Did you know that alarm clocks work much better when they're actually turned on? Fortunately my sleeping an hour late this morning did not mean I was late for anything critical; I merely had to revamp my scheule for the day. I'd set it for 6:30am (but then forgot to actually turn it on), and had actually woken up on my own at 6:25--at which time I told myself I had five more minutes and went back to sleep. When I woke up again, I knew that it had been more than five minutes, and sho nuff, it had been an hour. Oh well, at least it wasn't a day when I had court.

Speaking of court, I received an envelope in the mail today with the return address of Sheriff Jack Strain (yes, that would be my boss.) However when I opened it I discovered, much to my amusement, that I had been summoned for jury duty. Too funny. I do not think I will have any trouble getting out of this. Especially since it might very well be for a case where I was the arresting officer. (I'm not sure but I think I have a subpoena for that week.) I go back to court on Dec 21st for the February incident (the one where we got the conviction!) and I'll make sure it's all taken care of then.

So, anyway, after I finally got my ass out of bed I drove out the base and did a three-mile run. My original plan had been to then go shooting after running, but I was supposed to meet Kelly at the gym at noon, so I ended up going shooting after working out instead. I was pleased with my shooting, especially considering that I haven't exactly been diligent about practicing lately. I managed to shoot a 118 (120 is top score) on my first try through the course. I'm going to go back on Thursday and do some tactical shooting, since that's probably going to be the kind of shooting we'll have to do during the SWAT tryouts.

Since I touched on the February incident earlier in this entry, it occurs to me that it is now a closed case since we got the conviction, and I can now go into detail as to what happened and how close I and the other deputy came to buying it.

It started out as a shoplifting call with a good description of the vehicle that the perps got away in and the direction of travel. It was just before 5pm, and I was just coming on duty. The drugstore that got shoplifted was on the other side of town, and I was on my way to a teammate's (Zack's) house to give him a ride to work since his unit was at the office for some reason or another. But then it got interesting. Just as I was picking up Zack, a deputy got on the radio to say that he was behind the vehicle, and they were refusing to stop. Zack and I listened to the radio and the ensuing pursuit (which was still on the other side of town) as we drove toward the office. As Zack and I were approaching a major intersection, the deputy advised that the vehicle he'd been pursuing had attempted to crash through a fence to get onto the interstate. And then...

"Shots fired shots fired shots fired!" on the radio...

Code three. Lights and siren. Every officer and deputy in the city responds. We knew he was on the service road, and we were technically only a few miles away--but a few miles on the busiest street in town at 5pm. But it's amazing what driving like a god-fucking maniac will accomplish because we made it down Gause Blvd in about 30 seconds--with much driving on the median and in oncoming traffic. We were right behind a Slidell PD unit, who actually got airborne at one point as he was going over a median. "Don't do that," I remember Zack telling me calmly as we watched the PD unit come back down.

So, everyone with a badge and a gun was heading toward where Brian got shot at, but Zack and I decided to go start a perimeter instead of heading to the scene like most others were doing. Instead of turning onto the service road, we went up another street and figured we'd set up at the corner of Lawes and Hoover. We turned onto Lawes and about 50 feet in front of us, running out of the woods and across the street were a man and woman who matched Brian's description that he put out. I told (yelled at!) Zack to tell Central that we had visual. They ran across the street and into the front yard of a house, and since I figured they were going to keep running to behind the house, my plan was to drive like a god-fucking maniac into the front yard, bail out, and give chase on foot.

Except that when I got to within about 15 feet of the perps, just as I was slamming on my brakes, the man turned around and pointed a gun right fucking at me.

I yelled, "GUN GUN GUN" at Zack, then ducked down, twisted the wheel over, and gunned it to get out of the line of fire. I could see this asshole still holding the gun trained dead on me until we were almost down to the corner, then they turned and ran again. As soon as we were out of the line of fire around the corner, Zack and I bailed, and got into the foot pursuit. We ran toward the house where we'd last seen them, figuring that they were now in the back yard. By this time more units are starting to arrive. We climbed a couple of fences and couldn't find them in the back yard, so then we started figuring they'd gotten into the house. We cleared a shed beside the house, then I ran to the front door with a PD officer. I figured if there were civilians inside I wanted to get them out and away--door was locked so I pounded on the door, yelling Sheriff's Office, open up!. I heard a man's voice through the door, but couldn't understand what he was saying, so I pounded and yelled again. This time I heard him: "We have hostages and we'll shoot them if you try and come in!"

Fuck. I yelled to everyone else to pull back, notified central that we had a hostage situation, and pulled back to cover.

About two hours later the negotiators finally talked them into giving up, at which time we learned that there had never been any hostages.

Brian got shot at 6 times, with one round burying in his headrest, missing his head by about half an inch. I learned later that asshole's gun had jammed when he'd had it on me, and that he'd had every intention of shooting me--and had tried hard.

But, goddamn, this is still the coolest job in the world.