Join Me for a Sit-Along !

I am taking you with me tonight. You will be with me all 12 hours. Yippee, it will be fun. I will update this post all night long. Every single call, and dispatch will be logged. I am not saying it will be exciting, but it should be interesting. Here we go!

1745-1845hrs: Get up, get ready, go pick up some Baja Fresh for dinner. 2 carne asada tacos, a side order of chips, a coke and a churro. Got my fuel for the night.

1845hrs: Arrive at work and overhear the oncoming shift talking about having an "1186 Contest." That is, who can make the most traffic stops. Uh oh, better eat fast!

1857hrs: 911 from a cell, unable to call back due to area code being (911). That means it's an unassigned cell. Luckily it just sounded like a child playing.

1901hrs: Neighboring city transfers a call of two black Mercedes speeding south bound into our city, along the state route. Read, dumped the call, because I guarantee, it was speeding through their city and they just assumed it going to come flying into ours. I put it out on the air as a BOL and dumped, er I mean, passed along the information to the city south of ours.

1912hrs: Fire dispatcher calls and requests a unit. They arrived to investigate a smoke alarm and the back door has been forced open.

1918hrs: 911 medical for an elderly male. Conscious/breathing transferred to fire. (We answer all 911 calls here but fire and medics go to the county dispatcher.

1920hrs: Witness wanting to ID a suspect from earlier incident. Transferred to officer handling

1920hrs: Unit at fire call goes Code 4. It was the fire department that forced open the door. Someone left a pan on the stove.

1921hrs: Same child on untraceable cell calls 911 and talks incoherently. [Note to people with children: Cell phones are not toys! Even ones you no longer pay for have 911 access.]

1930hrs: Officer Brett requested I try to find a phone number to the resident. I located a number, called it and Officer Brett answered. We both promptly concluded this did no good.

1941hrs: Fire and Officer Brett clear the residence after leaving a note. I return to shoveling down as much food as possible before the next call.

1944hrs-2100hrs: (I was giving every single incident it's own log time, but it was getting really long and boring. So I'm lumping the routine stuff together.) Witness transferred to officer's voicemail. Female at the PD reporting a lost wallet. Detective calls in for case number.Traffic stop with a parolee, random call, more Baja Fresh, traffic stop, daughter of female in the PD lobby finds the wallet at home. Chris sends me cell phone text picture of Little Man eating dinner and I almost cry because I haven't seen him since Monday afternoon. Parking complaint, Traffic stop, some callers and a failed attempt at putting the radio traffic of last nights pursuit, from the computer onto a CD for court. (Boy, Ron, I coulda used your expertise. I am so inept with computers.)

2100hrs-2200hrs: Parking complaint, noise complaint, and traffic stops. More Baja Fresh scarfed down.

2200hrs-2300hrs: Sappy phone call from my husband who couldn't sleep. Traffic stops. Woman locked out of her apartment. Tiny bit of light reading squeezed in.

2300hrs-Ooooh fight call! All units enroute now. 7 subjects fist fighting on the train platform.

2302hrs: Units arrive. 5-6 subject seen, not fighting.

2304hrs: Witness says it is male vs. female. Conducting area check. 4+ units 97 (onscene), sheriff almost 97 . WFA 20s blnd, WMA 20s with a cut on his face. Both outstanding.

2317hrs: Hello? Where did everybody go? No one is saying anything on the radio....

2318hrs: That was a big fat nothing. They couldn't find them.

2330hrs: Male and female fighting in the street. Two units and a Sgt. responding. Other unit on a traffic stop.

2332hrs: Out with both subjects.

{In the middle of this a detective has come up yelling his call sign. I think, Holy crap! it must be something important to be yelling and to interrupt an in progress fight call. Nope. He just wants me to call a cab for a citizen. After a few minutes, I still had not gotten a chance to call the cab. The defective called me and asked, "What is the ETA for my cab?" I tell him I am a bit busy with a fight call, it will be another moment, would he like the cab's phone number and he can call for himself? He actually had the audacity to say, "Well, I have never had to do that before, I'm not sure I know how." I politely told him to just call the cab and give him his location, that if he had any issues, to let me know and by then I'd probably be free. Honestly, I know he has a cell phone, because he is calling me. He is armed and fully trained; am I to believe he is unable to wield a cell phone???}

2343hrs: Units code 4

2350hrs: Units clear. No DV., the wife was angry at husband for staying out late drinking with college buddies on a week night. Verbal only.

2350hrs-0012hrs: Silence. Blessed silence.

0012hrs: County wide BOL put out over all local radio frequencies. Officer Safety: 211 in a nearby city, just occurred with a handgun. 3 BMA suspects in a mall white vehicle.

0012hrs-0200hrs: Traffic stops, 1154 (Suspicious vehicle) a few 1066s (Suspicious persons), party call where the revelers were throwing empty beer bottles at passing cars, a few traffic stops.

0200hrs-0300hrs: CODE 7

0305hrs-Caller asking a lot of questions regarding identity theft. How to go about reporting it etc. I give him the information and he says, "Good, good, thank you. I'll just gather up all the paperwork and head on down there to make the report." "OK," I say, "We're open all night." But what I am thinking is, why on earth are you up at 3 in the morning? Why can't you get some sleep and come take care of it first thing in the morning? It makes me wonder. Same with when an RP calls at like 0330 in the morning and says, "I was just looking out my bedroom window and I saw...." Why? Why were you "just staring out your window" right smack in the middle of the night? Oh that I could be the one at home in the middle of the night! I never take my bed or pillow for granted and if I were home right now we'd be locked in a passionate embrace.

0310hrs-0528hrs: Watch a DVD. (I am allowed to.) Almost no radio traffic and zero phone calls.

0545: All is silent still so I head to the restroom. Without going into graphic detail, I get comfortable and an officer goes out on a traffic stop. I pull up my pants, run into dispatch and answer the officer. The radio isn't working because of the way my headset is wrongly plugged in. An officer and Sgt. come into dispatch to make sure I am OK and that I heard the traffic, only to observe me wrapped in the telephone cord and attempting to zip up my pants. Classic.

0530hrs-0645hrs: Start entering a giant stack of citations into the system. I got almost two completed. The officers were going crazy with traffic stops. Also we get a lot of medical calls, and vandalism/car burgs that occured overnight, first thing in the morning

0630-0645hrs: The CLETs system goes down so I can't run out any people or plates. Nevertheless, several officers attempt to do so, even though they have been notified.

0645hrs: San Bernadino County Sheriffs called to confirm a warrant. When I finally found it in the warrant files it was so old, the paper was disintegrating. It was a drunk driving warrant for 1,000 dollars form the '80s

0700hrs: The day shift dispatcher, Dino, has arrived. Yay! So, that was a pretty typical shift. Not always exciting but definitely interesting. Man, I love my job. And now I am off to see my sweet boy and reunite with my beloved pillow.