Page 166 - NIXBOOK

Old guy speeding in a truck on the state route, heading toward my jurisdiction. He used to be a pipefitter until he got blown
backward in a steam explosion, hit his head badly, got a traumatic brain injury, and got disabled. (I learned that part later) Now
he’s speeding in a truck, 15 years after the injury, because suddenly out of the blue with no warning at all he’s had a major
psychotic break, is freaking out, hollering nonsense, grabs his keys and goes to the truck. His adult daughter tries to stop him
from leaving the house but the best she could do is jump into the back of the pickup truck and she’s on the phone to 911, calling
out the roads he is passing. He doesn’t care she’s hanging on for dear life in the bed of the truck because he’s on a mission. I’m
the first officer closest to them; I drive into an intercept position at an intersection and stop traffic so he doesn’t get out onto
the main highway. We tell the 911 dispatcher to tell the daughter to jump out of the truck if she gets the chance. I get out of my
patrol vehicle and start quickly walking back past all the cars I’m blocking with all my lights on, looking for the truck. Right as
I identify it the old guy swerves around me and continues on. I can see the woman in the back, crying and yelling into her phone;
she can’t bail out cause dad won’t stop. I run back to my vehicle, and another arriving sheriff’s deputy and I give chase with
lights and sirens and the old guy decides to be cooperative and suddenly pull over. His daughter jumps out of the back of the
truck bed, hysterical. We get the old guy out of the truck. Several more cops catch up to us with lights and sirens. Then things
start to get interesting; the old guy tells us about his reality, which is that he used to be a special forces operator and he’s been
called out of military retirement to catch some terrorists that have been secretly killing people in this county and now we’re
blowing his cover there by the side of the road and endangering his family and he needs to get to the landing zone to get picked
up by the Blackhawk helicopter to go meet the other special forces teams and he can’t give us any specifics because it’s all very
very classified. Uh…..Okaaaaayyyy. He went to the hospital for a mental evaluation. Tearful daughter told us that he had never
actually been in the military. Never ever. Just one good brain injury that messed him up in the head. I later decided that if I ever
go crazy, that’s the kind of way I want to be. Not like paranoid that the CIA is watching me with cameras everywhere and
poisoning my food and spying on me and I have to make aluminum foil hats..no, that’s no fun at all. I want a delusion of
grandeur. That I’m a secret agent and I need to go on a mission and kill the terrorists and I’m late for my helicopter pick up to
take me to my space plane so I can go check in with the commander at the secret moon base – that kind of crazy, you know?

How many times, during my career, did I talk to citizens who reported that their cars had been prowled during the night..while
parked in their driveway? Dozens and dozens. I’d always ask if they had a garage door opener remote in their car, and was it
still there? If it had been taken, then that was what you would call Not a Good Sign. Time to unplug the garage door opener. I’d
also ask if the windows were broken, or was entry gained because a car door or two had maybe been left unlocked? Literally 99%
of the time, the answer was “Uh…I left my car unlocked.” At which point my sympathy meter would drop by about half.