Officer Shares Two Tales Of Women In The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time
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“I have two stories from my work in the force that really stick in my mind.
The first was an elderly female who I arrested for passing bad checks. She had found her husband deceased lying on the living room floor. I logged her name for the report of the death. Lo and behold up this felony warrant for passing a bad check a few years prior popped. She had zero contact with the law, so it was never taken care of. I tried to let her slide, but my sergeant made me hook her. I was brand new and still on probation, so I did what I was ordered to do. It was the worst transport up to the jail I had had in eight years. What made it worse was how understanding she was.
The second story was not an arrest, but a child custody placement. The call was originally a child custody agreement violation. The mother was refusing to hand her infant child over to the father. When we got to the scene, the female was distraught and completely hysterical. The father showed us court-ordered custody papers for the child granting him full custody.
It turned out that the father was a complete imbecile. He was abusive toward the mother, which included threatening her with a loaded weapon. He ended up leaving her for his young mistress. He had been so controlling over the mother that he never allowed her to work, so when he left, she was basically destitute. The father was able to afford a high priced attorney. The mother was forced to represent herself. He easily won full custody.
Having to physically remove the infant from the mother’s arms and hand him over to the complete scumbag of a father really had me questioning my career choice for a long time.”
“All He Really Wanted Was A Warm Place To Sleep”
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“I had to arrest an Indigenous person for trespassing in a residential lobby, refusing to move, and then assaulting a police officer.
The thing was, it was in the middle of winter and he was homeless. He had only a T-shirt and thin jacket on top, a pair of tattered jeans, and really old and wet-looking running shoes. Thinking back, I did not want to perform any type of eviction in the first place, but my sergeant thought otherwise. He wanted to ‘see what I could do.’
I used verbal commands and, when unsuccessful, shook him awake. He woke up but would not follow direction. I looked at my sergeant and he just gave me the go on with it look. Being a rookie, I did as I was silently commanded. When trying to get the person on his feet, I noticed the strong smell of mouthwash. Then, he spat at me, his mucus landing on the radio mouthpiece on my shoulder. I immediately put him down and cuffed him. Sadly, I broke one of his fingers in the process. He howled with pain.
This arrest lingered with me for a long time. I remember feeling sick to my stomach and incredibly torn about my career choice immediately after. This was somebody’s son, maybe someone’s brother, or father. All he really wanted was a warm place to sleep. Never again did I evict anyone who needed a place to sleep during a cold night.
I felt so lucky to have chosen to move on from law enforcement and into education. I was a law enforcement officer for almost 10 years. I also worked on SWAT and held many specialized posts. However, I can truly say that no career has been more satisfying to me than being able teach young minds and provide social and emotional care for a living. No longer do I have to enforce arbitrary rules that I do not want to enforce. No longer am I be stigmatized as a ‘mindless brute.’ There are amazing officers out there, but it is the few that give the rest of the professionals a bad name.”
A Tale Of A Life Undercover
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“Working the late shift a dozen years ago, one of my co-workers told me a few stories about his and his father’s experiences as state police officers.
When a prominent, but notoriously shady local businessman went missing and a routine investigation went nowhere, the state police sent an undercover officer (my co-worker’s father) to investigate. This guy had a lot of experience posing as criminals in jails and arranging elaborate cons to trick people into confessions.
He did some investigating and quickly honed in on this guy’s petite little wife. He posed as a criminal looking for repayment of a debt from her husband and began coming around, pressing her for answers about her husband’s disappearance. It took him months of visits to build some trust, but still she did not reveal anything about her husband’s disappearance. She did talk often of the pressure that the district attorney had been placing on her, however.
Finally, he came up with an extremely elaborate con. He arranged for a pregnant female judicial employee along with the district attorney to stage a meeting at a seedy local hotel for the undercover officer and the wife to ‘witness.’ The officer had convinced the wife that the district attorney had impregnated an employee and he was there to record their encounter in order to blackmail him. She believed him and finally trusted him enough to reveal what happened.
Her husband had been abusing her for years and she had enough. They lived in a rural area. She spent weeks digging up an old stump in the front yard. One evening, when her husband came home and sat on the edge of the bed to remove his boots – BLAM. He got a double barrel to the chest. He had not noticed that she had placed a plastic tarp under the comforter.
