Case #28 - The People vs Cody (Aero Bureau visits Area 5150)
(The following is our first case by a guest judge. All stand for my former partner, the Honorable Jon Brick)
THE CASE OF CODY VS THE ALIENS
In 1998 I was working as a training officer / pilot at Aero Bureau. Deputies newly assigned to Aero from patrol stations, went through a 6 month training program, which if successfully completed, qualified them as helicopter observers, or Tactical Flight Deputies (TFD's) as they were later called. I was assigned a new trainee named "Cody". He had flown with another T.O. for a couple weeks, but due to some scheduling changes he was now going to be assigned to me for training.
I actually knew Cody from when I worked patrol at Carson Station, and I was looking forward to having him as a partner. It was sort of a reversal of positions really, because when I first went out to Carson Station as a trainee, Cody was already a patrol training officer. I looked up to him, because he was a hard charger and knew what he was doing on the street. And even though he had a reputation for being a bit rough on his trainees, he truly cared about producing quality patrol deputies.
I recall one night when I was working 167 by myself toward the end of training. It was busy and I was all over the place bouncing from call to call, some were my calls and some were backing up other deputies on their calls. Somewhere during the night we crossed paths, and like all good T.O.'s, Cody had been sort of keeping tabs on the new kid out on his own for the first time. Wrapping up another 415 (disturbance) call, Cody sent his trainee back to his radio car and motioned for me to come over and talk to him. He spit some chewing tobacco on the sidewalk and said, " Look, don't get me wrong. I like the fact that you are trying to show up to everything that is happening out here tonight. It shows you're not lazy and you care about your fellow deputies. But the thing is, you can't do EVERYTHING. And if you try to do everything, you won't actually accomplish ANYTHING".
It was a good lesson in prioritizing responding to incidents, which coincidentally, is a critical component of commanding an air unit.
The day before we were to start working together, we met up and went over some training material. We also decided we could carpool into work together since we lived in the same general area. The next evening I met him at the pre-arranged carpool location and got into his car for the drive into Long Beach. We were heading up the 405 Freewy, talking about this and that, when I noticed that there was some sort of electronic device sitting on his dashboard. It had dials and meters with needles moving about, and every once in awhile Cody would reach up and adjust one of the knobs. Some low level static was coming out of it but nothing really discernable.
Finally I had to ask. "What is that radio thing on your dashboard?" He looked at me like I was some sort of idiot, and I thought, O.K. he is going to tell me that it is just a big CB radio. But no. "It is an intersteller, long range, radio wave reception unit", he said. "Right, so, what does it do"? Again with the look. " Well obviously it is used to intercept radio messages sent from deep space to Earth". I took a beat and then out came the fateful question. "You mean aliens"? "Yes of course aliens". O.K. here we go. So I'm thinking I'm getting screwed with big time here, and when we get to Aero, the jokes going to be on me, and everybody is going to be out on the tarmac pointing and laughing at me when we arrive because I was so stupid to fall for the alien story. I was going to make my position on the subject very clear right now.
"Look, you don't actually believe in all that UFO stuff do you?" Again with the look. "Are you not familiar with what happened in 1947? Where do you think we got transistors from? Where do you think that non-wrinkle material Fritos bags are made of came from? Do you think that stuff just got invented? Sure we did a little reverse engineering here and there, but the 5 basic elements of our modern technology all originated from the 1947 UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico. The government took the stuff that was recovered from the crash and started making their own versions of it."
Oh shit. Now I'm wondering how badly I would be injured if I were to jump from the moving vehicle. I would at least have to wait for the off-ramp. I had no response to the explanation regarding Fritos bags material, so the rest of the commute was quiet.
When we rolled into Aero there was no entourage of hecklers waiting for me. Uh oh. There may be a problem here.
I went and got changed into my flight gear, and then went out to our assigned helicopter and started the pre-flight inspection. Cody came out and assisted with fueling the aircraft and got his equipment organized in the cockpit. This was before the advent of GPS moving maps, so Thomas Guides were used to navigate to calls. It was a lot to carry because in addition to the L.A. maps, TFD's had to have maps for Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura counties. Our pursuits routinely went into those other counties and the TFD's had to call the pursuits wherever they went.
