War Stories

[Valor55]

Last time I posted a funny story about a co worker who fell in a pond thinking he was stepping over a stream at a golf course.

This story has more pucker factor.

This was a couple years ago at the agency I used to work at. This was my first critical incident.

I'm not sure how the call came in but the first officer on the scene approached the dark townhouse and a voice from the upstairs window whispered to him. The caller in the window was a 22 year old female. She advised she was in a room with 3 or 4 children (I can't remember exactly) under 10 years of age. In the basement of the house was the homeowner --a man and his wife. The callers mother, the nanny, was also down there. The man had rifles and was beating both women and not letting them leave.

The officer raised the alarm on the radio and we all responded. The entire district that was working went onscene including me. Neighboring districts handled our calls. I was one of the first few to arrive and grabbed my shotgun. We had nice tactical Remington 870P's with short barrels, pistol grips, and slings. Myself and several other officers went around back to set up the perimeter. The basement had a walkout door in the back. Lights were on inside but shades and blankets completely covered the sliding glass doors and windows. We couldn't see inside at all. However we could hear screaming and yelling. After a minute I realized we could hear him beating the women (mostly his wife.) It gave me goosebumps to hear it.

The duty officer for the county was on scene now and although tac had been alerted they were hours away from being effective. I could hear the radio traffic as we were instructed by our commanders. We were planning a dual entry, one upstairs with a barricade to rescue the kids and one downstairs to take the guy out since he was an imminent threat to the hostages. I was leaning against a tree in the back yard, locked and loaded, and ready. It was the most scared I've ever been but here I was ready to face the fire. If we went in I figured at least one or two of us would get shot. If he came out I knew it was with guns blazing.

Luckily he settled down on the women and we went back into our holding pattern. I made mental notes of the terrain and the buildings. Luckily we backed up onto a field with a path and playground with trees. The closest townhouses within a possible firing line were pretty far out of the way. We held our positions for what seemed an eternity but was likely about 2 hours.

Some mental giant in the unit next to where I was standing decided to turn on all the lights and come outside to see what we were doing. She was standing on her balcony above me. I was all lit up and lost all my tactical advantage if the bad guy came outside. I told her to shut off the lights and go back inside and she lit up a smoke and ignored me. I got on the radio let the guys around front know and I could hear the banging on her front door. She went inside and then the lights went out a minute later. I was pretty lit up and would have charged her with obstruction (I told her multiple times) but her unit was a replica of the target and the Tac Team used it for practice.

Finally the tac guys showed up and got to my position first. I pointed out where the other officers were and where the target unit was. I then got to leave and warm up since it was the middle of winter and freezing outside.

When I got around to the staging area the command bus and every other piece of equipment we had was onscene including a snack bar. I went inside the bus and when the tac commander found out where I was, asked for a sketch of the area. I had taken all those mental notes and was able to draw up a good picture of the back.

The patrol units went to set up the outer perimeter to keep the public outside of the area. As dawn broke dispatch informed us to ignore gun shots and explosions as the Tac Team had a Green Light on the operation. :eek: Just as they were about to go in the guy let out the nanny. Earlier the caller and children were evacuated so it was just the two women now. Numbnuts sent the nanny out to tell the police he was a nice guy and we could all leave now. :rolleyes: They tried more negotiating and we were once again told tac had the green light. Then he let the wife come out. She was apparently pretty beaten up with a broken arm and pulped face. As he had no more bargaining chips he surrendered a short time later.

I had been sitting in a cruiser keeping warm with two other officers in the area just out of view of the back of the target house. We were telling everyone to go back inside and keep them from going down the street behind the target house. We had been there several hours and none of us knew how close we were to the tac team. When the word came to rally at the staging area 2 snipers stood up in some bushes not far from us. We never knew they were there, they had awesome discipline to stay hidden.

It was a long night but we got out all the children and hostages ok and while we were all a little dissapointed tac didn't get to kick some *** it really was for the best for everyone involved.

Apparently the wife and husband recently separated and the divorce was not going well for him and that is what precipitated the event.

[Roses]

Glad it worked out that all walked out of the target home and no one was killed during the process.