Page 201 - NIXBOOK

I’ve got a law breaker in custody, the scene is chaotic and dynamic and I realize that I just jumbled up the Miranda Warning to
him. Not a big deal, since a criminal justice researcher had once counted no less than 132 different versions across the country;
slight variations existed amongst federal and state agencies, municipal, county, tribal; the was no exact national standard.

Normal-looking but kind of mentally ill guy, about 55 years old, is out wandering around at night; he had gotten kicked out of
his sister’s apartment after she got a court order signed by a judge so he was kind of homeless. He found an unlocked door at a
dentist office and was hanging out in there when the motion sensor alarm went off. As a matter of routine, the alarm company
called in to see if it was an employee. The idiot not only answers the phone, but he gives the alarm company operator his real
name when asked. The police show up and arrest him. The next morning, the restaurant owner next door called 911 to report a
burglar had been in their place during the night, and although they didn’t have an alarm system, they did get him on video. It
was of course the same moron, right before he found the dentist office unlocked and went in there. I make the restaurant owner
feel better when I tell him the guy is already in jail. While he was in there – the restaurant – he had helped himself to some food
(showed up clearly on video) which elevated his crime from a simple trespass to a burglary. The legal definition of burglary
being; in a place where you’re trespassing, AND committing a crime while in there. (So for you law students out there- his being
in the dentist was just a simple trespass, since he committed no (other) crimes). But it gets a little better: the moron had gotten
stuck in an elevator while in the restaurant. Literally stuck. So he had hit the emergency button in the cab, which went straight
to the elevator company. They asked his name, he of course gave them his real name, and they sent out a technician to free him.
Local elevator repair guy showed up – at midnight – and got the guy out. The tech went to go check the elevator control panel
and the burglar ran away. But just to the dentist office next door where he got caught a short time later. A few days later the
restaurant got a service bill from the elevator company, with itemized line items for “travel extra work outside the contract
overtime” at $636.23 in .75 increments. The total bill to get the burglar out of their elevator at midnight was $2,773.96.

A shirtless man is having a psychotic break and he’s running around crazy in an apartment complex parking lot. I arrive on the
scene and he takes one look at me and starts running faster. He runs downhill and I radio the other responding officer that the
guy is headed his way. The shirtless crazy guy (about 27 years old) runs down an embankment and gets to a retention pond that
is alongside the road; basically a giant ditch with some marshy reedy plants growing in it. Dude either slips in the wet (it was
raining) grass or he intentionally does a header; either way he literally dives right into the water, goes all the way in and under,
and then comes up on the other side of the edge by the road. We catch and him and he is done running and now very cold; the
diving in the ditch move really put out the steam in him. We talk to him and it’s clear he’s in what could call an altered mental
state; he can’t remember who he is, where he lives, why he’s running around with no shirt, where he’s going, or what his story
is. The tats on his chest show he’s an army vet, with some time in over in the middle east. I guess something happened over that
messed him up. The only questions of mine that he can answer are “Has this happened before?” (yes) “Were you transported to
the hospital for a mental evaluation?” (yes) and “Okay, would you like to be seen again today?” (yes). So he willingly gets into
an aid car and the EMT’s take him to the hospital. We felt kind of bad for that guy. That was the last I ever saw of him; I never
found out what his story was or where he lived.