Why We Run

If you have been a faithful follower of these offerings, you are aware that during my (first) college years I was employed as a Sheriff’s Cadet with the County of San Diego.  If you are not a regular reader, or like me, forget at least half of everything you learn on any given day, you may want to read the blog posts “A Rip in the Fabric of Society” (2/14/13) and “ACME Keyless Entry” (2/21/13).  They will bring you up to speed on the essentials and allow me to save key strokes and space here.

My second posting during this employment was to the Communications Center (CC).  The CC, more regularly referred to as the Business Office (BO… heh ,heh, heh) by the old-timers, was where the Deputies (oh yeah, and me too… performing exactly the same tasks for way less pay) would take phone calls from the public and, if warranted, dispatch patrol units by radio.  To learn more about this, you may want to read “The Greatest Invention of My Lifetime” (6/20/13).

The CC was located in the Sheriff’s Administrative office facility in Downtown San Diego. I spent most of my time thus engaged assigned to the second-half of the PM shift (7:00 PM to 11:00 PM) which meant the female clerical staff had gone home.  It was a boring assignment with little opportunity for exercising initiative, personal or professional.  And when such opportunity did arise, I usually ended up getting my ass chewed by a Sergeant, or in cases of especially creative thinking, a Lieutenant.

As the ultimate perk, Cadets could, on their own time, ride with patrol Deputies (as the Deputies’ were so inclined).  Hey, look at me; I’m dressed like a cop, riding around in a cop car:  Heady stuff for a nineteen year old. But alas, the department did not deploy units from the CC because it was a long way from areas of County of San Diego jurisdiction. So the opportunity to ride was not resident.  However, in the course of my employment, I had made friends with Cadets from other stations.  Through these connections, I was able to arrange for the occasional ride along out of one of the many Patrol Stations. Just such a ride along occurred one hot, August, Saturday afternoon.

My fellow Cadet, we’ll call him Bozo, arranged for us to ride with Deputies deployed from the Vista Patrol Station (where Bozo was assigned).  We thought we would ride with units in adjacent beats.  We could meet up during a lull at some eatery or Foster’s Freeze, cooling down (cop cars had no air-conditioning in those days) and listening to the Deputies try to one-up each other with war stories.  For reasons still eluding me this forty years later, Bozo was assigned to the Vista unit.  And I was not assigned to the neighboring beat of San Marcos, but to the Escondido car.  This is relevant because the beat does not share a border with Vista, and it is huge! It basically is the (at that time) sparsely populated unincorporated areas that surround the City of Escondido.  Even on the slow day we were experiencing, the travel time between calls ate up most of the time.  We never did arrange to meet with any of the other units that day to swap lies. But all of this is just background.

About mid-shift (B-shift ran from 2:00 PM to 10:00 PM) we received a radio call dispatching us to a 459 silent alarm at a residence.  The code 459 refers to the California Penal Code section defining burglary; a break-in.  A silent alarm indicates that the CC had received a call from a private security monitoring service informing them that the system at one of their customers’ homes was indicating a breech.  This is considered an urgent call for two reasons: the first is that the residents may be on-site and under threat from an intruder; the second is that it is considered a crime in progress and affords the responding Deputies the opportunity to apprehend a criminal in the act.  Take my word for it, it’s the kind of call Deputies get all dressed up in their uniforms for.

In this era, residential alarm systems were somewhat rare and often unreliable.  But we didn’t let that dampen out enthusiasm.  En route, we discussed our tactical approach.  As I was not a sworn peace officer, I was unarmed.  So my Deputy instructed me to make use of the shot gun (each car was equipped with a shortened shot gun) while he would rely on his service revolver.  The nature of this call would result in cover units being dispatched, but the distance they need travel to assist us would almost guarantee that what ever action ensued would be concluded by the time they arrived.

The particular residential area where our call took us was very common in the semi-rural areas of San Diego County during the 1970s.  As was often the case, the address of the residence was on a public road, while the residence itself was accessed via a private, commonly maintained road that serviced several lots that may run five or six deep from the public roadway.  The trick of locating the correct residence was to find the gang of mailboxes at the intersection of the public and private road and then explore the maze of driveways until the target was located.  We did not handle the trick very well.

The Deputy decided to park the patrol car at the mailboxes and have us scamper up the ice-plant covered slope to the yard of the first home, giving us the element of surprise by not announcing our arrival via police car.  Upon achieving the top of the bank, we encountered a family lounging by their pool in their best effort to shake off the August heat.  We were taken by surprise.  They seemed nonplussed.  Without prompting, they indicated that their neighbor experienced false alarms on occasion and pointed out the house.  A quick check of the address confirmed it to be the source of the alarm. Furthermore, the sunbathers informed us that they had been at poolside for some time and had seen no unfamiliar persons lurking about.

Wind completely knocked out of our super-cop sails, we decided to retrieve the patrol car and drive to the subject house.  Just to err on the side of caution, I retained possession of the shotgun as we approached the house.  A ring of the doorbell prompted no response from within.  The Deputy instructed me to remain where I could watch the front of the house while he checked the back for signs of forced entry.  He found a gate in the fence separating the front yard from back and disappeared around the side of the house.

After a few moments I realized I was hearing that sound so peculiar to a police officer running.  There is something about the gun belt and assorted accoutrements squeaking as his weight shifts from foot to foot with each step, in harmonic accord with beat of boot soles on a grassy surface that is unmistakable to the initiated.   And my young ears could discern that he was coming my way.  I raised the Remington expecting to encounter some miscreant fleeing my partner’s pursuit.  To my surprise, the first personage to appear was my partner.  I was somewhat stunned at this unusual sight.  I thought to myself, “What would make a Deputy Sheriff run in apparent flight?”

Then I saw the German Sheppard round the corner.  My mind raced forward to the inquiry that would be held to determine the fate of the Sheriff’s Cadet who had dispatched the faithful family pet.  To my salvation, the Deputy deftly reached out as he cleared the gate and pulled it closed behind him, trapping the speeding pooch in the back yard.  That’s when Fido began to bark. I learned two valuable lessons from this experience.  Dogs do not bark when seriously closing on their prey.  And we run because something with teeth is chasing us.