To Serve and Protect, Who?: Kit Carson, #1

By R. D. Scott

A series of 9 stories to highlight the hard work and dedication of our Police. Some officers feel a need to help and we are happy for it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R. D. Scott
• Release date: Sep 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393552734

R. D. Scott

Retired policeman and retired private detective.  The golf got boring and writing took it's place.

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R. D. Scott

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Copyright Notices  Copyright © 2019 by R. D. Scott

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including information storage and/ or retrieval systems, or dissemination of any electronic version, without the prior written consent of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review, and except where permitted by law. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.5.)

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Table of Contents

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Playing Cops and Robbers

To Serve and Protect, Who?

Dizzy

Queen City Trouble

Covered Crime 

Hunting Ground

Let the Good Times Roll 

Bottoms Up

Unplanned

Playing Cops & Robbers

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Chapter 1

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Growing up in a cop family has it's ups and downs.  The high points included learning to live through the experiences of parents, grandparents, and great grandparents.  Their excitement and adventures, their boredom and the mindless repetition of their jobs.  My practical education started with observation, I was taught to see everything and everyone around me, know where I was and what situation I was in, that was a great game, hiding and avoiding my siblings and parents.  Self defense was part of that observation, I was taught how to respond to any threat, but first I needed to identify it through observation, was it a game or was it dangerous?  As I grew older, attitude was added to my skill set, be able to recognize what was said, what was left unsaid, and to see telltales of dishonesty, understanding body language was important. 

The low points were that I became an easy target for my siblings, an older brother and sister, as well as I could expect to have any mischief I perpetrated be almost instantly discovered by some adult member of the family.  (Talk about spoiling my fun.)  I couldn't lie, I couldn't be sneaky, and I definitely couldn't play pranks on my siblings.  If an adult didn't catch me then it was the siblings, they were being taught the same way I was.  That didn't keep me from trying, hiding all the silverware before dinner was a prime example, until I was convicted by the jury of my family.  Great Fun.

The day I finally graduated high school was like a family reunion.  Watching with love and congratulations were the usual, my brother and sister, my mother and father, and my grandfather and grandmother, and then the unusual, my great grandfather, he almost never leaves the house.  The more interesting fact was that at one time or another they had all been members of law enforcement.

By the time I graduated my brother, Benny, twenty-one, was Air Patrol at Andrews Air Force Base in D.C. and  my sister, Hilly, twenty-two, had just completed training at Quantico for the FBI after getting an accounting degree and got assigned as an Agent in Atlanta, Ga.  My father and mother had been Detective Sergeants for twenty years, my grandparents had been two division Captains, and great grandfather an Assistant Chief, they were all retired from the Charlotte, N.C. Police Department.  Only my parents were still working, as owners of a private security company with 90 employees.  My grandparents didn't work, but were consulted on a regular basis by my parents and my great grandfather just hung around involving himself in his children's, grand children's, and great grand children's lives.

I never had any doubts about ending up on the police legacy roller coaster with them, my growing up years were filled with police stories and adventures.  Of course any decision would have to wait until after I went to Central Piedmont Community College for at least a two year Associates degree and maybe somewhere else to get a Bachelor's degree.  My family believed strongly about an education, preferably Criminal Justice to learn the legal response to criminal acts, or as a second choice, Psychology, to learn the criminal mind and respond.  Personal feelings had me in full agreement, I grew up hearing all the on the job stories and I never got bored, even hearing them repeated.  I wanted to learn anything that would make my police experience more rewarding.

I did hear from my grandmother and mother that police life was fulfilling, but not to expect fun-filled days and non-stop excitement.  There was a drudgery side, boring patrols, endless paperwork, mind-numbing court appearances, and worst of all, the majority of cops did not feel comfortable with women on the force.  I had learned a new phrase, bitch or slut, and surprisingly it made sense my first week at Central Piedmont College.

I'm not what anyone would term a beauty, but I'm also not bad looking.  I had a few dates in high school, none memorable, but interesting.  It was a big shock to discover the attention girls got at CPCC.  Not good attention, most of it was directed at my physical attributes, my legs, my hips, and always at my chest.  Mom was right, men thought of women as bitches or sluts.  If a girl/woman was interested in the attention, it was whispered that she was a slut.  If a girl/woman told the sex oriented males to go to hell she was a bitch.  In my case, it only took three months to establish a reputation as to what I was.  I grew up around cops, it was a fact of life that I was to learn self defense, it was drilled into me and my brother and sister from age six.  It became a game for us, we always tried to get the better of each other. 

