work together; but especially #3… “Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to pull the trigger”. In talking about it back at the benches, he admitted he was running through the motions of firing in his head, because he was so nervous about doing poorly… and pantomimed pulling the trigger as well. Because he had it pointed in a safe direction, once again no one got hurt. But we all got a reminder of how dangerous a gun can be.
Now, I’ve gotten flack for saying “There are no such thing as accidental discharges” from people who insist there’s always a chance that a gun could go off without someone pulling the trigger. OK. Sure. If you want to take in ALL possibilities; there is a set of circumstances out there where such a thing can happen; such as an unattended, loaded gun gets struck by lightning and the round in the barrel cooks off and hits someone.
But it’s not real damn likely to happen. In almost every case, there is some human negligence that led to this event. The closest I’ve found to a truly, bizarrely “accidental” discharge was because of …a piece of corn cob.
At my first agency, around 1998 or so, the standard duty firearm was a Smith and Wesson 4006 in .40S&W (say that 5 times fast). Once again, I’m armorer and rangemaster; and we’re doing annual qualification. During this qualification, we had two different people, on different days, on the firing line when their pistol fired full-auto.
Needless to say, this is not normal behavior from a 4006. The only way to make it full-auto is to do some grinding and polishing on the sear- the piece that releases the hammer when the trigger is pulled. Since I had another armorer with me on these occasions, we detail stripped the guns involved and examined them. We couldn’t find any defects with the gun; but we did find tiny grains of a light tan material in the action of the gun. Something about the material registered on my brain; it looked very much like the ground corn cob material used to polish brass cases before reloading ammunition.
We had just recently switched the ammo we used for target practice and qualifications. It was manufactured by a local Georgia ammunition manufacturer who was known for relatively good quality at a low price- and price is always a consideration for police departments; at least the ones I worked for. “Cheap is good, and free is better!” was the motto.The bullet was a hollowpoint; not needed for practice ammo; but at these prices, who cared! They had recently changed the design of their hollowpoint; the cavity in the bullet was longer and narrower. A negligible change that had no effect on the accuracy of the rounds.
But this new cavity showed a tendency to capture the grains of ground up corn cob that were used to polish the bullets before packaging. When we looked at the box of ammo he loaded the gun with, we found polishing media in the hollowpoint cavities. When the gun fired, the media shook out of the cavity of the rounds in the magazine and made it’s way into the workings of the gun. Some of these grains lodged themselves under the sear and held it back when the trigger was pulled… resulting in the pistol firing again after the slide cycled; for as long as the trigger was held back.
That’s the closest truly “God did it!” “accidental” discharge I’ve ever run across in my life. And even that was the result of someone else’s negligence- in this case, the ammo manufacturer.
So, still I insist:
There is NO such thing as an accidental discharge.
The second memory, the satisfying one, happened at my first agency. At some point in my early career, Georgia did something sensible for once and passed OCGA 17-4-20.1, a law that overhauled domestic violence response by law enforcement.
This law did some good things; but laws can’t fix all things. More work to be done.
Historically, domestic violence was treated as a pain in the ass by responding cops. Cops got attacked at DV scenes; there’s a whole body of policy around safely responding to a DV call. And no one wants to be stuck in the middle of two partner’s heated argument.
And a whole lot of misogynistic attitude, yes. A lot of DV calls ended with no one going to jail, both parties in the same house. Or, “One of you has to stay somewhere else tonight.” Or, “If I have to come back here tonight, I’m gonna arrest both of you.” And even if the abused spouse agrees to press charges and it’s cut and dried- a lot of the time she will back out and refuse to testify. For a lot of complicated reasons- afraid of losing the support, sure he’ll change his mind, all of the reasons that an abused person will choose because of their situation; and this can be fatal to the case. 17-4-20.1 took a lot of that ambiguity away.
And that made this story one of the best moments of my career.
We are now late 1990s. The University had married housing units for students, set up as brick-and-cinderblock apartment blocks. “Charlie-1” and “Charlie-2”, in our radio code. Hm. Quasi-military indeed… and initially unintentionally racist; but that’s a story for another time.
