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911 dispatcher sends me a call at midnight: a millennial is hella upset that his wife is still smoking cigarettes, 3 months pregnant
and all. I pointed out to him that I, as a police officer, specialized pretty much only in crimes and criminal activities and
abhorrent as it sounded, his problem did not quite fit the parameters for a police response, so he was going to have to figure out
how to deal with that himself.

I was on patrol, with another officer in my passenger seat. At a 4-way stop intersection we see a young man on a motorcycle
across from us come up to a stop, and because he had a passenger riding on the back of his sport bike, his balance was a little
off and he almost fell over. Definitely caught the attention of both of the police officers watching him; we instantly started
thinking the chances were pretty high this guy was inexperienced, and probably not licensed to operate a motorcycle. So I
changed my course and started following him. A block later he decided he did not want to meet any police officers that day, so
he jerked the throttle back and took off, to try an escape and evade tactic. My response was lights and sirens and matching
speed, but I quickly realized that his bike was considerably faster than my patrol car. A couple blocks later I terminated my
pursuit and turned off the lights and siren, to the great disappointment of the other officer who wanted to keep chasing him. If
the biker had been riding solo without his girlfriend hanging on for dear life on the back, I might have considered it. But I had
determined that if I kept up the chase, the likelihood of him crashing spectacularly was pretty high, and his back seat rider
probably did not deserve that risk. So they got away.

Guy calls 911 in a panic. His 2 year old son is missing. Broad daylight, calm weekend day. Cops show up, guy explains the kid
either wandered off or somebody took him cause the kid is most definitely not there. More police show up and we start making
plans about calling out a Search and Rescue team. In the middle of all this the guy’s mother in law drives up. She tells us that
she actually has the little tyke and he’s fine. She took him because she had stopped by to visit and her son in law was passed out
drunk with the kid playing in the living room. So she took him. We weren’t mad at her at all; she done good.

When I was really on top of my game – back in the days when I was pulling over 100+ drivers a month – I could notice when cars
passing me had license plates that were different – meaning a front plate that was different than a rear plate. That takes
concentration is ranked as Expert Level. And over the years, sometimes I pulled over more than one car at once; a handful of
times three or four cars at one time, and my all-time record was nine at one time, for passing on the right on the shoulder.