Category: Law Enforcement

Humor, Law Enforcement, Work

The Missing Woman Who Wasn’t

“Mystery is at the heart of creativity.  That, and surprise.”
– Julia Cameron

How’s that for a title, piglets?  Doesn’t that just thrill your soul?  Aren’t you just mad afire to solve this Agatha Christie sounding mystery?  Are you already twirling your Poirot-ish mustache and cracking your knuckles, ready to pounce and out the murderer, find the money, unmask the fiend, and kick up your heels after with a glass of port and the knowledge of a mystery tidily wrapped up?

Well, I’m sorry to disappoint because this, my enterprising sleuths, is about the silliest, least exciting, and yet most perplexing case I’ve yet to be a part of.

It all started when a young traveler coming in from China to our campus went missing.  I was called into a meeting where very many men in smart suits were sitting dourly at a table with our police officers.  They represented various university and otherwise organizations and they had misplaced a young woman.  Or rather, after flying into the country she had misplaced herself.

We're on it!

My duty in all of this was the fulfillment of dreams spawned from watching illogical cop dramas – I got to fill out the white board!  I traced timelines, physical descriptions, suspicions, all of it.  There was talk of embassies, visas, the FBI, human trafficking, slavery, kidnapping, scandal!  They shipped investigators all over, avoided the media, and formulated theories like champs.

And it turns out, that after flying all the way here, going through the visa process, paying for her trip, she got here, got cold feet, and turned right around and went back to China.  With narry an scorned heiress, missing fortune, or diabolical butler to be seen.

Humor, Law Enforcement, Work

There’s (Not) An App For That

“Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t want plastered on a billboard with your face on it.”
– Erin Bury

Dear World At Large,

Hey!  We haven’t talked in a while, but you seem well and up to your old tricks, hence this little note of clarification.

Social Media - end of society? Not exactly. Misued and annoying? Definitely.

As we’ve discussed previously, technology is not always your friend.  Your Facebook, Twitter, and other social media are actually public information and can be used to bring your deeds (criminal or just criminally silly) to light.  However, we need to have an honest conversation about another side effect of your media habits.

This is a conversation I had yesterday:
“Hello, my backpack was stolen.”
“Alright, ma’am, you’ll need to come into our department to make a report to one of our -”
“No I don’t.”
“…Pardon?”
“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?  This is making a police report.”
“No, ma’am, to make a police report you must – except in very unique circumstances – speak to a police officer in person.  I’m not an officer, I’m a secretary.  I can give you limited advice and assistance, but that’s it.”
“Fine, put a police officer on the phone.”
“I can if you’d like, ma’am, but they will tell you the same thing: you’ll have to come into our office.”
“Seriously?!  [choice language censored]”

And surprisingly, not one of these adequately allow you to report a crime.

Last week I spoke to a gentleman on the phone, the conversation went thus:
“Hello, I’m looking at your website and I don’t see where I can report a crime.”
“Well, we have the option of reporting anonymous tips or voicing concerns online -”
“No, you don’t understand.  I’m being stalked by my ex-fiancee and I want to report it.”
“You’ll have to come into our office to do that, sir.”
“What?!  I can’t just send you an email and you take care of it?”
“No, sir.  Typically an officer will need to ask you many questions to adequately understand your situation, verify your identity, and work with you specifically to assist you.”
” [Expletive], can’t you guys just have an app or something?”

The truth is, dear World at Large, there are in fact some things that you still need to do face to face.  We may be moving towards that point, but there isn’t an app for everything.  You are still required to appear in person from time to time.  Give your thumbs a break and come and talk to me in real life, I’m charming!

Yours with love,
C.

Law Enforcement, Stupid People, Work

Physics and Philosophy

“Lawless are they that make their wills their law.”
– William Shakespeare

 

It would be an absolute falsehood to say that I find working with law enforcement to be my ideal job or that it answers the immortal career longings of my soul, but working where I do has given me an appreciation for job that law enforcement officers do.  And trust me, it’s not always a pleasant one.

We had another police officer hit by a car last night while directing traffic because the driver did not want to do what he was being told to and purposely struck him.  Nearly every one of our police officers and student employees were threatened or cussed out at the last sporting event.  This boggles me.  Everyone acknowledges that we need police officers, that the work they do is vital to the running of society for the keeping of law and order, but everyone seems to hate them.  Resent them, even.

My theory about this is that nobody likes to be told that they cannot do what they want to all of the time.  Of course people want to drive as fast as they’d like, they don’t want restrictions on where they can park, and they don’t want to be caught when they steal something…but most of all, people seem to hate having to acknowledge (when they get caught doing any of these things) that what they have done is wrong – even when they have hit another human being with a car.  On purpose.

They are constantly stunned when there are repercussions to their actions, and even after two and a half years of working here, this attitude aggravates me.  Every two year old can throw a temper tantrum when they don’t get their way, but shouldn’t adults be able to acknowledge that having to wait in lines is part of life, and that screaming obscenities and threatening bodily harm may not be the way to deal with it?

