The Retired Cop

Case #26 - re The People vs Useless (Pucker up)       I changed the name on this subject, so as not to give him any credit.  The fact that he is useless should be apparent to anyone that has ever, or will ever, work with him. I'll just refer to him by my nickname for him, "Useless".  Actually his nickname was, "Fuckin' Useless", but I'll just call him, "Useless" for short.  Besides, cops of my generation usually refer to each other by last name anyway.       In all my time at Carson station (at that point, 17 years), I have rarely seen a bigger kiss-off artist than "Useless".  He’d been off-training almost a year at the time of this story and he’d earned quite a reputation.  It had reached the point where my blood pressure rose as soon as I saw that pencil thin mustache of his.  I didn’t even know why they assigned calls for service to him, everyone knew he never handled them!  We’ll take the last three calls of his that I was pr

                      HOW TO RETIRE AS A MILLIONAIRE ON A COP'S SALARY      This started out as two Facebook posts I made on January 6, 2018.  Within 24 hours there were over 100 comments.  Some offered more detailed advice, some offered additional advice.  Many commented that they wish they had this information drilled into them at the start of their career and this should be a subject for periodic briefings and a pamphlet given out at the academy.  So the posts are reprinted, along with some of what I think you will find to be the more useful comments.  Some of the people who made comments were not comfortable with the idea of their names being used, so I have changed them all to "Commenter".      Here are some financial ideas from myself, some retired deputies and veteran working deputies to other active deputies, especially the newer ones.  We have absolutely no training in finances and I, for one, do not have a college degree in anything.  I was a street cop for

Case #25 - re The People vs Australia (an assessment of the Down Under from the Up Top)      Jon Brick and I were working together on Earlies (the Graveyard Shift) in unit 169. It was Jon's first day back from a two week vacation. As we drove along in the dark, looking for somebody to arrest, I asked him what he did during his vacation. "OH!  I went to see Mike, a surfing buddy of mine, in Australia!" "You went to fuckin' Australia?", I asked in amazement. "No.  I went to surf in Australia, but there was some of that too.", he replied, smiling. It took me a second to catch that, before I started laughing. "So, how was it?... The surfing I mean." "It was great!  Nice swells everyday, and not a lot of people competing for spots in the lineup." "You see any Great White sharks?" "No." he said laughingly. I'd like to go there someday, but it seems like everything down in Australia is the deadliest

  Case #24 - re The People vs Wayde Farrell ( the survivalist )      In 1993, Deputy Farrell arrived home one cold December morning after a shift on graveyards and a 70 minute commute with the sunrise in his eyes.  He was BEAT!!!  He crawled into bed au natural, as his wife left for work, and thought, “Mmmmmm, still warm from the wife’s body heat.  If there hadn’t been so much damned traffic I might have got home in time to give her a little sumpin’ sumpin’ to keep her going through the day.  Oh well, her loss. ”  Just as sleep was overtaking him he remembered that he forgot to feed Shadow the dog.  A brief silent debate began, “ Maaan, I gotta get dressed, walk downstairs into the garage, pour his food in the bowl, and shove the bowl out the side door of the garage, so the dog can eat, maaaaannnnn! ” Versus “ Fuck the dog! ”      Being the soft-hearted guy that he is, the long argument won out over the short arg

Retirement party advice          So March is coming up and we all know what that means. It's retirement season! Retirement can be a very stressful time. I'm not talking about retirement itself, I mean the Retirement Party.      People wonder if they should throw a retirement party. If they do, should they sell tickets? If they sell tickets, will anybody buy them? Should they make it a sit down dinner? Should they foot the full bill? Who will come? Should it be invitation only? Will ANYBODY come? So here's my advice.  I wondered about throwing a party.  Initially I was, "Naw, I don't want to sell tickets.  First off, what if nobody buys them, or even worse, it's like the football party I threw in 2000 where only three guys from the station showed up and I'd barely said anything more than "Hey" to them in the years I'd known them?  Secondly, I don't want to foot the bill for the whole party, 'cause everybody knows, if the drinks are