ANYway, Family Housing rarely gave the police any trouble. Maybe a burglary every few months; maybe an odor complaint. But domestic violence calls… those were more frequent. And one evening, I get dispatched to a 911 hangup, domestic, physical. Code 3, arrive with backup to find both parties separated. Wife is clearly terrified; bruised face, holes in the drywall, broken items on the floor, bedroom door damaged. Husband is a little bigger than me; angry, scratches on face. We get husband and wife separated, away from sources of weapons, etc.
I get husband’s story first. They had an argument, see, and she clawed his face, and he pushed her away, and she hit the door and that’s how she got those bruises.
Yeah. A lot of times it IS just like those cop dramas. I swap with my backup and get her story. She is still shaky. She says they had an argument, he got loud and physical, throwing plates and pictures; she ran for the bedroom and he smashed her face into the door. He stalked off and she called 911.
What 17-4-20.1 did that I greatly appreciated in this instance was state that if police could identify the primary aggressor in a DV case, they could arrest them and be the charging entity. And it was pretty clear here who was the primary aggressor; it couldn’t be clearer.
I put the husband in handcuffs. He didn’t protest too much; he knew his story was shit. But he was still trying to think his way out of this. As I drove him to the jail, in the back seat, he was silent. After a few minutes he pipes up- “Say, officer… if she don’t press charges, I go free, right?”
I knew what he had in mind. Bail out, slap her ass around until she agrees to drop the charges; the cycle begins again. But by making the arresting officer the charging entity, the State didn’t need the wife to testify.
I looked at him in the rear-view mirror and said (probably paraphrased to make me sound more movie-hero dramatic):
“No. She’s not pressing charges. I am. And I’m not going to drop them.”
Probably one of the best soundbites from my career. And most definitely the best moment.
Thinking about the bad ol’ days again, and reminded myself of a couple of stories; one disturbing, one satisfying. So cast yourself back to the mid 2000s…
This story starts with the Georgia State Patrol(God’s Special People, GSP)… Or, rather, the chase they initiated. I don’t remember why they had initiated this pursuit; but it had come in to my county from a neighboring one, and ended up in a dead-end cul-de-sac in an unfinished subdivision. The driver had turned around and come face to face with the Trooper, who blocked the road. Troopers aren’t normally known for their restraint (ahem), but instead of charging in, this one approached cautiously. The driver yelled out that he had a gun and he’d shoot anyone who got close. (Nice of him to get blocked in on a deserted cul-de-sac; no one to evacuate.) So the other chase units are here and have the car roughly surrounded, the driver is still crouching in the car and occasionally waving the pistol around.
Barricaded gunman, something I had to deal with quite a lot in this county. I get called in with the rest of the SWAT team and the negotiators. Car dude still isn’t talking to anyone, says he won’t leave until we do. Meanwhile, we’ve got a good perimeter set up if he runs, a contact team, and a marksman in place. If we have to force a removal, I’ve got a 40mm launcher with a barricade-penetrating OC round loaded. A barricade penetrator will either breach the glass and dump it’s payload of pepper irritant inside the car; or will go through and rupture on the roof of the car. Yes, we had tested it.
(Note on militarization of police: Yes, I agree it’s happening. Yes, those launchers have been misused by cops. But when you’re in a hostage rescue or barricaded gunman situation, having that barricade penetrating option is really handy. I don’t have an answer.)
It wasn’t THAT hard to tell the difference, in this case
ANYway, at one point I’m using binoculars to see what else I can see in the car; and I pay attention to the gun… And it’s a BB pistol. Dammit. This guy’s bluffing us with a BB gun.
I key up the radio. “Hey, that’s a BB gun. That’s not a real gun.” The guy next to me slaps my shoulder. “Hey, shutup! We might have to shoot him!”
Uh. What? It’s a BB gun, jackass. It might put your eye out if you raise those expensive Bolle goggles at the wrong time. WTF, over? Do you have such a hard-on to shoot someone that you don’t- want to lose your get out of jail free card? “We all believed it was a real gun, your honor, and were in fear for our lives.”
In the end, the guy agreed to give up, tossed the BB gun out the window, and the contact team cuffed him. Another successful op.
But that mentality seems to have exploded in LE since then. And that wasn’t the last time that county made me wonder what the hell I was doing.