After getting our nightly briefing from the desk sergeant, we walked across the flight line out to our helicopter and climbed in. Our shift started at 2000 hours so it was already dark. The vast majority of patrol flight time was at night since that is when it is the busiest. Almost all my flight time as a pilot there was at night. We lifted off, out of Long Beach, and checked in with the other air unit to see where they were. If two air units were up we split the L.A. basin area east and west. Carson, Lennox, Firestone, Lynwood (later Century), Marina Del Rey, West Hollywood on one side, and Norwalk, Pico Rivera, Cerritos and Lakewood on the other side. East L.A. Station was a toss up depending on who had the shortest ETA. If we were lucky enough to have 3 air units up at once, the third one patrolled San Gabriel Valley area which included San Dimas, Industry, Temple, Crescenta Valley, Alta Dena and later Walnut Station.
We handled a few calls in our area, and, in between calls, did some training. Cody was good on the radio, because he wasn't shy about utilizing it and communicating. He was also good at handling calls from a tactical standpoint. Both of these skills are things that a good street cop can transfer over to use in the air unit effectively. He needed work on his navigation and orientation skills, as well as monitoring the radio frequencies. Unlike working a radio car where you just have to monitor one frequency, TFD's must listen to 5 separate radios at once.
One of those radios is in scan mode and constantly cycles through all 15 Sheriff dispatch channels, as well as the primary frequencies of every single outside angecy in the county, including 5 CHP frequencies and the Orange County Red Channel. It takes several months to train your brain to hear and separate the chatter and to be able to pick out what transmissions are the most critical. You might only hear some noise coming from a deputy's handheld, as he is frantically trying to key it, while in a fight with a suspect. The TFD has to instantly, visually identify which frequency it is, associate it with the respective station, or stations, then direct the pilot to head to a certain area. The pilot in turn gets his bearings, picks a heading, based on his years of experience as a TFD, and then later a pilot, and then pulls maximum power to get there as quickly as possible, being careful to keep engine temperature, and transmission torque below redline. With a flight crew of two experienced deputies, calls like this unfold like a perfectly rehearsed dance. Just like working with a long time radio car partner, often time very little needs to be said. Dials are tuned, hand signals are given while ears strain get the next bit of information about the unfolding situation. Such is not the case with a trainee.
In the beginning the pilot ends up doing most everything in the cockpit. Like I said before, Cody was great once we got to the call. He worked the searchlight well, he made tactically sound suggestions for the ground units, and he was even learning how to effectively use the FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) camera quicker than most trainees. We just needed to work on his deciphering the radio, knowing where we were, and finding the call in the map book. So, that is what we worked on in between handling calls that night.
We were about 30 minutes into our second hop that night when we got a burglary call in Carson. It was probably around 0200 hours. I was confident Cody was going to handle this call with minimal input from me because he knew the streets, and he would have even known the deputies handling the call. Prior to arriving at the call, Cody established communications with the deputies on the ground on the tactical frequency. Before entering the back yard of the house, the deputies wanted him to light it up with the searchlight. As we came overhead, I rolled into an orbit around the house and Cody expertly used the searchlight controls to direct the beam into the back yard. We took a good look around the yard and then Cody told the deputies he did not see anyone out in the open, nor any dogs in the yard. The deputies entered the yard with guns drawn and began their search.
During the search I divided my attention between what was going on below, the cockpit instrument panel, and the surrounding airspace, being vigilant for other air traffic. We had Compton Airport north of us, Long Beach Airport south east of us, Torrance Airport south west of us, and Hawthorne Airport north west of us. Even at this time of night there was the possibility that another aircraft would try and occupy the same piece of sky as us. It was a clear night and I could see all the way to the skyscrapers downtown as I came around that portion of the orbit. Something funny got my attention as I took a closer look downtown. The First Interstate Bank building was the tallest building downtown at 1,300 feet tall. I knew the building well and had even landed on the top of it several times. But tonight there was a thin layer of stratus clouds hanging right at the very top of the building. The orange lights surrounding the top of the building could usually be seen for many miles and were a great reference point. However, on this night, the thin cloud layer muted the lighting to a dim orange, and the shape of the light appeared to be like a saucer. Sort of like a flying saucer.
Now I know what you're thinking. Given the peculiar circumstances of the drive in to work on this very night, you would think that the best course of action at this point would be to not kid around with something like this. Well, here's the thing. Even though I had been at Aero for several years, I was still a Carson deputy at heart. And when I was there we were a tight group, and as such, kidding around and teasing your buddies was just a normal part of our daily routine. It made our close bonds even closer.
Soooooo.......... " Hey Cody." "What." " Next time around on this orbit, take a look downtown and check out that orange saucer looking object." Now before I go any further, I should explain something about cockpit communications. The pilot's push to talk switches are on the flight controls, one for transmitting over the radios, and one for transmitting just on the cockpit intercom to your partner. The TFD has the same capability, however his push to talk switches are on the floor. Left foot for intercom, right foot to transmit over the radio. Over the years there have been a few unfortunate incidents where one of the flight crew thought that he was just saying something to his partner, when in fact he was addressing a much larger audience when he got his left and right foot confused.
