Читать книгу Street Cop - David Spell - Страница 8

3

Knock Out

It was about 12:30 at night in mid April, 1985. I was working the midnight shift and received a call to a drunk person causing a disturbance at a nearby Kroger, a twenty four hour grocery store. There were several people standing in front of the store as I pulled up. Officer Paul, my academy mate, (the same one who got beat up by the girl in DT) joined me at the scene.

One of the people identified himself as the night manager of the Kroger. He pointed at a man standing a few feet away on the sidewalk and said that he was intoxicated and causing a scene inside the store. He had made a few lewd remarks towards some of the female cashiers and customers. He had refused to leave when ordered to do so and had also threatened to “beat the hell out of” several of the male employees who were trying to get him to leave the store. The manager had then called the police.

At this point, during my conversation with the manager, the intoxicated man staggered over and started yelling at the Kroger employees. The man was about six foot one and weighed around one hundred and eighty pounds. He looked to be around fifty years of age but was athletic looking. I found out later he was a retired navy chief.

The drunk man pointed at the store manager and said, “He’s bothering me.”

I told the drunk man that he needed to calm down or he would be arrested. Instead of calming down, though, he pushed past me and advanced towards the store manager snarling, “You’re a stupid punk and I’m going to teach you a lesson!” As the drunk man drew back his right arm to punch the store manager, I grabbed his left arm and pulled him off balance. I could see that he had a round object in his right hand but I did not know what it was.

My police car was just a few feet away. I pulled the drunk towards it intending to handcuff him and get him in the car before he had a chance to attack me. This was one of those situations where even though I had another officer there with me, I was still pretty much by myself. Officer Paul was a really nice guy but was not someone you wanted to have with you in a fight.

Just as we got to my police car, the drunk jerked away from me and drew back his right hand to punch me. I saw it coming and fired a straight left punch that caught the guy square on the jaw. It was like someone had flicked the light switch in his brain to the “Off” position. He was unconscious before he crashed to the pavement. When he fell, he landed heavily and the back of his head bounced when it hit the pavement. I immediately rolled him over and handcuffed him. I quickly checked him for weapons and then inspected the object that had fallen from his right hand. It was a rock, the size of a softball. It weighed about one pound. That was what this guy was going to hit the Kroger manager and me with if he had had the chance.

I checked the unconscious man and found that he was breathing okay but was still out and our efforts to revive him were not having much effect. Officer Paul called an ambulance and I got statements from all the witnesses. One of the witnesses told me that the man had been at the Derby Food & Spirits, a classy establishment a few doors down from the Kroger. He had been there for a couple of hours drinking and becoming more belligerent with every beer. He had tried to vandalize the jukebox and was barely prevented from turning it over by security.

When the drunk man started harassing some of the female customers in the bar, the bouncers told him it was time to leave. He really did not want to leave the bar, however, and security had to throw him out. Outside the bar, he had thrown several objects at the window before deciding to go to Kroger. I obtained several witnesses’ names and information to cover myself in case this guy was hurt bad.

When the ambulance arrived, the paramedics were not able to revive our unconscious drunk either. They transported him to the hospital. When I got to the hospital, the doctor told me that they had X-rayed the subject and found that he had a fracture on the back of his skull from where he hit the pavement. He did not seem to think it was too serious. I called my sergeant, Sergeant Bob, and told him what had happened. He did not seem to be overly concerned either.

I went ahead and secured warrants on the guy for Simple Assault on me and the Kroger manager, as well as one for Public Drunk. I felt like he should have been charged with Aggravated Assault due to the fact that the rock he was holding would have done a lot of damage. The judge did not see it that way and only issued warrants for Simple Assault, a misdemeanor. These charges would be waiting for him when he was released from the hospital. In reality, however, he was not going to be released from the hospital. I got a call a couple of days later from one of the nurses. She told me that the subject was not responding to treatment and they were going to have a neurologist check him. She was letting me know because the county government was going to be responsible for the man’s medical bills and they were getting higher by the day.

When I saw Sergeant Bob, I told him what the nurse had said. He asked me, “What did you do to that guy?” I noticed that he now seemed a little more concerned. He made a few phone calls up the chain of command, letting those above him know about this situation. Somewhere up the chain, someone decided that Internal Affairs should probably look into this. That did not help my state of mind. I was already starting to feel bad for hurting the guy so seriously. Granted, I’m glad he didn’t hit me in the face with that one pound rock. If he had, I might be the one in the hospital waiting on the neurologist.

I had only been with the police department a little over a year and had, so far, avoided having to deal with Internal Affairs. I showed up at their office at the appointed time and met with Sergeant Mike, who was going to interview me. He had read my report and had interviewed the witnesses. This made me feel better because I knew that he at least had all the facts in front of him. He asked me a few questions about the incident and about what we did at the scene.

The next thing Sergeant Mike did, though, was to give me an update on the suspect’s condition. He told me that the neurologist had diagnosed him with a serious medical condition. The brain had been damaged when his skull smashed into the pavement and he would never fully recover. He would require some type of care for the rest of his life, or as Sergeant Mike so tactfully put it, “He’ll need someone to water him and turn him towards the light a couple of times a day.”

I was devastated. I had not intended to injure the man. He had tried to punch me and I managed to get him first. I quickly went over the scenario in my mind and really could not think of any other way it could have been handled. That did not make me feel any better, though. Here was a man that I had essentially robbed of the rest of his life. The look on my face must have shown how bad I felt.

Sergeant Mike then reached into a manila folder and pulled out a sheaf of six or seven sheets of paper. He handed it out to me and said, “I want you to read this. It is the suspect’s criminal history.” As I started to read, I began to feel better. I came to realize that this had been a very dangerous man. He had been arrested on multiple occasions for assaulting police officers, resisting arrest, assault and battery, public drunkenness, as well as many other offenses. The only surprise was why he was not already in jail. Some of the charges had been reduced to less serious ones to dispose of them.

When I finished reading the Criminal History, Sergeant Mike said, “I know you feel bad about this. None of us wants to hurt anyone. But I want you to know something. By taking this guy out, you may have saved another police officer’s life. You might have saved a citizen’s life. This guy was a powder keg just waiting to explode. Because of your actions, Officer Spell, we do not have to worry about this man anymore. He will never cause anyone another problem.” Sergeant Mike’s words were exactly what I needed to hear. The cloud lifted off of my mind and I left that interview room knowing that I had done my job and had done it well.