One Hell Of An Emergency

One Hell Of An Emergency
(Tales Of The Lost Patrol)

(C) James J Alonzo

In the police department there are low crime shifts where there is one officer patrols, and during the high crime periods there may be two officers to a car patrol. Otherwise your partner will be in one patrol car and you in another. The idea being that two patrol vehicles can patrol more area, with occasional backup for certain potentially violent calls, like domestics.

I was the second man out and was the "back up car" I was sitting on rt 5 in Evan, NY, our main road just monitoring traffic when my partner Jack flew by, lights and sirens, he was flying!

I drove out behind him and hit my lights and floored the Patrol vehicle. I couldn't believe that I missed a hot call. I tried to radio Jack on our side band for private communication, to see what he was responding too,

"11 west to 12 west, what's your call?" I radioed on the side band, not wanting dispatch to know I had no clue what Jack was doing. 

I still had a little trouble hearing  calls, especially when you shared calls with the Sheriff's Department, Village of Angola police, Evans Police and Hamburg. But I wasn't going to let on that I was in the dark.

I figured if my partner was running wide open, I should too. As we flew over railroad crossings, leaving a path of sparks from the bottoms of our vehicles hitting the ground so hard after being airborne for a few seconds! 

I saw him kill the lights as we entered Jack's neighborhood, so I did the same. Now I was beginning to wondered if there was trouble at his house and worried about his wife and son Jeff!  When my partner turned off his headlights as we turned onto his road…I did the same. 

When he pulled into his drive and I saw him exit the car running, I took off after him drawing my pistol and ran towards the house that he had ran into. The door was open so I raced into the house and surprisingly passed Jack's wife who was just standing there holding the door?

"What the Hell's going on?, I asked, and walked in.

"Jim, relax, Jack had too much Mexican food last night!"* 

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*Apparently as Jack was patroling the food was getting the better of him. He tried to pass some gas as he was patrolling the farthest point of his area, instead passed a whole lot more!!  Jack was caught by surprise and nearly lost control of the vehicle.