The caller on Monday was obviously disgruntled. She had been speaking to a staff member in our Accounting Unit, who was serving as telephone backup on my personal office line. Apparently directory assistance, asked for the phone number of the Lincoln Police Department, had given the caller the number for the chief’s office (a common aggravation), rather than the general police non-emergency number.
When I sensed that Rhonda was a little frustrated, I took the call. The miffed caller was in North Carolina. She had been following a semi tractor-trailer that was driving poorly. She had gathered the name of the trucking firm from the tractor door, and called the company. It was a leased rig, and the Ohio leasing firm representative was not the least bit interested in her first-hand report of bad driving. She was inquiring in a sarcastic tone whether I would be more responsive.
The Nebraska link was the words “Cornhusker Ultra-Lite” on the trailer. “Is there any other Cornhusker?,” she snippily asked. I explained to her that the trailer may have been manufactured in Lincoln, but that the driver and/or lessee would have nothing to do with my fair City. What she was doing was akin to calling the police chief in Stuttgart to complain about the driver of a Volkswagen.
That didn’t seem to gruntle her. I asked if she had thought about calling the local authorities in North Carolina, perhaps the county sheriff or the State police. After giving me her personal opinion that the Raleigh Police Department was the only agency in the state you could count on to do anything, I thanked her for being a public-minded North Carolinian, and we parted ways.
I always figured that a possibly-impaired driver usually merited a 911 call, especially a vehicle that large, because it's effectively an emergency. A drunk/high driver can screw up and cause so much mayhem so quickly that it's probably best to get them pulled over ASAP (prioritized as needed in relation to other held calls) and checked out by a LEO. Maybe a bee flew in their window and hit then in the chest,or maybe they're 0.300 BAC.
ReplyDeleteI know this doesn't apply to this specific post, but what happened to the post about the drunken couple and your partner dismantling their gun? Why was it removed?
ReplyDelete8:28-
ReplyDeleteIn a moment of uncommon maturity, I decided that I really didn't want to recount a stupid war story from the 1980's. That's the beauty of publishing your own blog!
Beware of google cache...they save old versions of posts sometimes.
ReplyDeleteChief,
ReplyDeleteYour story about removing the firing pin from the rifle is a perfect example of using good judgment even though it may be slightly against the rules. Your action most likely saved a life or serious injury.
In the late 1960's a good friend of mine was working in a gas station in York. A drunk came in and pulled up to the pumps, told Larry to "fill'er up" and then staggered into the Men's room. Except it was the Ladies room!
Larry told me later he had thought about grabbing the drunks keys but he didn't. He did call the cops as the drunk was leaving. However the drunk hit a car within two miles of the station killing a young couple and their child. Larry was troubled for years because he didn't have the courage to grab the keys out of the drunks car. He might have lost his job if he would have done that but by not doing it he has had to live with guilt knowing he could have saved those lives.
Gun Nut
9:18-
ReplyDeleteNot worried about it. Nothing wrong with the post, just a little lame to talk about 1983. I had a little writer's block. Over it now.
Gun nut-
That was my feeling. Officer X bent the rules (he's a lawyer now), but not in a way that hurt anyone, and may have prevented someone from getting hurt. Would have been the equivalent of the gas station attendant taking the coil wire off and throwing it in the trunk.
Do cars have coils these days? My engine compartment looks just like the back of my TV.
You should have offered to take her to watch the Tar Heels play in the College World Series in Omaha, I am sure the police in Chapel Hill are nice!
ReplyDeleteCars still have coils, but there is often one coil for each spark plug now.
ReplyDeleteYour 1983 model would have been missing the engine covers that manufacturer's install nowadays to keep car owners from doing any "monkey wrenching" of their own.
The reskinned web site looks good! I see that accident reports are now searchable (again) by name, which I thought you had disabled as a compromise between public access to info and privacy (addresses, phone numbers, etc).
ReplyDelete2:36-
ReplyDeleteThanks! Officer Katie Flood created it (no easy task), and we're in the process of finding all the little bugs. You just found one for us--a link to an older version of the accident report form.
This is going to make me want to mess around with my blogger template, just to keep up with the Joneses.
Already fixed. Here's another one, unless it was fixed as I typed this: Daily Incident seems to be missing the option for the current day's incidents.
ReplyDelete2:55-
ReplyDeleteYep, I passed it on. We'll get that taken care of. Ofc. Flood says "Thanks."
Congrats on the new look, Chief. I already forgot what the old one looked like, but when I popped over here just now, I thought I was on the wrong site at first. I think the new look is more "policey".
ReplyDeleteChief, I love the new website. I know it has been in the works for awhile now and it looks great now. Keep up all the good work!
ReplyDeleteSteve, 1:13-
ReplyDeleteThanks! Officer Flood has been redesigning our public web site in her spare time, and I think it's a great look. I'm tweaking the appearance of my personal blog to try to coordinate a little bit with her design. I'm not quite up to her talent level, but I can change the fonts and colors a little bit so it doesn't clash entirely.