So there I was…


Driving down Union Blvd. at 0230, watching the pick-up in front of me go down the
road with his turn signal on ­ you know, the way that annoying old fart does in the
left lane on the interstate while going 10 mph under the speed limit.  This guy was
swerving a little bit, too, so I knew he was driving drunk.


I pulled him over and contacted him.  Yep, all the indicators of alcohol were there
­ the odor, bloodshot watery eyes, etc.  I couldn’t really evaluate his speech
patterns because he was an illegal alien from Mexico.  
Surprisingly, though, he admitted he spoke English, which is rare.  Once the
illegals realize I’m going to arrest them for something they usually “No habla.”
It’s funny telling them something like, “If your boots are brown, I know you’re
guilty,” then watching them look down at their boots.  No habla, huh?  I call BS!


Anyway, this guy was cooperative which was a pleasant change of pace, but I didn’t
get to use any of my clever mess-with-the-illegal-alien lines on him.  Before I
processed him for the DUI, I ran his name through NCIC.  Of course he had warrants.
Guess what they were for?  Failure to appear on a DUI charge…surprise, surprise.


So I processed him for DUI and took him to jail on the warrants.  During my
custodial search I removed all his property from his pockets and put it in a plastic
bag, as is standard procedure.  Then I drove him to the jail.


As part of the booking process, I have to inventory every item in his property and
log it down.  I set everything on a desk and started going through it, and my night
got interesting.  You know how cops get good at reading people’s body language?
Well, sometimes we have fun with it, too.


My suspect kept staring at his wallet, then quickly looking away.  That alone led me
to believe there was some contraband in there ­ probably drugs since you can’t fit
much other contraband in a wallet.  So instead of looking, I decided to have a
little fun with him.  I’d inventory one item, write it down, and stuff it in his box
of property.  Then I’d slooooooowly reach towards the wallet, but grab an item next
to it at the last second.  
It was hilarious watching him hold his breath every time I reached.  His forehead
started to sweat and his hands began to shake.  I could almost hear his heart
pounding, he was so nervous.  I did this over and over until I was positive his
heart was going to explode.  Inside I was laughing my arse off.


Eventually, I broke him without even saying a word ­ he cracked like an egg.  When
he finally couldn’t take it any more, he just blurted out, “Do you want to check in
there [pointing at the wallet]?  There’s cocaine in there.”


Heh.  I figured I could look now that he let the cat out of the bag.  I was a little
disappointed, though, because I wasn’t done having fun at his expense.  I opened up
the wallet and found a bunch of standard wallet junk, and a folded up bill.  People
don’t fold up bills into neat little packets unless there’s dope inside.  I unfolded
the bill and found ­ you guessed it ­ loose cocaine powder.


That was the easiest ­ and by far the most fun ­ felony arrest I ever made, and for
some strange reason I had an Eric Clapton song playing in my head the whole time.


DOOM ON YOU, DIRTBAG!