Today, while on the way to a priority call, I was driving Code Three west on E 49th Ave when I came up to a red light light at another main intersection.  Traffic was very heavy but I was going as slowly as I needed to and I crept up on the intersection, clearing each lane of opposing traffic as I went.  The siren on my truck is very loud – loud enough for pedestrians to cover their ears and turn their heads away.  The lights on my truck light up like a Christmas tree and are very visible even in bright afternoon sunlight.

Five of the six lanes of opposing traffic stopped for me.  One lane did not.  The only reason the woman driving the fancy SUV did not see or hear me had to have been the cell phone pressed up to her ear.  She blathered on, chatting into her phone as she sailed passed the nose of my truck at 60 kilometers an hour.  She didn’t flinch, startle or even notice the blaring siren and flashing lights only a few feet to her left – she was completely oblivious!!  So incredibly frustrating!!

She drove off on her merry way and I let loose with a volley of words usually associated with swarthy pirates drunken sailors.  With more pressing issues at hand I did not get the license plate number on the SUV, and I carried on to the priority call.

I’m one for education and I more often give warnings instead of tickets, but this?  Give me a break!

————

Alright….I’m all better now….just had to get that off my chest.  :)

By all appearances it appeared to be a robbery.

I caught up to car only because the driver pulled into a parking lot and when I came up behind him with my blue and reds flashing, the driver got out of the car with his arms extended out to the sides.

“What the hell? I didn’t do anything, go pick on someone else!” he shouted. “F****** cops! Don’t you have anything better to do?”

Behind him, his car door was open.  A pitbull sat on the front passenger seat and a large pittbull/mastiff cross was in the back.  Both dogs were looking at their owner, and while the pitbull appeared bored the cross breed in the back was on high alert.  The dog was growing increasingly agitated and was starting to growl.  Not good.

I stood in the V of my open door as the man stalked towards my car, still shouting, and I had to shout back to be heard.  It wasn’t until he got closer that he saw the black police dog staring at him from between the front seats of my SUV.

“Ooo, you have a dog.  Well, I have two,” he said.  I think he was trying to sound threatening but some of the aggression went out of his demeanour when I replied.

“That’s nice.  My one trumps your two so close the door to your car.”

He squinted his eyes at me, then walked backwards and clunked the door shut.  The cross breed went absolutely berzerk.

In the background sirens were growing closer and I instructed the driver to place his hands on the hood of my truck.  He did so, reluctantly, and kept up his loud diatribe as if trying to squeeze all the injustices of the world into the next few seconds before additional police arrived.  That was fine.  He could say whatever he wanted as long as he did what I said. 

A minute later the driver was in handcuffs and the parking lot was swarming with police cars.

Turns out the driver had had an altercation with staff at the gas station, and while he did have some anger management issues he wasn’t a criminal – he hadn’t robbed the place.  He had simply turned his rage at the gas station attendant towards me.  Again, that was fine - I’d rather he rage at a police officer than at some other innocent person.

The appearance of the extra officers and the steel on his wrists had the desired effect and the rest of his aggression dissipated until the driver was polite as could be.  Yes-ma’am, No ma’am, I’m-sorry-ma’am. 

The litany kept up until I issued him a ticket, at which point he fell silent, his shoulders slumped as he took in the hefty fine. Then he was allowed to proceed, which he did so at a considerably more reasonable speed.

The dogs were very little and neither was on a leash (don’t get me started…), and while the Wife had her little pooch at a neat heel her Husband was having a heck of a time getting his pint size furball to listen to him; the dog had found something interesting to sniff at and no amount of calling could entice it to join him.

The Husband finally crossed the street without the dog and stood on the opposite sidewalk calling to it.  I watched with some amusement while wondering who was training whom and thought the Husband and dog could use a few lessons in an obedience class, when finally, the little dog started to cross the street.

Just as another car was coming in the opposite direction. 

