The Retired Cop

Case #60 - The People vs Doug Fetteroll ( They see things differently on the East Coast ) In December 2008, OSS (the gang detail) had a search warrant scheduled.  The day before the warrant was to be served, I arrived at work and was getting dressed in the COPs trailer, which is adjacent to the OSS trailer.  I had a question for Detective Mark Wedel, of OSS, and walked next door to talk to him.  I wasn't finished putting my uniform on yet.  My shirt was untucked and unbuttoned, my boots were untied and my gun belt wasn't on.  I knocked, opened the door without waiting for a response, and walked into the middle of an OSS meeting.  Their new Sgt, Sgt Tonya Edwards looked me up and down, cocked her head back and raised an eyebrow.  Just as I thought Sgt Edwards was going to chew my ass for being out of uniform and barging into their meeting, I caught a glimpse of some gray, thinning hair coming into my peripheral vision from behind a cabinet.  Th...

Case #58 - The People vs Whatever Rich Prick Lived In That Fancy Ocean View Malibu Home ( a lesson in fire safety ) In the annual Malibu fire season of 2004,or maybe 2003 (they're all kind of the same), Dave Kluth, , me and the rest of the Carson COPs team were sent to assist.  That night we were assigned to keep an eye on a hillside neighborhood in Malibu that had been given a mandatory evacuation order earlier. For those of you that don't know, Malibu is beach community with a large population of the well heeled. We set up our little base of operations in the backyard of a multi-million dollar home that was situated on about an acre of land. The backyard ended at a steep hillside overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  It was beautiful. One of the first things we did was check to see if all the doors and windows were locked.  They were... with one exception.  The rear sliding door had been left open about a foot.  We announced ourselves and went in to verify tha...

Case #59 - The People vs Jake Foley ( always go with your gut, unless you're Steve Sather, then always do just the opposite ) In October 2008, Detective Jake Foley was summoned to the captain's office. Never a pleasant experience... for him.  But this time, Jake wasn't sweating it.  Sure, he gotten into a lot of trouble when he was on patrol, about a 90% complaint to contact ratio. Right up there with Randy "Vesuvius" Dickerson, who had, coincidentally, been Jake Fowley's training officer. But those were the bad days.   Jake was a detective now.   These were the good days!  About the only contact he had with the public now was calling them on the phone to listen to them say they weren't interested in pressing charges anymore. So, with the possibility of a complaint out of the picture,what did that leave?  A routine case update?  A little periodic face time with the captain, so he knew he was a valued member of the team?  Ooooh, m...