Apb: Shots Fired Officer Down

By Frank N. Houston

This book is a tribute to all law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line daily for the public good. This is a thankless job. Police officers are not looking for a pat on the back or any reward for doing their job. They are simply looking for support from the very public they serve.

This book takes you from initial training at the academy, through the jail process, and into the mean streets of the city and counties of Southern California. This book even goes further into search-and-rescue missions, extraditions, and the court process.

APB: Officer Down Shots Fired is based on actual events in fictional form. Incidents like this occur across the country and even in foreign countries. Our brothers and sisters in law enforcement throughout the world understand each other. No other profession is as challenging as law enforcement. No other profession is as rewarding as law enforcement.

There is no greater love than to lay down your life for another (John 15:13).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984536372

Frank N. Houston

The author is a 31 year veteran of law enforcement. He has experience as a Custody Officer, Patrol Officer, Traffic Officer, Search and Rescue Coordinator, Investigative Officer, and Bailiff in the courts. He also is a graduate of California State University, Long Beach, with a Bachelor of science in occupational studies. He also holds an associate of arts degree from Chaffey College, Rancho Cucamonga, California. Frank wrote this book so that everyone can appreciate the sacrifices made by Law Enforcement.

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Copyright © 2018 by Frank N. Houston.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2018907471

ISBN:                  Hardcover                        978-1-9845-3635-8

                            Softcover                           978-1-9845-3636-5

                            eBook                                978-1-9845-3637-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

-scriptures are taken from King James Version

Rev. date: 06/25/2018

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CONTENTS

What’s An APB?

Chapter 1     That Recurring Nightmare

Chapter 2     Life in a Box

Chapter 3     Beat Down Attempt Jail Escape

Chapter 4     In Over My Head Patrol Duty

Chapter 5     Shots Fired! Officer Down!

Chapter 6     CSI Crime Scene Investigation

Chapter 7     Elephants Don’t Bite

Chapter 8     Dumb Luck

Chapter 9     Extraditions

Chapter 10   City vs. County

Chapter 11   Special Assignments

Chapter 12   And Other Duties Assigned

Chapter 13   Call 911 It’s My Day Off

W E, THE PEOPLE, give the police the authority to use whatever force is necessary to make an arrest. There isn’t any pleasant way to take into custody a dangerous and confrontational suspect. We expect the police to enforce the laws. We rely on law enforcement to be our guardians, our hired fists, batons, and guns. We hire them to do the unpleasant task of protecting us—the work we’re too frightened, too untrained, or too civilized to do ourselves. We expect the police to keep us safe and the criminals out of our businesses, vehicles, and homes. We want them to take care of the problem. We just don’t want to see how it’s done.

WHAT’S AN APB?

W HEN AN APB, an all-points bulletin, is broadcasted over the police radio scanner, it means the following message is very important. Any and all available deputies, patrol officers, police officers, traffic officers, and/or detectives are alerted to respond immediately to the area requested by dispatch, especially in the case of an immediate emergency, like an OIS (officer-involved shooting), where all types of emergency personnel responders are requested.

Any and all patrol and traffic units from the California Highway Patrol, county sheriff’s deputies, and all available local police agencies need to respond and assist with extraction of survivors and/or lifesaving measures.

Generally, in these kinds of situations, all the brave emergency responders assist wherever they can. They go directly into harm’s way and attempt to save lives. These brave men and women took an oath to put others first and help those who cannot help themselves. These brave souls go directly into the fire, whether they are bullets or an incineration. They must meet the danger head-on as safely as possible. They must get the job done as swiftly and safely as possible. They must be politically correct in their assessments yet make lifesaving decisions in a split second and choose a course of action, which might get scrutinized by the media, the general public, or the courts. These brave men and women took an oath to put others before themselves and help those who can’t help themselves. These brave souls go into the fire, whether they are bullets or an actual incineration. They must meet the danger head-on as safely yet as swiftly and humanely as possible. They must get the job done as politically correct and expeditiously. They have but a split second in which to make a command decision and a course of action, which may get scrutinized by the general public, the media, or in a court of law.

