From the Cop side: Somebody at the gun range asked me the other day:”Have you
ever seen anybody shot before?”
What do you think after 32 years? Sometimes the G.S.W.s (Gun Shot Wounds) was
by accident, sometimes an assault (murder, attempted murder etc) and sometimes
self inflicted. Some died, some
didn’t. Most were very sad cases, and
one or two it was hard not to laugh. Some
really stuck in my brain and others I’ve sort of forgotten about.
Way back when I was a rookie copper, I
was on swing shift (4PM to Midnight) on a Friday night. For a rookie copper, that was a great shift because
lots of stuff happened….sometimes, in the small city I worked in (which has
more than doubled in size since then) we’d just go from call to call and never
have time for any self initiated stuff.
Sometimes we’d get preempted form one call to go to something more
important…which left me wondering: “how do you tell somebody that you have to
leave taking their stolen car report because something more important requires
your attention?”
And as most coppers who’ve worked any
period of time can tell you, there are some people you’ll run into during your
work that keep “popping up on your radar.”
These are the people who just seem to be unable to stay out of trouble and
want to get arrested often. There were
some that I even memorized their date of birth and other required info to check
them for warrants without even having to get out of the patrol car---I’d call
in the check while driving by them. “Dispatch,
this is L9, can you check Joe Shizdip, DOB 9/1/61 for warrants?”
Since I retired, I’ve forgotten the names
of many of those folks, but I’ll never forget how they acted. Let’s take the case of Jose Juanlung. He had just been cut loose from prison for
multiple felony arrest and convictions.
His arrest record ranged from stealing candy from a baby to attempted
murder. I learned that when somebody got
convicted of any “attempted” crime it tended to prove that they were really not
even good at being a criminal…just my opinion.
Anyway, Jose Juanlung had actually been
hired by the city I was working for to do labor type work. You see in those days, the state of
California had this brilliant program where they would pay to put former
convicts to work. It was a great idea…but
one problem…. Career criminals are that way because they don’t want to
work. So out of the 10 or so that got
hired, with in the first week 9 of them were fired for not showing up at work
and stuff like that. Jose Juanlung was
one of those who’d been fired. He was
allowed to stay at his parents home until he could either get back on his feet,
or get sent back to prison. I had his
parents address memorized because we got called there at least once a day.
The last call I had at that address was
for a “GSW, male, laying in the driveway…respond Code 3 and the watch commander
is enroute from the station.”
I was the first to arrive (I often was
because I had no common sense yet.) I
found Jose Juanlung lying in the driveway crying. I went over to where he was and asked what
was wrong. Juanlung said: “I’ve been
shot in the chest….get me an ambulance it fucking hurts.”
I looked at him and then ran back to my
patrol car and retrieved my first aid box.
I found a small caliber hole in his left side chest and updated dispatch
so she could tell the paramedics. I got
out a bunch of bandage stuff, but I saw no blood coming out of the hole…but it
was making a funny kind of sucking sound. I remembered the first aid classes I
had in the Army and the Police Academy where they taught us about “sucking
chest wounds.” And that they were a bitch to treat.
Well, I put some gauze and stuff over the sucking chest wound as Jose was telling me he was having a hard time breathing. I told him that might be a problem for the rest of his life since one of his lungs had collapsed. Then I asked him: “who shot you and where’s the gun?”
Well, I put some gauze and stuff over the sucking chest wound as Jose was telling me he was having a hard time breathing. I told him that might be a problem for the rest of his life since one of his lungs had collapsed. Then I asked him: “who shot you and where’s the gun?”
Jose, being a true asshole, said: “I don’t
know who shot me.” Which I knew he was
lying. The medics arrived shortly and
started to treat Jose Juanlung as I patted him down for weapons. (wounded assholes can still hurt you.) I then went into Jose’s parent’s home to
continue my investigation. The rest of
the family was sitting down for a late dinner and acted like somebody getting
shot was normal I asked if anybody had
seen or heard Jose getting shot and they all ignored me. I suspected that one of them had done the
deed, but I had nothing to go on, just a gut feeling.
I went back and checked on Jose and he
was telling me now that he’d accidently shot himself in the chest. I said: “really? That means you can go back to prison for
having a firearm.”
Jose seemed happy as they loaded him into
the ambulance. After that, we called him
Jose One Lung. I never did find the gun
that shot him and nobody seemed to care.
That was over 30 years ago.
6 comments:
Sounds like a win all the way around. He was crippled and headed for prison, his family didn't have to put up with him anymore and they go a good dinner,and it was one less asshole you had to worry about. A good day overall.
I worked a few back in my VFD days, but honestly the ones that were the 'worst' were the knife wounds... Blood EVERYWHERE!!!
*snort*
Somehow, the word "Salinas" pops to mind....
My last comment evaporated! There must be a "sucking comment wound" on this blog! So... did you tell Jose... "Gee, dude, that sucks..."
Yeah. I haven't had enough coffee today.
My first thought was, "Dammit, you missed a chance to stab him with a big needle!" I find CLS very disappointing, now that they've taken all the sharp objects away...
CP, the only "loss" that night was the long report I had to write.
Old NFO, knife cuts are usually very messy...seen a few of those...most by accidents whilst playing.
Sue, I tried joking with Juanlung, but he didn't laugh...it hurt.
Saker, at that time, I only had basic first aid...did EMT and CLS years later.
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