Those poor boys and what they saw on Christmas
My most memorable story and the worst I have ever experienced occurred on Christmas Day around 3 p.m. A man was separated from his wife due to domestic issues. The wife kept calling the man every half hour from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. to tell him she was bringing over their two sons so he could see them on Christmas Day.
She finally just showed up with the boys and a boyfriend who turned out to be a sex offender. The man yelled at his wife, “I told you I don’t want him around my kids.” The boys went inside and he told his wife, “Hold on, I have something for you for Christmas.”
When he returned and opened the front door, he had a 12-gauge pump shotgun. The wife and boyfriend started to run as the man started shooting. The wife got in her car, sped off and left her boyfriend running down the street. The husband got into his conversion van and drove toward the boyfriend.
Police officers a few blocks away heard the gunshots and responded to investigate. As the officers pulled up to the intersection, the man shot himself in the face with his shotgun while he was driving. The van then crashed into a house. His little boys were just a short distance away and were screaming as they watched the whole incident. Everyone in that neighborhood watched it go down and were all crying in shock and disbelief. In the spring of the following year, that same boyfriend raped and terrorized eight women in a neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
— WH
NOW, HE’S IN A JAM
This past summer, while I was working for the sheriff’s department, I was patrolling one of the beaches in southern California when I received an emergency radio call from my dispatcher. She advised that a motorist reported a man lying in the roadway. The call came out as a hit-and-run accident and the pedestrian was unconscious.
Upon my arrival, I discovered the man on the ground had come out of a nearby restaurant known for serving pancakes. The guy had smeared jam across his face and head like a bloody injury, laid down in the roadway and claimed he had been hit by a car. He just needed some good toast to spread that jam on after we told him to get up.
— DC/BC
Brian Smith served four years in the U.S. Marine Corps, and retired as an assistant chief with the California Highway Patrol. He resides in Bakersfield. If you have a personal “Cop Tale” to share, please contact Smith at bmsmith778@ gmail.com.