I came in early in the morning this morning thanks to being subpoenaed to municipal court. I sulked in the office sipping some very weak coffee I poured from my home coffee pot. I have one of those new fangled coffee machines that are supposed to start up on their own by timer then hold the coffee in a thermal container. This way its just one less thing you have to think about in the morning. Well, this coffee machine is a piece of garbage! It has one of those valves on the bottom of the percolator that allows you to take coffee while the machine is still brewing. Well, mine sucks!
Last night I set up the coffee maker to come on just before I woke up. I got up at about 07:00 this morning and pretty much rolled out of bed and jumped directly into the shower. I remember thinking about how great that first cup was going to be as the not quite warm water poured over my head. Instead, when I walked out to the kitchen, I found a large pool of coffee and grounds across the entire counter top and dripping onto the floor. What a way to start the day. I signed out loud. I hate this fucking coffee maker. I muttered. I cleaned up the mess and poured the little bit of coffee that actually made it into the pot, into my mug and ran out the door.
So needless to say, I wasnt all that awake when I arrived. I slipped into my uniform and walked out to the main city offices to retrieve my pinks for court. For those of you who dont know what pinks are. In Oregon, every agency pretty much uses the same type of citation books. There are several carbon copies. The yellow copy goes to the violator and the pink copy is the one that I make all of my notes on then retain for court. The remaining copies? Im not really sure where those go. Im sure the court staff does something with them. At my agency retrieving your pinks is like spinning the wheel on The Price Is Right. Our records person might have them or they might have been lost somewhere along the line of you turning them in and records putting them in the file cabinet.
Today she had the one that I needed. I drove on over to the courthouse. When I arrived they were do arraignments. I peeked in and could see the judge painstakingly listening to every person enter their pleas. Our city judge is a pretty cool guy. Unlike a lot of municipal court judges, he puts up with a lot of crap. When everyone enters a plea he will hear them out if they want to just make a statement. If you lose during a trial he will explain why he did not find in your favor. He kind of reminds me of that new judge on The Peoples Court. Though it is a civil court, I think that she does a pretty good job of explaining why you cant just ask for a million dollars when you suing because your beer wasnt cold enough.
I think that generally most people walk away from our court feeling better than they did when they went in. Some people just want to say their peace I think. I stood there and waited for the arraignments to end. Then the judge called for a short recess before the scheduled trials. Once court was back in session, Chief was up first. He had this guy who obviously went online to one of those websites like SpeedTrap.org and tried to teach himself how to fight a ticket. Its funny because he must have asked about a hundred questions regarding everything but the fact that he was speeding. I remember him asking Chief, Officer, do you recall what color my spark plug wires were? Chief just sat there with a stupid look on his face and said, Nope! The guy says, Your honor my spark plug wires were red. Obviously the officer remembers nothing about the stop and therefore this citation should be dropped. Apparently, he was driving a car without a hood on it, and for some reason cops are supposed to remember the colors and intricate parts of an engine to convict someone of a speeding violation. Geez!
So after sitting patiently through all of the trails, I realized that there was no one left. I checked with the court staff to see if the person I had scheduled for trail showed up yet. They said, Oh, we didnt tell you? I said, Tell me what? Your trail was rescheduled on Friday I thought that someone got a hold of you. Sorry about that. Great! I could have had another couple of hours of sleep. I thought.
I left court and had to go back home due to a minor daycare issue. I returned to the PD in the afternoon. By then I was a little more rested and looking forward to finding some douche bags and taking someone to jail. As I suited back up and put everything back inside the patrol car I said to myself, Welp, someones going to jail tonight! Its funny that must have sparked of the olinternal radar unit because I was on duty for about 30 minutes before I noticed a green Ford Taurus driving in the on coming lane. The driver, a Hispanic female adult, gave me The Look. (You know what look Im talking about.) I spun around and stopped the car. As I approached the drivers side, I could smell a heavy odor of alcohol billowing out of the window. It tuned out that the passenger had been drinking a lot. I checked the driver and found that she was suspended in the misdemeanor degree. Since the jail is only about a five minute drive from my city, I went ahead and lodged her on it. Usually cops in our area will cite and release on that.
I got back to the city just in time to meet with a buddy of mine who had setup his own little personal sting on one of our local morons. She is suspended in the violation degree but has been cited by our department like three or four times. There is new case law in Oregon regarding tows. Its kind of left up to interpretation but basically, if you stop a motorist that has no drivers license or they are suspended and they happen to pull into their residence driveway, then you are not allowed to tow that motorists vehicle. So this dummy from our town will see us and high tail it to her driveway.
The reason this whole thing got personal was because of an incident about a week ago. My buddy was driving by her house and noticed that her car was missing from the driveway. Since he was familiar with her he ran her information and found that she was still suspended. He set up down the street and waited for her to come home. His plan was to block her street when he sees her so that there is absolutely no way that she can pull her car in the driveway thus allowing us to tow her car and deter her from driving again. My buddy was sitting down the street out of sight waiting when he suddenly became a witness in a semi truck vs. bicycle accident. While he was dealing with the accident he noticed the woman driving toward her street. Since the fire department was already on scene and rendering aid, my buddy stepped out in front of her vehicle, held up his hand, and said, Stop! The woman pointed at her house and drove around him. She parked her car in her driveway and ran into her house.
Naturally, this pissed my buddy off really really bad. After dealing with the accident, where the bicyclist was life flighted, he went to the womans house to issue her citations for driving while suspended and fail to obey a police officer. He knocked on the door but her stupid ass 15 year old son answered the door. My asked to speak with his mother. She said, She not here. So my buddy bluffed a little and something to the effect of, Get her down here of Im going to get a warrant and arrest her. The son called his bluff and said, Go get your fucking warrant then! His patience wearing then, my buddy turned and started to walk away. He turned back said, Oh yeah, and fuck you too! Right then a white male adult jumped out from behind the door and said, Hey thats a fucking minor your talking to! Well see you in court mother fucker! Geez..douche bags are really dumb.
Today, my buddy had noticed the womans car was parked along side a nearby street. So we both set up on it. We waited for about two hours. Finally we saw the 15 year old son riding his bike out from the womans house. He proceeded around the block as if he was scouting for his mother. He rode right by us giving us a dirty look the whole time. I noted that he wasnt wearing a helmet and did not have bicycle light on his handle bars. (it was dusk out). Well, I guess our cover is blown. I said to my buddy. Right then I noticed the 15 year ride his bike through a stop sign without stopping then turn right without signaling. I said, You know what? We should probably cite him for that. My buddy smiled and said, Yeah, we probably should! So he took off toward the 15 years house and I followed the last known path incase he wasnt going back home.
My buddy managed to get him stopped right in front of his house. I caught up with him. Naturally the 15 year old had one of the worst attitudes I have ever heard. So he ended up getting cited for a bunch of stuff. I didnt ever see the ticket, but I am sure it was well over four or five hundred dollars. He threatened to sue us and told me that he was going to file a complaint on us. I said, Grrrrreat! just like Tony the Tiger. Make sure and file that with the chief of police.
As of yet there has been no complaint filed with the chief. My buddy and I check the womans house every day to see if she is out driving. When we find her, we WILL tow her car and cite her for everything under the sun. So the saga continues.
