Easy excuses
Ihave heard all kind of excuses in my time on the police department. I remember a case when I almost got hit at the traffic light at Shorter Avenue and Burnett Ferry Road. The light turned green, and I started to pull off. A screeching of brakes and the blowing of a horn stopped me. A car swerved around me at a high rate of speed. I turned on lights and the siren and went in pursuit. I got him stopped in front of the fire station that was on Shorter at that time. I walked over to the car and motioned for him to roll down his window. In as calm a voice as possible, I asked for his license.
He was as white as a sheet. I often wondered who was whiter, him or me. You don’t almost get hit broadside and walk around calmly. I always tried to hold my temper when dealing with the public, but I was about to explode when a female voice asked, “Officer, are you all right?” I bent down and looked into the car. There in the passenger seat was a young woman. I nodded my head that I was all right.
I reached through and took the keys out of the switch. He stepped out when I opened the door. He didn’t say anything for he could see that I was in no talking mood. I began to write a ticket. He stood by silently. I handed him the ticket to sign. I remember that he spoke for the first time. “Officer, my wife is having a baby, and I was trying to get to the hospital.”
I went around, opened the door and asked the young woman to step out. I walked around her, looking to see if there was anything to indicate that she was going to have a baby. There stood in front of me a young woman with looks and figure that would have put a Hollywood starlet to shame. “You going to have a baby?” I asked. She started to laugh. “No,” she said. “No baby for me.” I could see that. “Your husband said you were,” I said. She smiled and said, “I don’t have a husband.”
This was going nowhere and I turned to the driver for the true story. He and the young woman had been to an all-night party over on the lake. His wife, who was at home with a friend, was pregnant. The baby was not due for another month. He had got with his girlfriend, the young woman in the car, but then he got word from a friend that his wife was rushed to the hospital. He was trying to get his girlfriend home so no one would know that he was out with another woman.
Excuses come easy when you get caught doing something you ought not to be doing.
I remember stopping a car early one morning on Turner Mccall Boulevard, where you turn to go to the Civic Center. He came off the hill at a high rate of speed. When the blue light went on, he pulled over. He jumped out of the car saying, “Officer, I was trying to get to a restroom.” I immediately knew that he was laying a big lie on me.
At that time, where Checkers is today, there was a Pure Oil Center that stayed open all night. They had all kinds of restrooms that were open to the public. Why would you drive by them and keep on going if you had to go as bad as he said he needed to?
I took his license and there was something about it that didn’t look right. I stepped behind his car and called for backup. Something didn’t smell right about this situation. He took a hold of the door handle as to open it. I stepped between him and the door, moving him to the back of the car.
Another patrol car pulled in, and I told the other officer what I had. He looked at the license and said it was a fake. I put cuffs on the driver and placed him in a caged car. I opened the car door to get the keys out and saw that the car had been straight-wired. There, laying on the seat, was a .357 Magnum Smith & Wesson revolver. He had been trying to get to the pistol while I was checking him out.
With him in jail and the car at headquarters I went home safe for another night.
I found out the next night that the car was stolen and that he had robbed a convenience store in or around Atlanta. He was from Alabama and was heading there when I stopped him. I was told later by one of the detectives that he said he was trying to get the gun to shoot me.
You learn on the job that excuses are not always as innocent as they appear. It was a close call for me but the good Lord was watching out for me. He brought me through many a tight situation. Lonie Adcock of Rome is a retired Rome Police Department lieutenant. His latest
book is “Fact or Fiction.”