Super Trooper: Interview of a Tasee: Let’s Get Tazy
Written by Amy on September 4th, 2009 at 7:19 pmToday Scott got tased.
Video of it exists on my computer.
He won’t let me YouTube it. I would do it but then he might tase me.
I tried so hard to get Scott to do a video interview with me describing it but he would not relent. Even with my womanly wiles. *sigh*
He did say he would do it if he could tase me.
He did agree to do an interview though. So here we go.
Scott, how did it feel?
Very, very painful.
You called it brutal on the phone.
Very brutal. My whole body locked up tight. Tense. I couldn’t move a muscle.
Did you scream?
No.
Did you cry?
No. I couldn’t do anything. My whole body was locked up.
You mentioned your teeth hurt afterwards.
Yes, when I locked up, I gritted my teeth so hard.
Did anyone else scream or cry?
A couple of people hollered.
Did you stand up the whole time?
No. I had a person on each side to keep from falling and they laid you down.
How did it feel afterwards?
Like a very hard workout. All my muscles were sore. But it wasn’t painful.
Why did you have to do it?
Part of the policy to get a taser.
Why do you think they have that policy?
I don’t really know. Except you know how it feels so you don’t go tazy crazy on people.
Where did you get tased?
On my back and it hurt really, really bad.
So you mentioned.
I see that it left marks (lower back near spine and upper middle back)
Yes.
And it bled.
Yes. Two #8 fishing hook sized barbs were in me.
Do you think this will affect your decision on whether to tase?
No.
Why?
I don’t know.
I think what he means to say is, in the moment, he’ll tase if it’s necessary, regardless of whether he has been tased.
Can I see what a set of the hooks looks like?
No, because it’s in the cartridge.
Do they keep track of when you tase?
Yes, there is a microprocessor in the taser that will record up to 1500 discharges.
And what does it tell you?
If you put it in the computer, it will tell you the date and time it was discharged.
The length of the tase?
The tase is always 5 seconds.
Does it turn off?
Yes.
Did 5 seconds feel like a long time?
Yes. An eternity. It felt like 5 minutes.
Does the sound of it bring back bad memories (he’s watching YouTube videos now)?
No. (he says while smiling)
Do you think you could have attacked anyone during the 5 seconds?
No way.
Will you use this over your gun?
That’s not a valid question, Amy. Like, seriously? That’s two different levels of the force continuum. I mean, don’t be silly.
Uh, ok.
Will you do a video interview with me now?
No.
Alrighty, folks, I think I’ve lost him. If you have any questions, let me know and I’ll ask.
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Super Trooper Convos
Written by Amy on April 14th, 2009 at 10:16 amHmm, haven’t done one of these in a while
On the phone while he’s at work:
Amy: So you think you might not have Thursday’s trial?
Scott: Yeah, they’re still trying to get him to plead….84 on the red one, get ‘em!…so it might not happen this week.
Chat:
Amy: congrats
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Super Trooper: Conversations
Written by Amy on March 17th, 2008 at 9:05 amMe: Hey, where are you at?
Scott: At a house.
Me: A house? (it’s not normal for him to go to houses. in fact, if he does, he’s usually beating a door down to find someone that is drunk that left the scene of an accident)
Scott: Yeah, we’re talking to a guy who had someone go through their front yard.
Me: Oh. Well, if you can, can you get by the dump to pick up our paint? I don’t think I’ll have time to go.
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Super Trooper: The Bond
Written by Amy on March 4th, 2008 at 7:30 amOK, not sure if you all are enjoying this series or just skipping them because they are so crazy long. Who knew I could write so much about this? This one will be the last one though. I’ve saved the last one to talk about the relationships within Scott’s job.
People talk about the bond people get on police forces and at fire departments. And to a certain extent that’s true. We aren’t all at each other’s houses every weekend and call each other family, but there’s definitely something special to their working relationship.
