The Police Blotters

There’s a hold-up in the Bronx,
Brooklyn’s broken out in fights.
There’s a traffic jam in Harlem
That’s backed up to Jackson Heights.
There’s a scout troop short a child,
Khrushchev’s due in Idyllwild,
“Car 54, where are you?”

Like the New York boroughs patrolled by flat-foots Francis Muldoon and Gunther Toody, Chicago and its suburbs are a frigging cesspool.

Hold-ups, murders, muggings, batteries, sex crimes, burglaries, shoplifting, identity theft and drunks freezing to death in their apartments because they left their windows open all night in the middle of winter – I’ve seen it all in my ten years of compiling police blotters in my glamorous job as a news stringer.

I’ve learned a lot doing the police blotters, like never arguing with a desk sergeant and how not to become a crime victim. In 2002, I successfully profiled the Washington, D.C. snipers thanks to criminal-profiling techniques I acquired covering a series of Petco armed robberies in Chicago’s north suburbs. An armed bandit was forcing Petco employees and customers to strip down to their underwear after locking them in a storage closet, then helped himself to cat toys on the way out. I even wrote a profile, pegging the bandit as a male who had most likely been sexually abused as a child (i.e., humiliating his victims by making them strip); had a decent-paying day job (i.e., he drove a nice, later-model Nissan); and owned at least two cats, one of which was probably very ill. I gave my Cat Toy Bandit profile to the village police chief, but he wasn’t interested, in fact, he pretty much regarded me as a whack job after that.

I predicted that the Washington, D.C. snipers were a father-and-son shooting team, because I figured that for two people to be responsible, one of them had to hold a particular sway over the weaker member. I fell off my chair when they arrested the bastards and learned that it was a stepfather-stepson duo.

I really enjoy doing police blotters even though most reporters consider blotters to be a dreg job that is usually assigned to newbies. It’s a lot like reading someone else’s personal mail, perusing reports of stupid criminals’ worst and lowest moments. Now I know why the Bush administration enjoys wire-tapping so much.

There is a discernable difference between suburban police reports and the urban reports. Suburban crimes are much more sublime, even absurd, like this one guy who broke into a shuttered restaurant and tried to hook up the phone line so he could make free long distance phone calls to Poland. Or the pair of heavy-set Russian women accompanied by three preschoolers who ripped off 500 pairs of Victoria’s Secret underwear at a local shopping mall.

The city police reports are a lot more violent. Most street muggings take place between 10 p.m. and 2 p.m., when yuppies are staggering home drunk from the bars, or listening to their Ipods full blast and can’t hear someone creeping up behind them before some punk shoves them face down on the pavement. Most cops include a footnote, “victim was intoxicated when crime occurred.” If this sounds like you, take a cab home.

What’s really sad, is that most offenders’ descriptions read, “male, 16-25, black and/or Hispanic.” There are a lot of lost boys out there, but yet we continue to cut afterschool programs and force parents (usually single, female heads of households), to work two or three crappy, low-paying jobs just to make rent and put Kraft mac and cheese on the table, instead of having quality time to spend with their children.

Some of the stations I go are like the Palmer House, where I work in conference rooms with wide, comfy chairs and good indoor air quality. Other stations are like walking on to the dilapidated set of “Car 54 Where Are You.” Apparently a hundred years ago, when most of the older cop shops were built, female perps must have been rare because these stations don’t have women’s restrooms. I can only assume that any hookers or husband-killers being held for bail or questioning, must have had to pee in their pants. I almost always have to pee while making my rounds of police stations, because I’ve usually consumed one or two extra-large Dunkin’ Donuts hazelnut coffees. I either have to ask some male cops to watch the door to men’s room while I pee which are disgusting, or sneak around and find a john in the police women’s locker room.

It must be fun to be a cop, because most of them are goofing off when I arrive to do my reports. They’re usually surfing the net or making long, involved personal phone calls. And God forbid, some cop should miss a Burger King run. Frankly I don’t know how any police work gets done in Chicago. Most of the cops manning the city police stations look like they’re going to keel over with a heart attack any second exerting themselves crumpling their Burger King wrappers after they’ve finished off a Whopper, let alone chasing some perp down the street.

My favorite police reports are bank robberies, or any small retail store or fast food place. For example, I noticed a definite uptick of Starbucks' robberies around the Christmas holidays. There is this one Starbucks on Wrightwood in Lake View that gets hit all the time. I like to think that the robbers are just trying to get a little money so they can buy their Baby Mamas and kids Christmas presents, but most likely the proceeds are going to buy crack. I’ve also read some incredible descriptions of ballsy business owners fighting back at the armed robbers, grabbing their wallets while fighting over $56 in the cash registers and turning the robbers' ID over to the cops.

It takes about eight burglaries per day for a crack addict to fund his or her habit, according to one cop I talked to at Dist. 20 in Chicago. Someone of the burglars will even steel the garbage and empty the contents of ash trays while robbing someone’s home. I once asked a review officer why in the world someone would do this, and he told me the perps are drug addicts looking for used syringes such as from a diabetic, and will steal cigarette butts from ashtrays to roll their own, especially if the butts are menthol

I love the exchanges between perps and victims. You couldn’t write dialogue like this if you tried. This past week, some teacher scared off a mugger by telling him that if he robbed and shot him on Easter, “you will be on freight train straight to hell.” The perp actually got back into his car and left the guy alone.

I enjoy a great rapport with the various review officers that I encounter. Usually I am allowed to just go into the files and pull out reports. I could spend hours reading them. A lot of the cops can’t spell, so I am constantly spelling words out for them, like “delinquent,” or offering TV trivia, like who played the second Darrin on “Bewitched.” As you can see, a lot of idle chit-chat goes on while the cops are watching the clock so they can fly out the door as soon as their eight-hour shifts are up.

A few weeks ago, this other reporter for a competing neighborhood rag that most of the cops on my rounds can’t stand, demanded to see my police press pass. “You mean I need a pass,” I asked her. She started ragging to the other cops that I shouldn’t be allowed in because I didn’t have a proper press pass, and how it wasn’t fair. There has never been a station where I haven’t been able to talk my way into. The cops just told me to ignore her.

I’m a very hard person to shock, but one of the most shocking police reports that I ever encountered involved an exhibitionist at the Lincoln Town Mall in Lincolnwood. This guy was caught whipping his spooey down on women’s heads from the upper level food court. He shoplifted a pillow from a Target, then cut the padding out and put it in his pants to catch his cum. He went to all these young sales associates at Carson’s, the Piercing Pagoda and J.C. Penney and had them fit him for watches and rings, while he surreptitiously masturbated himself with his other hand inside his pocket. The mall’s security was after this guy for a long time, until they finally caught him. I learned from other cops that this type of thing happens all the time, guys masturbating in plain sight without most people even noticing them. Now I can’t go to a mall without looking around for potential perverts.