As we came around in the orbit Cody looked out toward downtown. Then suddenly, "OH SHIT", he yelled. Then over the radio from the deputies on the ground, "What Aero, what do you see ? Do you see a suspect ?" Cody had keyed the wrong foot and scared the crap out of the guys on the ground. He quickly got back on the radio. " No, no, sorry. You guys are O.K. It's something else we have to go to". At this point he was becoming frantic and was straining to look out the cockpit to see the downtown area. "Lets go, lets go, shit there it is, lets go". I told him firmly over the intercom, "Cody, keep the light on the backyard and continue to help the deputies with their search." He was no longer controlling the searchlight, but I continued to orbit and did my best to bank the helicopter to try and keep the light where it should be, until he reengaged. It wasn't happening. He was 100% focused on getting to the flying saucer and seemed bewildered that I would not immediately turn and track down the UFO. I switched my radio over to the tactical frequency and checked in with the deputies. They said they were code 4 and that we could go wherever we needed to go.
Just then Sheriff's Dispatch came up on all frequencies and requested we switch to Lakewood Station's frequency for an emergency. I banked the helicopter hard toward Lakewood's area and pulled max power. I was expecting Cody to immediately switch frequencies and acknowledge our response on the radio. "Tell them we are less than a minute out", I said over the intercom. Nothing. I looked over and saw that Cody was still straining to see the "UFO". He then frantically asked me, Where are you going? We have to chase down that UFO". Cody ! Get on the fucking radio now and tell them our ETA. And get out your god damn Thomas Guide and turn it to the pages for Paramount and North Long Beach."
By now I had heard on the scanning radio that it was a pursuit of armed robbery suspects. I had also been able to pick up a location, every few seconds, before the frequency dropped out of scan, so I was able to refine my heading. Within a few more seconds, I was able to see the overhead rotator lights on the radio cars in pursuit. We were still a couple miles out, but even from this distance I could tell this pursuit was going to be a good one, with speeds pretty fast and the suspect vehicle weaving in and around surface streets.
Cody still was unable to switch over to the dispatch frequency, so I reached down and did it myself. Luckily the Long Beach airport tower was closed so I did not have to worry about getting a clearance from them to enter the airspace. I got on the frequency the pursuit was on and told them we were about 20 seconds out. I looked over at Cody and saw that he was just staring at me. He just shook his head, as if indicating that my priorities were completely screwed up. He pleaded with me one last time. "We HAVE to go after the UFO. Why won't you go after it?"
We were coming up over the pursuit. I slowed the aircraft a bit, locked the friction on the collective (power control for the helicopter) and quickly reached over and turned to the correct page in Cody's map book. I placed my finger in the map book on our current location and told him to call the pursuit. Back on the flight controls, things got busy for me now as this car we were chasing was all over the place turning down alleyways, making sharp 180 degree turns, rapid accelerations, everything that made for a good chase.
Finally, slowly at first, but then gradually with more conviction, Cody reengaged in the present. I think it finally hit him that his fellow deputies needed his help and he began to properly call the pursuit and maintain the spotlight on the speeding car. As always, when this is done properly, the deputies on the ground were able to slow down and drive much more safely knowing that there was now no chance that we would lose the suspect. This pursuit continued for a little more than an hour, during which two sets of spike strips were deployed. Fortunately, due to the time of night, there were hardly any other cars on the road, so most of the danger was restricted to the suspects themselves. After driving on four blown tires for awhile, they finally spun out and slid into a streetlight pole and the pursuit was over.
We had flown longer than our normal shift and were low on gas. I turned toward the airport for a landing back at Aero. I looked over at Cody who was sitting there quietly now. "Look, Cody. You can do whatever you want. But my suggestion is that you keep all this UFO stuff to yourself." No response.
After we landed Cody got out and walked across the tarmac and in the door at the front desk. I had to stay in the helicopter for the 3 minute engine cool-down, and then refueled the aircraft afterwards. I entered the building about 15 minutes after Cody.
I had no intention of mentioning any of what happened to anyone. I wanted Cody to succeed and fit in with the crew. I walked in the front door and there were two other deputies at the desk along with Cody. One of them was a big, outspoken sort of guy named Jim Wright. He was looking at me with a funny smile as I leaned over the flight log pedestal to enter the night's flight time information.
