Case #18 -re The People vs The D.A.'s office #1 (Wow, so many lawyer jokes, so little time. And by "lawyer jokes" I mean actual lawyers, not, "What do you call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the sea?")

Case #18  -re The People vs The D.A.'s office #1 (Wow, so many lawyer jokes, so little time.  And by "lawyer jokes" I mean actual lawyers, not, "What do you call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the sea?")

My first federal lawsuit can be directly attributed to an assistant district attorney's geographical ignorance.

     In about 1989, when I was still a new boot,  I was working the early mornings shift (10:00 P.M. to 6:00 A.M.).  It was the very first day I was issued a handheld radio.  Prior to this date, we only had the car radio.  Around 1:00 A.M. I got a call of a "beer run" at the "7-11" on Avalon Boulevard and Victoria Street.  A "beer run" is when somebody goes into a liquor store, grabs the alcoholic beverage of his choice, and runs out without paying.  The suspect was obviously gone, when I got there, but the clerk had the guy on videotape AND he got the guy's license plate.  I ran the plate and it came back to the 19100 block of Dunbrook Avenue.  I drove by and the car wasn't there.  I had a couple of reports to write, so I decided to stop up the street, where I could see the house, and write my reports.  If the guy came back before I was done writing, I would detain him, do a field show-up and hook him.  If he didn't come back, I would just write the report as a, "who-done-it", with suspect information.

     Just as I finished my last report, and was about to leave, the suspect's car drove up and parked in front of the Dunbrooke address.  I walked up to the driver, who was alone in the car, and detained him for the theft investigation.  He was drunk and the bottles of wine he had stolen were sitting, empty, on the floorboard.  This was going to be easy peezy.  I sent a unit to go pick up my witness so the witness could identify my suspect.  While we waited, the suspect was seated, handcuffed, in my backseat.  He asked why he was being detained and when I told him, he just said, "Oh.", and sat back.  A few minutes later, I was advised that the witness was refusing to leave the store.  I said, "Fine".  I was just going to cut my guy loose and write a report with all of the information in it along with my suspect's name.  That was when I made a rookie mistake.  I;
1-let the guy out of the car and
2- unhandcuffed him.
3- THEN, I said, "I'm cutting you loose.  I just need your name and birthdate for my report".

     What I should have done was step 3 first, THEN the other two steps.  As it was, the guy spun around and yelled,
"FUCK YOU, MAN!  YOU'S ON PRIVATE PROPERTY NOW MUTHAFUCKA!"
(We actually weren't on private property, we were on the easement, BUT forget that technicality.)

     Now normally, L.A. Sheriff's Deputies don't put up with that type of verbal abuse, EEESPECIALLY not way back then!  Way back THEN, the black gloved, sap carrying, green and tan wearing muthafuckas fucked a muthafucka up for that type of lingo.  There's freedom of speech... and then there's an ass kickin'!

     ANYWAYS, I then made another rookie mistake.  I had a drunk who was being an asshole and I went nicey-nicey.  I had a 20 year old gangster, listenin' to NWA all day, with the raging hormones of youth, no sense, a fresh surge of adrenaline coursing through his veins and drunk to boot, and I thought I was going to talk him down.
"Sir, I just need your name and birthdate and then I'm outta here."  I said, in a calm, tired voice, with a smile on my face.
"FUCK YOU, MUTHAFUCKA! I'm 190 CRIP... WESTSIDE, MUTHAFUCKA!"
This declaration was accompanied by some intricate finger movements, head bobs and weaving side-to-side physical mannerisms appropriated from the latest gangsta' rap video.
Now at this, I genuinely grinned.  The 190's were crips and they robbed people and shot people and killed some people, but they were still considered wannabes by the gangsters in the rest of Carson and just a few minutes away in Compton, South Central, or the west side of Long Beach.  They were basically middle class Black kids with professional parents who were enamored of the thug life.  Once again, I tried to calm him down and he responded by cursing at me.

