Badges

tests given to him by his training officer on the street. He was now set loose in his own patrol car and put into the regular rotation of shifts.

    Michael’s first solo shift was the midnight shift. Just after eleven o’clock, Michael got into his assigned car and went in service. As he pulled out onto the quiet streets, he decided to check the business district first. Even though Upton was relatively small, it still had four bars in the town, as well as several outside the limits.

    The bars had customers, but everything was quiet as usual. He decided to swing through one of the several residential areas looking for prowlers or people who just didn’t belong in the area. Four hours later, as he began to relax and gain more self-confidence at being on the street alone, a call came out from county dispatch.

    “Upton Five, report of a domestic at 652 North Ninth Street. Wife states that the husband and an adult son are fighting inside the house with furniture being overturned and broken.”

    “Upton Five, ten-four.”

    Michael’s stomach tensed just a little bit as he sped to the location of the call, which was only about two minutes away. When he arrived and got out, he heard yelling coming from inside the house.

    “Upton Five, hold me out on Ninth Street at the domestic.”

    “Ten-four, Upton Five.”

    Michael walked up onto the front porch of the house and looked into the front window before knocking on the door. He could see broken tables and lamps as well as the two men yelling at each other.

    He banged on the door and yelled “Police” until the wife opened up.

    “Thank God you’re here. Please come in, and maybe you can put a stop to this,” said a very upset woman in her early fifties.

    When Michael entered the house, both men stopped yelling at each other and began to yell at him.

    “What the fuck are you doing here, and who called you?” the husband bellowed.

    “Calm down, you’re disturbing your neighbors.”

    “Fuck you, you snot-nosed punk,” the father said as he took a wild swing at Michael, who ducked it easily. When the son jumped on Michael, the father ran out of the house, got into his car, and took off.

    Michael was able to get the better of the son. He arrested him for assault on a police officer, dragged him to the car, and threw him in the back. As he got in the driver’s seat, he called in the incident to dispatch and told them he was en route to a district justice to arraign his prisoner. He also put out an alert for the father so that the man could be arrested for attempted assault of a police officer.

    Before he got to the district justice with the son, the department in the next town over called in an accident that matched the description of the father’s car.

    “That’s my dad’s car! Take me there!”

    “Sorry, you’re under arrest, and the only place you’re going is to night court, dude.”

    For the next two minutes, Michael had to listen to threats from the son for not taking him to his father’s car. They reached the district justice, and Michael brought his prisoner in front of the bench. After a five-minute hearing, a trial date was set, and the son was released on his own recognizance.

    “Now take me there!” the newly arraigned man yelled at Michael.

    “Do I look like a taxi service? You’re gonna have to find your own way to wherever you wanna go. Insurance only covers you in the car if you’re under arrest. You are no longer under arrest. Call a cab on your mother’s dime.”

    The kid was cussing at Michael as he got back into the cruiser and headed toward the town of Novel to locate the father. When he arrived at the crash scene, he found the on-duty cruiser and a detective unit present. The car had side-swiped a telephone pole and broken a fire hydrant, which was sending water a couple of hundred feet into the air.

    Michael parked away from the waterfall and met with the detective-on-scene in his car.

    “Why’d they call you out?” Michael asked the older but very handsome detective.

    “They found some stolen firearms in the trunk, along with a couple of ski masks and other crap that makes it look like it was a holdup kit for someone. I understand you want him for attempted assault?”

    “Yeah, sure do. By the way, I’m new. My name’s Michael Hawthorn.”

    The detective stuck out his hand and said, “Good to meet ya. I’m Tyler Jenkins, the one and only departmental detective, which is why I’m sitting here