(Posts with “From Twitter:” are multi-part Twitter posts from my account that I felt should also appear here; if only so I can annotate and expand on them without the restrictions of Twitter’s formatting)
So with the rise in violent far-right rhetoric and nut-jobs coming out of the ground everywhere, you might be thinking about getting a firearm to protect yourself with. What model? What caliber? What color?
Seriously, color is important when you’re tarting up a .22cal fake MP5SD for your 7 year old daughter. And yes, that’s what this is.
Before you even get to that,there are three questions you need to askyourself first. You don’t have to answer right away, but you need to seriously understand and consider them. And if the answer to any one of them is “no”; that’s not a reflection on your character, it’s just self-honesty. But if it is… do NOT get a gun.
Question 1:Could I kill another human being if I had to?
Some of the people reading this will say “Yes, if I had to” and be absolutely serious about that. Some of them have shot another human.
But I guarantee you it was an act that lives with them for the rest of their life.
It’s not the movies. It will be the most agonizing decision you ever have to make in your entire life, especially if you’ve never been in that situation before. Many people, when they reach that critical moment, will hesitate. Or will have convinced themselves that they can bluff; that no one’s stupid enough to charge into a gun pointed at them. Maybe not…
But worst case is they’re shot with their own gun, taken from them by the assailant.
8% of police fatalities have been by their own gun… and these are people who have been trained for this very moment. If you cannot honestly say that you could kill another person, even to save your own life or a loved one’s, that doesn’t make you a bad person. But it does mean that you shouldn’t buy a gun. The odds of having it used against you are too high. There is no bluffing with a gun.
“But I could just wound him!” Good luck, Annie Oakley. No, seriously; you will NOT shoot the gun out of the bad guy’s hand unless he’s a mannequin. People don’t stand still for you OR give you time to line up your shot. Take a minute and watch another person walk towards you. Their legs move, natch; but look how much their arms move. Their hands. Their head. And they’re relaxed. Not charging you. Not scaring you shitless. And if you’re lucky enough to hit them in the leg, or shoulder… they’re not going to drop like the movies. Humans are both amazingly fragile and ridiculously strong at the same time, and mindset makes a huge difference.
The ONE place that remains relatively still compared to the rest of the body AND offers a greater chance of stopping their aggressive actions, in the usual cop legalese, is the upper chest. (we’re intentionally not talking about the pelvis; that’s for another time). Heart, lungs, diaphragm; a cornucopia of vital organs, lots of blood vessels that can be severed.
Was that graphic? So is shooting another human being; thus the mental image.
In other words, the only target you’re going to be able to hit under insane levels of stress is very likely going to kill this person. There are no magic bullets and fewer one-shot-stops, but odds are high this person is going to die. There is no such thing as “shoot to wound” in the civilian world. You will likely kill this person. That’s what guns mean; that’s what they do against living creatures; and you can never forget this.
Well, that horse is dead; but it leads in to the next question:
Question 2:Will I dedicate the time and expense to become safe and proficient?
I just described what accurate shooting under stress entailed. That isn’t provided when you buy this gun. Guns are NOT “point-and-shoot”; despite what movies and Call Of Duty say. There is a LOT of instruction required to safely, accurately, and competently handle any gun (instruction that’s not required in far too many states). And this is COMPETENT instruction; not you and Skeeter shooting some tin cans with a .22. And you have to keep practicing that skill, which means range time and ammo, and realistic training. “Shooting ain’t like riding a bike”, my instructors taught me in between wads of Red Man, “it goes away.” Shooting is a frangible skill… Your muscles learn the memory, if you’re training enough; but they can lose it over time. “I’m rusty” won’t help you in that split second. (Oh, and Range Guru who confidently tells me he’s shot all his life and knows what he’s doing… No. No, you don’t; even if you have a Barrett .50 in your truck. I watched you load pistol rounds backwards and point the gun at your face when it didn’t fire.)
And the 3rd, and in some ways most important, question is:
Question 3: Will I safely and responsibly store this weapon?
