Stories from the Law

Police officer-a job that can be considered high risk, but also high reward. There's nothing quite like the thrill of putting someone who breaks the law away. And nothing like the thrill of stopping some big drug organization from flooding the streets with its poison. But even police officers have a few stories to tell...

A disturbance that wasn't one

-"Not my story, but a good friend of mine was the youngest recruit to pass police training etc. in the area for a long time. At 19, he was fresh onto the service. I went for a pint with him a week later and you could tell he'd 'seen things' so I asked him what it was like. ...he told me about this one where they were called to a domestic. They got to the house and opened the door, instantly a whole load of sewer rats (not pet rats) flooded out, and there was no one home. The lights were on, the TV was on (quiet), and the loud voices they heard arguing were just gone. The only life there were the rats that ran out of the house. They searched the house, every nook and cranny, and found no one. He and his partner for the evening stayed around a while and waited to see if anyone came home, but after a few hours no one came, the neighbours couldn't even explain it. So they left. A few minutes later they got called to the same address again by a different person stating there's a pretty heated domestic going on. This time they brought the dog squad to find people, but again, the house was deserted. He said the freakiest thing was that the toilet had blatantly just been flushed when they got there as the cistern was filling, and the kettle was now boiling. The dogs found nothing as well. To this day he doesn't know what the f--- went on."

The Nightmare Before Christmas

-"My grandpa was a big Irish cop who started his career in Minneapolis in the mid-1950s. He always has the best stories to tell, but the one unexplainable one he tells me is that he got a call during Christmas Eve to a house with six bodies in it. Being the first responder, he speeds his way there and gets to the house. He walks in, gun drawn, only to find a family that looked like everybody had just had a long night and dozed off until he gets no response trying to wake them. He searches the rest of the house only to find a young teen girl in the bathtub with a single tear run down her cheek.

Everybody seemed to have mysteriously died at once without any known cause and he never found out what it was."

Scarecrow

-"Dispatch gets a call from an older couple reporting there's a man standing in their backyard. It's later in the evening and obviously the older couple is freaked out a bit. Several officers show up including my friend [who is a cop] and split into two groups heading around either side of the house. As they emerge in the backyard, guns drawn, they see the suspect and promptly order him to get on the f---ing ground, face first, hands behind his head. As they draw closer, he's not responding, and they realize he hasn't moved at all. Rewind 2 hours, the suspect had robbed a 7-11 or something like that down the road and taken off on foot. As he entered the neighborhood he tried to cut through this older couple's backyard. When he went to hop the fence in the back he slipped and impaled himself on a fence post. He couldn't pull himself off it and his own body weight slowly drove him down the post.

It had entered at his groin and went straight up to his shoulder. He was literally a human scarecrow."

Mother of the Devil

-"This one time I went out on a call of a suspicious person at a house near where I was at. When I get there the guy tells me that someone knocked on his door and when he went to see who it was there was a woman standing in his driveway with some sort of child-sized doll with horns and it looked like all bloody and cut up. So he asked the woman, who was looking away from him, what she wanted. She turned around and told him 'It needs food' then started screaming at the top of her lungs and ran at him, so like a normal human being he slammed the door in her face and called the cops. I get there and there are well-defined claw marks on his door, there's also a good bit of blood, I supposed from her fingers. So I call it out and start the search on foot, I also had 2 or 3 units driving around the area to see if they can't find this chick.

"So I'm about a block away and we get another call that the woman is back at the guy's house, but in the back yard. So I run about a block back to the guy's house and bust into his backyard. The lights are out so I have my flashlight out and I'm looking around. I see the chick huddled in the corner next to a f---ing evil-looking doll thing and I ask her if she's ok. She doesn't say anything. About this time one of my mobile units came back to the house and parked his unit where the headlights were shining on her so we could see how scary this chick looked. She had long black hair, her clothes were rags, she had no shoes, clearly homeless, and she kept whispering things to the doll.

