Though I may not completely agree with the way it was handled, I honestly sided with the criminal on this one. There are some things that you just don’t do — but if you do, you get what you deserve.
Chain Reaction
It was my ninth year in Patrol and by that time I started to get the feeling that I’d seen it all. It’s around that nine or ten year mark that things get cyclical. We deal with the same people, go to the same kinds of calls, see the same judges, and we experience the same revolving door of human nature and the justice system. But no matter how much you’ve seen — me, you, all of us — just know that as soon as you think you’ve seen it all, you’re about to get educated. When you get comfortable the streets will show you something new. You can count on it, like some demented law of nature.
The rooming house concept has been around for a couple hundred years, dating back to the 1800’s and the explosive growth of cities during the industrial revolution. It made living in the city affordable since you only paid for your own little room while sharing common spaces like bathrooms, kitchens, and sitting rooms. It was a bad idea then, and it’s a bad idea now. They are a magnet for a motley cast of questionable characters that, when mixed together in a confined space, create a recipe for disaster. Much like a kid tinkering with a chemistry set in the basement and mixing things together that shouldn’t get mixed, it sets off a chain reaction resulting in a mushroom cloud of drama. But hey, rent is cheap, you don’t need television for entertainment because you have a window, and there’s no extra charge for the hallways scented with urine.
Straight Face
And that’s exactly where I found myself as the clock struck midnight — in a rooming house hallway that smelled like urine. I was talking to a grown man in the doorway of his dump of a room where he told me about his near death experience when another tenant threatened him with a Bowie knife. It wasn’t the threat that was unusual, it was the reason behind it that took me by surprise.
The stoic expression that I have been blessed with since birth started to crack as the man’s detailed account of events unfolded before me. It took everything I had to keep a straight face as I sought clarification for the culmination of his story in which he found himself face to face with a giant Bowie knife wielded by a neighbor from down the hall, threatening death and dismemberment should this incident ever occur again.
I Had Questions
Me: Just so I understand, what happened that made him so mad that he came after you with a Bowie knife? You kind of glossed over a part of your story.
Him: Look, I already told you!
Me (fighting to maintain a poker face): I know, I know, but I just want to make sure I understand so I’m clear on this.
Him (frustrated): Like I said before, he came after me because I didn’t flush the toilet! I took a dump and didn’t flush, okay!? And when I came out he was standing there waiting for the bathroom. He went in, shut the door, and when I was like halfway down the hall I could hear him cursing. He barges out of the bathroom, goes down the hall to his room (his room is down the other end) and not two minutes later he’s pounding on my door threatening to kill me!
So now I’m mad. I’m sitting in my room like, ‘What’s his problem?’ So I whip my door open and there he is with a crazy look in his eye, holding a huge knife in my face and yelling, ‘If you take a s*** and don’t flush again I will kill you!’ I slammed the door shut, called 911 and waited for you guys.
Me (trying not to laugh): Okay, so you took a dump, didn’t flush, he found it, and wasn’t too happy about it. Is that about right?
Him (exasperated): And he threatened to kill me!
Me (laughing): Right, right. Sorry. What room is he in?
Him (angry-pointing): Last door on the left!
Another officer and I went down the hall, knocked, and talked to our suspect. He confirmed everything — including dropping the kids off at the pool and leaving them there. He even admitted to grabbing a knife and threatening the other guy with it, and then asked me the obvious question: Wouldn’t you have been ticked?
Yes. Yes I would.
Game Changer
Listen, I can totally empathize with him. Maybe you can, too.
There are few things as aggravating, shocking, and disgusting than when you really have to go and you finally track down a bathroom with mere seconds to spare. You hurriedly shut the door, spin around as you frantically loosen your belt and unbutton your pants only to find yourself gazing upon a clouded pot of brown and gold. It’s an instant game-changer, and not in a good way.
Everything inside you screams like a woke activist, No! No! Noooooooo! Your entire biological system comes to a screeching halt as your limbic brain overrides your medulla oblongata and sends a frantic signal to stop everything. You can’t possibly go now, the risks far outweigh the reward! The risk of splash-back and probably a thousand other horrific possibilities spring up in a tornado of vivid imaginations sending you into a near panic. And so you grit your teeth and clench your cheeks cursing the person who went before you.
Horrible Things
Now you must bundle your flailing belt and sagging pants together with one hand and work the doorknob with the other. You flee for your life and embark on yet another journey to find a more suitable place to answer the call of nature. You navigate hallways, doorways, sidewalks, and streets in search of a safe place to go.
Your mind is preoccupied with all the horrible things you would do to the person who dropped a deuce and left it to marinate, completely shirking their duty to uphold mankind’s universal obligation to common courtesy. Homicidal ideations begin to materialize in your mind — torture, even — but actually threatening to kill that particular someone should you encounter them in the meantime? Definitely.
So ya, I kind of sided with the bad guy on this one.
Life Lessons
In the end, the Bowie knife-wielding neighbor from down the hall had to make the team. And afterward his story made the news.
The arrest for the threat with the knife was necessary since we can’t have people running around shoving knives in people’s faces and threatening to kill them. But at the same time, it’s like offsetting penalties. Hopefully they both learned their respective lessons and won’t do that again.
__________________________
Thanks for reading! Do you have a story that you think we could learn from and that you’d like to share with Johnny Tactical nation? Fill out the contact form and include your name, rank, and department, or email it to [email protected] and follow these guidelines:
– It must be a firsthand account
– True
– Have a lesson, principle, or tactic to apply
– Cleaned of names, dates, and places
– Include your call sign
If your story is selected and published in our blog you’ll get the credit using your call sign and we’ll send you a free Live Tactical t-shirt!
Leave a Reply
Your email is safe with us.
You must be logged in to post a comment.