There ARE ways to keep quick access to your weapon without worrying that your children will find them; but in 2017, 383 “accidental” shootings with children occurred. (BTW, there are NO “accidental” shootings; only unintentional discharges. A rather dry term for the horror it describes, particularly when it’s your gun and your child.) Not to mention the hundreds of thefts from houses, cars, and bags that occur each month in this country. And slapping a gun lock on it isn’t a solution. I was 11 when I jimmied the trigger lock on my mom’s .22 JC Higgins revolver, (bought from the Sears catalog; how’s that for old home week?) hidden in a closet, and tried to load it, out of curiosity. Luckily for me, I put the rounds in the front of the cylinder. This was discovered and later resulted in an ass-whuppin’… and a trip to a patch of woods with my dad to learn how to safely handle guns. Children will find a way.
It seems like I’m overplaying the seriousness of guns; but if anything, I’m understating it. This is a tool, yes; but a tool for a very particular purpose and dangerous as shit. This is a chainsaw with a megawatt laser on it and a hair trigger. It can be mastered and used safely and accurately, but it’s still hella dangerous. And the consequences of misuse are extreme and dire.
So. Think about these questions. Discuss them with your loved ones. And only then make your decision.
(By the way, if you’re the person who answered “Yes!!” to question 1 because you’re itching to shoot some *insert your favorite racial epithet here*, then no… No, guns are not for you. Not that you can shoot them worth a shit anyway.)
I’ve been cheating on you, ‘blog. I… I made my last few essays on… Twitter! That hussy…
Anyway, yeah, I’m gonna post ’em up here just to have a unbroken post. They were composed for twitter, which for me is different from how I write on here. First up: The time I met Roy Moore:
“Hyuck! I shore do love destroying the Constitution!” –By BibleWizard – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEsVodF9sHE, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62292444ee
So. The time I met Roy Moore. A tale of evangelicals trying to erase the line between Church and State, and claiming martyrdom when the State says no. Sound familiar? Well, this was 2004; and it’s only gotten worse. I first wrote about it shortly after it happened in September2004 on my ‘blog; but you’ll notice I was very low-key… This was where I worked and lived, and the feeling of being surrounded was very strong; despite the fact that 3 people would ever see it.
Roy who? you might ask. That’s fair; despite bubbling to the top of the news pile from time to time, much like a turd in a septic tank, he’s been quiet lately amidst the other noise. You know, the guy that was the Alabama Chief Justice who got sued into oblivionover placing a granite copy of the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the Supreme Court of Alabama. It wasn’t the last time he’d be kicked off the bench; he did it again in 2016 by attempting to ignore Obgerfell. THAT Roy Moore.
Not more than a year after his first booting, the county I was Sheriff’s Deputy in had also placed a picture of the Ten Commandments in the county courthouse, and had also been sued by the ACLU. Jody Hice– recognize THAT name? US Representative from Georgia? Who was- at the time- the senior pastor of Bethlehem First Baptist Church in the county, created a group called the Ten Commandment-Georgia Inc., and held a $50 a plate fundraiser dinner to fund the county’s legal fees. All legal and aboveboard, you understand; not being run by a church at all, especially not one whose senior pastor had a series of sermons based around how churches should be allowed to form a lobby. And who asked for a Deputy to guard the church during these sermons in case those godless heathens who would DARE oppose destroying the barrier between Church and State tried to assassinate him. Yeah. As entry team leader for the SWAT team, I got to be that lucky deputy.
ANYWAY, back to September 2004, and the fundraising dinner. Barrow is one of those southern counties that they would have used when filming “Walking Tall” (the 1973 one); and in fact has connections to the Dixie Mafia(yes, a real thing). But it’s proximity to both Atlanta and Athens meant it had to be drug kicking and screaming into the modern era. No less an august, god-fearing persona than ROY MOORE was coming to town! He must be protected at all costs! Now, while there had been some mild protests by the 30 or so ACLU members in Barrow County, there was no reason to think ANTIFA was coming.
“You can trust me, I’m a man of God!”
