DEC 2020 Blues Vol 36 No. 12 - 36TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Working the night shift

Working the night shift was something new to me. For 9 years, I worked days and lived a somewhat normal life. Now I try my best to sleep until noon, get up, work an extra job, come home, see the wife and kids, take a nap and go back to work. Today was no different and as I was about to drift off for my 45 minute nap, I prayed tonight would be slow and uneventful. As I showed up for roll call, I noticed “a lot” of shops parked everywhere. What the hell was going on. It’s a Sunday night for heaven’s sake, why is evening shift still here. I walked thru the door and into a war zone. People were scrambling everywhere, the phones were ringing, radios were raging non-stop and the Sergeant was yelling for everyone to take a seat. In almost 10 years of roll calls I have never been to one where all three shifts were here at once. All five sergeants, two lieutenant’s and the captain were all here. What in God’s name is happening. “Ladies and gentlemen and I use that term lightly, let me begin by thanking you all for coming in on a Sunday night. Some of you may be aware of the protests across the country that have become outright riots. It seems these so called protestors are coming to our city and we need to be prepared. But that’s not why we are here tonight. District 5 is covering our section of the city for the next hour or two, so we can brief you on what to expect in the coming days, weeks maybe even months. We have Mr. White from the CDC here with us and he is going to go over the pandemic and explain what a Coronavirus is and how COVID 19 will affect us all.” For the next hour, we sat and listened in disbelief. Restaurants, bars and retail stores will most likely close, the public will be ordered to stay at home and hospitals will become war zones. Lots of people, millions in fact will become infected and die. This virus will spread like wildfire and as first responders we need to be prepared. And yes, some of you will get sick and some will die. Come on. This must be worst case scenario. I heard the president say it’s just a bad case of the China flu. It can’t or won’t be as bad as they are making it out to be. Right? WORDS BY DAVID JONES, 2DAVID 20 Unfortunately, the meeting was cut short. Dispatch was on the phone and wanted to speak to the captain ASAP. He walked back into the room and looked like he’d seen a ghost. “Guys we need to wrap this up. We have a problem downtown. Several hundred protesters have begun setting fires to buildings and Central is under attack. They are firing on FIRE and EMS preventing them from fighting the fires. We have reports of several officers down, one confirmed dead. I need all of you to partner up and get down to the command post at Main and 5 th avenue. They’ll have riot gear for us when we arrive. I’ll meet you down there” I found my car share partner in the parking lot and we loaded all his gear into the shop. As we left the lot and headed downtown, we were both in shock. What were we about to jump into. Jason called his wife to tell her he had to stay at work and don’t wait up for him. He left off the riot part. After that we pretty much rode in silence the rest of the way. Each lost in reflection on whether we would even make it home…ever. Downtown was insane. Flames from fires leapt hundreds of feet into the air. Smoke filled the air and you could hardly breathe. And the buildings were just burning. No one was even attempting to put them out. The protesters, let’s just called them rioters, were running madly through the streets carrying TVs, clothes, and whatever else they could grab out of now wide open store fronts. And the heat! You could feel the heat everywhere. Then we heard gunshots echoing from the buildings. That sound was all to familiar to me and Jason. We have both done tours in Iraq and no one forgets the sound of gunfire echoing off buildings. As we checked in at the command post, I saw our captain talking to one of the assistant chiefs. They both looked confused as fuck. I knew right then and there we were on our own. We grabbed riot gear, radios, long guns and ammo and checked in with our Sgt. He too had served two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan knew we knew what to do. There were ten of us in our group. First and foremost, he said, watch each other’s six. Ironically none of us were given non-lethal rounds. If fired upon, we were given the green light to return fire. Protect ourselves, firefighters and civilians. That was the order. Of course, we all know how that changed after that first night. But tonight, it was balls to the wall. Our first order of business was to take out the shooters and get FD started on knocking down the fires and saving adjoin structures. Sarge sent two guys topside to provide cover in case we ran into snipers. I can’t believe I’m talking cover fire in downtown. Seemed so unreal, yet so familiar in a lot of ways. But I also could see that five of the guys in the group had not served and were confused as to what was happening. Jason and I took them aside and said, look just stay behind us and follow our lead. We’ll get through this together. For the next five hours, we hunted down and arrested over a dozen armed rioters. And not a single shot was fired from our team. No fatalities on either side. Come sunrise, the flames were reduced to mostly towers of white smoke from the burnt out hulks of storefronts. The owners of the business stood in the streets watching in horror as their dreams truly went up in smoke. The most shocking thing to me was the fact that 90% of these people were black and the people setting the fires were from Black Lives Matter. Don’t the lives of black business people matter too? I mean WTF. Tonight was only the first of many that would consume our time. Standing guard, trying to protect a city from out of town thugs. But the rules after that first night changed dramatically. When the mayor found out we were locked and loaded searching for looters, he went nuts. Going forward it would be mostly non-lethal rounds and non conformational contact with the protesters. Yeah, they continue to call them non-violent protesters. I continue to call them what they are, thugs. As time went on, this virus took over our lives. Stores Closed. Restaurants had food to go and pick-up zones. No more bars. Schools closed and remote learning became a thing. All of our extra jobs vanished. But the worst thing of all was the lives it was taking. Day after day, officers got sick and at least one a week died. And these weren’t old guys either. Just average joes that got sick, went to the hospital and never came home. I’ve gone to so many funerals I’ve lost count. Officers shot and killed for just doing their jobs plus all the COVID deaths. It’s just a nightmare. “Unit 2David20, I have local alarm at 12500 Highway 390 south, Code 2” Unit 2David20, show me in route. Hell, that’s just around the corner. Unit 2David20, show me out. Alarm is still sounding, and I have entry at the front door, can you send me another unit….” Unit 2David20, did you copy? Unit 2David20, dispatch did you copy? “David! David!” What? “David wake, up. Didn’t you hear the alarm? You’re gonna be late. And your sergeant called, he wants you to come by the station for role call, something about someone being sick from a virus. Are you Ok?” I had the weirdest dream about something called Corona and riots. “Honey you need to stop dreaming about beer and get your ass to work. LOL” OK, I’m going...wierd ass dream. 36 The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 37