Rattler Season

KTLA reporter Eric Spillman had a close encounter with a sun-tanning rattlesnake over the weekend. Temps have warmed into the mid-80s a few times in the past week, which means rattlers (and their non-venomous cousins) have emerged from their winter slumbers.

It's always amusing to hear fire crews heading out on early-season brushers reminded on the radio to watch out for the creatures. Probably not as amusing to get bitten by one, which is why the guys wear boots.

H/T to Kevin at LAObserved for the item.

Speed Trap

I like that the LAPD has chosen to run speed enforcement two blocks from my house on a busy stretch of San Vicente Boulevard. Especially when I know it's happening and don't get caught by the Man. But I'd like it even better when the motor officer gets issued his new BMW bike and ditches the ugly-ass Harley that makes the LAPD motor corps look like they're riding up PCH on the weekend for a bite at Neptune's Net.

Here's a great blog post from 2008 detailing various issues with the LAPD's Harley purchase.

But if you're a Harley fan, this video might be worth your while.

In the photo above, the Harley's in the back, the sleek Beemer is up front.


photo: Mayor Sam's Sister City Blog

End of Watch: Robert "RJ" Cottle

Veteran LAPD officer and United States Marine Corps Reservist Robert Cottle was killed by an improvised explosive device while on patrol in Southern Afghanistan on Wednesday. Sgt. Major Cottle, 45 years old, joined the Marines at 18 and and the LAPD in 1993. His various LAPD assignments included Hollywood Vice, Southeast Area, LAPD Dive Team and, most recently, SWAT.

Officer Cottle was the first LAPD officer killed in action while serving as a reservist in the military since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began. The LA Times has a decent story here and this is the press release from the LAPD.

RIP and Semper Fi, Officer Cottle.


photo: LAPD

Taurus Rising

It seems that the long, storied run of Ford's Crown Victoria police car is on the wane. The gearheads over at Jalopnik did a nice Friday Feature on police vehicles, leading with this post on the debut of the new Ford Police Interceptor. End of the day, it's a Taurus.

I'm not a car guy, so I won't go into the technicals on this one or the merits vs. any other vehicle. I'll be interested, however, to see which local agencies take delivery of these cars. I assume most PD's who have fleet contracts with Ford will choose to take the new Taurus. Though it definitely provides a good opening for Dodge to increase market share of its Charger squad car.

My thoughts on the Charger have been previously expressed. And they haven't changed. It'll be interesting to see what the LAPD does with its fleet. I've seen less than five marked LAPD Chargers on the road in the past year and tons of new Crown Vics. My guess is that the Taurus will be entering the fleet soon.

photo: Ford

Missing the "Big" Ones

Once again, my travel schedule saw me out of town for the LAFD's latest Major Emergency Structure that went down on Feb. 16th. The official LAFD Blog tells the story here.

Granted, it's unlikely I would have been awake and scanning at 2 a.m. (these days, midnight is "late" for me), but there's been a dry spell of good, big fires recently. And I tend to be out of town when they hit. Luckily, the city has no end of fire-traps that are just waiting for the call.

photo: LAFD Photo Harry Gavin

Small Town Vibe

On rare occasions, I have the patience to lock in the Bearcat on one LAPD frequency. Usually, I choose to avoid the busiest areas, like Southeast, Rampart, 77th or Van Nuys. I can't really handle the steady slew of Domestics, Code 30 Ringers, or the dozens of "ID check by name"'s foisted onto gangsters who wander around the hood without any ID.

I tend to like listening to Wilshire (my home division), Hollywood (for the sheer absurdity of the calls), Pacific (close to the beach and includes LAX) or West L.A. (rich neighborhoods produce interesting calls). It's also easier to hear the units when they switch to simplex, because they're geographically close to my house.

On a recent Sunday night, I locked into Wilshire and spent a leisurely evening being entertained by the various happenings in my home district. A few traffic stops here, a "critical missing" there, and a brand new Jeep Commander stolen directly off the dealership lot at closing time by two white dudes. That call led to an amusing, if pained, exchange from the copper on 7Adam22 who called up an Airship on the Tac channel to advise him to BOLO for the white Jeep. He informed the amused observer on the helo that the stolen Jeep had no Lojack, but did sport bright orange paper plates from the dealership, not seeming to consider that the perps could easily remove those.

The Jeep was boosted by two white guys in their mid-to-late 30s (not a common descriptor for GTA suspects in that neighborhood) who took the vehicle with the keys still in it as the dealership employees were moving cars around before closing for the night. I figured the Jeep was a goner, but an hour and half later, an enterprising sergeant, patrolling on his own, apparently located the vehicle--and at least one suspect--about four blocks from where it had been stolen. About six A-cars blasted to the scene Code 3, but it was an uneventful recovery.

And I realized as I shut the scanner off when I went to bed that L.A. can at times--on a quiet Sunday night--boast a police department (and scanner traffic) that resembles that of any small town in America. Pretty cool.