God forbid. But, yes, the Sheriff does have a responsibility to ensure that no one gets hurt, even if you don’t particularly like them. So, it fell on SWAT to provide close cover and surveillance, and the Traffic Unit to provide escort and visible presence. I was a member of both units at the time, so we planned an escort route from the airport to the courthouse for speeches; and then on to the dinner and back to the airport afterwards. Crowd control units were on standby, but no one thought they’d be needed. SWAT had spotter units on the roof of a couple of buildings, and plainclothes mixing with the crowd. Regular deputies around the perimeter and inside. Lots of overkill, but you know, be prepared; and all that. So a 4 car progression escorted his limo from the airport.
Leapfrogging to the next intersection, I felt for the drivers we were inconveniencing; because… come on. Lights and siren to escort this toad? Shit.
Speech at the courthouse was typical BS; didn’t listen too much because my job was to watch the crowd. It’s BS; but it was my job, and I took my job seriously.
On to the dinner! …Held at the church, of course. We spread out and watched the plate buyers eat BBQ chicken and mashed potatoes. At this point, after 7 hours of sweating in a vest (Georgia in Sept. is still hot) cocooning this idiot we were tired, sweaty, and hungry. Not one of these assholes offered us any food. The entertainment for the meal came from a group of church teens who had come up with a dance routine based off of “Onward Christian Soldiers”, complete with a light show and a loud sound system. Churches have gotten theatrical lately. Several late teen boys (white, natch; this is a very white Southern Baptist church) dressed in the red/black/grey “urban” camo pants that went very well with nearby University of Georgia football colors and black t-shirts with black Army-style ball caps covering closely shorn buzz-cuts began a dance routine involving singing about the Army of God while miming firing rifles, swinging sticks, and lifting weights.
Yeah. Geezus. That sentence made me tired, too.
While this spectacle was laughable on it’s face- my roommate, another deputy, said it reminded him of the Monty Python “Gay Army” sketch– it brought other associations to my mind. Another youth group, frequently appearing in ’30s propaganda filmsand featuring young men wearing red armbands and military garb. The choice of imagery they used wasn’t accidental. And they’ve been brewing this since waaaay before 2004.
Oh… Did I mention he’s running against the Georgia Secretary of State in 2022? Before the next Presidential election?
Final one for tonight. This was not a writing prompt, but an idea I had after having all four wisdom teeth surgically removed at once. What if a werewolf had a cavity?
“Well? How ‘bout it?”
Frank was a good guy, but I’d hit him with a lot of shocks lately. I waited patiently as he drained the two fingers of scotch, his back to me.
“I dunno,” he said finally. “It’s still kind of weird to me.”
“Hey… I haven’t eaten your kids or humped your dog yet.”
“I’ve seen the way you look at my dog. If she gets knocked up, you can take care of the puppies.”
“Anyway. What’s the problem? It’s just like any other procedure you’ve done. I’ve got money; I’ll pay extra.”
“It’s not the money, it’s just- look, I’ll do it, but you owe me.”
“For what?”
“For freaking me out three weeks ago. Couldn’t you just go to a vet?”
“I don’t know any vets. You, I know.”
He looked longingly at the bottle of single-malt on the counter before grabbing his jacket. “Well, then, let’s go.”
The drive was inordinately long. I guess if I had as much liquid cash as Frank, I’d live way the hell out of town as well. We parked close to the building. I stood patiently in the frigid air as Frank fumbled with his key ring. The door opened after a couple of grunting twists on the lock and he slid inside to disarm the alarm. I watched as he pressed the door shut with his shoulder, squeezing it the extra centimeter to get the bolt thrown.
“You charge these rich folks how much for an appointment, and you can’t afford to fix your own office door?” I asked.
“I just never got around to it.” He unlocked an interior door and began flipping on light switches. “Sit” he commanded, pointing to a large padded chair on a pedestal. I eased an instrument tray out of the way and began undressing. “Do you have to change?” he complained.
“You can’t get to it unless I’m changed,” I said. “You don’t have to watch.”
“Thanks.” He turned to a shelf and began selecting sealed packets, but I could see him watching me out of the corner of his eye.
I skinned off my underwear and kicked my clothes out of the way. I half-crouched over, holding my arms in front of me. After almost a month of practice, I still can’t change slow enough to actually see what’s happening.
