Officer Down... Sort Of

Rain changes a city.

Most people think of Los Angeles as sunshine and palm trees. Cops know a different Los Angeles. Sometime around three in the morning, after a winter rain, downtown became another world. The streets glistened beneath the streetlights. Storefronts shimmered in the wet pavement. There were no pedestrians, no traffic, and almost no sound beyond the occasional hiss of tires somewhere blocks away. In the mid-1980s, very few people actually lived downtown. Once the businesses closed, much of Central Division became a ghost town.

On nights like that, Wayne and I traded our foot beat for a radio car.

The call was a Code 30—a silent commercial burglary alarm on the fifteenth floor of an office building near the Jewelry District. Burglary alarms were funny things. They were dispatched as low-priority calls because most turned out to be nothing. Rain leaked into alarm systems. Thunder rattled windows. Electrical contacts failed. You could spend an entire rainy shift answering false alarms.

The mistake was assuming they were always false.

Commercial burglaries were common in Central Division, and many of the professionals didn't bother with doors or windows. They came through the roof.

Normally we'd ask Air Support to check it. Piper Technical Center—Piper Tech to everyone on the street—was only a few minutes away on the north end of the division and housed what was then the world's largest rooftop heliport. But after a rainy night, especially around three in the morning, helicopters weren't always flying.

If you wanted the roof checked, sometimes you checked it yourself.

Some officers carried grappling hooks in the trunk of their black-and-whites, tossing them over roof parapets and climbing hand over hand to the top. I never got quite that ambitious, but I'd climbed more than one telephone pole after parking on the sidewalk so I could reach the utility pegs and step onto a warehouse roof.

This building offered something easier.

As we pulled into the alley behind it, we found the exterior fire escape hanging just low enough that, standing on the hood of the patrol car, we could pull the bottom section down.

Someone could have used it.

That was enough for me.

We started climbing.

I took the lead while Wayne followed a few steps behind. The old steel fire escape had probably been hanging on the side of that building since Roosevelt was president. Every step echoed through the metal.

About four floors up Wayne called out.

"You're walking too heavy."

I stopped and looked down.

"What do you mean I'm walking too heavy?"

"You're making the whole damn thing shake."

Sure enough, every step sent a shiver through the old fire escape.

So, naturally, when I reached the next landing, I jumped.

I landed as hard as I could.

The entire fire escape exploded into rattles, bangs, and vibrations that seemed to travel all the way to the sidewalk fifteen stories below.

There was a moment of silence.

Then Wayne yelled, "You're an asshole!"

Another pause.

"You can go the rest of the way yourself."

I laughed.

What I didn't appreciate at the time was that Wayne wasn't just irritated.

He didn't like heights.

To him, that ancient fire escape wasn't just making a little noise. It was announcing its intention to tear itself off the side of the building with both of us attached to it.

He climbed back down.

I climbed the remaining ten stories alone.

By the time I reached the roof, I was breathing hard. My heavy LAPD bomber jacket—with its synthetic shell and thick wool collar—felt like it had doubled in weight after fifteen flights of stairs. Add in the leather Sam Browne belt, revolver, spare ammunition, handcuffs, baton, portable radio, and flashlight, and every step had become a workout.

The roof was empty.

I swept it with my Streamlight. It wasn't department-issued; I'd bought it with my own money. Streamlights were expensive enough that owning one was almost a point of pride. The replacement bulbs alone cost nearly a day's pay. That's one reason I always smiled when someone claimed cops routinely hit people with their flashlights. Maybe somebody did somewhere, but not with a Streamlight. Breaking that bulb would have cost you close to a hundred dollars in 1980s money.

No burglars.

No tools.

No fresh footprints.

I switched my portable radio to the partner channel, the little toggle that let us talk without the dispatcher hearing.

"Hey, Wayne. Nothing up here. I'll be heading back down."

I switched back and walked toward the fire escape.

That's when I noticed the trash bag.

It was a large black plastic trash bag lying near the edge of the roof.

An idea immediately presented itself.

I dragged the bag over to the fire escape and stepped onto the top landing.

"Hey, Wayne!" I shouted.

"I'm coming down!"

A second later I yelled, "I slipped!"

Then I screamed.

"Ahhhhh!"

At the same time, I hurled the trash bag over the side.

From Wayne's position on the ground, all he could see was my flashlight suddenly bouncing wildly across the side of the building, hear me screaming, and watch a large dark object tumble fifteen stories toward the patrol car.

The bag hit the hood with a tremendous smack and burst open in every direction.

Wayne was convinced he'd just watched his partner fall to his death.

Without hesitation, he grabbed his microphone.

"Officer needs help!"

Then he requested an ambulance.

Still standing safely on the fire escape, I grabbed my radio.

"Wayne... cancel it."

Silence.

"Wayne... cancel it."

A long pause.

"You son of a bitch..."

By the time I reached the sidewalk, I was laughing so hard I could barely stand.

Wayne wasn't.

Not even a little.

In the space of about three seconds, he'd gone from irritated...to terrified...to furious.

Nearly twenty years later I introduced him to my wife.

She smiled and said, "Oh...you're that Wayne."

He looked at me.

Then at her.

Then back at me.

"I still haven't forgiven him."

Police officers remember shootings.

They remember pursuits.

They remember the calls that almost got them killed.

Wayne remembered the rainy night he thought his partner had fallen fifteen stories to his death because that partner happened to be the biggest smart-ass in Central Division.