On a cold winter night, I started the shift by helping with a search of a car pulled over. There was however a small issue that night. I somehow didn’t think to put on gloves to keep my fingers warm. I know that earlier I mentioned that it was cold, but seriously; it was unusually cold that night. The temperature was sub 30 degrees and the wind was blowing. At one point during that night the temperature even dipped into the teens. So while I was assisting the other two officers in searching the car, my mind was on warming up my hands. They were beginning to hurt and I even had a hard time straightening out my fingers.
About 10 minutes into the search the radio goes off and a domestic incident just happened. We were told that a man just hit his wife and they both were waiting at the police station. My supervisor looked at me and said “go. I’ll be with you as soon as possible.” I was so happy to get out of the cold so I quickly jumped in the patrol car and waited for the warm air from the heater to hit my fingers. In the process, I hit my hand against the panel and it immediately felt as though I was being stung by large needles. I realized then that I may be in a little bit of trouble. My hands were hurting so bad that I feared being in a position of having to use them to grab or use them in any useful way. I was in extreme discomfort but rushed back to the station.
As I sped off to the domestic, my thoughts were on figuring out a way to deal with the pain in my hand. I pressed them against the heating vents in hopes that it would help warm them up faster. But that didn’t work. I soon arrived at the police station and saw a tall man in a Christmas sweater, smoking a cigarette outside. The cold wasn’t even affecting him. Behind him, cuddling and crying were a lady and two kids. I walked up to the male and said “what’s up man?” With slurred speech he responded, “you know… girls being girls.” I gave him a forced laugh and said “Yeah I know. Did anything happen between you guys?” The man responded “Nah. They are just whining.” I smiled and said “cool.” As I walked away, I remember just thinking of how strong he smelled of alcohol.
I walked over to the lady and the two kids and checked on them. They said that they weren’t seriously injured and the lady introduced herself and Patricia. She told me her kid’s name and that her husband’s (the guy who was smoking outside) name is Roger. Patricia said that her family was at a friend’s get-together and that Roger had a bit too much to drink. He was too impaired to drive, so Patricia drove the family home. Roger forgot that they had to make one more stop and began to curse at Patricia. Their oldest daughter asked Roger to stop being mean to Mom. That seemed to agitate Roger even more and so he tried to “discipline” her. The issue was that Roger was very drunk. He swung at his daughter from the front passenger seat and missed. This made Roger even more upset. He turned around as much as the space allowed him to do to be in a better position to deliver blows.This guy kept swinging but he also kept missing. Patricia wisely told Roger to stop and that if he was going to discipline her, to at least do so when he was sober. That for a moment made Roger pause before he began to punch Patricia. Patricia almost lost control of the vehicle due to the pain and shock of being hit. She then pulled over at the nearest parking lot which happened to be the police department and ran with her kids to the front doors. I looked and clearly saw the redness on Patricia’s face. I asked the two kids what happened and they had the exact same story.
After gathering all of the evidence I came to the conclusion that Patricia and the girls were telling the truth. My attention then shifted to Roger and on how to safely arrest him. The cold had returned in the meantime and by now I could barely feel my hands, let alone make a fist. In comparison, Roger was so drunk that he acted as though it was mid summer. So since I didn’t want to deal with an aggressive Roger, I had to figure out a way to keep him calm. I had to outsmart him.
I walked over to Roger and said, ”Sir do you have any weapons on you?” Roger responded “nope.” And went back to puffing on his cigarette. “Do you mind if I search you?” I asked. “Go ahead,” he replied. I then said, “my policy is to search you in handcuffs.” I held my breath hoping Roger would comply. “C’mon man you don’t got to do that. Just search me.” he said. With the saddest look I could muster I whispered “bro, don’t make this difficult on me. My boss is going to be here soon and I don’t want to get in trouble.” Roger sighed and said “Ok. Ok. I got you.” I told Roger thank you and put him in handcuffs for the search. After I was done I said, “Are you cold?” “Yeah,” said Roger. “Man! My car is nice and warm. Why don’t you sit in the back.”. Roger jumped on the opportunity and walked to the backdoor of the car. He then turned around and shook his shackled handcuffs. “Can you take these off?” Roger asked. “Oh sorry Roger” I said. I explained to him that department policy says you have to be in handcuffs while you are in my patrol car.” I opened the door and Roger happily hopped in the back seat. The second Roger’s butt touched the back seat my door was shut. “One in custody,” I said over the radio. I finished up some paperwork with the Mom and kids and then got in the car and pulled off. Roger said “hey what’s going on?” I informed him that he was under arrest based on the testimony of his wife and kids. “They all have the same story man.” I said. All I could hear Roger say was “Dang.”
Posted here first (https://ourstoriesfrombehindthebadge.wordpress.com/2022/09/28/policy-says/)