Not my night!

Every night I drive to work a certain way. I stop at a QuikTrip next to the police station and get coffee: Dark Roast with two creamers. And my gas tank is almost always empty from the night before, so I stop and get gas. And then I go to squad meeting and drink my coffee. Every night.

Last Friday night did not go this way.

Kimberly had bought a fancy new type of coffee, so instead of getting coffee next to the station like I do she makes me a pot and I take a cup of coffee with me. This never happens.
I don't have a cup holder because I really never drink anything in my police car other than a bottle of water-- I don't need a cup holder for that, it's got a screw cap.

With that said...I am on my way to work sipping on my coffee, cruisin', jammin' to some tunes. Dispatch comes over the radio and says there are 300-400 people fighting in front of a junior high school which is in my beat. No one comes on to take the call because its a Friday night and everybody's busy on other calls. (When people call 911 to report a fight they usually overestimate how many people are involved by 300-400. And to spice it up they typically say there are weapons involved. And 99% of the time nothin' is going on.) So I am not concerned about this and technically I am not on duty yet. I still have 30 minutes.
Finally, a Gang Unit comes on the radio and says he is heading to it. I go ahead and hop on the radio because I don't want him heading to the call alone, and the school is actually on my way to my division.
A minute later he comes on the radio screamin'. Says there are 300-400 people with weapons. Damn!
I am the third or fourth person on scene and these junior high kids are going ape shit. There are about four or five different fights in the parking lot and the officer first on scene is hunched over a boy's body and is being attacked by the crowd.

My coffee goes on my laptop- cause thats the only place for it to go- and I boogie on out of my car, night stick a swingin', yelling at everybody to get back. GET BACK, YOU LIL' SAVAGES WITH BACKPACKS. GET BACK!

Thirty to forty more units arrive and there is OC Spray and tear gas everywhere. Kids are hollering, everybody suddenly has asthma and needs EMSA for exposure to the gas. The other kids are angry at us because their friends have asthma and need EMSA.

An hour goes by and we get everybody dispersed. My face is on fire from the chemicals. Meanwhile, as we wait for parents to come and pick up their kids, I am staring at nothing but bright LED police lights. I am blinded by these things.

I get back in my car and can't see a damn thing. My night vision is gone. So my arm knocks my coffee over and down onto and into my light and siren console. This is the magic box where it all happens at: the bright red, white and blue lights-the woop woop of the siren. It all comes from this black box. I don't know this is where the coffee went to because I can't see anything. All I know is I spilled my coffee and am burning from the tear gas- which will last all night long. Not a good start to the weekend.
This was my first riot.

Because everybody showed up to quell the riot, all the calls for police have gone unanswered for over an hour. So I immediately begin taking calls.

Two hours later a civilian calls police after he spots a man walking around an apartment complex waving a gun around. A police officer spots the man getting into a black truck and tries to pull the man over. He doesn't stop for us and speeds away going about 90 miles an hour northbound on Highway 169. I happen to be a quarter of a mile away whenever this high speed pursuit gets kicked up. I turn my overhead lights on and head that way.

I am third in line in the pursuit. Which means if something happens to either the number one or two officer I will have to call the pursuit. This is my first real pursuit- one that has gone longer than a mile and exceed speeds of 50 mph. I am all excited. I also know that the primary officer chasing the suspect is a coward and won't chase this guy on foot into the darkness. The second officer is really old and ain't doing anything fast on foot. That leaves me...and I mean business.

We exit off the highway and start flying through intersections. I need my sirens blarin' when going through an intersection, so I attempt to turn them on. They don't work. THAT DAMN COFFEE!, I scream to myself. My car's interior begins to fill with electrical smoke. This is NOT what I need right now. This is my first good pursuit. Justice is going to prevail. I roll my windows down to clear the smelly smoke so I can see where I am going. Its really loud going that fast with the windows down, and cold, but it works.

After about ten miles and twenty cop cars later, the suspect takes us into a neighborhood and begins to do circles. This usually means he gonna ditch the car and take off on foot. I undo my seatbelt, preparing myself to run. Suddenly, I hear a dinging. Ding, ding, ding. What the hell is that? I look down and my Fuel Light is on. THAT DAMN FUEL LIGHT!

I had gotten so busy after the riot I forgot to fuel up. And here I was with a decision to make: stay with the suspect and embarrass myself by running out of fuel, or turn my lights off and make a U-turn for gas.

I turn my lights off. Like a dog with its tail between its legs.

Man! Not my night.

-Jeremy