The car was really moving and the Husband saw it; he stepped into the road, waving his arms in a frantic stop gesture, trying to get the lady behind the wheel to at least slow down.

She didn’t.  She sped up, swerved around the Husband, nearly flattened the dog (she missed but it was close enough that I winced at the expected impact) and careened off down the street.

I waited a moment for the Husband to dart out and grab his dog before I went after the car.   I’d like to be polite about this, but there is no other way to say this – that lady driver was a piece of work. 

She was clearly angry at being pulled over and made a point of looking at her watch when I approached her window.  Our conversation went something like this:

Me:  “Vancouver Police.  Driver’s license and vehicle registration please.”

Driver:  silence as she dug out her wallet and other papers, which she handed over with a snap of her wrist 

Me:  “Do you know why I pulled you over?” (I know, it’s sort of a silly question, but I like to hear what people have to say)

Driver:  “I was going a little fast.  I’m late for an appointment.” 

Me:  “Those two pedestrians back there, the ones you went around?  You almost hit their dog.”

Driver:  “Dog? I saw their dog – it was on the sidewalk.  They had plenty of room.” 

Me:  “They had two dogs.  You didn’t see the other one.  You almost hit it when you went around them.  Those people were waving their arms around like that for a reason.”

Driver:  more silence and another look at her watch

At this point I walked back to my car.  I had to cool off before I said something I shouldn’t have.  The lady seemed not to care.  I checked her license, finished the traffic stop and sent the woman on her way with some extra paper (no further education there, I’m afraid), and went back to find the dog walkers.

After driving around the block it was clear they had gone.  Their dogs were okay, at least until their next walkies.  And I’ll tell you one thing – I wouldn’t have liked to have been the Husband on that walk home!

Like this guy.  He was so determined to evade arrest he attempted to scale the outside of a glass building by tying his bed sheets together and lowering himself out the window.

I’m not kidding.  You cannot make this stuff up.

Too bad his knot tying skills did not pass the Boy Scout test – the sheets unravelled and he fell the last few stories:

He survived, of course, or I would not be posting this.  He was bit banged up, but he was walking (sort of) and talking when we caught up to him.  I hope he avoids this stunt in the future, because even though he may have improved his rope skills, I don’t think he realised how close he came to falling anyways.  The following photo shows what the man anchored the sheets to – the opening mechanism on the window.  Check out the teeny-tiny little screws holding the window hardware in place.  Only two were still secure:

Should he be nominated for a Darwin Award?  I definitely think so!

The man went missing a few months ago.  No one knew where he was and there were no leads.  I checked on the file to see if he had turned up or if he had contacted anyone. Of all the distraught and lost people I’ve dealt with, I was really rooting for this guy.

Last month, a body was recovered from the river not far from the bridge.  It had been in the water for a while.

It was identified.  It was him.

Here’s the difference – if a person is aggressive towards a police officer, the officer has many options, the least of which is having radio contact to dozens of other officers.   A bus driver, on the other hand, is at a disadvantage as he or she is seated behind the wheel of a large, somewhat cumbersome vehicle. The main door is to the driver’s right and a small window is to the driver’s left.  It is in this confined space that bus drivers are occasionally confronted by angry, intoxicated or just plain mean passengers.  Even though the bus driver has access to communication by either radio or phone, he or she does not have access to the ‘tools’ police officers are privy to (handcuffs, OC spray, baton) and there have been incidents where drivers have been assaulted and injured.  Steps are being taken to mitigate the risks to drivers, with cameras being installed on buses, proposed safety shields around the driver compartment, and increased security and police presence at bus loops and skytrain stations.  All of these steps are welcome and needed, but the drivers out on isolated routes are still at risk.