The first guy in college to grope me ended up with a broken nose.  Word got around quickly and a small group of boys/men decided to teach the bitch a lesson.  I to this day don't know what they had in mind, it might have been rape, or it might have been a beating and then rape, but either way, the end result would have been rape.  They isolated me on my way from class to my dorm on a shortcut through campus.  I objected strenuously, my years of training and my bitch mode exploded.  One got a broken jaw and crushed cheek bone courtesy of my left foot, one got a blown testicle as a result of my right foot's contact between his legs, another one ended up with a broken arm and black eye from a fractured eye socket due to falling across my knee and helped up with my elbow, and finally, for the leader of the group a shattered knee, knees don't bend backwards.

There was a short lived school board review, short lived because my father attended the hearing conducted in the College President's conference room.  Attending were the College President, the Dean of the College, the Dean of Students, the Senior Professor, Legal Affairs, and myself, along with my father.  From their perspective, I was already convicted, I was a danger to the students, a menace that had placed four helpless students into the hospital and expulsion was their answer.  There was no doubt in their minds that I was to be expelled and likely responsible for the financial cost of the poor boys' medical bills. 

Then Dad stood up.  He didn't yell, he didn't accuse, he did, however, threaten a law suit for $100,000,000 against the school for allowing four men, older, bigger, and stronger to sexually attack a seventeen year old girl.  To compound the disgrace the college was trying to blame the girl and fully exonerate the men.

They could, he told them, expect a call from the Mayor, the Governor, and finally from the Accreditation Board.  He told them it would be a surprise to him if the college was open at the end of the year or if any of them had jobs.  He had reviewed the previous ten years of incidents at the school and found over twenty-five rapes, fourteen assaults, and three murders.  Coincidentally, except for the murders, they were not reported to the local police.  That would bring charges of conspiracy to conceal a crime and obstructing justice against each of them. They should expect to be visited by the State's Attorney General, right after the news media got word of conditions at the school. 

The panel's decision was immediate and anti-climatic, I received a formal letter of apology the next day, the four assholes were expelled immediately, the College President resigned under pressure from the board and I was permitted to return to class.  My grandfather had some friends still on the force visit the four idiots and advise them of their rights, as soon as they were physically able to leave the hospital they would face prosecution.  They didn't actually arrest them, so it was no surprise to hear they had all gone to out of state schools.  I might have been a bitch, but I was not a slut, and I had the necessary backup to make the idea stick.  Interestingly, I was not bothered again, I was avoided. The college board was also convinced, after a conversation with the Mayor, that an investigator should be hired and any further incidents would be investigated thoroughly.

Two years later in September, the day after my twentieth birthday, after my Associates Degree in Criminal Justice that spring,  I tested for the Police Department and passed with high marks, second only to a nerdy type.  Naturally my family got a copy of the test results.  A background check and some psychological testing were completed and I was officially hired as a police officer for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.  The nerdy guy failed the psych exam, he had never needed to think for himself.  Now, according to my family, the hard work could begin.

Chapter 2

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The Police Academy has a ninety day program to produce trained police officers.  First, there was thirty days of bookwork, learning the patrolman's guide and situational awareness and to learn criminal law and police powers of arrest.  Most of it was citing examples, then explaining the mistakes made and the correct methods that should have been used.  We had speakers from the uniformed patrol and the detective bureaus come in to give us details of life on the streets and what to expect.  The last sixty days, in addition to morning classroom work, there were three additional instructors, a self defense coach, a safe and defensive driving instructor, and a firearms and range officer.

The academics were similar to my criminology courses, the situational awareness had been hammered into me by my family, as had police arrest powers, and class soon became boring. The afternoon instruction had already been drilled into me by my many home tutors.  The driving was instilled in me by my grandparents, the self defense I learned from my mother, as displayed in college, and the weapons training was courtesy of my father. Not to leave my Great Grandfather out of it, I asked for advice on reports, how to put succinctly onto paper what I had seen and experienced so that my future bosses would know what I was telling them.  And know that I had no choice, forget about just graduating, if I didn't excel I would become a pariah and was sure I wouldn't be allowed to eat or sleep until any faults were corrected.  I loved it all.