"I hear you fuckers saw a UFO", bellowed Jim. I looked up at him for a brief second. He had this grin on his face like he couldn't wait to hear what the hell I had to say. I could only imagine the story Cody told them during the 15 minutes that I was still outside. I looked back down at the flight log and continued making my entries. "I didn't see shit", I replied without looking up.
" What !", said Cody. "You're just going to leave me hanging out to dry like that ? C'mon you have to back me up on this".
Jim Wright shifted his gaze from Cody back to me. "Well, what the fuck do you have to say for yourself "? " I have no idea what he is talking about", I replied. And with that, I never spoke another word about the incident with anyone at Aero Bureau until many, many years later.
Two weeks after that flight I was back working with a regular partner, as the scheduling problem mentioned earlier had been resolved and Cody was back with his original training officer. At the very beginning of our first hop, there were two other patrol helicopters still up, so I decided to fly over to Carson Station and visit with my buddy Terry Wenger. Terry and I had been radio car partners years before, and I knew he was working inside as the watch deputy on this night. After landing on the station's helipad, we went in through the back door, and then up to the dispatcher's and watch deputy's duty stations.
We spent some time catching up on a few things, and then Terry said, " I heard you on the radio the other night. Well, actually I heard Cody". So my first thought was that Terry must have been working the night Cody accidentally yelled "Oh shit" over the tactical frequency. He must have gotten a kick out of that. "Oh right. Yeah, Cody accidentally keyed the wrong switch on L-Tac on that call we were on". " No, no, not that", Terry said. "I mean I heard Cody on the radio, the A.M. radio". Now I was confused. "OK, let me show you", Terry said.
Now at this time, computers with internet access were a new thing on the Sheriff's Department. So new that we didn't even have one at the Aero Bureau yet. It would be another two years before I would even have a department email account. But Carson had one at the front desk, and Terry was on it looking something up. Finally a list of archived radio show broadcasts by a radio personality named Art Bell came up on the screen. I was not familiar with Art Bell at the time, but he had a late night radio show that was all about UFO's and related subjects. And listeners of the show would routinely call into the radio station.
Terry spent some time clicking on links to try and find what he was looking for. Finally he found it and the audio from Art Bell's radio show two weeks prior came up. " OK, listen to this", said Terry. At first it was the tail end of a conversation with a caller, but then a new caller came on the line. He talked in low, very calculating and calm, matter of fact voice. He identified himself as a law enforcement officer employed by a large metropolitan law enforcement agency in California. He told the audience that he was assigned as a helicopter flight crew member. He then began to describe in detail his recent encounter with a UFO during his flight the night before. It started sounding very familiar, and so did the voice. It was Cody!
He went into great detail describing the orange UFO hovering over the downtown area of the city. The craft's shape, how it moved, its approximate altitude, as if it was a routine observation that he might have made many times before. I was dumbfounded. Everyone in the dispatch area was looking at me waiting for a reaction. Cody continued for another 15 or 20 minutes with his descriptions, and Art Bell asked him several pointed questions, apparently intended to verify the validity of the incident. Toward the end of the segment, Cody made it clear that the pilot (me) insisted that he not say anything to anyone about what they saw, and that a formal cover-up of the incident was initiated by the Captain of the Aero Bureau.
After the call Art Bell remarked that this report was certainly one of the most credible in recent memory, made even more so since it was from a law enforcement officer.
Terry has a great sense of humor and he was making the most of that moment with a flurry of funny comments. He sent us out the door to go back to work with a final farewell, "If you can't find any crooks tonight, maybe you can catch another UFO". I just shook my head and headed out to the helicopter.
Post Script:
Many years later I attended a retirement party for one of the guys at Aero. I had long since left the unit after a promotion, but still kept in touch with most of them. Cody, I had learned, took an early retirement several years earlier behind a work related injury. As I meandered around the bar running into old friends, someone suddenly grabbed my arm to get my attention. It was Cody. I gave him a big smile and a manly hug. We did a quick catch up on what we were doing, where he was living, etc. Then, just before turning to walk away, he looked at me and asked, "So I gotta know, you really did see the UFO that night right? Didn't you ?" I looked back at him and saw something in his eyes. The eyes of a true believer. "Yeah Cody", I said. " Yeah, I saw it." He looked at me and smiled. "Thanks", was all he said, and he disappeared into the crowd.
Verdict: The Court finds the Defendant Guilty of Maintaining Your Boyhood Imagination. Something too many of us have lost.
Sentence: The Court orders that on the charge of Maintaining Your Boyhood Imagination, the Defendant shall be drafted for the first manned mission to Mars.
