| Running without Thinking, Chasing a Perp in the SubwayWhat a crazy night I had today... stupid Q train... I was in the train today at 7:30PM and it was very packed, well of course it was rush hour. At 7th Avenue, a black male with long dreads was pushing a baby carriage with a baby of about 3-4 years old into the train car that I was in. Some old black hispanic guy (I learned that he was hispanic because he started to speak spanish) was in the way and didn't let the baby carriage go through since he was lying on the door. So the father decided to force his way in, thereby running the baby carriage over the old guy's foot. So the father said something about you should be courteous to others with a baby carriage, if my son wasn't here, I would really teach you some manners and the old man told him to fuck yourself. So it was quiet in the train and I figured hey why get involved, its not like they're going to start throwing punches at each other. So I let them be... The subway arrives at the Prospect Park station and I saw the father unlock the brakes for the baby carriage, so I thought maybe he wants to avoid trouble and get on the next train, so I thought he's very commendable. The minute the door opened, I saw a flying glass bottle in the air. The two guys start duking it out and exchanged punches with each other and in the meanwhile the baby carriage flipped over and the kid fell onto the platform. I was like aww fuckk.... now I have to get involved. As the other passengers were tending to the baby boy, I decided to separate the two guys who were literally grappling each other and exchanging punches. I yelled, "STOP! STOP WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!" I managed to grapple the father and break his hold off the old man and put him aside. The father notices that his kid fell down and tended to his injuries. I took a look at the kid and he was still crying, with a bruise on the left side of his forehead, so I thought he seems ok, no life threatening injuries. The old man started to run away and leave the station. People were following him, particularly this one chinese guy. I was like that guy's probably an EDP (emotionally disturbed person) and that chinese dude's gonna get walloped in the face. So I ran after the guy, and yelled "POLICE!!! STOP!!! GET DOWN ON THE FLOOR!" The guy was running up the stairs and tripped. I was like "I'm not here to arrest you." He stopped and turned around. I thought I was going to meet "Mr. Right Fist" to the face or "Mr. Bullet for You", so I said, "Calm down. But but... you were involved in hurting a 4 year old boy, so you are at fault, so be responsible and stay to see if the boy is ok" I was surprised, he complied and sat on the stairs waiting for EMS. I called 911, explained the dispatcher that a dispute occured and both parties involved were still in the subway and I detained one guy involved. Time seemed to flow so slow that I didn't see that the police response was actually 1 minute. It really felt like 10 minutes. The perp was like "He hit me in the face you know, you're my witness." I swear he said that like 5 times or something like that. Transit cops came and immediately handcuffed the guy. They said they handcuffed the other guy too. But by the time we all walked over there, the father was not handcuffed but was being evaluated by EMS. He was like WTF, that asshole is at fault. I was like, "Sir calm down, if you cooperate I'm sure everything will be fine and this is all a big misunderstanding." Man, the perp just kept looking at me the whole time, pissed off... EMS finally came after a response time of 3 minutes, which was a very good response time and did a quick check to the boy to see if he was ok. At the same time I was bullshitting with the other transit cops, telling them that I work at the six-one, how today was suppose to be my first patrol night since my leave of absence and how this stupid shit happened at the worst time possible and how my fellow unit members recently caught the flu and are ill for another week, stuff like that. To my surprise, there was another off duty paroll officer who was in the same train as me. Apparently she was the first one to call 911 about the assault and was the one who attended to the aid of the little boy. She told me that there was something not right about the old guy and she was eying on him the whole time. She was the one who accessed that the old man was at fault and he started the whole mess to begin with. When everything was well and done, her and I were talking about the "what if" scenarios, what if that happened, why it was a bad idea to collar the guy myself, whether or not we should tell our supervisors or not, whether it was a good idea chasing after the guy. Then after all the adrenaline rush out of my system, it started to dawned on me. I did a lot of things off the books. Wtf was I doing chasing a perp?! I could have been shot, who knew what weapon he could have had. What the hell was I thinking? Was it a better idea to let the guy run off and act like nothing happened? Am I going to get in trouble for saying POLICE, since auxiliaries are not suppose to say that to perps since we're not actually the police? Why didn't I attend to the baby carriage first? Why did I try to break up the fight? I'm probably going to get disciplined by my coordinator next week.... =( I recalled Roman the sarge telling me this last year, "We're Rescue, we're cops, we're always going to bump into perps and we're always going to chase after them. That is the reality, this is what we do, if you don't like it, go join the fucking fire department." Time to write myself a will now =/ |