Take, for instance, the bus driver who flagged me down last summer.  I was parked at the side of the road writing a report when honking drew my attention to a bus stopped a short distance away. The driver was waving his arm out of the window in a ‘get over here’ motion.  A glance at the bus showed there were about a dozen people on board.  Wondering what the driver wanted, I parked in front of the bus, got out and started back to towards the driver.  Then I saw the reason for the driver’s frantically waving arm.  There was a very large, very angry man storming up and down the main aisle, yelling, swinging off the hand-hold bars and intimidating everyone on the bus.

I radiod in the disturbance and returned to my truck to get PSD Hondo.  In the few moments it took me to do this the man had made his way to the front of the bus.  The man’s body was hunched in anger, his shoulders tense and his face distorted as he screamed obscenities at the driver.  The front door opened as I approached and I yelled up to the man to come outside and talk to me instead.

The man turned.  His face was flushed, his eyes were red and glassy and his speech was slurred with intoxication.  He looked in my direction; the man was huge and outweighed me by about 100 pounds.  His first comments had to do with the notion that he’d rather be wrangling with a tall blond versus the male bus driver.  He got off the bus and took a few staggered steps towards me seemingly intent on making his physical introduction. 

Did I feel threatened?  Yes.  Did I know this big man could seriously hurt me?  Hell, yes.  That’s when I took a multiple steps backwards and gave Hondo a command, to which my dog  responded by springing forward to the end of his leash, barking his own warning at the approaching man.

The man stopped.  He stood there, yelling and waving his arms around, swinging his big ham-fists towards both me and Hondo, saying he was going to seriously mess us up (in more ways than one).  I requested that my cover units step it up a bit and retreated a few more steps, all the while trying to talk the guy down.  By this time, Hondo was in a frenzy, rearing up onto his back legs at the man’s repeated air punches – the guy would knock my head clear of my shoulders if one of those punches landed.  I could have engaged him at that point but I thought it wiser and safer to create more distance and wait.

Sirens were growing louder when the man lowered his arms, which was somehow worse – his shoulders were still hunched, his hands were still balled into fists, and he was standing on his toes as if weighing his chances of getting to me before my cover units got to him.  That’s when I growled at him.

“You take one more step and I’m letting the dog go.”

The man looked at the barking dog and visibly weighed his chances again (Tall blond = good. Big dog in protection mode = not so good).  The man tipped his head to the side, his lips pressed into a thin line.  Then he turned his back on us and put his hands behind his back.

Just like that. 

We stood in this plateau until additional units arrived to handcuff the man and transport him away.  Afterwards, I spoke to the bus driver, who thanked all of us for helping get the intoxicated and violent man off of his bus.  My own nerves were still singing with adrenalin and I could not help but think of how intimidating the man must have been to the group of passengers and to the driver.  Then it my turn to thank the bus driver for doing what he does, which is to deal with the public everyday and in every possible situation. 

For doing a job I couldn’t do, and for doing it well.

For a new police officer (and for some more experienced ones as well) learning to harness your excitement while feeling the effects of ’adrenaline dump’ can be difficult.  Last year, I talked about combat breathing and how to control your breathing in an effort to control your body’s response to the elevated heart rate, tunnel vision, loss of fine motor skills, auditory exclusion and difficulty in communication side effects of being in a fight-or-flight situation.  I linked to two expert articles on the techniques of combat breathing, and they are worth a read if you haven’t already done so.

Sometimes, an emergent situation unfolds in an instant and there is no time to do any except to act/react in the pure fundamental way your ability and training leads you to.  The only thing you can do about these situations is to train, train, train, and to mentally prepare yourself by regularly going through ‘what-if’ scenarios in your head.  Visualize what you would do if someone tried to disarm you, or assault you, or ambush you. Read articles, watch videos and review reports where other officers have faced life and death struggles.  Learn from their successes and from their failures.  Situations where an officer has lost the battle are excellent learning tools.  Do not let those officer’s deaths be for nothing – learn from them so it doesn’t happen again.

Then there are situations where responding officers are granted a little more time to take into account facts and nuances of the call.  This is when officers need to harness their excitement and communicate effectively with one another.  Do not let the adrenalin dump become your downfall, especially when given the grace of a few extra seconds/minutes.