In the courts, the attorneys have all the time in the world to second-guess the officer’s decision and dissect every move an officer made in a split second. If the officer erred in his decision, he may be held liable for choosing his course of action. Right or wrong, the officer must live with his decision. Only he and those in his shoes know what was going on at the time and why he chose to do what he did at that very moment. Fear, safety, anxiety, pressure, time, weather conditions, traffic conditions, demeanor of the crowd, hostility of the crowd, projectiles being thrown by the crowd, and many unknown factors play a pivotal point in the outcome of what goes through an officer’s head at that very moment.

CHAPTER 1

That Recurring Nightmare

I T ALL STARTED about a few months before I was assigned to patrol duty. I began having recurring nightmares of being shot at several times. In my nightmare, I didn’t have a gun to shoot back with. I didn’t have anywhere to hide or to take cover from the onslaught of bullets. All I could do was crouch down as low as I could. In every dream, I was out on a public street with a downhill slope. I was on the sidewalk in the rain in front of a redbrick building with picture-size windows. It appeared to be some kind of a restaurant with people inside, but I couldn’t tell whom they were or what they looked like. I had about three vivid dreams with the same scenario. I’d wake up breathing heavily and breaking out in a cold sweat. In the third vivid dream, I decided to purchase a backup gun small enough to conceal on my person yet powerful enough to stop an assailant. I was low on money, so I requested a handgun for my birthday. My family put their money together to help me buy a backup pistol. I purchased a two-inch-barrel, five-shot .38-caliber Taurus-brand Model 85 revolver with an ankle holster to conceal it. Ironically enough, I stopped having the recurring nightmares.

I was eventually assigned to the patrol division on July 1, 1989, in the city of Desert Ville. This city was in the high-desert community area of the county. Meanwhile, my current assignment at the time was the county jail, as a custody deputy. I had been working custody duty for about three years.

I graduated from the County Sheriff’s Department Regional Training Center on May 9, 1986; I was originally assigned as a custody deputy at the central jail on May 10, 1986. The sheriff’s academy lasted about four months. It was a paramilitary style of training. Prior to attending the academy, I had received instruction on where to purchase my uniforms. Day 1 was early Monday morning at 7:00 a.m. I had to be ready to go to work as soon as I hit the tarmac. We had to stand at attention in full uniform, polished brass, and spit-shined shoes until the tactical staff stepped out of their office. As soon as the tact’ staff came out, they came directly at us. We had to stand at attention, looking straight ahead. They came out screaming and yelling out comments such as What a bunch of sorry-looking nonhumans we got stuck with and also Where the hell did they dig up this bunch? They came out dressed sharply in long-sleeved class A khaki shirts with black ties, forest-green Ike jackets, and forest-green slacks and campaign hats tilted forward. Some of them wore dark sunglasses. Their job was to intimidate and scare us away. No matter how good we looked or performed, they would always find fault with us. If even a miniscule thread was showing, they would be yelling in our faces. If a patch on our uniform wasn’t sewed on exactly as required, they’d be yelling in our faces.

On day 1, on our very first lunch break, someone quit and never came back after. On the second day, a recruit from Orange Police Department was harassed because of his hair being below the neckline and his wearing a mustache. On the third day, the recruit came back with a close-cropped haircut and a shaved-off mustache, but by the end of the day, he quit anyways. We all thought, Why get a haircut and shave if he had any doubts about staying? These tactics were, of course, employed to weed out the weak. One by one, they would drop out on request until about the tenth week.

One police recruit from another county police department almost dropped out. His girlfriend had written him a Dear John letter telling him she’d break up with him. Then his own police department dropped him too due to lack of funding. Consequently, he had to pay his own way through the academy to finish up the second half. He was in my study group, and he, too, was about to quit. We knew the additional stress he was going through, so we helped him get through the academy by supporting him and helping him with his studies. He eventually made it through the academy and, upon graduation, was picked and hired by another neighboring county police department, which reimbursed his academy expenses.

At about the tenth week, the next academy class began their training, so the tactical staff officers were too busy with the new recruits to continue with us. The first part of the academy was more academic, while the second half of the academy was more practical and amusing. It felt like a late Christmas. We were issued our duty weapons and had firearms training with our duty weapons, shotguns, and Mini-14 semiautomatic rifles. We also trained on weaponless defense, which was hand-to-hand fighting while protecting our sidearm weapon. We trained in boxing, kickboxing, and mixed martial arts. We got training on the use of our straight-stick baton and the Monadnock PR-24 side-handle baton used for close-quarter confrontations. The PR-24 was actually derived from the Philippine yuwari weapon used in martial arts and the tonfa, an Asian weapon popularized by the Okinawans.