     Then the guy's 5'4" 110 pound mother came out of the house in her bathrobe, slippers and haircurlers.  I could tell she was embarrassed by her son's behaviour, by the way she glanced at her neighbors' homes.  Her son grabbed her by the arms, and tried to spin her around and push her back toward the house, saying,
"Don't you tell this muthafucka shit, momma."
She told her 6'4" 260 pound son to shush and then asked me what was going on.  I told her why I was there, and that I just needed her son's name, birthdate and phone number for my report.  She asked if we could go inside, so her neighbors wouldn't be disturbed and said she would give me the information I needed.  I said fine.   She turned and walked to the house, her son sulked as he walked behind her, and I followed him.

     Momma crossed the threshold, then a whole lot of things happened in rapid fire sequence;
1- Son crossed the threshold, spun around and tried to close the security screen.
2- I grabbed the security screen and we played tug of war with it.
The above took about three seconds
3- Seeing that his Plan A didn't work, son switched to his Plan B and charged me, grabbed me by both lapels and shoved me up against the outside wall of the garage.
4- I crossed my flashlight over his wrists with my left hand, trapped it with my right hand and pulled down to try and trap his hands in place.
The above took about a second.
5- We looked in each other's faces and I saw the realization in his eyes that he had just fucked up big time... and the fear that comes with that realization.
6- He saw, that I saw, and tried to mask it.  I knew he was bluffing, and this was not the time to bluff.  It was the time to fold.  He decided not to back off and plead stupidity.  He doubled down on a bad hand and refused to let me go.  He did not, on the other hand, up the ante, or go all in, by trying to punch me.  He just kept pressing me against the wall.
6- I draped my right forearm across his left wrist and grabbed his right wrist with my right hand.
7- I shoved my flashlight into my left sap pocket with my left hand.
The above took about two seconds.
8- I decided to give this new fangled piece of equipment called, "a handheld radio", a try,
"165 involved in a fight, 190 and Dunbrooke, 165."
That took about four seconds, because we were told to speak slowly and enunciate clearly.
9- I let go of my radio microphone reached across his right forearm with my left hand and grabbed his left wrist.  I pulled his wrists into me to keep him close.
10- Since he was pushing on me, I pivoted off the wall, so I was facing him and the door, and tried pulling him into the front yard, where there would be more room to fight.
That took about three seconds.
11-  I did not predict the totally predictable response of the suspect being pulled by me.  That is, the suspect stopped pushing, when he felt me pull and he began pulling me... into his house.  The same house where just... (let's see... three... one... two... four... three...) about thirteen seconds prior he didn't want me going!
12- I was about 75 pounds lighter than my suspect, so he dragged me to his threshold.  This time it was my suspect who failed to predict my totally second grade move of reversing my force.  I pushed against him and tripped him.  He fell to the floor just inside and to the side of the door.
The above took about five seconds.

     When the suspect fell, he fell on his stomach and I dropped to my knees, with my left knee near his head and my right knee near his stomach, or left hip.  I quickly got his left arm behind him in an arm lock, but he was refusing to give up his right arm.  He was using it to try and get to his knees.  Momma was telling her son to stop, so I could tell that she was still, if not an ally, at least not against me.  The problem was she was several feet behind me, in the kitchen, so I had to keep turning my head to keep an eye on her.  Another problem was I could hear the voices of at least two men waking up in the backrooms and irritably asking what the Hell was going on.  I couldn't use my radio, because I needed my hands to keep my suspect down.  I asked momma to dial 911, which she did.

