Whoa!!

So there I was...
 
...driving around in a snowstorm looking for drunk drivers.  That pretty much means
I was wasting time, because there's absolutely no way to justify pulling someone
over for weaving on snowpacked roads in a snowstorm!  Every judge I know would toss
the case out for lack of reasonable grounds to stop, so basically I was waiting for
someone to crash.  Now that IS a good reason to talk to someone and realize they're
drunk.  I love it when drunks drive in snowstorms :)
 
I heard two officers get dispatched to a report of a fight in the street.  The
caller had said there were two men duking it out, and one was armed with some kind
of pole.  
 
I heard the address and realized I was only about a block away (why does that always
happen to ME?), so I told the dispatcher I would be en route, too.  It's not like I
had any drunk drivers to deal with, anyway.
 
Now, some of you reading this may think two men fighting with some kind of impact
weapon involved is a big deal, but to us it's really a routine call.  I don't know a
single cop who gets adrenaline going on a call like that.  A common practice for us
to deal with these fights in progress is to turn the siren on about a block away.
This lets them know the cops are coming and they break up the fight and run away.
Then we get out of the car and say, "Looks like the fight's over," check the area
for a while in case there really are serious injuries, which is rare, and leave.  We
never get hurt, they stop fighting.  Case closed, right?
 
Wrong.  Keep that in mind for a minute.
 
I came up over a hill with the siren blaring and saw the two men engaged in mutual
combat.  They were entangled, half wrestling and half punching the crap out of each
other.  One of them was holding onto a five foot fence post (the heavy steel kind),
the other was trying to take it away from him.  Each was punching the other with one
hand as they rolled around in the middle of the street.  I later discovered they
were both HEAVILY intoxicated (too bad they weren't driving), so they didn't even
realize I was coming.
 
I had  a plan, of course.  I was going to stop just below the crest of the hill, get
out, draw my pistol, and aim it at the two men while I gave verbal commands to prone
them out to contain the situation.  I would stay there until the other officers
arrived, who would handcuff them.  This would mean I was out of range of the impact
weapon (i.e. the fence post), and should the idiot attack me with it he'd have to
close about 50 feet before my 115 grain Winchester Ranger SXT turned his heart /
lungs into a sieve (for the uninitiated, that means I would blast him with my
pistol.  Have you ever been whacked upside the head with a fence post?  Neither have
I, and I'm not about to, either).  Distance would be my friend, because the fence
post only works within 5 feet.  Contrary to the poor shooting skills of most of my
colleagues, I can make a pistol shot at 100 yards on a range, but in real life with
a moving target 50 feet is a little more realistic.  The other thing it would do is
allow me to shoot if he attacked the other guy with the post (thus far, he hadn't
been able to use the darn thing because they were entangled so close together).  
 
Probably half or more of my readers are combat veterans.  What is the common saying
we have about Murphy's Law?  "No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy."
Exactly, remember what I said about having a plan?
 
I braked so I could stop where I planned to...and slid right down the hill.  I
hadn't realized the roads were so bad before that, but my plan went to crap in a
second.  It must have been a comical sight for a few witnesses to see a cop car with
lights flashing and sirens blaring skidding down a hillside at a whopping 3 miles
per hour.  As slow as it was, it destroyed my plan completely, and put me in a lot
of danger (humorous though it was).  
 
When I finally got the car stopped, the two fighting men were about three feet away
from the driver's door of my cruiser, still duking it out, and seemingly completely
oblivious to the police car right next to them with the siren blaring in their ears.
I quickly jumped out and drew my handgun (almost hitting them with the door),
holding it in a "retention" hold due to the extremely close distance.  
 
Remember what I said about not getting adrenaline going on a call like this?  Well,
this was different -  I was in range of the impact weapon, and one swift swoop would
have knocked my block off, allowing either dirtbag to take my gun and kill the
other, me, bystanders, etc.  
 