There was an instant of pain, as if I’d caught my insides on something and pulled- and then it was gone. My arms were covered in thick, inch-long, chocolate brown fur. My hands were covered in shorter fur, with dark skin on the pads of my fingers and palms; and- most impressive, I thought- curved and wickedly sharp claws where my nails used to be. This time I imagined that I could see the fur sprout. Usually it’s over, bam, before I can blink.
I settled into the chair and leaned back into the headrest. It was quiet for a few moments behind me, and I could feel Frank’s gaze burning the back of my head before he rattled around again. I’ve watched myself in the mirror before; I guess it is kind of impressive, visually. I wore myself out in the first week, watching myself change over and over.
Frank had the same wallpaper that it seemed everyone in his profession did- a sort of olive-green vertical stripe with improbable looking flowers. Why couldn’t they just paint it a solid color, I wondered? Probably the wallpaper hides the blood splatters better. Directly in front of me on the wall was an enormous framed diploma. The school’s name was buried in so much filigree as to be illegible. The language didn’t look like any Latin I remembered- maybe Italian, or pig-Latin. The only things I could make out were in English- “Franklin Wesley Grimes” and “Doctor of Medical Dentistry”. Did that say “University of Grenada” under the signature?
Frank laid a set of mediaeval -looking curved picks on the instrument table. I looked up and jerked reflexively. His face was covered by a blue paper mask and a pair of bulbous goggles. “Gah!” I said. My voice is wonderfully deep and rumbly when I’m changed. James Earl Jones, eat your heart out. “The Communion aliens have landed!”
“Just open your mouth.” I shut up. Frank was jumpy. He adjusted the ancient enameled reflective light over my face- those things must be hideously expensive, because I swear they’re passed on from generation to generation- and I opened my mouth as wide as it would go.
Which, in median form, is quite wide. My canines are each an inch and a half long from gum to tip, and with my mouth open fully there’s a good five inches between them, tip to tip. The better to eat you with, my dear. Frank looked a little faint. I was about to ask if he was OK when he recovered and jammed a clear tube under my tongue that immediately sucked up the flesh there. He moved it and began looking around with his mirror.
I could see his nose wrinkle up under the mask. “What do you eat?”
“Ahr eet.”
“Whatever, it stinks. Don’t you brush?” He picked up one of the small hooks and began picking at my teeth.
“Oht aher ah ust ahe ah ehr.”
“What?”
“Oht aher ah ust ahe ah ehr.”
“I can’t understand you.”
I glared at him and pushed his fingers out of my mouth with my tongue, and then bit down hard. The plastic tube severed and I spit the end out. “I said, not after I’ve just taken a deer.”
He looked stricken. “That’s more than I needed to know. And add a quarter for the tube to your bill.” He plucked the stub out and replaced it with a fresh one and it went back to sucking up the underside of my tongue. I locked my jaws open and stared at the ceiling.
He wiggled the pick in every crevice in my mouth. When he got to the hole in the side of my left upper carnassial the pick went in and hung, but he pulled until it came free anyway. It sprang out of the hole with a ‘pop’ and the point imbedded in my gums. “That’s the one, eh?” he asked without a trace of sympathy. He dug around and picked and scraped in the hole, grimly prying the bits of tarter off the tooth and clearing out the hole. My head jerked with his more vigorous efforts. I was afraid he was going to stand on my chest and go to it with both hands.
He stopped for a breather and I swallowed, tasting blood from my tortured gums. “What happens to it when you’re… human?” he asked. I stared innocently at him until he pulled the suction tube out.
“I’m not sure. I can’t tell if the tooth is resorbed into the body, or just kind of retracts up into the gums. My jaw hurts about where that tooth is even though it looks like a different tooth when I’m in normal form.”
“Hunh. We’ll have to X-ray your jaw and see if we can see them up there or not…” He trailed off, as I was shifting back to human.
“Take a look.”
Frank had shut his eyes. “No.” he said.
I shifted back to median. “Geez, Frank, are you ever gonna get used to this?”
“No. Don’t do that.” He turned and fumbled on the table while I smirked.
I stopped smirking when he turned around with the pneumatic drill in his hand. “Whoa, now, what’s that for?”
