Recently friends who introduced me to Netflix about 18 months ago told me about a TV series on DVD that they thought I might enjoy - The Wire. Since I don't watch TV (at all), I had never heard of it. When they told me it was set in Baltimore, I remembered a former Baltimore cop I had met in a class in Denver in the 1970s.
As I recall, we had only two conversations - in the first, I asked him what the bulge was in his light-weight jacket pocket, and he pulled out a Browning 9mm Hi-Power. I asked him how many times he could fire without reloading, and he said, "14." When I asked him why he carried a weapon with so many rounds, he told me that, when he was running his dog in City Park at 2AM and some kids started bothering him, he could shoot 6 times and they'd think he was out of ammunition!
In the second conversation, he described a classic example of good police work. His partner and he had been on patrol one hot summer night, when they were flagged down by a pedestrian, who pointed to an open window in a building and said, "See that arm up there? That arm hasn't moved for two days."
Being street-smart cops, they knew what they'd find if they went to that apartment. So they told the person that they'd call it in, and they did. Right after they called out for dinner! One of them used a telephone to report a suspicious incident. And, of course, they didn't get the call, because they were already off-duty for their meal! Now, that's experience!
© 2008 GUS PHILPOTT
You never know who is interested…
3 months ago
2 comments:
I like a Colt Combat Commander series 70 in .45. I guess you have to be a better shot.
I know why you like the second "story". Finding a way to get somebody else to do the work you don't have the interest or guts to do yourself. What kind of country would we have if as much energy was spent on doing what needed to be done as was spent trying to figure out a way to get out of doing it?
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