What she did to move the body was classic. She tied up his body and the comforter with the plastic tarp and ran the rope out to the toe hitch on her pickup. She drove extremely slowly dragging the body through the house, out the door and across the yard. If the body got stuck on the wall or a corner, she would go in and physically do what she could to move it. Eventually, she got it out to the old stump in the yard, used the truck to move the stump to one side, and dumped the body underneath.
He arrested her, of course, but felt so bad, due to the abuse she had suffered, that he testified on her behalf and was instrumental in getting her a very much reduced sentence.”
Young Woman Is Thrown Into A Criminal World, One Cop Tries To Find The Men Responsible
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“My dad had to arrest an underage streetwalker who had no family and was abused by the ‘underworld.’ She was 16, almost 17 when she was arrested. She was an orphan and there were apparently orphanages in Eastern European countries that would sell the girls for 2-3K Euros. Additionally, she had a minor illicit substance charge against her. She was sent to a youth penitentiary of some sort. My father had control over her file and also was on the case to arrest the importers. We are from Belgium and have had a lot of Eastern European men importing and abusing underage girls.
She cooperated in my father’s case. They got closer to the practices, but could not get any names. The importers used false aliases. They only managed to get a few robot photos.
She was under guidance until she was released at 18. But, the whole time, she was afraid. She also lacked intelligence. She had probably never gone to high school. She had a limited vocabulary in her own language – Romanian. My father sent a colleague to the Romanian embassy in Belgium and later sent him to Romania for cooperation with the Romanian police.
The sad part is, as heard by my father’s colleague, the Romanian police didn’t take the case seriously and joked around that she would be just a gypsy girl. They didn’t have time to research the human trafficking problem, especially when the girl didn’t have a Romanian ID card, nor could they find her name in their register. Even the orphanage where she came from did not exist. Perhaps she was lying out of fear, but she claimed one of her female friends died during their way to Belgium and they threw her body away on the roadside.
When the girl turned 18, she was free. A couple of hours after her release, she committed suicide. My dad is doing his job, but I can tell he feels really terrible when he deals with stuff like this. It is especially difficult when he has a daughter about the same age as the underaged women sold into this kind of business. It is a mad world.”
She Was Supposed To Drop Her Grandson Off At Daycare
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“My father is a cop. This is one of his arrest stories.
There was a little boy who died in the back seat of his grandmother’s car when she forgot he was there. She had been on night shift and her daughter had dropped her grandson off to be taken to daycare. Normally, the grandmother wouldn’t take him. It was outside of her normal routine. She was also almost completely deaf. She drove home, went for a nap, woke up and went to pick the little boy up from daycare. It wasn’t until they told her that he hadn’t arrived that day that she remembered he was still in her back seat. He had been dead for hours.
It is easy to wonder how you could possibly forget about a child in the back seat, but all of the things I’ve totally forgotten about, as a young, well-rested person with all five of my senses, I don’t know.
I have never felt worse for someone in the history of my dad’s arrest stories. That poor woman has to be destroying herself for that mistake.”
The Bar Patron Was Innocent, But The Cop Was Forced To Arrest Him
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“There was a man just walking down the street on his way home from the bar. He was not bothering anyone. He was just trying to get home.
My police officer friend decided to see what he was up to and then let him be. Soon after, my buddy’s superior officer showed up and told him his tickets/arrests for the month were low. There was a new quota ticket system in place that my friend really did not agree with. His superior told him to turn around and arrest/ticket the man for being inebriated in public, so he did. He said he felt really bad about it and regretted it.
My friend ended up quitting after that. He just realized that was not what ‘protecting and serving’ was all about. Since then, he fought to reverse the ticket quota system in court.”
A Child In Need Denied By The System
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“I work in a law enforcement career in which we deal with immigrants. Most of the time, they have visas, we process them, and they stay legally for a couple months before they go home. Occasionally, we will run into one who has stayed a little longer than allowed on their previous entry or perhaps worked without a visa. They get refused entry and there is a lot of paperwork that goes along with that.
One day, a young woman walked up to me pushing one of those large strollers meant for handicapped children. In the stroller was a cute little kid who could not have been more than 3 years old. It was pretty obvious that he had some developmental issues. He had tubes coming out of his nose, a bit of drool, and a far-off look.
I processed her paperwork and found out that she gave birth to the child while in this country. As a result of some complications, she stayed longer than the period of time she was allowed. A lot longer. Over two years too long. On top of that, she used state-subsidized funds to pay for this child’s birth and medical care. You cannot do that if you are a visitor.
