It was a regular hot and sweaty typical night on third shift in District 5. Everyone checked in with the roll call sergeant then sat down to go over reports from the past hours. It’s called going over your boards to get you up to date over everything that occurred in your squad area. In addition, there are reports on newly wanted people that might be in your area. The sergeant got up and went over several novel items of concern. Then finally we stood up and had firearms inspection to check on your personal weapon and make sure it was ready for the night. We then went out to the squad to check all the equipment was operating properly. Then it was time to go out on patrol for the night. Usually, one partner drove the first four hours then we trade off with the second partner driving the second four hours.
Tonight, I drove the first four hours and we got an assignment right away from the dispatcher. We got an auto accident with injuries. Once at the accident it was a two-car collision with three people injured needing hospital care. Three ambulances were called to convey our injured for treatment. Normally we had to wait for tows on vehicles that could not be driven, then went to the hospital later to check on injuries. After the tow of the vehicles, we got a call to check on additional information from a previous assignment. We went to the residence, and it was some of the people in our squad area that we had talked with before. They advised us the shooting at the house last night was going to heat up again tonight. The people in the corner house want to get revenge so it will be coming soon. We thanked them for the information and advised we would be checking to try and keep things quiet.
Our next call for a burglar alarm at a store. We responded and the store looked secure at this time. Now we had to wait for a key to check the interior. It came shortly and checking the inside showed everything was fine inside. We later checked at the hospital on injuries for our accident reports. If it is quiet out, you can sometimes go into the station to start your reports. Some reports must be done that night, and some could wait a little later. Since we had injuries, these reports had to be completed tonight. We went inside to work on reports.
One good thing about patrol back in these days was that we knew almost everyone living in our squad areas. Most people would give you information about the people causing problems in the neighborhoods. That is how we stopped a lot of crime before it even got started. It would be nice to get that level of trust again to help with our crime problems in the city. Like the chief and mayor both state it will take us all to solve our crime concerns.
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