Policing in the Mid-West is weird...

Sometimes in law enforcement you have weird weeks. That was last week for some reason, and for the life of me I cannot figure out why! It was not a full moon, there weren't any big nationwide police related issues going on (riots, I mean peaceful protests) or anything like that, so I cannot put my finger on WHY it was so nuts, but it was.

Im not sure where y'all are from or where you work, but most of the time, my medium sized city in northern Indiana gets pretty busy. And on the shift that I work, afternoons, we can go from call to call to call without having a break in between. Sometimes it's really serious stuff: domestics, drunk drivers, fights. And other times it can be silly, simple stuff like property damage crashes or civil matters that people THINK are police matters. (I take great joy in telling people that we can't do anything about their 35 year old son who won't move out of their home...) A lot of times they look like this guy...

It is literally a guessing game about when we will be busy and when we won't. A lot of times, you can give an educated guess on when we will be busy. Like the weekends, Friday and Saturday, we will most likely be a bit busy and it's pretty obvious why; it's the weekend. Luckily I don't work Friday's, which is nice, but I have heard that they can get a bit crazy. I have built up enough seniority in my time at this department that I get at least a Friday off. (set days off... GIANT eye roll...) Saturday's I know can get busy, but not all the time.

During the spring and summer, Saturday's can be poppin' with all kinds of fun things: shootings, stabbings, "Car Clubs" racing their 3.7 liter Honda Civics against Dodge Challengers down our main drag...

It can get to be a bit overwhelming to some. Especially since our shift is typically full of new to newer guys that don't have the seniority to bump to another shift. It can be challenging to try and teach new guys and gals the flow of afternoons all while being in the eye of the storm, but we get it done. I have a great shift that I work with and we are blessed with great supervisors to lead us. (In case they read this... Love you guys!)

Now this brings me to the winter months, like now. If I remember correctly, last Saturday we had very few calls. I made a CRAZY amount of traffic stops, but no real crazy calls. This you can attribute to the weather. If it's 20 degrees outside, even the mopes don't wanna be out in it. But, this also means that we will deal with more domestic disturbances and suicidal subjects due to the bad weather.

There is evidence that shows that during the winter months, the gray nasty weather causes people to be more depressed and angry, which means that they will either: A) Fight with their spouse or B) Want to kill themself. Now whether or not the cold weather is the CAUSE of these problems is debatable, but it is DEFINITELY correlating evidence. Winter months means lots of time spent telling people that they need to get along, taking them to jail for domestic violence, or talking to them about how life IS worth living. It can be daunting on the average person, but luckily, police officers are very rarely average people. (Well there is another post right there...)

So, long story short, last week was nuts. Full of domestics, fights, crashes, and even the occasional clinically crazy person or two. (We have a few around town, and you probably do too.) It is wild how many times you will encounter the same LEGITIMATELY crazy person in your time as a police officer. In one day... Heck, that's a post all on its own...

Anywho, thanks for reading this one. Just a bit of a "in case you didn't know" post about what goes on in my little world of law enforcement. More to come soon.

*Disclaimer* Any cop related stories, whether they are mine or anyone else's, will have names, information, and settings altered to keep things from becoming, ya know, a LEGAL matter for me. Even though all police reports are public knowledge thanks to the Right to Information Act or whatever the hippies wanted a few years back, MOST events that are police related become public information. Unless of course the information is sealed or sequestered by a judge or prosecutor.

-Logan