"So my buddy and I approached and tried talking to her and she just kept whispering to the doll, couldn't understand what the hell she was saying so we decided to drag her... out of there. The second we put hands on this chick she went berserk. Punching, kicking, slapping, all kinds of s---. So we're fighting with her trying to get her on the ground and she's not going down, this chick was strong as hell. Well, in the fight she somehow got away from us and was sitting in a crouched position with her head tilted to the side and making the creepiest growl/snarling sound I've ever heard. Then she screams at the top of her lungs and charged at us. So, my buddy straight-jabbed her in the face and knocked her clean out. We cuffed her and hauled her off to the hospital where she tested positive for PCP and various opiates. She was charged with battery of a peace officer, resisting arrest, and trespassing. Later she was institutionalized for some sort of mental disorder, not sure quite what it was, my department didn't have anything more to do with her after her booking into the jail."

Abductions Gone Bizarre

-"My old roommate's dad was a former Naval Officer and then FBI agent. 20 years in the Navy and 12-15 years or so in the FBI.  

"One of his strangest stories was from his FBI days. I'll paraphrase it below: 

"A kidnapping case, this girl disappeared from her grandparents' RV sometime between like 5pm and midnight. They were up front, next thing they know, she's gone. She was supposed to be sleeping in the back. One stop at a rest stop, then they were in stop-and-go traffic, so they figure she must have popped out the door at some point. This is near the California/Nevada border. So we meet them, talk to them, this is within about a day or so and the girl's still missing, no sign of her. She was 15. 

"Local PD theory is she ran off because she's 15 and wants to get away from her lame grandparents for the summer. But there's a busted window (glass inside the vehicle) so we're treating it like a possible kidnapped person.  

"After a few hours, there's a couple different theories on the case. One is that she ran off, another that she got snatched. Nobody's seen the girl in almost two days now, and disappearing in the desert for a young girl is tough.  

"Next thing you know, we get a phone call - naked girl, lost and confused, picked up by some trucker on a two-lane road out there called Nipton. Runs into I-15 between Barstow and Vegas somewhere. Right near the border. Matches our description. Me and three other guys head out there to meet with the Sheriff who's got her. Turns out she's our girl. She's fine. No rape. No bruises. No exposure. Nothing. Completely healthy. Completely fine. Even cleaned like she took a shower. Won't tell us a damned thing. Doesn't remember a damned thing.  

"According to her, one minute she's in the RV, the next she's naked walking down the side of the road in 100-degree heat. We talked to her for two hours while her grandparents headed out to pick her up. We had our social services lady talk to her - nothing. I've seen people hiding things - she wasn't hiding anything. She honestly didn't remember. 

"Damndest thing. Anyway, girl was found, she was fine, so we turned it back over to Local PD to figure out what happened and determine if charges were pressed and all. I kept in touch with a guy I knew there because I was curious and we were in a fantasy football league. A few months later he tells me the parents sent the girl to a therapist to look for 'repressed memories' to make sure she wasn't raped or something. Therapist says she seems fine, but honestly has no recollection of her time at all and doesn't think there's any point to delving much further since she has no symptoms and is largely more confused by the reaction than the event. 

"So to this day, we've got a busted RV window with glass on the inside, likely from a moving RV on a jampacked freeway, likely in broad or lightly fading sunlight, with zero witnesses. A 15-year-old girl gets out, or is taken out, and is taken somewhere safe nearby for almost two days, and then is stripped naked without being touched sexually, cleaned up, and deposited on the side of a separate road a few miles away. She didn't have a drug in her system that we could detect. She remembers nothing at all. Nobody knows what happened to her clothes or anything. 

"Been almost 20 years since this happened, and I can't figure out what the hell went on with that girl. Still bugs me at night that I have no way to explain it aside from 'She lied the whole time,' but I know liars, and I'd bet money she wasn't lying at all."

