Highway Patrol – Week 2 – Part 2

Hello FFFs,

Have you ever started a week feeling like you had a mountain of things to accomplish and didn't know if you'd be able to get even a quarter of them done? That's how my week started. I had a project that really needed to be finished, but I also had a dozen or so other projects all wanting or needing to be worked on. After spending most of the day working on adding pictures to the collection of letters my grandparents wrote each other (in the 1940s) in high school and then some in college (my big project) and only getting half of the six years done, I was rather discouraged. I had hoped to get the proof copy of this book ordered last week. Now I probably wouldn't get it uploaded until Wednesday since all Tuesday morning is spent teaching. And did I mention the other projects were nudging me and begging to get worked on too?

Tuesday–

I spent the morning teaching like I had planned. Then in the afternoon I got to work on the project. To my excitement I got the rest of the pictures added! Then, I finished the formatting and uploaded it! I got the cover done and submitted the project. I was thrilled! But the day wasn't over. I received my proof copy of my new Christmas story!

And I finished writing my November short story, finished reading a book for a reading challenge, and got a Read Another Page newsletter sent out! Talk about exciting.

Wednesday–

While not quite as exciting as Tuesday, it was still great! I edited, formatted, and uploaded the October story for publication. (It's available for pre-order.) My sister and I finished listening to an audio book, I worked on blog posts for the Five Fall Favorites, re-read and edited my November story, and ordered my proof copy of the book I finished Tuesday.

I love it when so many projects get completed all at once. Now I have a few more to finish. The big one is of course making sure everything is ready for the Five Fall Favorites party. :) But I need to write the next Highway Patrol report from last night's class, and find get some other things done.

How was your week? If you need something to laugh about, just read the 2nd half of this report. I share some stories that still crack us up. :)

HP Report Week 2

Part 2

    We had a break after that and got snacks and drinks, and moved around and chatted some.
    Our next instructor was a good friend of Sergeant Leuckenhoff’s, Sergeant Steve Jones. He gave us a crash course on Impaired Driving Enforcement. They said they used to have some off duty troopers come in and actually get drunk, so we could see what happens, but I was glad Sgt. Lueckenhoff decided not to do that.
    Did you know that drunk driving is the #1 cause of death in the United States? Every 2 minutes someone is injured because of it, and every 51 minutes someone is killed.
    There are four lines of defense against drunk or impaired driving.
    1st line: Education and Prevention. This one is kind of obvious. If you can educate people about the dangers, you will lessen the likelihood of them being one of those drivers.
    2nd line: Close friends or family. If you see a family member or close friend who is not fit to drive, do everything you can to keep them from getting behind that wheel. Offer to take them home (unless you are somewhat impaired too), offer to call a cab or someone else.
    3rd line: Citizens. If someone stops for gas, and you can tell he shouldn’t be driving, call 911 and let them know. If you work at a gas station and just sold someone a 6-pack because you thought he was a passenger, but then you see him get in the driver’s seat and there’s a child in the back, call the police.
    4th line: Law Enforcement.
    If you ever see a vehicle being driven erratically (braking suddenly, swerving, slowing down and then speeding up), call 911, or *55 if you are on the highway. Let the dispatcher know what you see, what the car looks like, and which direction it is heading. You may feel like it might not be an emergency but you can tell them you don’t know if the person is just sleepy or if something else is going on. They can send someone to check it out. It could save a life.
    And no, just because someone swerves across the line once doesn’t mean they are drunk. There are all sorts of reasons that could happen (missing a turtle in the road, checking your phone, turning on the AC, looking at something out the side window, sneezing . . .). A State Trooper is not going to pull over everyone he sees that does something erratic once or twice. He has to have a reasonable suspicion that they are under some sort of influence.
    Two of our classmates put on the “drunk glasses” and attempted to walk a straight line. One of them kept taking them off when she was just standing still because she felt like she was going to fall over. Sgt. Lueckenhoff, who was assisting Sgt. Jones at this point, had to hold on to her arm to keep her steady.

    We really didn’t get a break before our next instructor, Sergeant Travis Hitchcock. He works in the Criminal Investigation Department. There are different types of investigations needed for different kinds of crimes. There are the usual things that people think of such as break-ins, thefts, or other things of a criminal nature. Then there are drugs, and there are also rural or agricultural crimes. I never think of rustling cattle as something that happens much these days, but it does. Or stealing such things as a combine!
    Sgt. Travis told us many stories of his years working on the Highway Patrol force. Here are a few that he told.
Story #1
    Sgt. Travis was a young trooper, and it was one of his first times out alone. It had been an easy day and his shift was almost over. Only about ten more minutes, so he decided to turn around and head back. He had to wait for a car to drive past before doing a U-turn and heading back in the same direction the other car was going.
    Suddenly the car that had just driven past him pulled over to the side of the road and the driver’s door opened.
    At this point, Trooper Travis wasn’t sure what was going on, so he pulled over too, at a safe distance, and cautiously got out.
    The driver in front of him climbed out of his car, threw up his hands and exclaimed, “I knew you’d catch me! I just knew it! I knew you’d get me!”
    Wondering what the man had done, Trooper Travis called back, “You shouldn’t have done it.”
    “I know!” the other man admitted. “I shouldn’t have. I knew you’d catch me.”
    Now Travis was really wondering who the man was and what he had done. He had to keep the man talking until he could figure it out. Somehow during the lengthy conversation Travis discovered that the man had a few warrants out and was driving on a suspended license. After placing the man under arrest and handcuffing him, Travis put him in the patrol car and they drove off.
    The man was still agitated and asked, “How did you know it was me in that car?”
    Glancing over at him, Travis replied, “I didn’t. I was just going home.”
    “Oh, man!”
    “Yeah, if you hadn’t stopped, I would never have known. And now you’ve made me late getting off my shift.”
    The man apologized.
   