(The following is our first case by a guest judge. All stand for my former partner, the Honorable Jon Brick)
THE CASE OF CODY VS THE ALIENS
In 1998 I was working as a training officer / pilot at Aero Bureau. Deputies newly assigned to Aero from patrol stations, went through a 6 month training program, which if successfully completed, qualified them as helicopter observers, or Tactical Flight Deputies (TFD's) as they were later called. I was assigned a new trainee named "Cody". He had flown with another T.O. for a couple weeks, but due to some scheduling changes he was now going to be assigned to me for training.
I actually knew Cody from when I worked patrol at Carson Station, and I was looking forward to having him as a partner. It was sort of a reversal of positions really, because when I first went out to Carson Station as a trainee, Cody was already a patrol training officer. I looked up to him, because he was a hard charger and knew what he was doing on the street. And even though he had a reputation for being a bit rough on his trainees, he truly cared about producing quality patrol deputies.
I recall one night when I was working 167 by myself toward the end of training. It was busy and I was all over the place bouncing from call to call, some were my calls and some were backing up other deputies on their calls. Somewhere during the night we crossed paths, and like all good T.O.'s, Cody had been sort of keeping tabs on the new kid out on his own for the first time. Wrapping up another 415 (disturbance) call, Cody sent his trainee back to his radio car and motioned for me to come over and talk to him. He spit some chewing tobacco on the sidewalk and said, " Look, don't get me wrong. I like the fact that you are trying to show up to everything that is happening out here tonight. It shows you're not lazy and you care about your fellow deputies. But the thing is, you can't do EVERYTHING. And if you try to do everything, you won't actually accomplish ANYTHING".
It was a good lesson in prioritizing responding to incidents, which coincidentally, is a critical component of commanding an air unit.
The day before we were to start working together, we met up and went over some training material. We also decided we could carpool into work together since we lived in the same general area. The next evening I met him at the pre-arranged carpool location and got into his car for the drive into Long Beach. We were heading up the 405 Freewy, talking about this and that, when I noticed that there was some sort of electronic device sitting on his dashboard. It had dials and meters with needles moving about, and every once in awhile Cody would reach up and adjust one of the knobs. Some low level static was coming out of it but nothing really discernable.
Finally I had to ask. "What is that radio thing on your dashboard?" He looked at me like I was some sort of idiot, and I thought, O.K. he is going to tell me that it is just a big CB radio. But no. "It is an intersteller, long range, radio wave reception unit", he said. "Right, so, what does it do"? Again with the look. " Well obviously it is used to intercept radio messages sent from deep space to Earth". I took a beat and then out came the fateful question. "You mean aliens"? "Yes of course aliens". O.K. here we go. So I'm thinking I'm getting screwed with big time here, and when we get to Aero, the jokes going to be on me, and everybody is going to be out on the tarmac pointing and laughing at me when we arrive because I was so stupid to fall for the alien story. I was going to make my position on the subject very clear right now.
"Look, you don't actually believe in all that UFO stuff do you?" Again with the look. "Are you not familiar with what happened in 1947? Where do you think we got transistors from? Where do you think that non-wrinkle material Fritos bags are made of came from? Do you think that stuff just got invented? Sure we did a little reverse engineering here and there, but the 5 basic elements of our modern technology all originated from the 1947 UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico. The government took the stuff that was recovered from the crash and started making their own versions of it."
Oh shit. Now I'm wondering how badly I would be injured if I were to jump from the moving vehicle. I would at least have to wait for the off-ramp. I had no response to the explanation regarding Fritos bags material, so the rest of the commute was quiet.
When we rolled into Aero there was no entourage of hecklers waiting for me. Uh oh. There may be a problem here.
I went and got changed into my flight gear, and then went out to our assigned helicopter and started the pre-flight inspection. Cody came out and assisted with fueling the aircraft and got his equipment organized in the cockpit. This was before the advent of GPS moving maps, so Thomas Guides were used to navigate to calls. It was a lot to carry because in addition to the L.A. maps, TFD's had to have maps for Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura counties. Our pursuits routinely went into those other counties and the TFD's had to call the pursuits wherever they went.
