I called the cops the first time, in Vegas in 1975 when my car had almost $500 damage to steal a 40 buck cassette player! They were pretty nice and came very quickly.
I called them the next time, needlessly, as another neighbor had already called them when my coke crazed neighbor came out of his apartment wearing only his little white undies, waving an old 1911 around, then pointed it at my dog and myself, while screaming the entire time. He went off to jail.
About 3 years later, he ran over a guy on his bicycle, riding home from work. He drug the guy and the bike a couple hundred feet, then stopped and pulled him loose, and hauled ass to a local hospital parking lot. He left his full sized Blazer there, and hid for a couple of days in his aunt's apartment complex nearby. He got a few years in jail out of it.
The next time was when I was held up while working at a gas station. It was the second time in my life and my reaction was the same as the first, I wasn't really scared, as much as I was angry. I had about 3 minutes with a gun at the back of my head, and all I could think of was the pinhead who was the ringleader of the four, who we knew very well from previous visits, probably scoping the place out. The total take of this crime of the century was $48 and 4 cartons of Kools! When we looked at the mug books, we picked out the guy we knew almost instantly. He ended up getting 30 years! While he was out on bail, he skipped to Chicago, his home town, and shot a guy in the stomach with a .32 S&W revolver. The guy's 400 pound weight, and old ammo did little more than scare him, and after he was convicted in Nevada, he was convicted in Ill, too, and got another 25 years from them, to be served AFTER the Nevada sentence was up!
He just got out on parole from Ill in 2004. at the ripe old age of 60.
Next time was back in Ohio, called the Maumee cops when I saw some guy hiding in the trees in my backyard. Turned out he was an "escapee" from the nearby old folks home.
Next time I called the Toledo cops when I was almost hit by a car going the wrong way with no headlights. It was some old guy who had lost his marbles and was trying to get home.
I've called several times on drunks drivers over the years, I have no use for them whatsoever.
My only real negative experiences with the cops came in Vegas, starting in 1976. A friend and I had done the underage casino deal, we were both 20, and about 6 months from being legal. He got super drunk, and when we were heading home, he says, "Pull over!!, I'm gonna be sick!". So I pulled into the Holiday Inn on the strip, and since I had stayed there once, I knew there was a wall of bushes in the back. He staggered over to them and got rid of all the beers he had drunk over the last couple hours. We got back to my apartment, and as he's about to pass out on the couch, he realized his keys are gone! He's all upset, and has a ton of keys, and so I agreed to go back and look for them. Big mistake. When I got back to the Holiday Inn, I asked the desk clerk if anyone had turned in any keys. He said no, and I asked him if I could look for them in the back, telling him what happened. He laughed and said yes.
I parked my car so the headlights were shining right where he puked, and I couldn't find them. After about 20 minutes, I was about to give up. I see a Metro PD car flying along the fence in back, and then see another one flying up alongside the fence on my left. I still don't know they are "after" me at this point. I just stood there watching the cars drive back and forth with their spotlights on, and not having any idea they were "looking" for me! After a few minutes, I decide to leave and take about two steps towards my car, and suddenly a metro car flies up and out comes two cops, both with their guns out, screaming "Freeze!" It was winter, and I was cold, and don't ask me why, but I put my hands in my pockets! "They yelled, "NOOO!" and I froze like a statue. They accused me of robbing and beating up some old lady. Only problem was, was that I didn't match the description at all. I had shoulder length hair, and a full beard, the bad guy was clean shaven. One of the two cops just wanted to leave, but the other guy had a hard on for me, and kept me out there for two hours, asking me the same questions, over and over. Finally the other one says, "Hey, it's time to go home, just do an F.I. card on him and let's get out of here!". He didn't want to, but they finally let me go. Just because the one cop was such a bastard, I decided to play with him a little. When he frisked me, he found the wrench and screwdriver I had in my pocket, but he missed the huge Buck folding knife I had in the same pocket. Just before the nicer of the two cops hands me back my stuff, I reach in my pocket and said, "Hey, looky what you missed when you frisked me!!" The nice cop rolled his eyes, and muttered, "Jeezus, XXXXX, you're gonna get us killed one of these days!" The first cop, who resembled David Letterman, then proceeded to take his baton out, and popped holes in both front seats of my car! He laughed and they took off.
Over a year goes by, and the gas station holdup had occurred and the trial was over. The detective in charge of that case kind of got friendly with me, as I vaugely knew his son, and told me to call him if I ever needed anything.
In April '77, I bought a Dodge Power Wagon (Half ton 4x4 truck for you kids), in front of me at the DMV was a guy with the same exact truck as I had, and we wound up with sequencial numbers his last two digits were 00 and mine was 01.
Well, he never made a payment, and never paid a ticket either. One day I'm going home from work, and I get pulled over, it's my old buddy, the nasty cop from the Holiday Inn. He gets back to his car with my license before he realized who I was. I saw him jump when it clicked into his tiny head. He runs me, and then comes back up, and stares at me with the little squint he had for a minute, then says, "You can go now, just watch yourself, because I'm watching you!" I say, "You'll be as bored as I was towards the end of that little deal behind the Holiday Inn!" He snorted and walked away.
Then the fun began, I started getting pulled over, by my old buddy, and three other cops, over and over again, with the excuse that they were checking to make sure I wasn't the other guy, wanted by both the cops and the repo men. I got pulled over, and made to sit there for 10-15 minutes each time, and was late for work about a dozen times over a 3 month period. Finally, I called the detective, and when I said the name of the cop I knew from the Holiday Inn, he laughed and said the names of the other three guys pulling me over, "They all came in together, and two of them are brother in laws!" He tells me to get a notebook, and to write down who stopped me, when and where, and don't say anything to them, and when it was full, to call him, he was friends with one of the higher ups that didn't like them much, and he would love to screw with them.
It didn't take long, and I called him back and he said, "Already?? Oh man, they are gonna be twisting in the wind on this!" Then he says, "What do you want out of this?" I told him I wanted to be left alone, and I wanted $100 for my seats. He laughed again, and called me a couple of days later. He said, "Ok, you're going to get a letter of apology, signed by all four, and a money order for $100 from XXXXX. He's going to call you from the captain's office on Monday, and apologize in front of us! He's going to be mortified!"
On friday, I got the money, and on monday, he called and made a really sappy apology.
About a year later, I'm going down the road near my house, and I get pulled over by one of the three buddies of the first cop. I had traded the truck in, so he didn't know it was me until he came up to my window. He looks at me, says, "Sir.....Oh crap...slow down, OK?", and just walked away.
My dad quickly explained that he worked for the city and was just trying to let the officer know that his brake lights weren't working.
