Struggling Downward

I hopped on the scale this morning to discover I had lost another pound, down to 203 today. I'll probably end up doing something stupid today that will make me pop up to 207 but the goal is to try an avoid that possibility.

I'm doing a ride along tonight with an officer of the Spokane Police Department. I'm supposed to check in at the Court House at 3:45 and then I'll be taken to my officer. The ride along will last about five hours. I'll chronicle here when (if) I return.

Wow O Wowzy Woo! I have returned from my five hour ride along with Spokane Police Officer Austin Toal and all I can say is Wow O Wowzy Woo!!!

We started the shift out with some investigative work. Apparently, there were bomb threats called in to several schools today. We drove around to a few addresses following up on leads on a kid who didn't want to go to school today because he knew what was going to happen.

All the leads fizzled out.

Our first official call was to a house where an run away was living. It turned out there were two sets of parents there looking for two different kids. The cops went in and I waited outside. I didn't want to thrust myself into their problems but I probably should have. It was cold out and they were in the house for about 20 minutes.

Finally the two kids came out and went with their parents.

Upon finishing that call we pulled a kid over on his bicycle because he had no lights and no helmet. In other words, the way I rode my bike my whole kid life. He was almost home when we pulled him over and Officer Toals let him go with a warning.

Next we went to a DV (Domestic Violence) call that was just a few blocks away from the house. The couple was divorced but the woman moved back in to try and work things out. The guy (Justin)informed her yesterday that it wasn't working out and wanted her out of the house. There may or may not have been a scuffle. Toals told the couple he was unsure what had happened but if he had to come back, they would both be going to jail.

At that point, I had him stop at the house so I could use the bathroom. We stayed parked in front of the house while he worked on a couple of reports.

We started heading north to check out a Crack House but got called to a Suicide Attempt. Officer Toals told me he had been to this address before and that it was pretty gross.

He did not do it justice. This was a small house not far from home that had five adult people living in it. None of them were related and they all have varying degrees of mental health issues. They also had a crap load of dogs who would dump their crap loads wherever they wanted. The house was filthy and smelled of urine.

I can't believe people choose to live like that. 

The suicide attempt turned out to be a 35 year old female who had a fight with her boyfriend over spending money on something frivolous rather than on bills and wanted some attention. She took some pills and tried to stab herself several times with a steak knife. She did not inflict very serious wounds.

We followed the ambulance to Sacred Heart Hospital and got her checked in.

By then, it was nearly 9:00 and I got dropped off at my car.

I'm really glad I did it but now everything smells like urine to me.