Since the week has continued to annoy me (apart from family, which is my sanity at the moment), I'll share one last rant before the weekend. This is for the public safety folks in particular...
Police - anyone feel like having me show up on your traffic stop, start searching the driver and car out of the blue & messing up a good drug arrest for a bad search?
How about I wander all around your homicide scene, pick up the murder weapon "just because" and generally muck things up?
Fire - same kind of thing - what about me doing patient treatments and giving meds out of the back of my car when I pull up on an accident?
Or maybe if I just play around on a HAZMAT call, we all know those aren't really serious anyway...
No? That kind of thing would tend to piss you off? Shows a lack of safety, professionalism, and general common sense?
Guess what, I agree.
Then, why in the name of St. Tabitha the Cross-Dresser do you guys PERSIST in screwing around on my bomb calls?
Moving items. Opening bags and packages because you don't want to wait five minutes. Taking pictures and looking up ordnance on the Internet so you can tell me "In my opinion it isn't anything serious." when I pull up. Etc, etc, et-frickin-c...
Seriously, I am getting beyond fed up with it - and it is by the purest luck that none of you have been hurt recently, nothing more.
Yes, we all know a great many "suspicious item" calls are nothing - just like a great many burglary and fire alarm calls are nothing. But you guys treat those seriously, just in case - why is it any different when it may be a bomb?
I could even understand it if you were in a situation where I was hours away, and this was tying up a whole jurisdiction. But I'm not - and most other bomb squads aren't either. We get there pretty danged quick - on average I make it to any call in under 30 minutes and that's if I have to get dressed and leave the house at 2am. Calm the hell down and wait a few minutes.
No one out there doubts your courage, or thinks you're being too cautious if you just slow down for a second and let me deal with the stuff. It's what I get paid for, and what I spend my time on & off duty training and practicing for. I'm not there to steal your glory, or take the arrest from you, or any other juvenile games - I'm there to help you get home alive & keep things from going downhill at a high velocity.
But, like every other time we go over this, I'm sure this will fall on deaf ears - and I just hope I'm not the one who has to tell your family that you're crippled or not coming home because you couldn't take the time to wait...
5 comments:
"But Daaaad, I wanna see what Santa brought me NOW!"
Trust me, you have my complete respect! Bombs are nothing to mess with - and the one time someone thinks it's nothing, it will be something. Nope, I'd rather wait for the bomb tech to arrive. So thank you for what you do! :)
Start handing out a block of play dough with a timer and a bunch of wires when you arrive to any "helpers"...that ought to cure them.
Said the random guy off the street to the neurosurgeon, "Here, give me the scalpel and let me try..."
Good grief.
But-- here's hoping for fewer occasions of that nonsense!
amen brother! I never did any bomb disposal, but anyone messing with my locksmithing, security or IT bailiwick caught hell in no small way....
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