Drugs and alcohol knows no social boundaries. I recall responding to a call from an individual who lived in a condominium. The man was obviously under the “affluence of inkahaul”. He wanted to file a report because he was tired of UFOs buzzing his condominium. Fortunately, there was a separate policy in place which deferred complaints of this nature to the U.S. Air Force. I was more than happy to give him the phone number. Maybe someone there would care.
There was an individual who lived by himself in a nice single- family home. He was a younger guy, under 30. He had inherited literally over a million dollars. He had called 911 to report that he was thinking suicidal thoughts. On arrival, I made contact with him. We decided that it was time to take a ride to Delray Beach to the South County Mental Health facility. As I was driving him up, I began thinking the problem was bigger than just a state of mind. On arrival, I was in the process of checking him in when the doctor approached me and said he couldn’t accept him as a patient. “He’s having heroin withdrawals. He needs to go to the Palm Beach County CARP facility”, which was a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility. It was a night shift, right after two of us had just cleared a call at the shopping plaza on Palmetto Park Rd. We moved our vehicles from the plaza out to the main road grass median. We were engaged in paper work from the call and the fine art of conversation. There was traffic on the radio by an officer from North sector. He was preparing to stop a suspicious vehicle which was one of two that were under surveillance by our vice unit. Lt. Sauer, the vice supervisor, was about to tell the officer he was watching the wrong vehicle, but as the officer went to stop the vehicle, the driver took off and a pursuit was underway. It was happening in the far north, so we simply listened to the pursuit much like one would listen to a baseball game on the radio. On two occasions, the pursuit was headed our way, but then went north. Then, on the third radio transmission, it was headed towards us. All of a sudden, the activity was coming close to where we were. The vehicles were then on top of our location, passing by us at a very high rate of speed. So, now we were involved. One transmission came from the officer I was with “Get out of my way” to no one in particular as he proceeded to the front of the pursuit. Now, we had several units involved in the chase and we picked up more units as we continued.
The bad boy vehicle was striking street signs as his speed approached 100 miles per hour. Some quick turns and side streets lead to Glades Road. It was on this stretch that we passed 100 mph. At one point, Lt. Sauer asked how many police vehicles were involved. Dispatch responded “ten”. The chase went into the county, and then doubled back into town. I was the fourth vehicle in the train. I was having a great time. I had the a.m. radio playing fairly loud, but the music wasn’t conducive to the chase. Instead of a fast rocking song to set the mood, there was the song “Never My Love”. But then I noticed that the speed had diminished. Our top end was now down to 70, then, 60 and I began thinking something was amiss. I parked in the median. Lt. Goldbar, the shift supervisor, parked next to me. “Do you sense there’s something missing here?” he asked. “Yep” I responded. We heard one officer transmit that he had the car going north on Federal Highway, but that made no sense at all. I didn’t resume any activity until suddenly there was a radio transmission with noises of a struggle and which only gave a street location. The lieutenant and I both headed to the intersection given. As we arrived, there were several units converging and activity in the intersection. The lead police pursuit driver was the same guy who was sitting with me in the medium when the event began unfolding. He and two other officers had engaged the suspect and got him “cuffed and stuffed” into a police car.
There was a fairly large crowd on hand by now. One individual was taking pictures with a film camera. One of our officers, now assigned to keeping people away, approached the photographer. There were indications that the film shot would be sold to the press, showing the police in a bad light. “Nice camera, can I see it?” the officer asked. Before there was any definitive response, the officer managed to open the camera, expose the film and return it. “I don’t see anything on that film” was the officer’s statement. The photographer was shell-shocked.
As it turned out, the bad boy car had a trunk loaded with an entire chemistry set designed for the manufacture of a drug known as PCP, a horse tranquilizer. The suspect had just been released from jail on drug charges. He also had a sample of his product on him at the time of arrest, which just added to the charges. Well, so much for a successful probation.
Another night shift and we had been dispatched to a call. While en route, I was behind a vehicle occupied by five college students. It was the smell which caught my attention. It was fairly obvious that most, if not all, were having a marijuana barbecue party. I really had no choice but to do a stop. Another unit that was headed to the same call was right behind me. I threw on the blue lights, and to the side of the road we went. There was a lot of movement from those in the car. I went to the driver and had everyone looking for some form of identification. They didn’t even have a chance to tell me their side of what all the commotion was in the car. I told