     As I was talking to momma, I felt something at my left knee.  I looked down and saw my suspect was trying to bite me!  I was in a quandary.  I wanted to knee him in the mouth, but so far momma was on  my side.  If I kneed her little boy would she still be on my side, or would she tell the two men who were in the back room to come help her baby boo?  I couldn't move my knee, because that would change my center of gravity, which might give my suspect the ability to get to his knees.   So, I compromised. I kneed him twice in the head, while keeping an eye on momma to make sure she didn't see.  And to do this they had to be subtle knees.  Big movements attract the eye.  All I did was raise my knee slightly, and pivot my leg back and forth with my toe as the pivot point.  What kind of movement is that?  Four, five inches, MAYBE?  What kind of damage can you do with that?  I figured it would maybe cut his lip on his teeth and get him to turn his head away.  Well, since I was looking at momma AND since his head was moving around as he tried to get a purchase on my knee, my aim was off.  Next thing I know the big baby has his face to the floor as he's crying,
"MOMMA! MOMMA! I CAN"T SEE!"
Which produced the predictable outcry from momma of,
"WHA' CHOO DOIN' TO MY BABY?"

     At that moment several deputies arrived and the incident did not escalate further.  The cry baby was arrested for assault on a peace officer.  Then he was driven to the "7-11", where he was positively identified as the thief from the original call.  After that, he was taken to the Emergency Room for an "Okay to book".  Instead we received the TOTALLY unpredictable, "NOT okay to book".  Turns out that one knee broke his nose and the other dislocated his retina in one eye.  I struck the guy twice!  AND THEY WERE TAPS!  The doctor said some people's noses break easier than others, but the eye was just luck.  The size of my knee cupped the orbit of his eye perfectly and the air pressure dislocated his retina.  Before you feel too badly for the guy, it was only a few weeks before this incident that he had gotten into an argument with one of his "190 gang banger buddies" (I gotta say, I can barely type out "190 gang banger" without snickering).  He had knocked the guy down in the street, then stood over him, pulled a gun from his pants, aimed at his head and pulled the trigger.  It didn't go off.  Bad bullet.  Another case of luck.

     When the case went to court, the Assistant D.A. (A.D.A.) told me that the witness to the theft had moved to "...somewhere in Canada, so he was never subpoenaed to court".  When the case was called, the Public Defender (P.D.) made a motion to dismiss the theft charge.  The judge looked to the A.D.A. for a counter argument.  In the apparent belief that any physical motion by a lawyer constituted a legal motion, the A.D.A. made an impassioned plea for the case to continue by, briefly looking up from his papers, and shrugging his shoulders. The judge, unimpressed by the A.D.A.'s legal argument, upheld the dismissal of the theft charge.

      Emboldened by his victory, the P.D. made a motion to dismiss the assault on a peace officer charge, arguing that,
“Since the assault stemmed from the deputies detention of my client for a theft investigation, and since the theft charge has been dismissed, there was no theft to investigate.  Therefore, the deputy had no legal right to detain my client.  So, the detention was illegal”.
The judge closed his eyes and shook his head slowly before he looked again at the A.D.A. for a counter argument.  The A.D.A. shrugged his shoulders again.  The judge stared at him for about thirty seconds.  The judge finally realized that shoulder shrugging summed up the States case against the defendant.  With no alternative, he rolled his eyes and dismissed the assault on a peace officer case.

     Thanks a lot Mr. A.D.A!  The broke-nosed, partially blind, non-thief, who apparently didn't try to bite me, or resist arrest, or assault me in any fashion, then left the courtroom with his attorney and promptly filed a civil rights violation lawsuit against me.

     While the County Counsel was preparing for my defense in federal court, he found out that the witness to the theft had not moved to Canada, as reported to me by the A.D.A.,  The victim of the theft had moved to Ontario…Califrickinfornia!  Thank you for the lawsuit, Mr. A.D. fuckin’ A.

Verdict – Mr. A.D.A., this Court finds you Guilty of Flunking Geography.
 Sentence – You are sentenced to four semesters of California Geography, under Professor Donner.  I don't think you'll Pass.  Oh, and you're also sentenced to be one of the first to be dumped into the bottom of the sea.

   A perfect example of "Cops' Code of Silence".  Finger pointing is a little known loophole to "The Code of Silence"