I have a first cousin that retired as an investigator from Riverside County Sheriff's Department....His name is Greg Harrell...He would have worked there at that time.
My favorite story from my cop days. Two naked little people and a parrot
- Thread starter Biff_Biffington
- Start date
Add utility workers to that. As a gas serviceman, being told the furnace was downstairs, I had to step over the pentagram on the floor and go around the large copper kettle. At another home I walked past the candy apple red bed frame with multiple handcuffs hanging off it.
That ignores the sewage, senility, out and out crazy folks and having loose parrots land on my shoulder.
Doug M.
Member
I worked in the face from which I retired twice; 2000-2007 (criminal division) and 2014 to this year (civil, mostly) ("Civil like a pet Hyena" was one description of our crew). When I started, the Prosecutor was ex officio coroner in counties under 40K until the county went over 40K in a census, after which the next election a coroner was elected. We all took turns at being on-call, which included criminal law questions (really awful for the hardcore civil folks; in WA the county Prosecutor does most of the criminal prosecutions and is also counsel for the county) and coroner call. We tended to call the pager the "Reaper Beeper.)
Some of the calls were just awful - little kids dying stupid ways, etc. Some were ... inane, like older folks had lived a good and full life. We even had a hospice call system for the truly terminal. (We had a guy on hospice who shot himself when it got too bad, and I got the call. When I got the fact that he was not a real hospice call, I became kinda cranky and the local PD had to call out extra officers on OT to process the scene. One of the officers lit a hospice nurse on fire; really reamed her for screwing this up, and I got blames for a while. (My reputation for bluntness was about the same as his, so I was a logical suspect.) Some of the stuff made us a little jaded, even ghoulish.
Our last day in this duty, we had a gathering with current and former lawyers and some cops. It was held in the Commissioners' meeting room, and one of the members of the Board came in for a few minutes. We were playing "Cause of Death Bingo" (my favorite was a guy run over by a road roller; it was just like a cartoon). After maybe 10 minutes the Commissioner started looking green at the gills and left. The reality of what we did and saw made gallows humor necessary, but we of course kept it away from outsiders.
I had to go to a death on the Interstate one night about 0130. It was a weekend and I was finally getting a good night's sleep, so being awaken had a negative impact on my ability to fake a cheerful pleasant demeanor. DUI fatality with a driver so hammered he had no idea where he was; just awful in terms of the underlying facts and the outcome. He kept acting the ass, like telling us he knew the prosecutor in the county in which he thought he was and telling us we were all in trouble and let us say that the WSP Sgt. was taken aback by the very blunt reminder that I was also a cop elsewhere. (Are you threatening us? Do you want another felony? How about you shut up and have a seat in that squad car?)
Consistent: When I had my bypass in 2022, a detective (the sex offender tracker) asked if the docs could put in a soul while they had my chest cracked. I got a good chuckle out of that. (Our civil office was in the SO's building, which was handy as I was Sheriff's counsel and we could just meet in the hall and chat.)
Some of the calls were just awful - little kids dying stupid ways, etc. Some were ... inane, like older folks had lived a good and full life. We even had a hospice call system for the truly terminal. (We had a guy on hospice who shot himself when it got too bad, and I got the call. When I got the fact that he was not a real hospice call, I became kinda cranky and the local PD had to call out extra officers on OT to process the scene. One of the officers lit a hospice nurse on fire; really reamed her for screwing this up, and I got blames for a while. (My reputation for bluntness was about the same as his, so I was a logical suspect.) Some of the stuff made us a little jaded, even ghoulish.
Our last day in this duty, we had a gathering with current and former lawyers and some cops. It was held in the Commissioners' meeting room, and one of the members of the Board came in for a few minutes. We were playing "Cause of Death Bingo" (my favorite was a guy run over by a road roller; it was just like a cartoon). After maybe 10 minutes the Commissioner started looking green at the gills and left. The reality of what we did and saw made gallows humor necessary, but we of course kept it away from outsiders.
I had to go to a death on the Interstate one night about 0130. It was a weekend and I was finally getting a good night's sleep, so being awaken had a negative impact on my ability to fake a cheerful pleasant demeanor. DUI fatality with a driver so hammered he had no idea where he was; just awful in terms of the underlying facts and the outcome. He kept acting the ass, like telling us he knew the prosecutor in the county in which he thought he was and telling us we were all in trouble and let us say that the WSP Sgt. was taken aback by the very blunt reminder that I was also a cop elsewhere. (Are you threatening us? Do you want another felony? How about you shut up and have a seat in that squad car?)
Consistent: When I had my bypass in 2022, a detective (the sex offender tracker) asked if the docs could put in a soul while they had my chest cracked. I got a good chuckle out of that. (Our civil office was in the SO's building, which was handy as I was Sheriff's counsel and we could just meet in the hall and chat.)
Naked people was always a bad call. Dead naked people was always worse.
LOL
LOL
YeshuaIsa53
Member
As have some folk in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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