After getting our nightly briefing from the desk sergeant, we walked across the flight line out to our helicopter and climbed in. Our shift started at 2000 hours so it was already dark. The vast majority of patrol flight time was at night since that is when it is the busiest. Almost all my flight time as a pilot there was at night. We lifted off, out of Long Beach, and checked in with the other air unit to see where they were. If two air units were up we split the L.A. basin area east and west. Carson, Lennox, Firestone, Lynwood (later Century), Marina Del Rey, West Hollywood on one side, and Norwalk, Pico Rivera, Cerritos and Lakewood on the other side. East L.A. Station was a toss up depending on who had the shortest ETA. If we were lucky enough to have 3 air units up at once, the third one patrolled San Gabriel Valley area which included San Dimas, Industry, Temple, Crescenta Valley, Alta Dena and later Walnut Station.
We handled a few calls in our area, and, in between calls, did some training. Cody was good on the radio, because he wasn't shy about utilizing it and communicating. He was also good at handling calls from a tactical standpoint. Both of these skills are things that a good street cop can transfer over to use in the air unit effectively. He needed work on his navigation and orientation skills, as well as monitoring the radio frequencies. Unlike working a radio car where you just have to monitor one frequency, TFD's must listen to 5 separate radios at once.
One of those radios is in scan mode and constantly cycles through all 15 Sheriff dispatch channels, as well as the primary frequencies of every single outside angecy in the county, including 5 CHP frequencies and the Orange County Red Channel. It takes several months to train your brain to hear and separate the chatter and to be able to pick out what transmissions are the most critical. You might only hear some noise coming from a deputy's handheld, as he is frantically trying to key it, while in a fight with a suspect. The TFD has to instantly, visually identify which frequency it is, associate it with the respective station, or stations, then direct the pilot to head to a certain area. The pilot in turn gets his bearings, picks a heading, based on his years of experience as a TFD, and then later a pilot, and then pulls maximum power to get there as quickly as possible, being careful to keep engine temperature, and transmission torque below redline. With a flight crew of two experienced deputies, calls like this unfold like a perfectly rehearsed dance. Just like working with a long time radio car partner, often time very little needs to be said. Dials are tuned, hand signals are given while ears strain get the next bit of information about the unfolding situation. Such is not the case with a trainee.
In the beginning the pilot ends up doing most everything in the cockpit. Like I said before, Cody was great once we got to the call. He worked the searchlight well, he made tactically sound suggestions for the ground units, and he was even learning how to effectively use the FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) camera quicker than most trainees. We just needed to work on his deciphering the radio, knowing where we were, and finding the call in the map book. So, that is what we worked on in between handling calls that night.
We were about 30 minutes into our second hop that night when we got a burglary call in Carson. It was probably around 0200 hours. I was confident Cody was going to handle this call with minimal input from me because he knew the streets, and he would have even known the deputies handling the call. Prior to arriving at the call, Cody established communications with the deputies on the ground on the tactical frequency. Before entering the back yard of the house, the deputies wanted him to light it up with the searchlight. As we came overhead, I rolled into an orbit around the house and Cody expertly used the searchlight controls to direct the beam into the back yard. We took a good look around the yard and then Cody told the deputies he did not see anyone out in the open, nor any dogs in the yard. The deputies entered the yard with guns drawn and began their search.
During the search I divided my attention between what was going on below, the cockpit instrument panel, and the surrounding airspace, being vigilant for other air traffic. We had Compton Airport north of us, Long Beach Airport south east of us, Torrance Airport south west of us, and Hawthorne Airport north west of us. Even at this time of night there was the possibility that another aircraft would try and occupy the same piece of sky as us. It was a clear night and I could see all the way to the skyscrapers downtown as I came around that portion of the orbit. Something funny got my attention as I took a closer look downtown. The First Interstate Bank building was the tallest building downtown at 1,300 feet tall. I knew the building well and had even landed on the top of it several times. But tonight there was a thin layer of stratus clouds hanging right at the very top of the building. The orange lights surrounding the top of the building could usually be seen for many miles and were a great reference point. However, on this night, the thin cloud layer muted the lighting to a dim orange, and the shape of the light appeared to be like a saucer. Sort of like a flying saucer.
Now I know what you're thinking. Given the peculiar circumstances of the drive in to work on this very night, you would think that the best course of action at this point would be to not kid around with something like this. Well, here's the thing. Even though I had been at Aero for several years, I was still a Carson deputy at heart. And when I was there we were a tight group, and as such, kidding around and teasing your buddies was just a normal part of our daily routine. It made our close bonds even closer.
Soooooo.......... " Hey Cody." "What." " Next time around on this orbit, take a look downtown and check out that orange saucer looking object." Now before I go any further, I should explain something about cockpit communications. The pilot's push to talk switches are on the flight controls, one for transmitting over the radios, and one for transmitting just on the cockpit intercom to your partner. The TFD has the same capability, however his push to talk switches are on the floor. Left foot for intercom, right foot to transmit over the radio. Over the years there have been a few unfortunate incidents where one of the flight crew thought that he was just saying something to his partner, when in fact he was addressing a much larger audience when he got his left and right foot confused.