When dealing with police, everyone wants to be the exception – can’t you just not report this, can’t you please just let me cut off those 300 people ahead of me, can’t you just let me get away with this once – and the answer is, “no.”  We can’t make you the exception because you are the 47th person to make that very request in the last hour and if we didn’t say yes to them we can’t say yes to you.  And if we do say yes to you, we can’t say no to the next 47 people who ask.

But people hate being told no.  They hate being told that cannot act in they way they want.  And often they refuse to examine the reasoning behind that negative answer; i.e., if I allow you to drive your car through a barricade and in front of a oncoming mass of vehicles you may get injured, and you may injure many other people.  Your actions affect other people, and police exist because so many of those actions or their ripple effects are harmful.

We’ve all had a bad experience with a the fuzz, but take a minute to honestly imagine a society without them.

(Sorry, kittens, but as you can see we’re dealing with some pretty wretched stuff at the department today.  Humor will shortly return.  Hopefully.  In the meantime, let’s all strive to be a little nicer and conscientious today, eh?  There are already plenty of jerks in the world, let’s not them win.)

Humor, Law Enforcement, Office, Secretary, Stupid People, University, Work

Rudeness Most Foul

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
– Isaac Asimov

Definately human.

The interesting thing about working at a university is how much information, equipment, and expertise is available to you.  So when a plastic bag filled with large bones is found buried on the grounds, it’s the work of a moment to ask someone from Anthropology to come over and verify that they aren’t human.  Just in case.  Or, less professionally, when one is hungry, one can just scamper over to any of the cafes, food halls, or centers that provide sustenance for cheap prices.

Alternatively, using campus resources can often put one in an awkward situation.

In the library there is a very nice media lab where you can covert anything in any format to any other format you please.  Now I’m pretty technologically illiterate, but even I can appreciate that sort of thing.  And for the first time I got to use it yesterday when Lt. Citrus gave me a sack full of VHS tapes and told me to convert them to DVDs.  How neat, thought I, and off I trotted.

I got a crash course in using the towering masses of machinery and, after snatching a book to keep me company (another benefit of a university setting), I got to work.  There was a lot of loading/unloading tapes, keeping an eye on the screens, finalizing data, etc., but mostly it involved waiting for the tapes to run fully (which could last from a few minutes to a couple hours).  And I even watched a couple: guy holding an audience hostage because God told him he was supposed to be supreme dictator or Earth, rioting at football games, your average wierdos…you know, the usual.

However there was some pretty dark stuff too and when converting those I taped paper over the screens (because I am of the somewhat old fashion opinion that an individual’s personal tragedy is nobody else’s damn business).  During these tapes, I kicked back with my book until I was rudely disturbed but a gentleman marching up to me.

You've been recording investigation documents, vital to court proceedure, medical records, and department case archives, for entirely TOO LONG. You will now be punished!

“You’ve been here for a long time,” he accused.
“Yes, and I apologize, but I am working on something important on behalf of the University.  I’m nearly done.  Do you need the machines?”
“No,” he said snappishly .  “I just think you’re being inconsiderate taking up so much time.”
Not really prepared to handle this sort of time management vigilante-ism (side note – not one person had previously needed to use the machines or asked me when I would be done), I only blinked.
“You’re probably not even doing anything remotely important,” he continued, crossing his arms and turning up his nose.  “What are you working on?”
I felt an eyebrow climb at his tone but answered in a chipper voice, “Well I’m transferring a video taken from a homicide scene investigation.  Then I’ll have to transfer the autopsy tapes as well, care to watch?”

His eyes bugged for a moment and then he slunk off.

Like I said, the equipment and resources amassed here are fantastic, but the ability to see some people in all there snippy, self-important silliness might be my favorite part of my job after all.

Humor, Law Enforcement, Office, Stupid People, Work

Another Myth to Dispel

“Look, I am not stupid.”
– Terminator, 1984

I really am surprised and dismayed whenever it is reiterated to me that the general public thinks our department is staffed with morons.  I don’t know where this idea comes from – that anyone who works at/for a police department has the IQ of a deck chair – but really, can we let it go?

Now I admit, some of the officers aren’t the savviest when it comes to modern work practices regarding inter-gender relations, and common sense in administrative details is somewhat lacking, but I must say that they are damned good police officers.  I’d shift a few personalities around if I could, but I’ve never had any complaints about their actual skills and professional capacities.

So when you call up the parking office, asking us to remove a car from our records because you won’t be driving it anymore, we take pause.  Because, you see, we have access to your state records and your class schedule.  We can see that you live far enough away from campus that walking could be uncomfortable, we can also see that you are sill enrolled in classes.  We also know that, with your student parking privileges removed, the only place your car could park on campus would be a visitor lot.  And we know that you know that parking in visitor lots while still a student is forbidden.  And finally, we are able to guess that a man still enrolled in classes asking us to remove his parking privileges, while living too far away to walk to campus daily, might be trying to find a loophole for parking in visitor lots.

Most vitally, we know that checking visitor lots regularly for people who have already tried this trick hundreds of times, turns up at least half a dozen like minded people a day.  Here’s your ticket.  Also, I have a Twitter friend for you.

We’re not idiots.  And you’re not as clever as you think you are.  We really have seen it all before, and have prepared accordingly.