So there I was…

Dispatched to a “disturbance” at a bar called the “Dragon’s Lair.” You’d think by the
name it would be an Asian hangout, and the owners are Asian, but it’s really a
Mexican joint.  Ok, let’s be honest:  It’s an illegal Mexican joint.  I don’t know
why, that’s just who hangs out there.  Anyway, the reporting party had told our
call-taker that fifty people were outside fighting in the parking lot.  Ninety-nine
percent of the time, the reporting party exaggerates facts, but in this instance they
were right.

The standard response most cops use when approaching a fight like that is to turn on
the lights and sirens as we’re getting close.  Nobody wants to be around when the
cops arrive, so they all scatter.  I don’t understand why.  Seriously, I’m one guy –
what the heck am I going to do?  Point my finger at the whole crowed and say, “You’re
ALL under arrest?”  I don’t think so.  As soon as people figure out I’m not superman
we’ll have a problem, but for now it works.

So, I hit the lights and sirens and watched the cockroaches run.  My cover officer
was right behind me, so there were TWO of us to point our fingers and arrest
everybody!  Anyway, as crowd dispersed, I got out of the cruiser to see if anyone was
still on scene that was seriously hurt. Someone may have been shot, stabbed, or
literally beaten to death, so breaking up the fight was only the beginning of that
call.

I walked through the parking lot and saw two people still fighting (everyone else was
still running away).  Actually, it was one guy attacking another guy, and by the look
of his face the attacker had fought at least one other person, too.  He was marked up
a little.  I yelled at him to stop, but he just kept swinging at the other guy.

So, being the PO-lice, I grabbed his right arm and started to put him into an arm
bar.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw his left fist coming around to clock me
(boxing as a youth helped me see that one coming). Since I already controlled one
arm, I didn’t want to give it up. Instead of letting go and duking it out with the
guy, I just drop stepped with my right foot (a little technique I learned studying
Hapkido in college).  That quick little move put his whole body into a spin.  Coupled
with the downward pressure from the arm bar, he went down like a rock.  The cool
thing was that I controlled one arm and the other was busy trying to punch me (but
missing wildly due to the spin I put on him); he couldn’t catch his fall at all.
CRUNCH!  The little turd went face first into the pavement so hard he left high
velocity blood spatter on the ground.  Sha-bang, that’s what you get for punching at
a cop.

I figured that was the end of his fight, and got one handcuff applied to the arm I
still controlled.  To my surprise, he kept right on fighting, though.  I was sure he
knew I was a cop (lights and sirens, full uniform, had announced myself as
“Policia”), so I knew this guy was a real turd.  I kept holding onto the cuffed hand,
and told him repeatedly, “Policia, manos, manos!”  I wanted witnesses to know that he
knew darn well who I was.

He kept right on fighting me, though, and not letting me cuff the other hand.  So, I
beat the fight out of him.  With my right hand (the left was holding onto the cuff) I
punched him in the face, head, back, etc. repeatedly until he quit fighting me. At
one point he was face down and I had my knee on the back of his head crunching his
nose against the pavement.  He just absolutely refused to give up his other hand and
quit fighting, though.  I kept thinking to myself, “Dang, dude, how much whuppin’ are
you going to take before you realize you’re going to lose?”

Sometime during this struggle one of his buddies came up behind me.  My cover officer
was just running up to me when he spotted the second suspect.  I heard him command
the second guy to get away, but the guy stepped into him (we believe he had every
intent of blind siding me).  So, my cover officer tackled him and started scrapping.

Once my guy decided he didn’t like getting his butt kicked, he quit fighting and I
finished cuffing him.  Then I jumped on the second suspect.  My partner was winning
the fight but it’s always better to outnumber someone – get him cuffed before he can
turn the tables and hurt the officer (you never know if he’s got a knife, gun, or
other weapon up his sleeve).  He kept resisting, so I pounded him, too.  This guy was
somewhat of a weenie.  Just a few punches and click click, the cuffs were on.

At some point in this mess I had radioed that we were “in a fight with two.” Remember
what I said in an earlier story?  When a cop radios for help, you can almost hear the
cavalry bugle sound as other cops hit their lights and sirens and charge.  Of course,
none of them were close, and we had both turds in custody before anyone else got
there.  It was cool to follow up with, “We’re code 4 with two in custody.  Slow
everyone else down….and we need a supervisor.”  A supervisor has to respond whenever
there is a use of force.

We took both turds to the emergency room.  I had to check myself in as a patient
because I had cut my hand punching the first guy.  The scary thing was that he bled
right into the cut, so we needed to do AIDS tests and others.  Right now, I know the
AIDS test was negative, but we’re still waiting to find out about Hepatitus C.  I’m
vaccinated against Hep A and B, but there is no vaccination against C.  Scary stuff.

Anyway, since I know practically everyone who works in the ER, they were giving me
grief about my booboo.  Then the radiology tech saw the two bloody pulps we brought
in, she asked me, “Are those yours?”  When I told her they were, she replied,
“Niiiiiiiiiice work.”  Heh.

The next day I woke up and my hand was the size of a basketball.  X-rays came back
negative for fractures, but the doctor thinks there might be some ligament damage. He
couldn’t check because the swelling wouldn’t allow him to see anything.  I’m starting
to second guess his prognosis, though, because the healing is going remarkably fast.
For the time being, I’m stuck working the desk.  Doh.