Oh Yeah, Cutting Edge.... 
by Jacques Laffoon

            So I haven’t written anything in a while, like so many of you have not been too shy to point out, but I thought I’d share an incident that occurred to me in the field.  You’ve probably heard that fact is a lot funnier than fiction and this incident really highlighted that saying.  Now this is paraphrasing the conversation I had so it’s not word-for-word accurate but it’s a helluva lot more accurate than most of the stuff you read in the Orange County Register or hear in our hallways. 

            I was leaving one of our local motels after a call when the typical tourist sporting the latest in sunburned skin approached me.  He identified himself as a police officer from either Eastern Washington or Easter Montana.  I can’t remember exactly which one because I really just wanted to leave and was only half hearted listening to him initially.  Anyway, our conversation turned to our departments and the economy and he told me that his department hasn’t really been effected by the economy because they are remote and there is no industry nearby so they really didn’t have an economy to tank.  In other words, they’re always broke.  He went on to tell me that his is a typical small department with about 15 officers, a lieutenant and a chief (how do they get by without captains?)  He started wandering over to my unit and I clearly understood that he wanted to see what kind of equipment we had and feeling a little pompous I puffed up my chest and figured I’d show my country bumpkin pal how his Big City brethren deal with real criminals.  During this time he told me how he had to buy some of his own equipment and keep the receipts for the tax write off.  As he was saying this I was thinking to myself, “Man, your department sucks!  Why don’t you move and join a real department in the 21^st century!”  I asked him what he had to buy and he told me, “Oh, boots and decent raingear.  Stuff like that.”  My mind slipped, had a mental burp, but now I was interested.   I walked him to the driver’s side of my car and sat inside while he looked through the doorway.  I prepared myself to amaze and awe him with our crime fighting technology.  Then the following conversation took place.  I’ll refer to him as Officer Opie, I’ll refer to me as “me”. 

            Officer Opie(OO): (Upon spying my computer screen):  “Don’t you guys have Toughbooks?” 

            Me: “Oh yeah.” (then I explained our whole trunk to front docking system)

            OO: “Why did you guys do it that way?”

            Me: “I dunno.”

Uncomfortable pause

            Me: “Do you guys have to wrap rubberbands and stuff pieces of paper in your docking system to get your computer to dock?”

            OO: “No.”

            Me: “Uh, yeah, we don’t either.”

            OO: “I see they set you guys up with rifles, that’s good.”

            Me:  “Yeah, we just got them last year.  Do you guys have them?”

            OO:  “Yeah, we’ve had’em for about seven years.”

            Me: “Oh.” 

            Started feeling dizzy.  Must have been the air rapidly leaving my chest.

            OO:  (Pointing to my TASER) “Aren’t TASERs great? Really make things a lot better for everybody.”

            Me: “Yeah, we just got these last year.  When did you get yours?”

            OO: “About five years ago.”

            Me: “Oh.”

            OO: “Do you guys have less-lethal shotguns?  We went to rifles in the unit and less lethal in the trunk.”

            Me: “Yeah, we do the same thing.  We just started last week.”

            OO: “We’ve had it about four years now.”

            I was feeling kinda lightheaded and dizzy at this point.

            OO: “So what software do you guys use for dictation?”