America's Finest Unsung Heroes

The following entry was written by a dear friend of mine. He works at San Diego Police and this picture was taken from the Communtications building.

"Another trajedy has come and gone.

Communications worked their tails off during this event.

We really are America's finest dispatchers and we proved it this week.

Of course there was a lot of chaos, lots of barking orders, but in the end, we made it seem effortless.

We stayed out of the news, which is a good thing. That shows we were doing our job.

There was one sign that disturbed me. It was outside room #213.

It said "food for officers and volunteers only"!

Some things never change!

Thank You my friends for your excellent work! I feel proud to work at SDPD."

My friend reads this blog, so if you would like to leave a message for him and the SDPD dispatchers, I am sure he'd pass it along. Thanks!

That May Take a While......

We had a caller, that threatened suicide. Means? By hypothermia. Now I'm no expert, but how? Why so specific? Why that? What???? Where I live, and where I work, it doesn't even snow. Last night I think it was like, 55 degrees out. All I could picture is some poor, lonely guy filling up his bathtub with ice, and sitting patiently. Is it just me, or is that odd? Dispatchers, cops and family, I would LOVE to here some funny stories, on such and un-funny topic. Got any?

***Honorable Mention****

The following was in the comments section of this blog, but it deserves to be spotlighted. It waaaaay tops my story for humor and creativity. Way to go Stacy!

I was dispatched to an "Attempt by candy bar" once. I was like "What the???" We get on scene an a trooper walks over to me laughing his butt off and goes "He is a diabetic and he says he will kill himself by eating a candy bar if we don't leave." So I walk in and asked him what was going on and he was like "Come any closer and I'll eat it!!! Don't think I wont!!!!"I was like "Hey you know what? I was just getting ready to eat my lunch when they called us and I am really really hungry. Can I have a small bite of your candy bar?" and he goes "Ooooh sure of course" and handed it to me. I proceeded to hand it to the cop who threw it away haha. The guy was like "Awww I can't believe I fell for that." The cops were all upset that they didn't think of it first and transported the guy to cpep. It was pretty funny.

Keep 'em coming guys! These are great stories.

The Deerly Departed

I have told a deer tail or two, in my time. As I mentioned before, they run a bit rampant in Wonderful City. I have told of a time where I got 7 calls for an injured deer while at the same time one block away I only got one call of a man down on a busy street corner. I recently told the tail of the woman cavorting in the middle of the night with a deer that was, well, cavorting in the middle of the night. But this tail, takes the cake.

A deer was run over, or heck perhaps it died of natural causes, but it ended up at the 2600 block of the major avenue. This all started at 0715hrs. It started slowly at first.

"Hi I'd like to report a dead deer at the 2600 block of Main Ave."

"OK, no problem, I'll call the Humane Society and they will pick it up."

Soon after, "Hello, you need to send someone out fast, there is a dead deer out here and it is right in front of the middle school. The children are going to see it!"

"OK, no problem, the Humane Society has been called."

"Tell them it's an emergency!"

Now in the beginning, I asked, why? Why is it an emergency? By the 10th call, I just said OK.

Our Chief was out patrolling, (Totally cool, right? He was doing traffic stops and everything.)

Then he called in a dead deer. Et tu?

Next I got a hysterical caller that wanted us to change the position of the deer because, "It's legs are sticking straight up and that is just upsetting!" Great, I can only imagine the calls we'd get for re-positioning a dead deer....

Later still, (the Humane Society was very busy and this was considered low priority), a woman called because, "There are men in a white van moving a dead deer! They're MOVING IT!!!" "Yes, ma'am they notified me they just trying to help by moving it out of the flow of traffic." "Can they do that??????" She cried, clearly very upset. "Um, sure, if they want to." I answered. I am still not sure why that was so upsetting to her.

About a dozen more dead deer calls later, (that seemed to be increasing in urgency), an Officer came up on the air with a "Callout for Department of Public Works." Before I even thought about it, I said, "Go, ahead.....Unless you are reporting a dead deer...." The officer called me up a moment later laughing and said, he was going to put a sign on top of the deer that said, "I AM OK, I HAVE GONE TO A BETTER PLACE" The Humane Society must have finally came and picked up the deer shortly after that, because at 2:45 in the afternoon, the dead deer calls finally stopped. Whew, just in time. I can only imagine the frenzied callers, if it had still been out there when school got out! Venison, anyone?

I am So Proud

Here is a picture of my brother Jim. He sent the picture from his cell phone, with the text, "New bike, new ticket." [Wiping away a tear] I'm just so darn pround. [Sniff]

Is it just me, or is the CHP officer a bit... fluffy for an officer?