I think Scott’s shift has especially bonded unlike some other groups even in the same county. These guys meet up for breakfast, lunch and dinner..depending on when they’re working. At work functions, the group usually tries to stick together. Outside of work, we do a few cookouts a year around holidays at one of our houses. We had a few extra in the past year or two because one of their guys was shipped to Afghanistan with the military and they did a few going away dinners. Several of the guys on the shift have really stepped up to take care of his wife (and new baby!). Just last week or so Scott and another guy helped put down tile in their bathroom. And I know she has one of the guys’ number on speed dial when she has a situation she’s nervous about. Scott is constantly on the phone with his old corporal. They really are BFFs. When Scott went to pick up his gun in Columbia Friday, he went with him. There are several troopers that Scott is in contact with during and outside of work.
I’m not sure if the bond is strong because they literally have each other’s back at work or what. But I do know compared to a lot of working groups I know, their bond just seems a little stronger.
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Super Trooper: Social Scene
Written by Amy on March 3rd, 2008 at 11:04 amBeing a police officer has lots of impact to the social scene. The biggest thing I’ve found is A LOT of people like to talk cop stuff. Whether it be questions about the law, interest in recent arrests or just general law enforcement chatter.
Scott gets phone calls, emails and even personal requests for help on tickets constantly. I would say at least once a week he gets a request from someone we know that got a ticket from someone and they want to know if Scott can help. Sometimes he can and sometimes he can’t. But a lot of people try. And there are a few on “the list” of repeat offenders. A lot of times, if they are calling, they need help with a ticket. But Scott can only do so much.
In general, I find that people are fascinated with pictures and video. I can’t count the number of times he’s pulled out his laptop to show people pictures of recent arrests or wrecks. He’s also been known to bring out the videotape of his chases and let people watch him in action.
The good news about this is Scott is a good person to have at a party. Just let someone mention the fact that he’s a police officer and the questions and conversations don’t stop.
And I guess this would be a good time to mention that if you don’t know, Scott started a blog last year about his job. You can read some stories and see pictures for yourself over here. One word of warning though…Scott is blessed with a lot of talents but spelling and grammar isn’t his forte. If you see something egregious, let me know and I usually try to edit his posts for him.
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Super Trooper: The logistics
Written by Amy on March 2nd, 2008 at 11:28 pmI’m short on time tonight so I’ll go through the car, the uniform and the schedule.
First the schedule. It was hard for me to pick up on this, but this is how I explain it. Mon & Tues always go together, Wed & Thurs and then Fri, Sat & Sun. So he’ll work one, off the next, work the next, etc. So for this week, he was off Mon & Tues, worked Wed & Thurs and then was off Fri, Sat, Sun. And it just keeps rotating. Each week starts on a Monday. He’ll do four weeks days and then four weeks nights and then that rotates back and forth. And he works either 5a-5pm or 5pm-5a depending on nights or days. Ok, got it? Haha.
The other thing is he doesn’t get holidays really. If you are regularly scheduled to work on a holiday, you work it. EITHER WAY you get comp time for that holiday. So they just schedule you a day off within 90 days of the holiday. It’s very confusing and our family and people at church is all the time asking me if Scott is working or not.
Scott is in love with his schedule though. He makes sure everyone knows he only works 15 days a month and if he takes two days off (wed & thurs) he gets 7 days in a row off. He has a TON of vacation, sick days and comp time build up. That is one good benefit I guess. Time off is easy.
Next the uniform. Most everything is supplied to him. We did have to fork out a whole bunch of money for Under Armor shirts and pants for the winter. 3 sets so he doesn’t have to wash clothes during a weekend he’s working (actually his mom I think bought most of them as Christmas presents. they’re $50 bucks for each piece). We also paid for more comfortable socks that he wears under the black dress socks they gave him. Oh, and we buy him chloraform something kind of shoes so he doesn’t have to shine the ones they give him. They look like patent leather to me. And shirt stays. He buys those at the supply store.
He is responsible for getting the uniforms dry cleaned and pressed. And that is still a headache because it has to have military creases and our dry cleaners are almost incapable of doing it correctly. He gets a certain amount of money back each quarter for the dry cleaning bill. It more than covers it.
