Conversations from the Back Seat

I was on the phone talking about the movie Loose Canons, and somehow the subject changed to conversations I’d had with various folks who’d been in the back of my police car. I wish I’d had a tape recording of every interesting insult I’d heard, every excuse as my twenty years worth of interviews might have yielded some real wisdom.

One fellow in particular stands out in my memory. He’d been “uncooperative” in nearly every aspect as I attempted to obtain the minimum for the arrest form. When I asked him his name, “Fu—You!”, same for address and birth date. Since he had no driver’s license I listed him as a John Doe with and alias of “Fu—You”. Eventually I obtained his real name, only after taking him up for printing and photo; but I left his alias on the booking blotter. That turned out to be an issue for him during the plea bargain agreement. It seems the judge had taken the time to read my report along with the alias, “Fu—You”. The judge smiled as he had the defense attorney and the prosecutor approach the bench to advise them that they would have to draw up a more appropriate agreement to match the attitude of the defendant. I couldn’t say how much more time or money it cost that fellow; but I would guess that having “Fu—You” as an alias wasn’t a good thing.

I knew another officer, “Tiger” Matthews, who had a similar situation. Back in the early 70’s we would ride as partners every now and again; he’s the officer I was with when I wrote about “Nightmares after a close call” (linked via title bar). Tiger is the officer who used to carry a typewriter around with him in his patrol car so he could type all of his traffic tickets out; think about that for a moment and then consider how it would be on the receiving end, weird is one thought. So, Tiger asked the fellow for his name and the guy says, “Go Fu—Yourself!”, Tiger, then asked, “How much?” and the guy gave him a figure, say, “Five Bucks”. Tiger put him in jail and filed on him for solicitation of prostitution; even better, he made it in court. You have to love a judge who would go along with such reasoning powers.