Hitting the Street

2015 Hours. After Roll Call, we are expected to be on duty, available for calls, twelve minutes after the hour. The 12-minute rule. Right! It takes longer than that just to cover all the latest escapades of the illustrious criminals in our fine city and what they're wanted for now, let alone lug all our gear out to the cruiser and set up our "office." The KDT (Keyboard Data Transmitter) is our connection to the Law Enforcement World. Whenever elements of it are temporarily unavailable (you know how computers are), we find a place to hide and suck our thumbs, rocking back and forth like scared little children. "How do we fight crime now?"

In all honesty, the system works correctly 99% of the time. We "come up on duty" inputting our crew number at the prompt. 541 for yours truly. 5 designates the District. 4 indicates which relief I'm assigned and 1 is the beat. Beats: four in D5, recently combined down from 6. As if we don't have enough to look out for, someone thought it would be a good idea to increase each beat officer's area of responsibility. 1 Beat. Seniority again counts for something. The easiest beat with no officer assigned with less than 10 years on. Although I still like to have fun out there, let the new guys full of energy have the "happenin' " beats.

I'm "Signal 200" In Service & available for calls.