A Most Gruesome Accident

-"UK here. Not a policeman but my brother is and I heard this story from him (though it was all over the local news as well... just without the gore). He wasn't the attending officer on the case but arrived on the scene as the bodies were being moved. (I actually passed the scene on my way to work the day it happened as well, though at that time the wreck was being hauled away)...So, just the fine details are third-party, in effect.

"It's a rather gruesome story so... read at your own risk. 

"A few years back in our local town, a couple of joyriders had stolen a car. The police gave chase but had to pull back due to the speeds involved. (They got clocked at 130 miles per hour through a residential area.) The obvious happened and about three miles from where the police fell back, they managed to hit a wall or lamppost or something and kill themselves instantly.  

"Upon arriving at the scene, the attending officer discovered the driver's lower legs and feet had been pushed up due to the impact and his shin bone had gone through his jaw and up through his skull. Apparently it looked like he had a foot attached to his chin. The passenger, however, looked untouched and seemed to be unconscious... until they tried to move him and discovered most of the bones in his body had been shattered. He sort of... folded backwards when the officer tried to pull him out for first aid. He then started to... compress, squish and implode into himself in the car seat."

He's not winning Father of the Year

-"[WARNING: This story is very disturbing.]

 "I live in a fairly small town, my dad was a cop for 10 years or so, my aunt works in the ER going on 11 years now, & at the time of this story one of my best friend's brother-in-law was an EMT. They are all involved in this sick tale... 

"There was a call about a domestic dispute, then a 911 call from the same address from a woman who was just screaming & then cut off. Of course they sent all available units immediately. After a few officers had showed up, they reported the situation back & the Chief decided no female officers or EMTs should be allowed near the scene. It turned out a Hispanic man was on drugs & had a freak-out on his girlfriend, accusing her of cheating. He beat the s--- out of her, broke several bones. He decided their three-month-old baby wasn't his, picked up the infant by his feet & gutted him with a box cutter. When the cops showed up he was beating on his girlfriend with a kitchen utensil while she huddled over the baby trying to shield him with her own body. They got him subdued, rushed the baby to the ER, tended to the wife in the ambulance out front, & sewed up several cuts of the man in the kitchen. The EMT tending to him was my friend's brother-in-law. The man was still high but coming down & saying a lot of disgusting things about his girlfriend, the EMT slammed his head into the refrigerator, warning him to stop talking. A sergeant was in the room, saw this & gave the EMT an approving nod. A few minutes later, the sergeant got fed up with the man's clearly unapologetic words & said "Do you hear that woman crying? She trusted you to take care of you, loved you enough to give you a son & look what you've done to them! She didn't cheat, you never let her leave the house so how could she? That little boy is your son, you could have been a father to him & raised him to be a great man, now you've taken that child's life. That woman, who loved you so much is out there weeping because she has just lost her son & her boyfriend, don't you care at all?!", the man then said that if that baby didn't want him to kill it then it should've died before it was born & that the woman deserved it because she was a "dumb b----, cheating or not" & the sergeant shot the guy in the foot. My father witnessed all of this & later had to testify. My aunt said in the ER the baby was laying there & his intestines were literally laying next to him on the gurney, outside his body. Every single person who worked on that baby requested therapy afterward. The mom had some pretty bad internal bleeding but my aunt said the most disturbing thing was hearing her scream for her baby. She said in all her years in the ER she's never heard anyone scream like that.

"The mom & the baby actually both lived but the baby has some serious brain damage because he didn't get enough oxygen to the brain because of a punctured lung. The man is in prison, I know he got drug charges, weapons charges (unregistered guns were found in the home as well as more drugs), domestic battery, attempted murder & a few others I'm not sure of. I do know he has no possibility of parole & a long sentence but I'm not sure how long the sentence turned out to be. The sergeant & EMT were both fired, that was the hearing my dad had to testify in (among other officers & EMTs)."

