Friday....finally

Phew! This has been a busy week. Couple of weeks actually. So I'm especially grateful to see Friday come.

My social worker informed me today that my updated homestudy is complete. That's one less thing to cause me stress. Now I don't have to worry about more adoption paperwork until July '09 when my I-171H expires. Again. Sigh....

Last night was quite interesting. I got called back to work at 9pm.
I had to interview a couple of kids who got caught with a gun. It's part of a federal grant program to reduce gun violence. My job is to interview them to try to determine where the gun came from. (Ironic that I'm talking about guns so much on my blog lately, huh? What's up with that?) It's an overtime deal, so I don't mind too much.

Anyway, that's not the interesting part. That came just after midnight when I finally drive onto my street with only visions of my comfy bed floating through my head. I see four of my neighbors standing out in the street. Hmmmm... this is definitely not normal. I stop and ask what's going on. They all four start to talk at once. Very excitedly. This is typical of what happens when a police officer rolls up on a call. And it's confusing trying to figure it out.

The best I can decipher is that my next door neighbor startled someone breaking into his work truck. And they're pointing to a guy walking at the end of the block. Someone mentions he may be involved. He's rounding the corner at that moment and getting out of my view. Crap. I don't want him to get away if he's one of the bad guys. Crap crap crap...

So I tell my neighbor to jump in the car with me. Partly so he could finish telling me what happened. And partly so I had some back up since this was going down pretty quickly. I drive around the corner and see the guy just ahead. I pull up next to him and yell out "I'm a cop. Stop right there!" in my most menacing voice. Luckily for me, he did. LOL!

Just as I'm jumping out of the car to grab him I realize......
I'm not wearing my gun. It's in my bag.
I'm not wearing my badge. It's in my bag.
I don't have a set of handcuffs. They're in my bag.
I don't have my police radio. It's in my bag.
My bag is in the car.
And no one within the police dispatch center has any idea where I'm at or what I'm doing. Cuz I was technically off duty at this point and only thinking of getting home when I accidentally rolled into the middle of this cluster.

Can you say ....oh shit? Can you say.... really really stupid move? Well, sometimes it just happens like that.

Fortunately for me, the "Gods of Careless Police Work" were watching over me. Yes, they actually do exist and protect us in these type situations. LOL! Or maybe it was just my authoritative, intimidating demeanor? Whatever the case.... the guy actually stopped and complied with my orders to get against the car and spread 'em. (Yes... I secretly love talking to men this way.) After I patted him down and (sheepishly) asked my neighbor to get my radio out of my purse and hand it to me so I could keep the guy pinned against the car, I called for an assist and a uniform crew arrived.

Turns out this kid was not involved in the theft. He was, however, a passenger who bailed out of a recklessly driving car that was ....uhhh how shall I say?.... being "aggressively followed" by an undercover police car. (Anyone who works for a police department will understand my choice of words here.) Which just coincidentally happened at about the same time as the truck break in.

Strange. Just very strange. Because even though I'm forced to live in the city that I police, my street is actually pretty quiet. Usually. But not last night.

Needless to say, I had trouble sleeping cuz of the big adrenaline dump right before hitting the sack. So I'm exhausted right about now. I see an early bed time in my future. But not before saying my prayers to the Gods of CPW to give some thanks for keeping my ass outta trouble last night. Although not the first time and certainly not the last.....