Graduation day was both exciting and embarrassing, I was finally going to be a police officer, but first I had to endure the spectacle of seven neatly uniformed members of my family attending and granted seats in the front row.  My beautiful sister wasn't in a uniform, but her business suit and the FBI badge hanging from her jacket pocket sufficed.  When the certificates were passed out, my cheering section let loose and I blushed a bright crimson.  At the ceremonies end, all the presiding officers, Captains and Chiefs, all gathered around to shake hands with my police family.  Then the tears and congratulations appeared.  It turned out to be a great day.

The following Monday evening, 2230, was the start of my first patrol shift, I had been assigned to the third watch, 2300-0700, in the Providence Division, south of downtown, and per academy instructions I arrived thirty minutes early, police officers were never late.  Roll call was at 2245 and we were inspected and given last minute details of the precinct issues.  There I was also given my first assignment, I would be riding with Corporal Tompkins, the cover unit for the precinct.  In class we had been taught that a cover unit would be available as backup for certain calls, number one being domestic problems.  Statistics showed that domestic calls were the most volatile, often times both sides of the dispute would turn on the officers trying to separate the combatants.  Other calls of high importance were missing children, assaults, rapes, and homicides.

Officer Carson, welcome to CMPD, I hope you live through it.  Tompkins greeted me. That was not the cheeriest of greetings, but then he corrected my confusion.  When I say live through it, I'm not talking about dying.  I'm talking about overcoming the mental challenges without losing your soul.  That's what my family had been stressing for many years, to me, my sister, and my brother.

I don't think my soul or mental stability will be an issue, Corporal, I come from a long line of cops.  He nodded and continued.

There are two things you'll need to keep in mind at all times. He continued.  You're here to protect my back like I'll protect yours.  Never let your concentration slip, any slip in your awareness could get you killed, but more importantly, it could kill me.  I got it, leave extraneous thoughts at home, stay mentally on my job.  I waited for the second thing as we drove around our patrol area.  I didn't get any more for five minutes.

You said there were two things.  I finally broke down and asked.

Yeah, it's more personal to your professional life on the force.  Most of the cops are good people, but we have our exceptions.  You'll run into those few exceptions quickly, they'll tune into your rookie status.  You've got two strikes against you besides being a rookie.  You're a woman, and you're a woman cop.  His comments then switched to an explanation of our patrol area, our patrol responsibilities, and how he expected me to act in different situations.  I felt shorted on information about my female status until I remembered a lecture from my grandmother.  If I was a woman, I must be a slut.  If I was a woman cop, I must be a bitch.

The four weeks I worked with Tompkins were very informative.  He purposely decided to backup different types of calls in order to show me how the cases were handled.  He always gave me a preamble of what to expect and what to look for.  In that short time I learned a lot of practical police work.  Then came what I later determined was a training graduation present.  At 0200 we pulled up to the entrance of a local dive.  When I say dive, I apologize to all the actual dives out there, this was worse than a sewer with a bar.  Tompkins loudly declared last call as we entered, then just as loudly yelled that everyone was to be gone in thirty minutes or get a free ride downtown.

It didn't take a genius to figure out what he was doing, he was inciting a riot of drunks and I felt sure he was going to expect me to handle it, some kind of crowd control experience.  I was only partially right, a second after his yelling, we got the first response.

Fuck you!  Get your asses out of here before I throw you out.  I had expected some kind of reaction, the only surprise was the source of the challenge.  It was the bartender, a six-six, three hundred pound gorilla.  Surely, Tompkins wasn't going to make me control this monstrosity, I was still learning, I was a third his weight, and I was a foot shorter.

Well, I guess that answers that, this place is now closed, everybody out, NOW.  Tompkins yelled back.  It had the effect the corporal was looking for, the monster roared and charged, and of course he charged right at me, Tompkins had stepped back in anticipation.  In no time I became a spinning, swinging, and dodging, whirl of action, desperately trying to survive, if this gargantuan got ahold of me or knocked me to the ground, I was dead.  I heard Tompkins laughing two very intense minutes later as I stood bleeding from a fist I had failed to dodge.  The good news was that I was standing over a defeated foe.  He didn't look hurt, but he was definitely out cold, thank God for nightsticks.

Of course two patrol units miraculously arrived in time to view the spectacle and escort him to jail, funny how they just happened to be so close, odd that they seemed to be smirking.  I had a fleeting thought about how much of it was planned ahead, it felt much to coordinated to be spontaneous.

I had been expected to join my parents for dinner that next evening and I had almost cancelled because of the soreness and discoloration on my head, but went anyway and they were ecstatic, and not about my joining them for dinner.  Mom took one look,