The most interesting and entertaining was the patrol-driver training. This training was in a patrol car with bumper guardrails. We wore safety helmets and double-strap safety seat belts. We got to drive on a racetrack as fast as practical while learning vehicle control and vehicle performance at optimal speeds. We practiced perfecting defensive and pursuit driving, traffic collision avoidance, and the PIT maneuvers. The PIT (pursuit intervention technique) was used to knock a fleeing car sideways, causing the driver to lose control and stop. This technique was also known as legal intervention, tactical ramming, fishtailing, pit blocking, and precision intervention. We practiced knocking a vehicle out of control and strategically placing it where we wanted it to go. Generally, it was between two orange cones. It was like kicking a football through the uprights or a soccer ball into the goal, except this was pushing a car through two cones. Throughout my career, driving a patrol car was, by far, the best aspect of police work.

Finally, we trained on practical scenarios. We performed what we had learned in the classrooms with role players, and evaluators graded our performance. Here we had to pass, or we failed. This was part of our final examination. We had to put everything we had learned and use our training to convince the role players and evaluators that we knew what we were doing and show them what we had learned throughout the academy. We started with about seventy-seven recruits and graduated with fifty-five recruits. After the academy, the county deputies had another two weeks of training in jail operations before we headed toward our assigned duty stations. The police recruits had whatever advanced field patrol training they got from their individual police departments. The police recruits headed straight out to the mean streets, while the deputies headed to the jails. The jails were in a more controlled environment than the streets. I believe that all police departments should start off their new recruits in some form of jail so that they would get to know what kind of criminals they would be encountering on the streets. Working the jails was very educational before going out on the streets.

Jail duty at central jail was daunting to say the least. When you first drive up to the huge concrete structure with guard towers, with twenty-five-foot double-fenced barbed wire that housed inmates at the central jail facility, it’s overwhelming. The building was made completely of concrete and was virtually windowless. To the west of the building was a deep concrete ravine. To the north were the sheriff’s administrative headquarters and central patrol station. To the east was the county yard employee parking lot, and to the south was the public visiting parking lot. South across the street, more county buildings housed the crime lab and other county offices.

As you drove up to the main gate, you’d notice the lookout tower with the gun emplacements. Prior to entering through the main gate, you must identify yourself through the monitor and security camera; you would be summoned through one secure gate after another. Once inside the facility, you’d be monitored by security cameras and/or other deputies operating the secured doors. I had to get directions to the briefing room. This was where all the incoming deputies were briefed on the day’s activities, problem inmates, and officer safety issues regarding which jail housing sections had been causing problems.

When I first went in for jail duty, I walked from the intake area down through the marshaling corridor to my assigned location in the jail. I was appalled at what I saw. The first things that would hit you were the sight and smell of the stench of thick, stale cigarette smoke permeating the air. The smoke was so thick in the air you could almost cut it with a knife. Next would be the stench of unbathed, stale, rancid body odor and the dirty, sweaty, noxious-smelling feet odor. There was also the smelly, musty mildewed old urine with diarrhea-soaked pants and vomit-soiled shirts. The intake area was generally the reception area of new bookings. Any new arrestee must first go through the intake in order to be searched, processed, health-screened, fingerprinted, photographed, and booked into the jail system. Then the new inmate would be held in the marshaling for housing within the jail facility or transfer to another facility. In the early morning hours, marshaling was also used to hold inmates waiting to go to courts throughout the county.

The reason the smell was so rancid was because of the cigarette smoke coupled with the way some of these new arrestees smelled when they arrived into the jail. They were arrested either for being drunk in public or for driving while intoxicated or under the influence of a controlled illegal substance, thereby defecating, urinating, or vomiting on themselves.

Thanks to the liberal politicians and the State Legislature, we could not mandate the inmates to shower or clean themselves because it was a violation of their civil rights not to bathe if they didn’t want to, even though some were not able to care for themselves. So consequently, everyone else—inmates and deputies alike—had to suffer the stench of rotting flesh, consequently making it a breeding ground for contagious diseases such as staph skin infections, including MRSA. We did not have these problems when incoming inmates were mandated to go through the showers before they were assigned a housing location in the jail facility and required to keep their housing location clean.