Fits & Starts

So it's been going on nine months since my last post here. As I have said in the past, these things take a modicum of energy that I can sometimes not muster. But I do miss musing about things that relatively few people care about and I find that writing here regularly assists me in my other writing pursuits. So I'll try to be back here a bit more often in the next few months.

Onward!

C6C

Just Another Night...

So I'm back in town after a week of general relaxation on a tropical island. Been jonesing hard on the scanner since I got back and have been rewarded with some good shit going down. I missed a bunch of BIG calls over Memorial Day weekend while I was gone. Check out the LAFD blog (scroll down for the incidents) to see what I'm sayin.

As I type, the LAFD is working a nice big Major Emergency Structure out in North Hollywood at some carpet factory. It's been going an hour with active fire still breathing. Two FF's are being treated by medics. One of them's a captain on the roof who felt weak and dizzy. He's being brought down by the RIC units via a litter basket and will be transported shortly. Just another night in LA.

Urban Paramedic

Blogs didn't exist during my glory days in EMS. If they had, I'm sure I wouldn't have had the patience to write one as well as a longtime medic in Boston who writes other people's emergencies: random thoughts of an urban paramedic.

The medic, who identifies himself on the blog by his initials TS, writes clear, thoughtful and relatively jargon-free posts about his life as a paramedic. It's a consistently good read and reminds me of my years on the job.

These days, I'm too jaded and cynical to approach things as rationally and even-handed as he does. Thus, I salute him and direct you to his blog.

You're LIVE on local news...*

...after you've just arrested a suspect who foot-bailed from his car after a lengthy high-speed pursuit. There are news choppers overhead with their cameras trained on the scene in the backyard as the suspect is proned out. You have just kicked the suspect (in the head) after he's gone down on his own accord. Then he's cuffed.

Do you:

1.) Act professionally, search the suspect for weapons and contraband and then pick him up and walk him to the patrol car; at the same time keeping all of your adrenaline fueled emotions in check?

2.) Do you complete the above-mentioned, but before that, give a high-five to the K-9 officer standing the suspect's feet holding back the dog?

3.) Do you do ALL of what I mention in 1. and 2. but also backslap one of your fellow arresting officers and then proceed to fist-bump another cop who comes up to the scene after the suspect is cuffed?

If you answered #3 then guess what? You're as a big of a FUCKING IDIOT as the El Monte patrol officer who did all of those things on live TV this afternoon. The video is here, as well. It took the media all of about two hours to pick up this angle. One would think that even the dumbest rookie cop in Southern California would know--after so many years of high profile cases of cops doing stupid shit on camera--that this kind of behavior should be avoided.

And, please, spare me the "adrenaline" argument. As true as it may be--cops get amped up during high speed pursuits, etc., etc.--it doesn't tend to pan out against city officials who end up shelling out millions of dollars to asshole criminals and their families just to avoid juries who order them to do the same.

*UPDATE* Unsurprisingly, Johnny Kicks-A-Lot has been re-assigned to desk duty while the El Monte PD and the L.A. County Sheriff's Department run their investigations regarding his behavior.

Jesusita Fire Photos

They're scattered all over the Internets, but this slideshow from the San Jose Mercury News is probably the best I've seen.

photo: Mike Meadows/AP

Gangsters, Party, Rocks, Bottles

This weekend's full moon brought out the typical complement of crazies and things were jumping all over town. The best call I heard (I think it was Friday night) dropped around midnight and came out as a Help Call from the LASD. Apparently, some deputies were trying to break up a gangbanger fiesta down in Lynwood and they began "taking rocks and bottles." They put out the help call and I assume the LAPD came to the rescue, though I didn't bother to drill down to find out.

Also, the ghetto bird clattered loudly over my house on the same night as they busted some dude for beating on his lady about half a block away. The next day his blacked-out Suburban was parked just where they said it would be.

Tweaking My Mission

Made a small change to the masthead, as I've been commenting beyond the niche of scannerland and into public safety writ large over the past few months. Otherwise, it's business as usual here at C6C.

Engine 23 will handle...

With Santa Barbara up in flames and brushers breaking out in Santa Clarita and Yucaipa, everyone's on high alert. So it was unsurprising to hear the brusher call drop for a burn out in ritzy Pacific Palisades and LAFD sent out a full Channel 9 assignment. Enroute, old Engine 23 said they saw some smoke that was more likely a structure than a brusher. A minute later, Engine 23 said they could handle the call. OCD put out the broadcast:

"Units responding to 17420 Camino de Yatasto, Engine 23 will handle.....sandblasting at a mansion."

Santa Barbara Redux

It's only May but things are hot again up in Santa Barbara County. Winds are blowin' again and small brusher that lit off this afternoon has already eaten about 450 acres by 2130 hours. So far, no homes have been lost but up to 2,000 are threatened. The fire started about a mile west of last Fall's nasty Tea fire. A bunch of strike teams have been mobilized and this one has the capability to get ugly, again.