I yelled, "POLICE, GET ON THE GROUND NOW!"  One of them dropped to his butt like a
rock, but the man with the fence post hesitated for a second.  I saw his eyes shift
toward me and I could tell by the change in his facial expression he was considering
swinging that post at me (this happened in about one millisecond).  
 
Every instinct in my body said, "SHOOT HIM!"  My finger went down to the trigger at
the same time my cheeks puckered (no, not my face) and I started to take up the
slack on the trigger as his shoulders started turning towards me (the beginning of
his swinging movement).  Then his face suddenly changed.  His eyes bugged out and I
think he realized he was about to die.  He dropped the fence post and proned out on
the ground, and I let up on the trigger.  "My friend, that's the first good decision
you've made all day."
 
"Both of you, hands behind your back!"  The first guy complied, but Mr. Fence Post
decided to put his hands under his body and reach for something.  I yelled at him
over and over to put his hands behind his back, but he kept digging for something
under himself.
 
Did he have a gun?  A knife?  Something else?  He had almost tried to kill me a few
seconds earlier, so the "pucker factor" was still there.  He suddenly turned his
head and looked up at me while lifting his body off the ground and pulling his hands
out -- this is what we call "targeting."  A person who is proned out must make that
exact movement to shoot a gun at a person standing up -- me -- as well as look at
the target --me -- to ensure a good hit.
 
I didn't see a gun, knife, or anything in his hands, but I didn't give him time to
get his hands all the way out (I do NOT have to be shot at to take action).  Because
I hadn't seen the weapon, I wasn't going to execute a man lying on the ground, so I
just planted a size 10 boot on his face as hard as I could.  Thanks Master Pak, it
worked.  I think it actually knocked him out for a second or two, and his body
slumped back down to the ground.
 
I holstered the pistol and drew my taser.  Just then, Mr. Fence Post (now sporting a
swollen cheek bone) woke up and tried the same thing again, even as I was yelling,
"HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK, NOW!!!"  
 
POP...cackle cackle cackle cackle cackle.  How about you ride the lightning for five
seconds, moron?  Does that make you want to comply yet?  Hmmmmmmm???????? (For the
uninitiated, I tased him).  I didn't actually say those things (note the absence of
quotation marks.  Witnesses ALWAYS remember when a cop talks like that, but don't
care when a bad guy does).  I sure was thinking them, though.
 
He wasn't trying to get up anymore, but he still wouldn't put his hands behind his
back (and yes, I was still yelling at him to do so).  Cackle cackle cackle cackle
cackle...how about five MORE seconds of Mr. Franklin's science experiment (that's a
history reference to electricity...try reading a book once in a while).
 
"PUT YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK NOW!!!!"  Still no compliance.  All right, five
MORE seconds...cackle cackle cackle cackle cackle.  Thank you Thomas Edison for
experimenting with Louie the Lightning Bug.
 
Just then, the other officers showed up and handcuffed both bad guys.  According to
Mr. Fence Post I only tased him because he was Black (but of course, the other guy
was Black and didn't get tased because he complied with lawful commands, but hey,
who thinks logically when they're drunk?).  He called me "cracker" a bunch of times,
but I don't get sucked into retorting racial slurs with racial slurs (seriously,
it's 2008.  Do people STILL believe in that crap?  Oh wait, I work in the ghetto
where the MOST racist people I've ever seen live, mostly Hispanic versus Black and
vice versa...very odd to an Iowa boy).  I just shoved him in the car. 
 
I overheard one of the bystanders telling another, "That cop just kept telling him
over and over to put his hands behind his back and HE JUST WOULDN'T DO IT!"
 
Me to another officer:  "Hey, Mike.  Interview those two and write their statements
in a report, would you?"
 
Heh.  There's nothing like unbiased witnesses to confirm my version of events when
he tries to sue me for excessive use of force.
 
DOOM ON YOU, DIRTBAG!