Scott keeps his current uniform hanging in our laundry room and it drives me batty. It takes up too much room and it’s in the way. But we don’t really have another place for it. And he gets dressed there so he doesn’t wake any of us up back in the bedrooms. We also get to see his gun, OC spray, extra clips and such at the house. He keeps them in a very high kitchen cabinet. That’s a pain too because you can’t get to the stuff behind it without moving it. And well, I don’t feel really comfortable around the gun.
OK lastly is the car. He has a crown vic at the moment. Although he may be getting a Dodge Charger some time soon. He keeps it here at the house. Which means we have one less parking spot and that’s sort of a pain. He’s responsible for all the maintenance. They have places to go that pay for the car washes, new tires, oil changes, brakes, etc. But he has to do it on his time off if necessary and that’s annoying sometimes too.
Alright, I think that’s it. I feel like I complained a lot on that one. Needless to say, he’s responsible for a lot of that stuff and unfortunately that means I have to deal with it too!
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Super Trooper: The kids
Written by Amy on March 1st, 2008 at 9:57 pmAlthough Scott has been an officer for 5 years now, I’ve known him for almost 14 years. When we first met, he hadn’t even graduated high school. Up until a few years ago, he was an A/C technician and then worked for my mom. So I don’t really see him as only a police officer. Yes, I do have that image of him and I can’t really see him doing anything else now but it’s not the only way I’ve ever known him. The girls on the other hand, their daddy is a policeman. Scott started academy when Emma was 7 weeks old so for their entire life, they have always known him as a policeman. Which is weird. My two girls are going to be those kids that grow up with a cop as a dad. It’s a weird concept.
We’ve only told generic things to the girls about his job. There’s no mention of a gun or chases or OC spray or DUI arrests. Nothing like that. They know he gives people a ticket for speeding and not wearing a seatbelt. They also know he helps people if they’ve had a wreck. That’s about it. The other day Lexi asked where Daddy’s work was and Emma explained that it was his car and he rode around in it all day. Which is about right.
There’s been some funny conversations with people in our vehicles without their seatbelt and Emma warns them to put it on or her daddy will give them a ticket! Or I’ve used that on them…get your seatbelt on or Daddy will give you a ticket!
Today the girls had a somewhat interesting conversation. Lexi saw another police car and said I don’t like police cars. Emma said, But Daddy has a police car. If you don’t like police cars, you don’t like Daddy’s car. Lexi said, Oh, I LOVE police cars then.
It’s going to be interesting to see how they handle it when they start to understand more about what he does. For now, I’m going to enjoy their innocence and zero need to know any more than their daddy helps make the roads a little more safe.
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Super Trooper: The Paraphernalia
Written by Amy on February 29th, 2008 at 10:28 amToday seems like a good day to talk about this since at this moment Scott is in Columbia buying his old gun for personal use. Something about it having a number that matches the one he has now and that will NEVER happen again. Something very important like that.
Scott thankfully doesn’t go over the top with Highway Patrol and police paraphernalia. Some guys are really into it. Like they have all the pictures, statues, shirts, belts, pens, papers, bags, etc ever put out by the State Trooper Store. We do have our fair share of stuff though. We do have shirts, bags, cups, blankets and Emma even had a onesie when she was a baby. Besides that, Scott has a Bible and little police knick knacks. We also have some of his certificates and such on the wall. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of that stuff being used as decoration so I try to limit what we buy to things we would actually use that aren’t displayed.
I suppose that’s it besides the uniforms and car but I’ll cover those in another one.
*Edited to protect Scott’s job. Sorry about that, folks. lynellen and we are THAT family, thank you for the comments but I’ve had to delete them*
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Super Trooper Convos
Written by Amy on February 28th, 2008 at 1:03 pmYou asked me to report on more conversations with Scott. Just now..
Scott: Hello
Me: You busy?
Scott: Going about 90mph, let me call you right back.
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Super Trooper: He IS the law
Written by Amy on February 28th, 2008 at 7:57 amOne of Scott’s favorite lines when someone says he’s not above the law is, “I’m not above the law, I AM the law.” And in a lot of ways, that’s true. Scott gets A LOT of discretion on when someone gets pulled over, gets a ticket or arrested and if that sticks. So some might think that we get to do whatever we want and everyone will take care of us. In some ways that’s true and in others, it’s SO wrong.
