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Stories of a Chicago Police Officer 
May 16, 2016 at 11:33 pm
I’ll be book signings at Starbucks on Friday, May 27th, at Touhy and Milwaukee at 9:00 to 11:00. and on Saturday the 28th at 4149 W Peterson from 9:00 to 11:00. I hope to see you there.
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September 30, 2017 at 4:03 pm
I recall a very slow snowy nightshift on patrol. Our department normally has single officer patrols, but when things are really slow, our Sergeant would allow us to double up. We were doing some property checks and driving behind one of our local manufacturing plants and I started to turn around because I saw a large snow drift ahead. As I started to turn around, my partner says, “You don’t have a hair on your a** if you don’t try and blow through that drift. Well, I thought I had a few hairs, so I turned back around and gunned it.
As we hit the “drift” which was about three feet high, I determined it wasn’t a drift, but instead, plowed snow with a dusting of fresh powdered snow on top. As this split second determination entered my thought process, it was too late to correct it. We essentially blasted through the plowed snow and went airborne and landed between two areas of plowed snow. After using several choice words between the laughter of my partner, we tried to open the doors to get out and check the cruiser for any damage. The snow was packed all around the cruiser. We finally put the windows down and crawled through the opening like it was a racecar. After exiting, we surveyed the newest car of the fleet, and found a foot long dent in the rear driver’s side quarter panel. Not wanting to get caught by the Sarge, I climbed through the window back into the cruiser. I typed out a short message on our in car computer asking one of my other partners to drive to the station and pick up my 4 wheel drive so I could pull the cruiser out with my tow strap. The officer headed to pick up my truck, but not before forwarding my message to the Sergeant describing what I had done (I never shared anything with him again.)
The Sarge arrived before my truck did. I was crapping my pants when he walked up to us. He barked only one word. “Open the f***in trunk.” He climbed in, raised his cowboy boots and bam, he kicked the dent out. As happy as I was about the fixed dent, I was scared to death after I heard his parting words, “Don’t ever f***ing do that again”. I simply responded with a “Yes sir.”
We hooked up my truck to the cruiser, pulled it out of the snow, and continued on with our property checks. The only difference was my partner and I were in separate cruisers. The Serge never said anything more about it. The same was not true of my partners. We laughed about it for years to come.
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October 2, 2017 at 10:57 pm
Rick, it felt like a good idea at the time. One mid-night my partner and I were bored crazy so we grabbed a case of beer and drove into the cemetery and sat back and had a few. We fell asleep and when we woke up we found out that we were axle deep in mud. We did the same as you but our po buddy didn’t tell the sergeant. a tow truck came and pulled us out. Over to the car wash and we were back in the game with none the wiser. It cost us a case of beer the following night. Some of the shit we did. Anyway, I hope you enjoy my memories. Stay safe.
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February 4, 2018 at 2:04 am
WAGON-MEN
Every Chicago Police station had paddy wagons, usually
four. But that’s not what we called them. “Squadrol” was
the term for the vehicle itself, and “the wagon” referred to
the assignment. Officer’s assigned to the wagon were known
as “wagon-men”. The squadrol was basically a big metal box
mounted on a pick-up truck frame, It served a number of
functions: transporting prisoners and injured people, and
taking dead bodies where they needed to go. When not
assigned to such missions, wagon-men patrolled their
beat, usually one quarter of the district.
Some officers liked working the wagon, usually those with
seniority. Younger officers were more interested in the
excitement and glamour of working a regular squad car.
Once in a while, when a wagon-man called-in sick, a junior
person like me would have to fill-in.
Wagon work, like almost everything in life, was a series
of pluses and minuses. On the plus side, wagon men would
rarely get a call that didn’t involve a transport situation. You
didn’t get report calls, domestic disputes or traffic accidents.
Rarely would a wagon man have to make an arrest, so court
time was minimized, which was a big plus. Unless there was a
full moon, you might only catch one or two transports per shift,
easy money. The rest of the time you were left to do whatever
you wanted to, which wasn’t always such a good thing.
On the negative side, schlepping dead bodies and non-
ambulatory injury victims could be unpleasant and physically
challenging, especially when the person was 250 pounds, and
had to be carried from the fourth floor down a narrow stair-
case. We didn’t have body bags in those days. So it was nasty
when a corpse decided to release it’s bodily fluids just as you
were angling the stretcher down the stairs, particularly when
you were unlucky enough to be on the downside.