She was coming back to have a follow-up doctor visit for the child’s condition. She had no money and the state was paying for it too. The real issue, though, was that she stayed for so long out of status that there was no way to get around it.
I had to do the paperwork to send this mother back to where she came from. If I sent this mother back to where she came from, we would have had to cancel her visa. If we cancelled the visa, she would not be able to come back. Additionally, that specialized care her child was getting? Well, now, there would be nobody to bring him back for follow up visits. Nobody to help him continue his care. She had no family there to help. The progress he had made, although slight, would have come to an end.
While I was struggling with that emotional roller coaster and processing the paperwork, she told me that she needed to take a break because she needed to change her son’s colostomy bag. The poor kid had zero control of his bodily functions. She started the process of changing him and I could see a smile slightly come across his face. Was it because he knew his mother was about to make him feel better? I don’t know, but I never saw the smile again. That poor kid. He was such a mess and I was the prick that was going to make it almost impossible for his mother to bring him back here for the help he needed.
The whole time I was getting a statement from her, the kid was there in the corner, dozing lightly and I could not help but look at him. So peaceful, yet so lost. Toward the end of the interview at which point I told her how she messed up and why her visa would be cancelled, it hit her what this meant for her child’s future care. She broke down. Full on crying. I had never felt so miserable in my job. It was god awful. But I could not change it. It was not my decision at this point. It never was my decision.
At the end of the day, we refused her entry but did allow for her to come in for a week for the doctor’s appointment on the condition that she would leave immediately after. She did leave too, with her son. I had to verify that. We told her to explain what happened to the folks at the embassy back home and maybe they would give her a visa to come back and continue her child’s treatment. But visas are rarely reissued if one is cancelled.
To this day, I am torn apart about that poor kid. That situation made me question everything that I do. I know why I did what I did. I know the reason behind it. But I think it is fair to say that I died a little inside that day.”
A Probation Officer Shares His Most Upsetting Story
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“I am a probation officer, rather than a cop, but I have one story that, to this day, makes me a little bit sad and angry with the criminal justice system. To be honest, this case was like none other I had ever dealt with. I have had hundreds of clients, but he is the only one whom I have had to really think hard about, regarding what would I have done in his situation. It was a weird one for me.
This guy was at the mall with his girlfriend on a high up floor with a balcony. Suddenly, a fight broke out between two groups of guys. Security rushed in to break it up. Even though they were not part of the fight, one of the guards grabbed the guy’s partner, shoved her right up to the railings, which were about 50 feet above the ground, and started twisting her arm so that she ends up hanging over the bars from her hips, trying to keep from ending up with a broken arm.
The young boyfriend saw this and flipped out seeing the girl he loved screaming in pain. He ran over and tore the security guard off her, and proceeded to beat him unconscious. The young man was charged with assault. His lawyer was good and managed to get it down from a Section 18, which would have meant jail time.
Instead of going to jail, he got a two-year probation order, with some courses thrown in there. He had never been in trouble before and had not been since. When I spoke to his previous school teachers, they said he had never even been in a fight at school and was a straight-A student. He was one of the nicest, most innocent young men I had ever worked with. He never should have been in trouble. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, I guess. I was glad when I was able sign him off because every time I had a meeting with him, I could only think that I probably would have done the exact same thing as he. He did well after probation, has a full-time job and I think he’s getting married to said girl soon.”
No More Lonely Nights
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“My mother was working vice as an undercover streetwalker. This lonely guy drove up to her on the corner. The poor guy told her that it was his birthday and he did not want to spend it alone. She kept trying to talk him out of it and told him to go home. The guy would not take no for an answer.”
A Sad Story Has A Happy Ending
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“I knew someone in school, I’ll call him Steve, who got arrested for beating down his mother’s boyfriend at the time. The guy was forcing Steve’s mother into hard substances and made her sell for him at one point, and one day Steve walked into his mother’s room to the guy choking her out for talking back at him.
Steve kicked the living daylights out of him but his own mother called the police and pressed charges against her son because she was so afraid of her boyfriend. The officers that responded knew Steve’s situation but had to follow the call. I spoke to him at length about this not too long ago and he said that all the officers treated him with respect and we’re outwardly apologetic for having to arrest him. I think the charges were dropped, thankfully.
