My home boy

My friend, fellow blogger and professional Orca trainer Rich Siegel over at Round Seventeen published a post the other day about the joy and resulting consequences of his two daughters returning home from college.

It is the season.

His post hit home because, like the swans trying to return to Capistrano through the radioactive air of San Onofre, my college boy also pulled up stakes and managed to find his way back home from the Lone Star state. Alright, it's not exactly like the swallows and Capistrano, but you get what I was going for.

Anyway, last Thursday night I returned from picking him up at the airport. His 6pm arrival pulled up to the gate at 10:04pm - a four-hour mechanical delay was the culprit. It was a monumental inconvenience, and eviscerated any plans we had for the night. But frankly, I'd much rather the plane be deemed airworthy while it's still on the ground.

When he set foot in the house, he was beyond tired. After a four-hour delay and a two-hour time difference he's lived with for ten months, young Mr. Spielberg was a wee bit cranky. Completely understandable.

The good news is it's like riding a bicycle - a bicycle that's an eating, cash swallowing machine - the imprinted routine of living at home comes rushing back as if he'd never left.

So despite the laundry I know will pile up, the dishes that will inevitably have to be bussed by me, the floorspace that'll be taken up while he plays Arkham Knight again on the Playstation and the never-ending juggling of cars so he can visit with friends he hasn't seen in ten months, I am beyond happy he's home.

I'm happy for another reason which I'm not at liberty to talk about, but let's just say - for reasons that are nothing but good - he may not be spending his sophomore year in Texas. Not that missing the Campus Carry Law going into effect is going to bother me too much.

Side note: when I asked him a while ago what he thought about Campus Carry and if everyone at school was talking about it, he looked at me and said, "Dad, no one's talking about it. It's Texas. Everyone's already carrying a gun."

I'm really happy he's home.

No sir Sirhan

If you've had even the most remedial course in recent history, you know the initials RFK are shorthand for Robert Francis Kennedy.

Of course after reading Sirhan Sirhan's latest attempt at a get-out-of-jail free card, no one could blame you for thinking they stand for R u F#@%ing Kidding me?

After 44 years, his attorney's are pushing their "second gunman" theory. Again.

Let me know how that works out for you.

As I've posted about before, I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist. But even if I was going to subscribe to this one, it wouldn't be easy what with the smoking gun - literally smoking gun - in his hand as a crowd of onlookers watched him kill Robert Kennedy.

Here are a few of the more - oh, let's call them convincing facts - we know about Sirhan Sirhan.

On January 31 1968 his diary entry was "RFK must die."

He decided to elaborate on that on May 16, 1968 with "My determination to eliminate RFK is becoming more of an unshakable obsession."

Then on June 1, 1968 he decided he needed to pick up a few things, so he went shopping for two boxes of .22 hollow point ammunition.

And of course, on June 4, 1968, Sirhan waited for Robert Kennedy in the kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. When Kennedy was leaving through the kitchen after his California primary victory speech, Sirhan repeatedly fired his gun at the Senator, fatally injuring him.

He died the next day.

Apparently though killing one Kennedy wasn't enough to satisfy his "unshakable obsession." In 1977 he offered a fellow prisoner a million dollars and a car to kill Edward Kennedy.

I'm not easily offended, but reading the article about his lawyer's new strategy - and how unjustly his client has been imprisoned - comes pretty close.

Sirhan has been denied parole 14 times since shooting Kennedy. Some guys just can't take a hint. The truth is he's never getting out no matter what theories his media-whore attorneys decide to bring forward.

Unfortunately California ruled the death penalty unconstitutional at the time he was convicted, so Sirhan will get to spend the rest of his life behind bars, at taxpayer expense, where I imagine he'll die of old age.

Which if there were any real justice, is the way Robert Kennedy would have gone.

The 77th

I am never complaining about a tough day at work again.

Last Saturday night, I had the privilege of riding along with Sgt. Sandoz of the L.A.P.D. 77th Street Community Police Department. It's located in the heart of South Central Los Angeles, and to say that it's a busy division would be an understatement.

I joke a lot about growing up on the mean streets of West Los Angeles (north of Wilshire). But driving through South Central on my way to the station makes that joke ring incredibly hollow. I was born and raised here, yet I've never been in that part of the city.

Sadly, many residents there have never been out of it.

When I first arrived at the station, Sgt. Sandoz gave me a tour. I met many officers, who were all welcoming and surprisingly upbeat, funny and optimistic given the work they do.

And the high crime area they do it in.

I was shown things the general public rarely sees: the holding cells, all metal - makes it a lot easier to hose down. The watch commander's office. The weight room where officers work off some of the stress of the job. The very overcrowded jail at the station, including the two padded rooms which were occupied.

I was also shown the breathalyzer station, or as Sgt. Sandoz called it "Comedy Central", where drunk driving suspects try to fool the machine. I saw a few suspects try to do just that later in the evening when we came back to the station.

The vial of medical marijuana one of them had probably didn't help any.

Every day, the officers have to check out the weapons and patrol cars. We walked up to a counter in front of a room where the walls were lined with shotguns to get ours. Well, his. I didn't get one. (I also didn't get a bulletproof vest. Forest Whitaker got one when he was there researching a role for a movie. I'm just sayin'.)

Anyway, after Sgt. Sandoz got the shotgun and car keys, we went into the station lot to find our car: number 89173. Here's the thing about the 77th parking lot: sitting in the overhead pipes throughout the lot are giant stuffed animals keeping watch on everything. Don't ask.

