From: asylvain@felix.UUCP (Alvin) My brother used to be a police officer in Chicago. (He's now a rather high-up muckity-muck in the police dept., but that's beside the point.) He's told me some amusing anecdotes from Chicago police-work. There was one story about people shovelling the snow for a parking space in front their house. This apparantly is a problem for the Chicago police every winter. What happens is that somebody will park in a nearby parking lot, then slave away for how ever many hours it takes to shovel out a car-sized space in front of his house, naturally so he can park his car there. Then he goes back to the lot to get his car. When he returns home, he finds that the space has been taken by some _other_ car. He is, well, upset. What most people do is write nasty notes etc. and place them on the windshield of the offending vehicle. Where the police get involved, however, is the occasional case where the individual vents his wrath in somewhat more violent means. Tires and throats have been slashed over this. One time a fellow got creative. Instead of doing the usual nasty, he got out his garden hose and watered the automobile down, real well. I mean, very, very thoroughly. The water, of course, froze solid. When the owner returned, instead of a car, he found a car-sized popsicle. The note on the car read: "You want the space? Here, it's yours until spring!" --------------------------- Subject: A cop with a sense of humour (true) Approved: funny@looking.on.ca The person I heard this from ("Al" in the story) swears that it really happened. (And no, I'm not this "Mark" - you should be able to figure out why I chose those names. :) Two guys (we'll call them "Mark" and "Al") are out cruising. Mark is driving, and they're on some out-of-the way roads. Mark is distracted and doesn't see a stop-sign, and a few moments after he runs it they hear a siren and see blue lights. Mark has never been stopped by the police before, and gets really nervous. MARK: OhnowhatdidIdo? I wasn't speeding, was I? No, I wasn't speeding. What'd I do what'd I do? He pulls over, shaking like a leaf. The cop pulls in behind and walks up to his window. COP: You realize you ran a stop sign back there? MARK: [panicky] No, honest! I didn't see it! I didn't *mean* to run it! I just didn't see it! Really! COP: I'll need to see your drivers' license. Mark pats his pants for a few seconds before remembering that he's wearing shorts with no pockets. He looks around the car, finds his wallet, opens it up, and starts frantically throwing things out of it into the back seat. No license. He enlists Al's help, and together they search the glove compartment, under the seats, behind the cushions, front and back, to no avail. After ten or fifteen minutes of searching, Al looks up and catches the officer's eye. AL: You don't need to see his identification. COP: [without missing a beat] I don't need to see his identification. AL: These aren't the droids you're looking for. COP: These aren't the droids we're looking for. AL: He may go on about his business. COP: You may go on about your business. AL: Move along. COP: Move along. At this point the cop turns around, walks back to his car, gets in, and drives away. Mark pulls out and makes it about 200 yards down the road. Then he stops and just shakes for a few minutes, finally asking Al to drive. ----------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------- [Recycle: 2:39pm Nov 21, 1984 by suhre@trwrba] A police officer in a small town sopped a motorist who was speeding down Main Street. "But, officer," the man began, "I can explain--" "Just be quiet," snapped the officer. "I'm going to let you cool your heels in jail until the chief gets back." "But, officer, I just wanted to say--" "And I said to keep quiet! You're going to jail!" A few hours later the officer looked in on his prisoner and said, "Lucky for you that the chief's at his daughter's wedding. He'll be in a good mood when he gets back." "Don't count on it," answered the fellow in the cell. "I'm the groom." ---------- Two teen-age boys, being driven to juvenile court by police officers in Reading, Pa., in March, escaped by dashing away when the car stopped for a light. However, the boys were handcuffed together and failed to communicate as they approached a flagpole. One went left, one went right, and they collided, stunning themselves momentairly until two nearby firefighters could hold them down for the police to catch up. ---------------------------------------------------- Jerry298@austin.relay.ucm.org swears this really happened to him... OK. Here goes. I was 17, and had mentioned to my father that I was thinking of buying a rubber boat for use as a scuba platform. My father managed to get me one from the F.A.A where he worked. (Dont ask, I never did). What he brought me was one of those Air Force survival rafts that they issue to bomber crews with up to 10 men. I could'nt wait to test it, so I called Jason, and told him to come on over. I took the back seat out of my VW bug, and laid the seat back down. This makes a VW bug kind of like a hatch back without the hatch. Jason got over to my place, just as our girlfriends showed up. They had come over to see if we wanted to go swimming. I crammed the raft, and both girls in the back of the VW (it was really tight), and Jason in the passenger seat up front, and took off. I got onto IH35 in Oklahoma City to head for one of the area lakes. The windows were down and the hot August wind was roaring through the car like a minor hurricane. My girlfrind started complaing about the wind, and a little red tag that kept getting tangled in her hair. I told her not to mess with the tag, but she got mad and gave it a good hard yank, intending to throw it out the window. Can you guess what that little red tag was for? Yep, that damned raft started to inflate right there in the VW! It takes about 15 seconds for one of those things to inflate, and for the first 5 seconds or so I was frozen with something of a mixture fear, amazement, and a sense of this really cant be happening! In the 6th second the raft started pushing my head down against the steering wheel hard enough that I couldnt really see where I was going, and started pushing the windows that were'nt down out of their frames, and onto the road. By the time I got my wits back, the raft was fully inflated. I managed to push my head up enough to see where I was going, and hopefully avoid creaming anyone else on the road. By this time the real chaos had started. The girls were screaming their fool heads off, Jason was laughing like an idiot, and the Oklahoma Highway Patrolman that had been follwing me when all this started had turned on his siren. I finally got the car to the center median, and stopped. I got hold of the door handle to open the door and pulled. The door shot open, and the raft exploded out of the car pushing me ahead of it. When I got to my feet, the first thing I saw was the OHP cop laughing so hard he had tears running down his cheeks, and having a hard time breathing. I managed to get the deflate mechanism activated, and the raft started to deflate. By this time the cop was breathing again, and somewhat coherant. He came over and told me that was the funniest thing he had ever seen. I asked if I was going to get a ticket? He said no, he just wanted to make sure no'one got hurt. We folded the raft as best we could, and went back to my place. The real fun was trying to convince my insurance company that all that glass damage really was because a life raft had inflated inside the car. They did payoff, but only after the insurance adjuster had talked to the OHP cop. I can look back on this now and laugh. But for about 5 years after that happened, anytime someone (Jason usually) mentioned it, all I could do was turn red in the face. ------------------------------------------- From: Josh_Cohen@3mail.3com This one is a true story from someone I know who serves in the National Guard and was called down to LA during the riots. -------------- Best story I heard ... The Marines were backing-up L.A.P.D. on a call that someone had broke into a store. At the scene, the cop told the Marines to "cover" him as he approched the store (to police, "cover" means to point your weapons in the direction of the threat, to Marines it means lay down a base of fire!). The Marines promptly laid down a base of fire. The Marines fired 178 rounds before they stopped shooting. The thief, probably a little scared at this point, called 911 and reported, "They're shooting at me!". ----------------------------------------------------