I felt helpless coming into work each day, as heavy metal bar doors began to close and shut with loud, clanging noises behind me. As I walked in deeper and deeper into the jail facility, I realized that I was also locked up inside this jail with nowhere to go and no way of escaping. If we had encountered a serious earthquake or fire, we would most surely have been stuck behind these walls. This building would have buckled, and all the cell doors would have been stuck shut.

I recall a deputy who had recently graduated from the academy and was assigned to work at this jail facility. He was affable, too nice to be a deputy sheriff. He did not last his very first day. He was terrified and claustrophobic. He was also too frightened to deal with the inmates. He was so scared he couldn’t reason or think logically. He had such overwhelming feelings of anxiety and frantic agitation that he quit that very same day. The sheriff’s supervising staff tried working with him. They offered to let him work in a control booth the rest of his career. He’d be completely closed off behind safety glass and secured, locked door. He would have complete control over any doors or gates leading up the corridor to the booth. However, he was completely honest in saying he still hated working under those conditions and declined the offer. He said he did not realize what he was getting into and would just rather resign his commission as a deputy sheriff. You really wouldn’t know what you were getting into. The recruiting pamphlets wouldn’t tell you how ugly or how disgusting the aroma was in a jail. I always showered before I left to go home, yet it seemed as though the stench remained.

This jail in 1986 was overcrowded and very volatile. I just hated going to work here. But I needed this job to support my family, so I hung on and did the very best I could. While working in the chow hall, I’d be outnumbered one hundred to one. That was because there were only three deputies assigned to work during chow—one to pass out spoons, one to collect the spoons after the inmates were done with chow, and another deputy walking around sitting inmates at assigned tables and picking up the inmates who were done eating. We’d march in about two hundred to about three hundred inmates at a time into the chow hall.

The inmates would march into the chow hall self-segregated. For breakfast, the white and black inmates would walk in first. Some came into the chow hall as if they just rolled out of bed. Their hair would be all matted or uncombed and their clothes all wrinkled and smelly, as if they had slept in them all night. They’d walk in like the walking dead. No pride whatsoever. However, the Hispanic inmates impressed me. They showed up for breakfast with their hair combed, neatly shaven, faces washed, jail clothing neatly pressed, head held high, and backs straight. They actually were organized. The veteran Hispanics would school the younger ones about pride in themselves and respect for one another and respect for the deputies.

The Hispanics almost never assaulted a deputy. However, they would not back down if they were unjustly disciplined by a deputy. They felt they could not back down, especially if confronted in front of other inmates. Even though they were respectful to most deputies, they still could not be trusted.

That was why we called them cons, short for convicts or con artists. The Hispanic inmates would try to get friendly and familiar with other Hispanic deputies. But they generally had ulterior motives when they befriended a deputy. We had to keep in mind that they were convicts and there was a reason why they were in custody. If they did happen to con (deceive) a young deputy while in custody, they would accomplish it through mere conning or subtle convincing. They would attempt to have the young deputy bring contraband into the jail. They would start requesting small items such as cigarettes, extra food, soft drinks, or some other items. Once they had the young deputy hooked and deep into bringing in contraband, they would then have the young deputy bring in narcotics into the jail. By then, it was too late for the young deputy. He would end up losing his job by letting the inmate outsmart him. That was why they were called cons.

Almost every other day, there were some inmates who were severely beaten up or shanked (a shank is a homemade knife or sharp object made from a piece of metal or a plastic shampoo bottle melted down into a sharp weapon). I used to sympathize for some of these inmates who were assaulted. However, it was difficult to have any compassion for them after I ran their criminal record while writing my criminal reports. I’d find that they themselves belonged to other rival gangs and had assaulted someone else at one time or another. Consequently, they were getting their due. This was what was commonly known as a street initiation into the county. I began to understand the saying What goes around, comes around. Evidently, what went around eventually came around. And it would finally come around to those who did the same to others.

One inmate had his jaw broken by rival groups because he was a member from another county. He did not receive any other serious injuries. This inmate happened to be in the wrong county. This beating was just supposed to be some sort of initiation into this county (without any serious injury), but apparently, it got out of hand. The inmate said he was aware he was going to get beaten up because he would have done