We got in our car and were off. I told Sgt. Sandoz I fully expected the four words I'd hear most from him were, "Stay in the car." But he said not at all. I was riding with him as his partner. As far as anyone knew, I was a police officer and I was welcome to be right there with him on the calls.

While we were driving the real mean streets, I got to run license plates for stolen cars on this laptop that sits between the front seats in the patrol car. I actually was pretty good at it. When we'd pull up to a red light, or behind a Toyota or Honda (the most frequently stolen cars), I'd run the plates. Unfortunately I didn't get any hits. I was seriously hoping for a high speed chase. Maybe next time.

I also got to sit in at the 911 call communications center for the entire city of Los Angeles. Listening in on a few of those calls, and the way the 911 operators handle them, gives an entirely new definition to the word "patience".

I'm not going to go into great detail, but here are a few of the calls I went out on:

- A domestic violence call. We parked down the street from the address and waited for another unit to get there before we went in. The woman, visibly bruised and scratched, said her boyfriend was sitting in a car in the back of the apartment with their baby. The officers and I went around back, and saw him with the baby in the backseat of an old BMW. They asked him to come out and he didn't right away. There's a moment where you have no idea what's going to happen, what he's going to do to himself, the baby or us. But eventually he got out, gave the baby to the officers and the police cuffed him and took him away.

- An AIDS patient wanted to kill himself. He very calmly explained to both Sgt. Sandoz and me that he was overwhelmed with his own situation, and that his ailing mother who lived with him was driving him crazy and he wanted to end it - although he hadn't given any thought yet as to how. He was still healthy and showing no signs of the disease. A second unit arrived, and he was taken away for psychological evaluation.

- A man brandishing a gun. This was interesting for a few reasons. The apartment where this happened was at the corner of Florence and Normandie, flashpoint of the 1992 riots after the Rodney King verdict. Up until this point, I'd only seen this intersection from an overhead shot on the news. The man allegedly brandishing the gun was in a back unit you got to by going down a narrow walkway with apartments on both sides. The people he was threatening were family. Several units arrived (mention "gun" and the party's on), and a helicopter was called in to shine some light on the place. Myself and several officers were lined up against a side of the walkway, as they told everyone in the back unit to come out with their hands over their heads. Which they did. They were cuffed, and faced the wall as the officers went into the apartment to make sure no one else was there, and to retrieve the gun. It turned out there was never a gun, and it was an extremely heated family argument that triggered (see what I did there?) the whole incident. Once the situation was under control, we were back on patrol.

Since it was a relatively slow evening, at least the part of it I was there for (7PM-1:30AM), I didn't see anything really hardcore (bodies, shootouts, more bodies). Actually kind of grateful for that.

The real crime happening everyday is the budget cuts to the department that force these dedicated, overworked and underpaid officers to stretch their limited resources virtually to the breaking point. If you're so inclined, and you should be, sending a letter to Anthony Villaraigosa or Governor Brown asking them not to cut the budget where law enforcement is concerned can do nothing but help.

I want to give a huge thank you to Sgt. Sandoz and all the great people working at the 77th, not only for letting me have this incredible experience, but for who they are and what they do each and every day for all of us.

Roger that.

You have the right to remain in the car like a scared little girl

It's L.A. Money talks. And tonight it said I get to ride along with the L.A.P.D. on the night shift in South Los Angeles.

My kid's school has an annual fundraising auction. Every year, we spend a perfectly good Saturday night looking at baskets of shampoo and body washes, pictures of cabins in Mammoth, inflatable backyard movie screens and other items we can silently bid on. Usually there's not much I'm interested in.

Although don't get me wrong - I do love a nice body wash.

But this year, I saw this little item and for several reasons I knew I had to have it.

One is I grew up on the mean streets of West Los Angeles (north of Wilshire). The city is my beat (see what I did there?). Also, I love watching COPS. Every episode there's a drunk guy in a beer-stained, white tank top tripping over his tongue trying to explain to the incredibly patient officer why he's not the guy they're after.

Comedy at its finest.

I've always had tremendous respect and admiration for the job the police do. Sure, we all hear about the bad ones. But every day, in cities all over the country they're putting their lives on the line to protect us.

Over the years I've had a few occasions to call the police in our city in the middle of the night when we thought someone was on our property. They were here in less than 30 seconds. When it turned out to be nothing, I apologized for wasting their time, saying they probably had real crimes to solve. They insisted they'd rather I call and have it turn out to be nothing than not call and actually have some criminal to deal with.

While I'm sitting at my desk trying to think of some clever little tagline for a car or fast food company, they're on the streets wondering if the jacked up guy they're stopping for speeding is going to pull out a gun and make it their last day on the job. And on earth.

I think if I ever told a cop about how rough I thought my day was they'd double over laughing.

Besides being a fan of the police, I'm also a fan of high speed chases. If I catch one on the news, or if one of my friends calls me and tells me there's one on, I drop everything and sit glued to the television until it's over. Every time I ask the same question: how does this guy think it's going to end? Does he think the cops and helicopters will just get tired and let him go? My favorite part, besides when they stop and come out with their hands up, is when the cop car does that maneuver where they tap the bumper and the suspect's car goes spinning out of control. Very entertaining.

I'm sure my ride-along will be extremely interesting. And I'm sure since it's in one of the tougher parts of L.A. I'll see a few things I wouldn't normally get exposed to.

Right now I'm hoping we're in hot pursuit in a high speed chase.

But my guess is when I'm sitting in the police car, I'll be hoping for an uneventful night where we both return safely and I have a great story to tell my kids.