Stinkers were the worst, and Chicago had a lot of them. Old
people living alone would die in the winter, but not be
discovered until the spring thaw. The call would usually
come in as a complaint of a terrible smell in the building,
or in the whole neighborhood, if it was especially ripe.
In the handful of times I worked the wagon, I never caught
a stinker, but I was told that the smell could be so bad, it
would cling to your uniform, which would have to be
cleaned a couple times before it could be worn again.
Wagon men would stick cigarette filters in their nostrils
just to get through a job involving a stinker. It was not
uncommon for them to borrow firefighters breathing apparatus
just to get through it.
One time, my partner and I were sent to
the emergency room to pick-up a dead shooting victim for
a trip to the morgue.
As we approached the naked body lying on an ER table, the
only visible evidence of his injury was a very small red hole
in the center of his chest. The shot must have stopped his
heart instantly, as there was no blood anywhere.
We covered him with a sheet. my partner took his feet and I grab-
bed his shoulders to slide him from the table to our stretcher.
But as we started to move him, our stretcher, which was on
wheels, slid sideways, away from the table and though I tried
hard to maintain control of this 200 pound body, it slipped
from my grasp, falling between the table and the stretcher.
The dead meat hitting the concrete made a very loud slapping
sound, “SWAPP!” Of course, the sheet stayed with the table,
leaving the body fully exposed on the cold floor.
This wouldn’t have been a big deal, as the guy was already
dead, except unbeknownst to us, the family had entered the
ER behind us, just as we started our ill-fated move. When they
saw and heard him hit the floor, all we could hear was a
chorus of shrieking, like you’ve never experienced. That
Southwest commercial, “Wanna get away?” comes to mind!
That was bad, but my worst wagon assignment involved taking
a dead child to the morgue. He had died at home, and the
parents had mistakenly taken it to the local funeral parlor.
The body was about the size of a one year old, and was wrapped
in a sheet. I took it in my arms and carried it out to the wagon.
What creeped me out was that the body was still warm and it’s
head was about four times larger than it should have been. The
funeral director explained that the child was actually about ten
years old, but suffered from a deformity that kept his body very
small and enlarged his head. Yikes! The memory of this still
makes me queasy today.
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February 4, 2018 at 3:49 am
CURFEW “QUOTA”
Officers working at night in the Fillmore were expected to detain at
least one curfew violator each shift, an easy assignment, as there
were so many out there. It was just a matter of snagging one, filling
out a simple form and turning the juvenile over to a parent.
One night, my partner and I had accomplished all our tasks, except
meeting our curfew quota. Finally, we saw a twelve year old, walking
down a dark side street by himself. Riding shotgun, I swung open my
door when we were a few feet behind him. But before I could grab him,
he took off running.
While not the greatest runner in the world, I decided to chase after him.
Surprisingly, I kept pretty close, in spite of my leather soled shoes not
gripping the sidewalk very well.
The open-top holster I was wearing was not specifically designed for
my Python. It was a little too large, so the revolver sat in it very loosely.
Chasing this kid at full speed, I began to realize I had a problem. The
holster strap was unsnapped and the Python was flopping around so
much I feared it would fly out. So I took it in my right hand and
continued running.
The kid led me into a very narrow gangway, a cement canyon between
two apartment buildings with plain brick, three story walls on either
side. Even in the darkness, I could tell I was catching up. He was no
more that ten feet away when all of a sudden he slammed a metal gate
closed between us, just in time for me to crash into it, full force.
I bounced off the gate as the kid disappeared, never to be seen again.
At precisely the same time, there was a piercing, deafening, sound and
a flash of light that seemed like a giant, slow motion strobe going off.
I could also feel concrete chips hitting all over my face.
With that sound still echoing in my ears, I stood motionless, wondering
what the hell had just happened. The ringing in my ears lasted for
several minutes, but in that time, I realized that my Python had
discharged when I hit the gate, sending a 357, hollow-point projectile
into the cement sidewalk.
For a second, I thought I might have shot myself in the foot, but was
relieved to see there was no damage to my shoes, and more importantly,
no blood. I had dodged a bullet!
Walking slowly to the end of the gangway, towards the street, I
encountered an old man. He was just standing there, staring at me as
I walked by. Suddenly he shouted, “You shouldn’t be shooting at that
boy, officer! He’s just a kid!” My initial thought was to walk back and
provide an explanation, but I decided it would be too complicated, he
wouldn’t believe me anyway, and I didn’t want him to get a good look
at me! So I didn’t say a word.
My partner pulled up in our squad car just then. I took my seat and
we drove off.
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