First off, him or I don’t speed any more than before he was an officer. And ESPECIALLY him when he’s in his patrol car. Yes, he does get to go 120 down the Interstate when duty calls, but generally, no, he doesn’t. In fact, there are plenty of troopers who have gotten complaint calls on them because they were driving too fast in their patrol car. Also, I actually hate to follow him in his patrol car because everyone goes SO SLOW. I will never forget driving back from his academy graduation and the line getting longer and longer of cars not willing to pass him.
As for us in our regular cars, Scott can’t stand to be hypocritical so he won’t go any faster than what he would normally pull someone over for. And as for me, I get to have a really opinionated backseat driver. I hear things like slow down, it’s only 35 through here. You do know it’s only 20 mph through a neighborhood, right?!
And not only do I get to hear about my driving, I get to hear about everyone else’s. Randomly he’ll holler out things like No seatbelt! Crossing the center lane! Expired Tag! Headlight out! The really fun stuff is when we play a little game and guess how fast a person is driving towards us. I find I’m pretty good at it but it gets really tricky on those curves and when we don’t agree, I just hear something like, “I AM the law.”
And if we do get a ticket? Yeah, we probably will have someone help us out but that’s not always the case. I heard of one trooper that got so tired of his wife speeding, he set up his car a few miles down from his house and gave his WIFE a ticket for speeding. So we probably will have help out of a ticket, but not always!
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Super Trooper: Learning the Language
Written by Amy on February 27th, 2008 at 7:30 amSince I referenced the need for this post in the last post, I thought it appropriate I do this one next.
Learning the language…it’s not something widespread across all police officers where I could give you a dictionary and and you could learn the language in 12 easy steps although I’ve typed in more code charts than I want to remember…there are ten codes, 56 codes, suspension codes, etc. Each county, state and city often have different codes but the most prevalent and probably popular set of codes are the ten codes. You would recognize 10-4 easily. But other ten codes tend to creep in around here. Scott uses them so much at work I think he could speak entirely in ten codes but most of the time he inserts them into random places and then says things like, You don’t know about 10-42, do you? in a proud and know-it-all way. Of course I want to say something like, You don’t know about W3C CSS, do you?
But I digress.
Ten Codes
Some common ten codes I hear often in conversation:
10-4 – ok, permission granted
Me: We’re supposed to go out to eat with D&D this weekend.
Scott: 10-4
10-21- Telephone ______ – meaning call someone
Scott: Can you give him a 10-21?
10-68 Mental Subject
Scott: I think that guy is 10-68.
10-67 subject in arrest/in custody
Scott: Hello?
Me: Hey, what are you doing?
Scott: I’ve got a 10-67, I’ll call you back.
10-0 in a chase
Scott: I was hoping we’d go 10-0.
10-8 In Service – as in I’m done with a wreck, I’m now 10-8
This is the funniest of all of them. It doesn’t get used around our house very much but the guys at work use it to denote a woman that looks good.
Scott (with raised eyebrows): She’s 10-8!
Considering that is translated to She’s in service, I’m not sure if it’s really a compliment altogether.
OK, enough 10 codes.
Titles
Other things I’ve learned are titles. I won’t bore you with the details, but I’ve had to learn the hierarchy of title likes trooper first class, lance corporal, corporal, first sergeant, etc.
I’ve also gotten familiar with solicitors, judges, witnesses, attorneys, etc although I knew what they were of course, I hear about it a lot.
Drunks
One other word that is used that I feel must be cleared up is drunk. And I don’t mean the state of being drunk. I mean a person being referred to as a drunk, as in the conversation I posted in my first Super Trooper post:
Scott: Hello
Me: Hey, what are you doing?
Scott: On the way to jail.
Me: You got a drunk (see a later post about language used)?
Scott: Yeah
Me: Congratulations. Call me back later.
A lot of the troopers find niches of things they are good at. Some are good at catching speeders, some are good at catching people with no seatbelts..Scott is good at finding and arresting drivers for DUI (actually, he’s good at all of it). In fact, I haven’t mentioned it yet but Scott had the highest number of DUI arrests last year in his troop which includes 7 counties and the second highest number in all of South Carolina and he only missed it by 3.