Two examples of harnessing excitement come to mind:

1) An officer was involved in a pursuit of a stolen vehicle used in a serious crime.  The officer was giving location updates, speeds and directions of travel.  This is good.  The officer was also trying to control his breathing.  This is also good.  The reason I know the officer was trying to control his breathing was because he was holding his radio-mic open and the heavy, systematic breaths were audible for all to hear.  Was this the result of fine motor skill loss?  Probably.  That, and the officer was in the middle of overcoming the adrenalin rushing through his system.  He had the time (albiet only a short time) to get himself under control and he did a really good job, releasing his mic after a few moments. His next broadcasts were more calm.

2) Another officer was involved in an in-progress incident.  The excitement in the officer’s voice was clear, but she kept her head about her and was able to give her location and communicate effectively about where responding units needed to get to.  It’s okay to be exciteed – just get it under control and use it to your advantage like this officer did.

There are times when an officer is overwhelmed by circumstance.  It happens, to rookies and veterans alike.  But it doesn’t ALWAYS have to happen.  Train, be alert and be smart about your approach to calls.  Assess the situation, wait for back-up if required/needed and use your resources. 

Most of all, focus on staying calm – you are doing no one any favours if you run around like Chicken Little.

As Hondo and I have been unable to partake in the catching of crooks due to Hondo’s recovery, we have been living vicariously through the working lives of our K9 comrades.  And what a few weeks it has been.

I am not able to get into specifics as most of the incidents are now before the courts, but trust me when I say the rest of the guys and dogs in the Squad have been working double time and have been making some spectacular arrests.  My only sour point is that Hondo and I have been observers, not active participants….but that’s my issue, not yours. 

Earlier this week our Media Section released  information about an incident that took place in the early hours of Sunday, April 12th:

April 12th, 2:00 a.m. – Seven men are facing charges of break and enter after a Canada Line employee witnessed them in the process of stealing copper cables from a B.C. Hydro Substation in the 400 block of Kent Street. It took the combined efforts of three VPD police dogs, “Chase,” “Blix” and “Koda,” and several patrol officers to make the arrests.

The Canada Line employee was checking the Canada Line tracks above the substation when he saw several men inside the B.C. Hydro yard below him loading copper wire into a van. The van drove off as he got on the phone to 9-1-1 to report the suspicious circumstance. Police were dispatched and set up containment around the site moments later. The sounds of banging metal could be heard inside the yard as the three police canine units moved in and began a search of the substation yard and surrounding grounds.

Over the next few minutes, seven men were taken into custody as they attempted to escape over the fence after being spotted by police. The police dogs apprehended three of the men, three others surrendered and one man was arrested as he exited the compound.

An examination of the yard revealed that the thieves had cut through the chain-link fence and were in the process of stripping large cables to get at the copper inside. Numerous tools and hacksaws were recovered by police.

The theft will cost B.C. Hydro, or specifically its ratepayers, about 2.8 million dollars.  A damaged special submarine cable will need to be replaced at a cost of 2.7 million and a $100,000 cable has not yet been recovered.

“The bigger concern is public safety,” says Dag Sharman from B.C. Hydro.  “Thieves put their lives at risk, but they also put the lives of first responders at risk.  Our staff who arrive at work and aren’t aware that wires and equipment have been tampered with are also in danger, as is the public who may come into contact with live wires.”

“If you see a power line down, stay at least 10 metres away,” says Sharman. “Call B.C. Hydro at 1-888-POWER-ON.”        

Sergeant John Rennie of the VPD’s Property Crime Unit, says metal theft is taken very seriously by the Department.  “We have the Xtract program, in which all secondhand dealers, pawn shops and scrap dealers have to report all transactions.  We’re also involved with Scrap-watch, where scrap dealers report any suspicions to police and to each other.”

