“ALL UNITS BE ADVISED, A 407 just went down at the US Bank located at Las Vegas Blvd. and Charleston.” It was about 2:00 p.m., another sweltering day on the streets. But crime does not know a set time; robbers do not take into consideration an appropriate time to rob banks. It seems like every time I sit down for a nice hot meal, some dammed robber strikes. “A white male wearing a striped shirt, Levis and tennis shoes, went into the bank and declared that he had a bomb. He robbed the teller and went out the south door. Units that can respond, advise.”
Three units came on and said that they were enroute. Adam-1, Adam-2 and Adam-4 were heard from, but unlike him, Adam-12, Sam Sikes, did not respond to the call. But it soon became apparent why.
The entrance doors to the bank face south and feed into the parking lot. Where was Sikes? He was sitting in the parking lot with his back bumper against the east wall, facing out. The suspect came out of the bank and started running across the parking lot to the southeast. Sikes advanced his vehicle and ran the robber to the back wall, where the suspect tried to climb the wall. Sikes rammed his car into the man, pinning the suspect between the Buddy Bumper and the brick wall. This happened before the call came from dispatch as Sikes was alert to his surroundings and was suspicious of a man running from the bank, a bag in hand and dropping bills as he ran. Wow! How clever was that?
The robber was screaming, “You broke my legs,” as he dropped the bag that supposedly had the bomb in it and that in reality had the rest of the money.
Sikes came on his radio and calmly commented, “Control, Adam-12. Be advised code 4 suspect in custody and I have arrived.”
Control responded, “Adam-12 do you need a code red?”
“Control, this is Adam-12, I have the suspect in custody, code 4.”
“All units be advised, Adam-12 has suspect in custody. Adam-12, where exactly are you?”
“I’m in the parking lot of the US Bank. I might could use another unit.”
Adam-1 and Adam-4 responded to ‘arrive’ them as they turned on their redheads to cross traffic and reach the parking lot. Adam-4 stopped in front of the entrance, ready to exit his vehicle when he heard Adam-1 say, “Adam-4, check the back wall. Isn’t that a guy pinned against the wall by a police car?”
“Yeah looks like it to me. Where is the officer though?”
“All I see is one man sitting behind the wheel of the vehicle and some SOB screaming at him. Damn, that’s Sikes and he’s smoking a cigarette in his air conditioned car.”
“Sounds just like him. What is he, on break or something? Why isn’t he out of the car with the suspect?”
Both vehicles pulled up behind Sikes and the policemen exited their cars. Adam-1 approached Sike’s driver’s window. Sikes politely rolled down his window and proffered, “Why don’t one of you youngsters read that son-of-a-bitch his rights. I’m on break and haven’t finished my cigarette yet.” With that, he took his bottled water from its stand and took a deep, satisfying swig of the cool refreshment. “I’ll let you boys handle this one.” He rolled his window shut. Sure, Grumpy didn’t want to do the paper work, and besides that he was on break.
I was in the neighborhood so I stopped by, just as the officer was hooking the robber and the other one was reading him his rights. Adam-1 called back to Sikes, “Grumpy, could you back off a little so we can move this bastard?”
Grumpy slipped the car into gear, thank goodness it was in reverse and not forward, and the robber fell to the ground. Both his legs were numb and possibly broken.
Lieutenant Germain arrived about that time and told Grumpy that he had made a good catch. “Way to go Sikes, way to go. You were at the right place again. Did you break his legs?”
Grumpy slowly drawled, “Well sir, I don’t know for sure. I couldn’t do much so I just pinned him against the wall. I haven’t been out of the car yet.”
“Why not, Sikes?”
“I haven’t finished my cigarette yet, sir, and I’m still drinkin’ my water. There’s priorities and there’s priorities. I just started my break. Lt. Arnold is pushin’ us to take our assigned breaks when they’re due, so I’m tryin’ to please him while I deal with all his pointless protocol. These damned robbers don’t know what the lieutenant’s plans are and they just do whatever, whenever. So, I was goin’ to finish my break and then arrest the SOB, when these young officers came along and none of them was on break, so they’re helpin’ me out.”
Lieutenant Germain guffawed and smiling commented, “Good job, Grumpy, good job.” Then he spoke with Adam-1 and Adam-4, “You young officers take care of this. Good job.” Lt. Germain returned to his vehicle and left the scene.
With the suspect down and unable to rise onto his legs, the officers called for an ambulance. When Mercy arrived and the attendants were loading the suspect, one of them asked, “How did he break both legs? Did he jump from the wall?”
“No,” answered Adam-1, “see that old guy over there? See that police car with that old officer finishing his cigarette, he caught him and pinned him against the wall when he was trying to escape.”
“He put him there after he caught him? How did he break both of the suspect’s legs?”
“No, that’s how he caught him. He just put his car in drive and jammed him into the wall with his Buddy Bumper and held him there until we arrived.”
I talked with Sikes for a few minutes while he finished his break, his Winston cigarette and his bottled water. “Sikes, when you get hungry, give me a call and we’ll go for lunch. Talk with you later. Don’t work too hard, buddy. Good use of your Buddy Bumper. Make sure you polish that shiny little bumper, it’s had a rough workout today.”
“Yeah, I was just teaching those young rookies how to catch and contain a robber in under two minutes after a bank robbery. I showed them how to make use of their Buddy Bumpers for something other than pushing another vehicle, and how to do it while on break.” Grumpy smashed his cigarette butt into the ashtray, there was nothing but a slim ¼ inch of it left, emptied his water bottle, shifted from park into reverse and slowly withdrew from the parking lot. Adam-12 was available again. Grumpy had finished his assigned break.
Just then I heard my radio, “Frank-3, copy a call.”