Big Hazmats

Been a rash of fairly dramatic hazmats in recent days. First up was big rig crash on the 405 Freeway in Sherman Oaks that shut the freeway down for many hours and merited a balls-out Hazmat response from the LAFD. The reason: the overturned semi was carrying 8,600 gallons of butane--enough to make the news at 11 if the truck blew up. Good pics over at the LAFD flickr. Then, a few nights later just a few miles south LAFD pushed the big button again when there were abnormally high readings of hydrocarbons coming out of a manhole on Sepulveda Boulevard near Moraga Drive. Sepulveda was shut down for a few hours while the threat was investigated and found to be a big fat nothing--as many Hazmat's are.

Saw a few more cross the wire out in LA County, Pasadena and down in the OC courtesy of Incidentpage.net.

photo: Pullman (WA) FD

Cinco de Drunko

Driving home from a quick dinner and saw two BHPD motor units on traffic stops and didn't know why the motor units were working after dark. Fired up the scanner a little while ago and heard a bunch of BH motor and T-units doing tons of traffic stops...chewed on it for a few minutes and then realized it's Cinco de Drunko. Other than Halloween, New Year's Eve and July 4, there are no better nights to pull traffic enforcement looking for deuces.

A whole slew...

...of new posts coming shortly. For now, content yourself with this ridiculously painful and obvious story courtesy of not one, but two, L.A. Times reporters. They found, lo and behold, that pretty coeds from Santa Barbara who get run down in front of USC in the middle of the night--and have one of the suspects actually get out of the car to throw a victim off the hood--get a shitload of publicity. That publicity leads to an outsized number of LAPD resources being thrown at the case resulting in a quick resolution. However, when some poor Guatemalan immigrant gets rundown on the Eastside on the same day he doesn't get the same star treatment; thus, his case will go unsolved forever. The end.

LAPD Code 3 Policy Revised

The LA City Council today formally approved the LAPD's new Code 3 policy, which gives all officers discretion in deciding when to respond to a call with lights and siren. Until today, the rules under Chief Bratton's administration had dispatchers assigning one patrol unit a Code 3 response based upon the nature of the 911 call (or request from field units/allied agencies). Other units, including back-up units to emergency calls that already had one unit responding Code 3, were required to respond Code 2 (no lights or sirens). Earlier this month, a council committee had approved changes to the policy.

So, effective immediately, it's up to individual officers to decide what calls will be handled Code 3 and multiple units can respond to the same call Code 3, as well. So, starting tonight, expect to see a lot more LAPD black and whites blasting around the city Code 3.

I remember listening to my scanner 20 years ago (when I had an old Sony brick that I bought from Sporty's Pilot Shop and could only tune in to LAPD's 154.830 HOTSHOT freq.) and being terrified/horrified at the number of seemingly life-and-death level calls that the LAPD dispatchers would send out "Code 2 High" or even Code 2. Back then, it seemed the only thing that warranted a Code 3 response were actual shootings in progress. Otherwise, everything was a much slower response.

When Chief Bratton a few years ago liberalized the Code 3 policy to include pretty much every serious crime you'd expect a cop to respond to with his lights and sirens turned on, I thought that was a huge improvement. Now, if you called 911 in LA, you would get at least one unit running hot (and fast) to come to your aid. This improved response times, raised morale within the department and has helped residents overall.

Allowing more units to respond to more calls more quickly = a good thing overall. It eliminates the dangerous practice of "Code 2.5," which has officers basically driving in an emergency manner without their warning lights activated.

But mark my words: This new policy will be frozen the minute the first LAPD unit responding Code 3 to some bullshit call gets involved in a serious accident--with either civilians or fellow officers. Part of the problem is leaving things like this up to the discretion of patrol officers plays directly into the few bad apples among thousands of good ones theory. This whole thing will be undone by one or two boneheads who drive like the idiots they are.

Ironically, the City Council and LAPD brass pushed for the change because the cost of litigating cases that stemmed from accidents involving LAPD units going Code 2.5 has hit $11 million in the past three years. Only two council members opposed the change--one of them, Ex-LAPD Chief Bernard Parks. I don't really care for Mr. Parks as a councilman and he wasn't a great police chief either, but he's clearly on the right track here and knows what his former officers are capable of. He's rightly worried that putting the greater responsibility of emergency driving along LA's busy streets directly in the hands of the rank-and-file is a recipe for disaster.

Let's just see how long it takes for one to happen.

photo: flickr

Wilshire Mess Incoming

Every year, on a certain day in late April, Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle-Mile area gets completely fucked by the thousands of Armenian protesters who descend on the street to scream, wave signs and flags and drive around in circles honking their horns and displaying huge Armenia flags and banners to voice their displeasure over what was either a "genocide" or what wasn't. Depends on who you ask.

Today is that day. Expect the LAPD and DOT to have their hands full beginning in a few hours and expect to find an alternative route if your travels take you along Wilshire during the evening commute.