So, I hear A LOT of talk about DUIs. But for the purposes of this post, I’ll just say a lot of times instead of saying things like I arrested someone for DUI last night, Scott will just say I got a drunk. Or, I locked up 10 drunks last month. Or, I need to get 2 more drunks this weekend to catch up to so and so. To an outsider I would guess it sounds derogatory and while he obviously doesn’t condone drinking and driving, it’s not really meant that way.
And I suppose for now, I’m 10-42.
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Super Trooper: The Free Stuff
Written by Amy on February 26th, 2008 at 7:30 amThis is the second post in the Super Trooper series.
This has got to be one of my favorite aspects of Scott’s job. He gets lots of free or almost free stuff. And no, not just at the local donut shop. Actually, Scott refuses to touch a donut while he is in uniform. But while we’re speaking of food, let’s talk about their favorite free or almost free restaurants in the area.
- Starbuck’s – the one closest to us gives them free coffee. They used to give them free anything but the area manager got wind of it and stopped it.
- Chick-fil-a - Free.
- Cici’s Pizza – Free
- Arby’s - half-price
- Chili’s – half-price
- Denny’s – half-price
- Local steakhouse – Free
- Certain gas station - They give them any coffee, fountain drink or food free. Needless to say they meet there almost every morning on day shift first thing. Most gas stations seem to give them at least free coffee. They like the cars in the parking lot.
A funny story on this…we know a guy who took his wife out for their anniversary dinner in uniform so they got their food half-price.
Something else we have gotten free just for him being a trooper is our trash collection. We moved in here 4 years ago and the guy comes by and says his dad or someone was a trooper and he’ll pick up ours for free. Cool deal.
There are also stores that give law enforcement a discount on their merchandise. The ones I can think of right now are local law enforcement stores but trust me, a discount on all the police stuff they buy is a good thing.
When he first got on and we had to live in an apartment for a year, we were also offered our rent at a deep discount because he was going to be the apartment complex’s security guy. We ended up picking a different set of apartments that already had one but I know lots of officers that do or have done this.
Now, if we can just get MY job to pay for my Longhorn’s Flo’s Filet, we’ll really be set.
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Super Trooper: Intro and Calling at Work
Written by Amy on February 25th, 2008 at 3:04 pmI’ve realized in my about blurb, I mention the fact I’m the wife of a Highway Patrolman and yet make very little mention of anything related to that. However, there are lots of aspects to his job that affect us in big and small ways. Some are just funny, some are annoying and some truly life-changing. So I thought I’d do a little series on different aspects of his job through my eyes.
Just for the record, Scott is a highway patrolman for South Carolina and has been on now for 5 years.
The first aspect I’ll tackle is calling Scott at work. A lot of people call their husbands at work and they say things like I just got off the phone with a client, I’m headed to a meeting, etc. When I call Scott at work, you never know what you’re going to hear. Here are a few conversations we’ve really had:
Scott: Hello
Me: Hey, what are you doing?
Scott: I’m driving 120 down the Interstate with the lights on, let me call you back.
Scott: Hello
Me: Hey, what are you doing?
Scott: I just put someone in cuffs in the car. Let me call you back.
Scott: Hello
Me: Hey, what are you doing?
Scott: On the way to jail.
Me: You got a drunk (see a later post about language used)?
Scott: Yeah
Me: Congratulations. Call me back later.
Scott: Hello
Me: Hey, I’ve been trying to call.
Scott: Yeah, I was working a wreck and didn’t hear my phone.
Me: Oh. Is everyone ok?
Scott: Well, one guy is pretty bad. They’re not sure he’s going to make it. We have to go to the hospital and check.
Me: OK, well call me back.
Scott: Hello
Me: Hey, what are you doing?
Scott: Writing a guy a few tickets. Let me call you back after I give them to him.
So you probably are getting the idea. Yes, it may be redundant I always ask what he’s doing, but with answers like those, I just can’t help myself.
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