The three dog teams and the patrol officers involved in this incident successfully arrested several suspects.  Incidents like this happen on a regular basis – albeit, three dog teams all getting arrests in the same call is a bit of a rarity, and if I said I wasn’t a bit jealous I’d be lying. 

This call is an example of how great work by patrol units, good calls by an NCO (supervisor), and a team effort on behalf of the dog teams and support units resulted in a successful conclusion. 

I could share with you on a weekly basis the excellent work my fellow dog teams do (like the other week when a couple of em caught a bank robber or when a solo handler apprehended a violent assault suspect), but most of the guys like to stay below the radar.  As it is, I’m sure I’ll get a little flack for writing about these three dog teams, but really, these guys are my brothers, and if I can’t take advantage of a little media attention and spout off about their good work, then who can? 

Good job, boys.

In the months leading up to my assignment to the K9 section I worked in patrol.  My regular partner was street smart, intelligent, tactical and funny. Looking back, we learned a lot from one another and I’m of the firm belief all good partnerships should be based on a solid friendship. 

This particular partner and I had a fairly set routine.  Go to the squad briefing, get our car and radios, organize our gear, head out on the road, grab a coffee and hopefully grab a good call.  If the radio was hopping it boded well for a busy night, and sometimes the java-to-go was the only reprieve we would see all shift.

One night we headed to our regular coffee shop and were walking back to the car with steaming cups in hand when the call came in.  A man with a gun, in a gravel lot near a busy intersection, shooting at something just out of the witness’s view.  The call taker could hear the shots over the phone, so we knew the gun was real as bbguns typically don’t make much racket.

We got to our car in a flat out sprint and I dropped my coffee into the single cup holder.  My partner dumped his coffee on the sidewalk and barely had time to get his door closed before I put the car in gear and sped off.  As we raced to the scene a single officer broadcast that he was challenging the suspect at gunpoint.  The shooting had stopped, for the moment, but tension was high as the suspect refused to drop his weapon.

We were the next to arrive and I carved the squad car into a tight circle to better afford us and the single officer a position of cover.  At this point, my partner let out a yell.  He had done this before, given a ‘war cry’, but his timing in this case was brutal and the attached high note resulted in me filing the incident away for later discussion.

A short time later the suspect was lying on the gravel, his hands cuffed behind his back, his .9mm handgun unloaded and on the hood of our car.  The gun was real, the single magazine partially empty.  There was a home made target on the far cinder block wall.  Half a dozen holes had ripped through the paper and an equal number of bullet casings were scattered on the ground near the now prone suspect.

The suspect, who was not the most intelligent person I have ever had the opportunity to speak with, purchased the gun on the black market and wanted to see how his marksmanship skills were.  Instead of going to a remote location as would be expected if in possession of an illegally acquired hand gun, this twit decided an empty lot near the epicenter of Vancouver would suffice just fine.  Does this qualify him for a nomination into the Darwin Awards?  I think it might.

The suspect was carted off to jail.  His gun was bagged and tagged.  The scene was secure, no one was hurt.

Actually, let me clarify that.  My partner suffered a minor injury on the way to the call. It seems my coffee cup tipped when I pulled the car into that tight little circle and spilled its excruciatingly hot liquid down the side of my partners leg and across his groin.  Thus, the high pitched yell.  He showed me the side of his leg where the skin had turned a bright pink.  Ouch.

He gingerly sat back in our car, complaining that his ‘boys’ had been parboiled.  Judging by the burn mark on his leg I suspected his twins were in some amount of pain. I drove him back to the station so he could take inventory as to his future ability to father children, and I’m proud to say I held off with any laughter until he limped off to the locker room.

So even though this story has a bit of humour it illustrates the mind set of a person intent on surviving a call.  Even though subjected to a sudden and very nasty jolt to his nether regions, my partner was able to stay on task, deal with a potentially deadly encounter, and see the incident through to a successful conclusion.