No amount of therapy will ever make this moment OK

-"Literally two days ago we had a man dead, swinging from the ceiling (on a sex swing) with electrical nipple clamps, buttered, body and a knitting needle up his penis. The worst part, he was pushing 70 years and discovered by his 10-year-old granddaughter. How the f--- do you erase that image?!"

Otis is no longer the town drunk...

-"Guy came into the jail on a DUI. Turned out it was like his fifth, so he wasn't getting out any time soon. He was okay for a few days and then started getting DTs bad. After a few days of mental health and medical saying 'keep an eye on him, it's just DTs,' he started going really nuts. He only spoke in gibberish and not to real people. He would piss, vomit, and s--- everywhere but the toilet. He refused to wear clothes and would masturbate incessantly. Despite our concerns that he may have serious mental issues and repeatedly trying to get him admitted to the state hospital, we kept hearing the same response. 'Keep an eye on him, it's just DTs, he'll get over it.' Finally my supervisor had enough and called this guy's lawyer. She came down and we took her to the isolation cell. I opened the window on the door for her and she called out his name. Naked, covered in his own fluids and with a crazed look in his eye, he calmly picked up one of his turds and ate it like a Snickers bar before going back to masturbating. His lawyer gasped in horror, turned to me and my supervisor and said, 'I'll go talk to the judge right now.' Two hours later he was on a transport to the state mental hospital.

I don't really understand the medical aspect, but apparently he was such an alcoholic that the withdrawal had done serious and permanent brain damage."

A ruse exposed...

-"...investigating a murder of a 19-year-old girl when fingerprints come back that the knife that she was killed with had HER fingerprints on them and wood residue trapped in them. Basically I had to tell her parents that she had killed herself by putting a knife in a partially closed door and ran backwards into it to make it look like a murder so she could be buried in a Catholic cemetery...

The church actually dug the poor girl's body up and the parents had a body in their house for 2 days before they could rebury her."

A bad way to go

-Not my experience but I asked a cop from the Indianapolis PD this question. He said the worst was when he got called out as a rookie on a 'stinker' (when the neighbors complain of a horrible smell that is likely a decomposing body). He goes to the apartment and gets the landlord to let him in. He walks in. Smell is horrendous. He sees nothing in the living room or kitchen. He sees a TV on and displaying static down the hall in the bedroom. Smell gets worse as he approaches the bedroom. 

He hears an electric motor noise coming from the bedroom. Gets to the bedroom door. Looks in, can't see anything but the TV on static and an empty bed. The noise is around the corner from the door.

"He turns to the closet.

"There is a dead man hanging by some rope from the closet hanging rail. He is on top of a motorized rotating dildo facing the tv with static on.

"His dead weight had warped the dildo machine's shaft so the hanged body is wobbling horribly.

"He later found out that the TV had been displaying a video of the guy doing the same thing and beating off.

Wow!

-"I was babysitting an arrestee at a hospital ER once. He was there for a mental evaluation and was well known for his umm 'antics.' Apparently he had a thing for anally fisting himself and pulling his own guts out, and I remember one of the security guards there who had known him from previous hospital stays telling me, 'Now keep your eyes on him because he'll do it again, and he's fast.'

Sure enough, about 20 minutes later. The guard was right, he was fast. Up to the elbow, too."

Be cautious when investigating

-"A traffic policeman I know says that when he attends an RTA (road traffic accident), if he sees a shoe lying around he'll kick it first to check the weight before he picks it up.

"He says he scarred from picking up a shoe that still had a foot in it."

Down to the Nitty Gritty

-"I've seen suicide where they slit their wrists and run around the room to get the heart rate up. So... much... blood."

Only in Florida...

-My brother is a deputy sheriff. He had a call where a frozen dead raccoon was thrown through the window of a mobile home and smashed a glass top coffee table. I'll try and dig up the pictures. 

"Yes, we live in Florida. Where else would this happen?"

Superman and his cast

-Saw an arm cast stop a .223 round. Round was sticking out of the cast."