Don’t Kill The Anchorman

Specifically, during my long career in Law enforcement, as in my life in general, if something appears to be easy, fun, and occasionally profitable, it turns out to be anything but.

Scene: San Francisco’s Potrero Police Station

My first hint: I got called into my Captains office just minutes shy of the end of my watch one hot August evening.

The second warning: Was when I cleared the door, and she called me “Dave”’, instead of by my rank, saying “shut the door, and have a seat.”

(my cop-sense-mental-alert-siren was winding up big time now while I tried to think what exactly had I done wrong in the last 24 hours?)

Her: “Dave, when you made Lieutenant, Chief Lau also appointed you as a Police Liaison Officer so you could handle Community Meetings, Press Briefings, and Media Outreach, didn’t he?”

(In my head I’m saying: “Yes Captain, and you’ve been happily throwing me to the wolves ever since you got here two months ago)

What I really vocalized was “Yes Ma’am, what can I do for you today?”

The Third Strike or Police Management 101 (the carrot and stick system)

A Garden Vegetable: “This will be an overtime assignment today, so I hope your personal schedule is in order”

Batter up: “TV Channel Seven has a newly hired Prime Time Anchorman who wants to see what goes on in San Francisco, specifically our District.”

Hmmm, let me think: Visit pretty Tourist Trap places like North Beach and the Broadway strip clubs, drive around the Union Street Friday Night eye-candy-gals in-short-skirts-parade, or try the ever-lively cantinas of the Mission District with its colorful low-riders on display.

Nope

So instead, he picks an after dark, on a-welfare-checks-just-got-cashed-Friday-night, to cruise through the bloodiest district in the City with me as his escort and urban guide.

(Who was this guy?)

Da Boss: “Dan will be waiting for you in your Watch Commanders office after the Swing Watch Briefing. Stay safe and don’t let him get hurt.”

 Me: While I do hate repeating myself, I had no other thing I could do except say “Yes Ma’am” again and make a graceful if not hurried exit.

 On the counter side, I had the good luck to have scored a semi-clean and so-far undamaged radio car during my initial shift and hadn’t yet had the time to remove all my patrol supervisor junk and personal war bag.

The on-coming Lieutenant hadn’t arrived yet, so I button-holed her Senior Street Boss, told him that I had a media ride along tonight, and to warn the troops (again !!) about using profanity on the radio.

He grimaced and walked off saying over his shoulder “Better you than me! Ell Tee!”

It didn’t take much effort to separate the expensively dressed civilian with the big toothy smile from the crowd of burly and combat-ready swing watch cops in the hectically noisy assembly room.

He had a strong handshake, and thankfully a large dark colored army surplus storm coat now tucked under his arm when he introduced himself.

Dan: “Thanks for helping me out here. In that I’m new to this market my Producer says that my focus will be the non-glamorous street level life, and that I should start off in the Hunters Point-Potrero District to get a perspective”.

Again, my mental voice was sarcastically commenting that a similar “perspective”: could be had in Beirut Lebanon during the last civil war, or perhaps in Northern Ireland at the height of the most recent British army deployment.

During the lineup, when Sergeant O’Neill was finished briefing the troops about the latest the gang warfare intelligence, he smiled and casually “mentioned” that we would be having a media ride along, and that “Big Brother” was likely to turn up at any moment.

Accordingly, like in the old TV commercial, every person in the room turned around to eyeball me and my passenger.

Dan waived back bravely with a cautious smile on his face.

After Dan thankfully accepted my offer to store his very expensive designer suitcoat and vivid silk tie in my office, he declined my offer to wear a no-doubt uncomfortable borrowed Kevlar armored vest and put on his army coat instead.

In our car, as I was waiting for a chance to give my memorized and almost copyrighted media-ride-along speech, he turned to me and spoke.

“I’ve had a lot of these check-rides in the City that I’m from, and I know the rules pretty much. No recording of any kind, what you say goes, and anything you tell me or that I see or hear is for “background” and is off “the record” “

 “Oh, and I know all the cops and doughnut cliché’ jokes, so the pastry and caffeine are on me tonight as long as you don’t get me killed or ruin my slacks.”

I decided I was going to like this guy.

The last Paycheck Friday here saw 30-50 reports of shots being fired (civilians!), with numerous victims therefore going to the ER as a result, while a number of police hot car and foot chases occurred.  Everyone ran backup on anything resembling a hot call automatically. There were 30-40 cops working with 4 chevron arm-striped supervisors, the Watch Commander, and now an unplanned spare Uniform with a TV reporter in tow (me)

On the other side of coin, we had Crips, Bloods, The Hill Mob, Afrika Pistoleros, and of course my favorite sociopaths on wheels, the Hells Angels,

After about 6 code three backup calls, and a number of times where I escorted ambulances to and from assignments, standing armed guard each time to keep the SFFD Rescue rigs from being pilfered, or the EMT’s from being robbed, my luck diluted.

While on my third cup of expresso high-test, and my second sugar glazed center hole-missing snack, I parked my car behind my Sgts ride, and in that it was a “cold call” (report only, no violence mentioned) where I took a calculated risk. I had told my passenger if he wanted to, I’d show him where Orenthal James Simpson was born and learned to run like he did.

Dan’s previous Market had included Buffalo New York, and he dabbled in Sports announcing at the beginning of his career, so he took me up on my offer. We went off to the Double Rock Housing Unit.

The “Two Rock” projects were then a lot quieter that night than when OJ lived there and he joined the resident gang, the Persian Warriors. With about 5 police cars, 12 cops, two fire rigs and a multi-casual ambulance on scene, this was about as secure as it ever got in that part of the Bayview District. The domestic violence call where Mommy stabbed Daddy, (and also Daddy’s two inebriated and stoned out brothers) was under control before I got there, and certainly gave my Mr Media passenger a chance to get his San Francisco “Perspective” in order.

Then came the sound of a VERY loud modified muffler on a large bore American V8 Engine at high REVs passing by. The exclamation point to this was the three shot gun reports in the general direction of the parked emergency response vehicles.

I pushed my charge into a deep doorway and remembering my Captains final words to “be safe”, I took up a standing station shielding him. The residents went to ground at this all-too-common occurrence like a covey of quail at the sound of a hunting dog. My troops fanned out to both investigate, and to take cover wherever they could find it, while watching like well-armed armed eagles waiting for a second act to this play.

At the radio call of all clear, my Sgt came up to me with a rueful smile on his face.

“Sorry Boss, but the Assholes got your car “

When the gang at my station gave me the shot-up spotlight as a souvenir later that month, and my Captain taped a miniature bull’s eye decal to it before putting it in the trophy case in the assembly room, there were smiles and high five all around.

I still see Dan on local TV at 6 pm every night.