As we came around in the orbit Cody looked out toward downtown. Then suddenly, "OH SHIT", he yelled. Then over the radio from the deputies on the ground, "What Aero, what do you see ? Do you see a suspect ?" Cody had keyed the wrong foot and scared the crap out of the guys on the ground. He quickly got back on the radio. " No, no, sorry. You guys are O.K. It's something else we have to go to". At this point he was becoming frantic and was straining to look out the cockpit to see the downtown area. "Lets go, lets go, shit there it is, lets go". I told him firmly over the intercom, "Cody, keep the light on the backyard and continue to help the deputies with their search." He was no longer controlling the searchlight, but I continued to orbit and did my best to bank the helicopter to try and keep the light where it should be, until he reengaged. It wasn't happening. He was 100% focused on getting to the flying saucer and seemed bewildered that I would not immediately turn and track down the UFO. I switched my radio over to the tactical frequency and checked in with the deputies. They said they were code 4 and that we could go wherever we needed to go.
Just then Sheriff's Dispatch came up on all frequencies and requested we switch to Lakewood Station's frequency for an emergency. I banked the helicopter hard toward Lakewood's area and pulled max power. I was expecting Cody to immediately switch frequencies and acknowledge our response on the radio. "Tell them we are less than a minute out", I said over the intercom. Nothing. I looked over and saw that Cody was still straining to see the "UFO". He then frantically asked me, Where are you going? We have to chase down that UFO". Cody ! Get on the fucking radio now and tell them our ETA. And get out your god damn Thomas Guide and turn it to the pages for Paramount and North Long Beach."
By now I had heard on the scanning radio that it was a pursuit of armed robbery suspects. I had also been able to pick up a location, every few seconds, before the frequency dropped out of scan, so I was able to refine my heading. Within a few more seconds, I was able to see the overhead rotator lights on the radio cars in pursuit. We were still a couple miles out, but even from this distance I could tell this pursuit was going to be a good one, with speeds pretty fast and the suspect vehicle weaving in and around surface streets.
Cody still was unable to switch over to the dispatch frequency, so I reached down and did it myself. Luckily the Long Beach airport tower was closed so I did not have to worry about getting a clearance from them to enter the airspace. I got on the frequency the pursuit was on and told them we were about 20 seconds out. I looked over at Cody and saw that he was just staring at me. He just shook his head, as if indicating that my priorities were completely screwed up. He pleaded with me one last time. "We HAVE to go after the UFO. Why won't you go after it?"
We were coming up over the pursuit. I slowed the aircraft a bit, locked the friction on the collective (power control for the helicopter) and quickly reached over and turned to the correct page in Cody's map book. I placed my finger in the map book on our current location and told him to call the pursuit. Back on the flight controls, things got busy for me now as this car we were chasing was all over the place turning down alleyways, making sharp 180 degree turns, rapid accelerations, everything that made for a good chase.
Finally, slowly at first, but then gradually with more conviction, Cody reengaged in the present. I think it finally hit him that his fellow deputies needed his help and he began to properly call the pursuit and maintain the spotlight on the speeding car. As always, when this is done properly, the deputies on the ground were able to slow down and drive much more safely knowing that there was now no chance that we would lose the suspect. This pursuit continued for a little more than an hour, during which two sets of spike strips were deployed. Fortunately, due to the time of night, there were hardly any other cars on the road, so most of the danger was restricted to the suspects themselves. After driving on four blown tires for awhile, they finally spun out and slid into a streetlight pole and the pursuit was over.
We had flown longer than our normal shift and were low on gas. I turned toward the airport for a landing back at Aero. I looked over at Cody who was sitting there quietly now. "Look, Cody. You can do whatever you want. But my suggestion is that you keep all this UFO stuff to yourself." No response.
After we landed Cody got out and walked across the tarmac and in the door at the front desk. I had to stay in the helicopter for the 3 minute engine cool-down, and then refueled the aircraft afterwards. I entered the building about 15 minutes after Cody.
I had no intention of mentioning any of what happened to anyone. I wanted Cody to succeed and fit in with the crew. I walked in the front door and there were two other deputies at the desk along with Cody. One of them was a big, outspoken sort of guy named Jim Wright. He was looking at me with a funny smile as I leaned over the flight log pedestal to enter the night's flight time information.
