Patterico's Pontifications

11/16/2006

Here’s That Number, Sir . . .

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:58 pm



This L.A. Observed post about the LAPD’s dissemination of information reminded me of a story of mine from several years ago.

I had a trial involving alleged possession of cocaine for purposes of sale. The defendant had made a complaint against one of the officers, and Internal Affairs had spoken to the defendant. I had heard rumors that the defendant had made incriminating statements on the tape, but it had not been turned over in the regular course of discovery. (Nothing unusual about that; personnel complaints are often considered confidential, and police often do not include such materials in the set of discovery routinely provided to the attorneys trying the case.) I was looking for a way to contact the IA officers who had spoken with the defendant, and called the relevant station’s front desk asking for the number.

I didn’t identify myself as a D.A. I just called the front desk, and asked for the number for Internal Affairs.

I was given a phone number . . . which turned out to be wrong.

I later called an investigator on the case, identified myself as a Deputy D.A., and explained to him what I was looking for, and why. I asked for the relevant Internal Affairs number. He gave it to me. It turned out to be the same number that I had been given by the officer at the station’s front desk — with one minor difference: two of the numbers were transposed.

I am confident that I correctly wrote down the number that the desk officer had given me.

Do you see what I’m saying? I called an LAPD station, didn’t say who I was, and asked for the number for Internal Affairs — and the number I got was incorrect, but ever so slightly so. I later called back — this time identifying myself and my pro-law enforcement purpose — and got the right number.

When I was given a wrong number by a desk officer, was it an innocent mistake on his part?

Who can say?

There would be no point in filing a complaint, even in the event that I could determine who had answered the phone that day. It would be argued that I might have been the one who transposed the digits — and even if it was the desk officer’s fault (and I’m telling you it was), he might simply have misspoken.

But we Deputy DA’s are suspicious by nature. And I’ve always suspected that it wasn’t a mistake. And I’ve wondered how many ordinary citizens have been given the same “incorrect” number when they told a desk officer that they wanted the phone number for Internal Affairs.

7 Responses to “Here’s That Number, Sir . . .”

  1. i agree with you that provision of the wrong number was probably deliberate. from the perspective of other cops, internal affairs officers are the least favorite guys on the force.
    i’m a digit switcher from way back. if i don’t want somebody to have my correct phone number or social security number….
    how about running a sting? science advances by trying to duplicate results reported by others. if you can’t duplicate this phenomenon, it’s just unknowable ephemera.

    assistant devil's advocate (c54f35)

  2. One very ordinary Fall evening my phone rang, when I picked it up a loud female voice informed me that a bomb was set to go off and would blow me to hell, as I so richly deserved. Then after cursing me, she hung up.

    Well, after a quick look around, and finding no suspicious packages and nothing out of place, I sat down to think it over. Now, I do upset some folks from time to time, but since I hadn’t aroused anyone’s anger recently, why she might want to bomb me was perplexing.

    Then, it hit me. My phone number was one digit off from that of my favorite watering hole. I called the bar and sure enough only an hour or so before there had been an ugly incident with an inebriated female patron.

    I told them about my call and suggested they check the premises. Otherwise, it was an uneventful evening.

    mokus (20bd01)

  3. I swear I’ve had this same thing happen with this hot blonde teller at my bank…

    Christoph (9824e6)

  4. Patterico,

    It’s taken you this long to realize that police officers don’t respect their employers, the public? No police officer will ever admit to a civilian that anything any police officer does is wrong.

    Not long ago I was walking past a Michigan State Police (who are usually the most professional police officers around here) at shift change and noticed one, two, three, four MSP cruisers blow the stop sign next to the post as they turned onto a main sreet. I went in to tell the duty officer that such behavior promotes disrespect for the law and for those who supposedly enforce it. He denied that it happened.

    A good friend of mine is politically conservative and an ordained Orthodox rabbi. He went back to school to get a law degree and since he’s starting his practice he does a fair amount of court appointed defense work. He’s hardly sympathetic to most of his clients, but he’s pointed out to me that as far as he can see in court, the only difference between police officers and criminals is that police officers don’t like criminals.

    Ronnie Schreiber (ef2d23)

  5. More proof why you cant trust anything you read or hear from the liberal left-wing news media which includes the SMELL A TIMES

    krazy kagu (3e8790)

  6. Check the website:

    odmp.org

    which stands for Officer Down Memorial Page.

    It’s an honorable and emotional site.

    rightisright (2cbc9b)

  7. And typically, as rightisright’s comment shows, whenever somebody criticizes the police, some police buff or police officer will remind us how difficult the job is.

    Get a clue. Nobody put a gun to their head and made them take the job.

    Ronnie Schreiber (dc19a7)


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