The American Cop is a three volume series of books... Vols #1 & #2 are short stories from road patrol and the latest one - Vol #3... is stories from the detective desk..

---

Sample From Book - Volume 3

"BREAKING AND ENTERING"

"Ray I need your help on something. Do you have a few minutes that I could talk to you," Sergeant Bob Siler said to me as he stepped into my office early one Monday morning.

Sergeant Siler was the patrol supervisor on the 3-11 shift, and his crew and shift was really getting hit hard with a lot of burglaries in the residential areas. "Sure Sarge! Come on in," I said to him as I looked up from where I was sitting at my desk. "What can I do for you," I asked.

"These burglaries are killing my shift and with what little manpower I've got, I'm doing all I can do, but I'm not accomplishing anything," he said as he sat down.

I had been following the burglaries very close and the detective that was assigned to the afternoon shift was not getting any closer to solving them or making any type of apprehensions as the Sarge and his crew was. "Let's talk about this for just a little bit," I said as I got up and went over to where I had a condensed copy of the city map hanging on my wall.

Each morning after I would read a burglary report I would take a red stick pin and stick it on the map at the address of the burglary. This way I could track them by area in an attempt to determine a pattern of operation.

"Looks like for right now Sarge, the bad guys have concentrated on most of the northeast section of town," I said to him as I pointed to the area that had most of the red stick pins in it. "It also looks like they seldom go back too far off the main roads and they always hit the houses close to the road. It appears they work the areas that have an easy access to the main streets that leads out of town," I continued.

"They probably are not familiar with our streets and are afraid that they'll either get lost back there, or get trapped if we ever go after them," the Sergeant added.

We both knew that the burglars had been smart enough to pull these hits off without getting caught so far, but Sergeant Siler and I were about to do something about that. "Bob," as I called the Sergeant when we were alone, and I sat and talked a while before I said to him. "Why don't I stay over tonight on your shift and ride with you or you with me for a while and we'll check out that northeast section of town, and perhaps we can come up with some sort of a plan. In the meantime I'll go through all the reports and see if there is any type of pattern being set by the thieves."

The Sarge appreciated the offer to help and we agreed that I would meet him in my office about five o'clock that same day and go over what information I could come up with.

"You know Sarge," I started the conversation that evening as we left the private parking lot that was located at the back of the Police station. "I've looked at these reports and studied them real careful since we talked this morning and as I read between the lines, I picked up quite a lot of information that might be helpful to us."

"Such as?" the Sergeant asked.

"Well! I'm gonna give you a few things and then there's a few things that I'd like for you to do," I said.

Sergeant Siler had been a detective for a couple of years before taking the sergeants exam for the road patrol, so working with him was going to be easy and a learning experience for me as well.

"Okay! Let's hear what you've come up with," he said to me.

"Well! I've noticed that all the reports stated that the people had just come home from somewhere, to find their home burglarized," I said and began explaining my thoughts to the Sergeant. "In almost every case the same type of items were taken. Television sets, stereo sets, and silverware. The burglars are after stuff that they can unload quick and easy, with little or no questions asked by the buyers. They overlook things like money, stocks, bonds, expensive jewelry, or anything they would have to search for. Secondly! Every home that has been hit in this area has an attached carport with a door leading from the house out into this carport. All these passage doors have these small thin jalousie plate glass panes in them which are easily removed from its track by using a pair of pliers or a screwdriver in just a few seconds, because they are not too protective and most every carport is made with a slick smooth surface over the concrete floor that's made this way so it can repel water or oil that may leak from a parked vehicle or lawn mower. Keep in mind that it's also designed this way for quick and easy cleaning. I went over to the house on 28th Street this morning and looked around and if you remember, this is the house that was broken into last Saturday night. Remember Sarge? It was a quick "in" and "out" job where a television and a stereo set was taken."

Story concludes in book with many other storied from the desk of the Detective.

 

Raymond D. Null