"I hear you fuckers saw a UFO", bellowed Jim. I looked up at him for a brief second. He had this grin on his face like he couldn't wait to hear what the hell I had to say. I could only imagine the story Cody told them during the 15 minutes that I was still outside. I looked back down at the flight log and continued making my entries. "I didn't see shit", I replied without looking up.
" What !", said Cody. "You're just going to leave me hanging out to dry like that ? C'mon you have to back me up on this".
Jim Wright shifted his gaze from Cody back to me. "Well, what the fuck do you have to say for yourself "? " I have no idea what he is talking about", I replied. And with that, I never spoke another word about the incident with anyone at Aero Bureau until many, many years later.
Two weeks after that flight I was back working with a regular partner, as the scheduling problem mentioned earlier had been resolved and Cody was back with his original training officer. At the very beginning of our first hop, there were two other patrol helicopters still up, so I decided to fly over to Carson Station and visit with my buddy Terry Wenger. Terry and I had been radio car partners years before, and I knew he was working inside as the watch deputy on this night. After landing on the station's helipad, we went in through the back door, and then up to the dispatcher's and watch deputy's duty stations.
We spent some time catching up on a few things, and then Terry said, " I heard you on the radio the other night. Well, actually I heard Cody". So my first thought was that Terry must have been working the night Cody accidentally yelled "Oh shit" over the tactical frequency. He must have gotten a kick out of that. "Oh right. Yeah, Cody accidentally keyed the wrong switch on L-Tac on that call we were on". " No, no, not that", Terry said. "I mean I heard Cody on the radio, the A.M. radio". Now I was confused. "OK, let me show you", Terry said.
Now at this time, computers with internet access were a new thing on the Sheriff's Department. So new that we didn't even have one at the Aero Bureau yet. It would be another two years before I would even have a department email account. But Carson had one at the front desk, and Terry was on it looking something up. Finally a list of archived radio show broadcasts by a radio personality named Art Bell came up on the screen. I was not familiar with Art Bell at the time, but he had a late night radio show that was all about UFO's and related subjects. And listeners of the show would routinely call into the radio station.
Terry spent some time clicking on links to try and find what he was looking for. Finally he found it and the audio from Art Bell's radio show two weeks prior came up. " OK, listen to this", said Terry. At first it was the tail end of a conversation with a caller, but then a new caller came on the line. He talked in low, very calculating and calm, matter of fact voice. He identified himself as a law enforcement officer employed by a large metropolitan law enforcement agency in California. He told the audience that he was assigned as a helicopter flight crew member. He then began to describe in detail his recent encounter with a UFO during his flight the night before. It started sounding very familiar, and so did the voice. It was Cody!
He went into great detail describing the orange UFO hovering over the downtown area of the city. The craft's shape, how it moved, its approximate altitude, as if it was a routine observation that he might have made many times before. I was dumbfounded. Everyone in the dispatch area was looking at me waiting for a reaction. Cody continued for another 15 or 20 minutes with his descriptions, and Art Bell asked him several pointed questions, apparently intended to verify the validity of the incident. Toward the end of the segment, Cody made it clear that the pilot (me) insisted that he not say anything to anyone about what they saw, and that a formal cover-up of the incident was initiated by the Captain of the Aero Bureau.
After the call Art Bell remarked that this report was certainly one of the most credible in recent memory, made even more so since it was from a law enforcement officer.
Terry has a great sense of humor and he was making the most of that moment with a flurry of funny comments. He sent us out the door to go back to work with a final farewell, "If you can't find any crooks tonight, maybe you can catch another UFO". I just shook my head and headed out to the helicopter.
Post Script:
Many years later I attended a retirement party for one of the guys at Aero. I had long since left the unit after a promotion, but still kept in touch with most of them. Cody, I had learned, took an early retirement several years earlier behind a work related injury. As I meandered around the bar running into old friends, someone suddenly grabbed my arm to get my attention. It was Cody. I gave him a big smile and a manly hug. We did a quick catch up on what we were doing, where he was living, etc. Then, just before turning to walk away, he looked at me and asked, "So I gotta know, you really did see the UFO that night right? Didn't you ?" I looked back at him and saw something in his eyes. The eyes of a true believer. "Yeah Cody", I said. " Yeah, I saw it." He looked at me and smiled. "Thanks", was all he said, and he disappeared into the crowd.
Verdict: The Court finds the Defendant Guilty of Maintaining Your Boyhood Imagination. Something too many of us have lost.
Sentence: The Court orders that on the charge of Maintaining Your Boyhood Imagination, the Defendant shall be drafted for the first manned mission to Mars.
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