Now THAT, my friends, is what I call warrior mind set.

Squirrels, cats, rodents – you name it.  If it’s small and furry, my dog is interested. Unless, of course, I see the little critter first.  Then it’s “Yes mom, okay mom, whatever you say mom.  Me?  Noooo, I didn’t even notice the squirrel/cat/rodent!”

We also have a cat at home.  Hondo has learned the old black tom-cat is off limits, but it’s still a balancing act.  We have to ‘clear the house’ when one or the other is coming inside to ensure the two do not meet, as I’ve seen the way my dog looks at the cat when he thinks I’m not paying attention.

————

Two summers ago, PD Hondo and I responded to a break and enter.  As we approached the victim residence I noticed two tabby cats sitting on a short cement wall adjacent to the path we were on.  Knowing the cats might be a temporary distraction for my dog, I placed PD Hondo in a ‘down’ and went to shoo the cats away.

But the cats would have none of it.  Instead, they wanted to play. 

First, I tossed a small rock at them thinking the incoming missile would cause them to scatter.  But no.  The two cats batted the rock between them as if they had just been given a new present.

The next rock wasn’t hurled with such a gentle touch, but the end result was the same.  Two cats playing ping-pong.  I didn’t have the heart the really chuck one at them, so instead I advanced, withdrew my ASP baton and flicked it open, thinking the loud ratcheting noise would make them run off.

But again, no.  The two felines sat up and took notice, and when I prodded them with my now extended baton they simply sat back on their haunches and pawed the end of the metal rod.

Great. 

So I found a way around them, and soon PD Hondo and I were off on a track.

What I didn’t realise was that Feline #1 and his buddy, Feline #2, obviously thought we were their new playmates. As we tracked down one side of a thick hedge the cats, unbeknownst to me, kept pace with us on the other side.  When we got to the end, Feline #1 jumped out in “Ta Dah!!” fashion, mere inches from the end of Hondo’s snout.

Hondo went for it.  I yelled and pulled back on his leash, dragging my dog away from the friendly feline while at the same time admonishing my dog for being so foolish.  I thought all was going to be okay as Feline #1 ran away, it’s tail straight upright in indignation.  We were resuming with our track when Feline #2 intervened.

Have you seen the movie Shrek?  You remember the character Puss-in-Boots?  Then you know what we faced.

With an ear splitting yeowl, Feline #2 launched and firmly attached itself to Hondo’s head.  All twenty claws grabbed purchase in my dog’s thick coat and the damn kitty hung on for what equated to an eight second ride.

Hondo went completely crazy, thrashing his head around, snapping his jaws, spit flying everywhere as he tried to get the demon off of his head.  I worked my way up the line, grabbed Hondo’s collar to control his head, and used my boot to pry the cat off.  The cat jumped in the way only cats can, and landed a few feet off to the side.

Instantly, the little bugger puffed itself up, turned sideways, arched its back, and advanced on us in short, stiff-legged bursts of speed.  I retreated backwards down the sidewalk, yanking Hondo with me, knowing that if he got a hold of the cat all nine of its lives with be used up in one fell swoop.  If anything, the cat was a good example of how to use cover, as it darted from the tree on one side of the walkway to the mail box on the other side, while springing forward every few seconds on it’s hind legs to swish it’s front paws around in Kung-Fu Kitty fashion.  I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or pepper spray the little guy – I was a bit worried it was going to bite me on one of its runs at my legs.

I ended up laughing, admiring the cats fearless protection of its partner.  With some degree of respect, I waited for the feline to walk away, which it did quite suddenly as if it had decided we were no longer worth the effort.

As the cat disappeared into the dark with a flick of it’s tail, Hondo and gathered ourselves together. I took a look around to make sure no one had caught the entire episode on film and was relieved to see the caterwauling and dog growls had not awoken anyone.

It’s one thing for me to tell the story but to have actual footage?  How embarrassing!