Story #2
    One day when Sgt. Travis was working, he got word that a case of fireworks had been stolen. Now a “case” is a tent-load of fireworks. They were stolen by two employees who knew if they took some from this case and some from that, it would be discovered. So they just took an entire case instead of shipping it. It was pretty easy to find the fireworks because the thief had listed them on Craig’s List.
    Posing as a buyer, Sgt. Travis contacted the man, and they agreed to meet in a Wal-Mart parking lot to exchange money for the fireworks.
    When the day arrived, Sgt. Travis waited in the parking lot knowing that all around were other members of his team watching. Then he sees the man coming. The thief was driving a suburban loaded down so much that bottle rockets are sticking out the windows. Sgt. Travis said it looked like some cartoon. “Oh, great!” Travis thought, seeing the man approaching, “he’s going to know something’s up since there is no way all those things are going to fit in my small truck.”
    But he hadn’t reckoned on the fact that the thief who was dumb enough to list stolen items on Craig’s List, might not be smart enough to think of other things either.
    The thief arrived and eagerly started to help load the fireworks into the truck. The other officers moved up, but Sgt. Travis said it took the thief a while to realize that he was being arrested. Not a very smart thief. Oh, and the fireworks were all being stored in his grandma’s barn, so the officers went out there and recovered the entire lot.

Story #3
    Sgt. Travis told us that he likes to pull people over and just give them a warning. “You’d be surprised at how many criminals you can catch just from pulling them over for a tail light that’s out, or for driving too fast, or whatever.”
    This time he pulled over a car for a tail light that was out. Before he had time to get out of his car, the driver gets out of his car and starts walking toward him. Not a good sign. “Stop!” he tells the man.
    The man is acting really nervous and keeps asking, “What’s wrong, officer? What’s going on?”
    Sgt. Travis noticed a strange bulge in the pocket of the man’s pants. When the driver stuck his hand in the pocket, Sgt. Travis quickly grabbed his arm. He didn’t know what was in the pocket. It could be a gun. Quickly he felt it with his other hand and discovered it wasn’t hard. “What’s in your pocket?” he asked.
    The driver’s eyes widened and he looked down in shock. “I don’t know! Someone borrowed my pants!”
    (The room erupts into laughter at this point.)
    Sgt. Travis acted surprised. “You don’t know? Don’t you think we should find out?”
    “Yeah!”
    “Maybe you should pull it out slowly.”
    “Yeah, okay.” Gingerly, as though expecting a frog to jump out or something equally startling, the man began to feel around in his pocket. He felt and felt.
    “Can’t you find it? It’s right there.”
    Slowly the driver pulled his hand out and opened his eyes in astonishment as he holds a bag of “weed” in his hand. “How did that get there?”
    (Probably from the guy who borrowed his pants.) Needless to say, the driver was arrested for possession of drugs. If he had stayed sitting in his car and acted normal, Sgt. Travis might not have even noticed.

Story #4 (I told you he had a lot of stories.)
    Sgt. Travis was doing a traffic stop on a car and had the driver out talking to him. He could tell there was something in his pocket, so he told the man to take it out. The man took a really long time but finally pulled his hand out with the object tucked under his thumb trying to palm it. Quickly he dropped it on the ground between their feet and then jumped back in shock.
    “What’s that?” he exclaimed.
    Sgt. Travis is a great actor. For a moment he stared down at the object, then slowly he looked up into the sky before looking with wide eyes at the man. “I think God just framed you,” he said slowly.
    The man stared, not quite sure what to do next.

    All these stories made Sgt. Steve Jones, who was still there, want to tell one of his “war stories”.
    “I was a young rookie,” he began. “I was driving down the highway late one evening and ended up pulling over a car that was driving too fast. Before I had a chance to get out and approach the car, this lady jumps from her car and runs back to me. Now my first thought was, ‘Oh no, she wants to kill me,’ since that’s what’s been drilled into our heads at the academy. But thankfully she didn’t.
    “She starts talking about how she was late for work that day and had to clock in late, and that meant she lost two points and if she lost three than she’d lose her job. And these other problems had come up at work, and her son was having problems, and her water heater had broken. Then she starts going on about these UFO lights she had seen coming down low over the highway and about aliens. She just kept talking and talking and getting more excited.
    “I really didn’t want to deal with her, so I said, ‘Lady, the county line is about five miles that way,’ and I pointed. ‘I think you need to get in your car and get there.’
    She agreed, jumped back in her car and left.”

    Sgt. Travis asked, “When was this? About 20-25 years ago?”
    “Yeah,” Sgt. Jones agreed.
    “Then,” Sgt. Travis said, “for the last 20-25 years this lady has been telling all her friends about how she got out of a speeding ticket by talking about aliens.”
    (I wouldn’t suggest you try it because the trooper who pulls you over might be a seasoned trooper instead of a rookie.)
    There was a little talk after that about next week’s class. We get to shoot their guns, and Sgt. Lueckenhoff told us he has 100 rounds for each of us! We also get the SWAT guys next week, so I hope you’ll come back for the next report. See you next week!

Do you lend your pants to anyone?

Have you ever accomplished more than you thought possible?

Are you coming to the FFF party next week?