Steve told me the last he heard of his mother’s now ex-boyfriend is that someone burned his face with petrol and he’s totally disfigured now. His mother is with another guy who’s helping her start an antique shop apparently, so smiles all around.”
After Hearing Her Story, This Cop Wanted To Let The Woman Go Right Then
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“I once arrested a deaf woman who decided to steal a couple purses that were valued at thousands of dollars a piece. She told me her story on the way to jail.
Her son had just died in a tragic accident and her husband died recently as well. She said she saw the purses in a commercial and thought they would make her feel better. I just wanted to open the door and let her go right then.
Once we got to jail, there was a printed warning on the sally port door that told all the incoming inmates that any type of inappropriate touching or violating another inmate was strictly prohibited. She looked at the sign and looked at me with tears in her eyes.
‘That’s not going to happen to me is it?’ she asked me.
That is one of many stories I have. I really hate bringing good people to jail. We all make mistakes.”
She Had No Idea What She Was Getting Herself Into
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“There was a shoplifting at Walmart in my city. It was a guy and his girlfriend that did it. He was entering his 40s and she was in her early 20s. She had previously suffered from a traumatic brain injury after a tractor ran over her head when she was younger. Her developmental and cognitive skills were affected by it. She had the brain capacity of an eight-year-old (her parents’ words, not mine).
The boyfriend was really manipulative and used the fact that she was challenged to his advantage. He lied to her and told her his name was ‘Gary’ when, in actuality, it was ‘David.’ Somehow, someway, he talked her into going with him while he stole some stuff from Walmart. When they were initially confronted about it by a store rep, they ran for it. They got in their piece of junk truck and took off. One of our officers spotted them right as the call went through. He was able to maintain visual contact with them and pursue.
The guy started driving all through the streets trying to lose our guys, but it was apparent that he did not know the city very well. He would take dead ends and hop the curb or take streets that led right back to where we had already been. He even made it out of our city twice, and into two separate cities, and came right on back. He finally took a curb too fast and blew out a couple of his tires. He ended up coming to a stop in a big open field, behind the Walmart he had just stolen from.
By this time, not only did we have a number of officers on this pursuit, we had the neighboring city, the sheriff’s department, and even a state trooper. Weapons were drawn and they went to make contact with the driver. His window was broken in. He put up a struggle, but one officer used his taser. After our officers grabbed this guy and started pulling him out, the girl grabbed onto him and started pulling. At that time, another officer started breaking her window and pulling her out by the hair.
It was not until about two hours later when it sunk in that this girl was mentally handicapped and she was catching a felony along with her dirt bag of a boyfriend. It all came out later on when we were asking him his name and date of birth. We get skeptical about that information and decided to identify him by fingerprint. We found out his real name and that he had felony warrants from neighboring states.
It was a catastrophe to her. She was furious and saddened at the same time that he would lie, and continue to lie, to her about something so small like a name. She just did not know how to handle this and did not think she had done anything wrong because he kept lying to her and telling her that what she was doing was right. It was really sad.”
“This Is Incredibly Stupid, But I Have To Place You Under Arrest”
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“I was on the receiving end of this arrest, but I know the officer felt bad about it because he said so.
It was back in high school. Four friends and I were out one night goofing off in our suburb when we decided to prank a girl we knew. She had been our friend until we found out that she was spreading nasty rumors about each of us, as well as some of our other friends. In my case, she had told the best friend of a girl that I had almost managed to make into my first girlfriend that all I wanted was to get some. I would have been happy for a girl to just hold my hand, but whatever.
So we went to her house and found a recycling bin full of newspapers, as well as an old sack lunch, and decided that it was all we needed. We put the dry newspapers all over her car until it was nearly covered. I put some apple slices that were left in the bag on her car as well. Thinking we got away with it, we scampered off into the night.
It turned out we were not so lucky. The girl had called the cops and wanted to press charges. She also claimed the apple slices were a death threat because we apparently knew (we did not) that she was allergic to apples. We would later see her eating apples.
The next day at school my friends and I received the dark red office notes and went in to face the music. When I got to the office, they sent me back to the principal and he had a cop with him. The first thing the cop said to me was, ‘I really wish that I didn’t have to do this because it is incredibly stupid, but I have to place you under arrest.’
It turned out that I was guilty of criminal mischief III. Thankfully, my diversion counselor said that I just needed better things to do with my time and got it removed from my record.”