He hit the floor pedal to give the drill a couple of experimental whirrs. “It’s for your filling. That’s the biggest the cavity I’ve ever seen… hell, that’s the biggest tooth I’ve ever seen. It needs a filling.” He stuck the tube in my mouth again and poised over my face with the drill. “But I don’t know how Novocain would effect you, or how much to use on you like this; so you’re just going to have to endure for a minute or so.”
I took a little suggestive detour with this one. Having just completed the operation described below just before the prompt, it was readily in mind.
“So… you’ll do it?” She looked shyly at the floor before glancing up at him.
He sighed and sat down, spread-legged, opposite her. “Sure. But I warn you, I haven’t done this in a long time.”
She nodded eagerly and sat on her haunches. “That’s OK, I’ve never done it at all.”
“I know. We’ll take it slow at first. Now, first we’ve got to get the shaft good and lubricated…” He squirted some thick fluid from a tube and slathered it on. “That should be good enough… OK, I’m going to insert it; you be ready to guide it in.” He gently inserted the tip, wiggling it slightly, and began to slowly apply pressure.
Her brow furrowed as she concentrated, moving her fingers. “Uh… OK… Aaah, I can feel the tip!”
“Good, good, I’m going to push a little harder… Unf… it should go all the way in now…” He grunted with the effort, leaning into it. The shaft suddenly slid forward as far as it could and she gasped.
“It’s in! We did it!”
“We certainly did. Now, put that nut on it so it doesn’t slide out again.” He stood, wiping the white lithium grease from his hands with a rag, and leaned against the seat of the motorcycle. “Now you ought to be able to do that by yourself next time, but it is easier with two.” He tossed the rag at her playfully. “Now that we’ve got the axle shaft in, we need to put the brakes back on the disc. Torque that nut down good.”
I have no idea how I came up with this from the writing prompt of “Frog”; but… there it is. I think I was working more on how to write dis-likeable characters.
___
“Stupid bitch.”
Jason kicked savagely at a fist-sized rock along the edge of the road as he spat out the words. The toe of his shoe hit the pavement before the rock, sending a shooting pain up his foot but only bouncing the rock off of the low brick wall that ran the length of the road. He grabbed his shin and sucked in a whistling breath, slowly settling his weight against the wall. He took a couple of deep breaths before gingerly setting his foot onto the ground again. “Fuckin’ great” he muttered, stretching his arms out against the top of the wall and leaning back.
His left hand brushed something cold and squishy, and he jerked it back quickly. A small, moss green frog hunched on the top of the wall, staring at him placidly through speckled gold eyes. Jason sighed, leaning back once again. He could feel the frog’s eyes on him and glanced sidelong at it. It remained immobile, its gaze unblinking and steady.
“The fuck you lookin’ at?” he asked the frog. It stayed motionless, as if carved from jade. Jason reached out a finger and stroked the top of the frog’s head. The pressure moved the frog lower by a fraction but it remained otherwise still. Its lack of reaction to Jason’s presence began to irritate him, and he flicked the frog on the end of it’s nose. The frog merely hunched further against the brick, still staring.
“Shouldn’t you be looking for a chick to kiss? Turn you back into a prince?” Jason asked before looking away. A lazy breeze rustling the leaves of a nearby tree was the only sound. He looked back at the frog. “Maybe you can kiss my ex-girlfriend. Bitch.”
The frog stared.
“Well, she is. Little whore gets herself knocked up, and expects me to stick around? Prolly ain’t even my kid. I told her she’d better be on the pill; ain’t my fault she gets pregnant.” He jammed his hands deep into his pockets and hunched forwards, looking away. “Besides, I’m too young to be stuck with a kid. I got places to be, things to do, you know? I’m supposed to be out buying diapers and shit?” He leaned sideways and brought his nose to within a foot of the frog, staring at the ebony oblong slits of its pupils. “She ain’t even a good fuckin’ lay, either. Just lays there. Might as well be fuckin’ a blow-up doll.”
The frog remained impassive.
“Fuck you too, then” Jason spat, and lurched to his feet. He turned and began to walk away when he heard a rumbling, croaked exclamation from the wall. He stopped and blinked- it almost sounded like a word, like-
He spun and examined the top of the wall, but the frog was gone; lost in the tall grass on the other side of the construction. He snorted and turned back. Stupid; it’s just a frog.
