Update 2 yr old missing in Orlando

The news did a report a few minutes ago that a new concrete pad had been put down recently at the house where Casey was staying - they determined it was around the time the Caylee went missing.  It did not say if they were digging it up but I would assume that they are already in the process of doing so.

This whole story has continued to draw interest because there can be no closure until the little girl’s body is found.  It also continues to haunt millions of us who look at that sweet child’s face wondering how this mother could hurt such a beautiful child.  No matter what a person is going through, there are always options available and killing should never be one of them.

It brings tears to my eyes every time I hear or read an update.  I wish I could hold this little girl in my arms and protect her from the evil that befell her.  Again I find myself wishing that there was some tell tall signs of evilness so that we could identify them and keep the innocent safe.

Missing 2 yr old in Florida

I don’t know how many people are following this story, but I continue to be infuriated over how this mother, Casey Anthony, can be so distant and uncaring about where her daughter is.  If she knows who has her daughter, as her mother contends she does, then why isn’t she telling authorities so they can follow up on the child?

Why is Casey’s mother, Cindy Anthony, so ridiculously blind when it comes to her daughter’s lies? And, as one of my reader’s asked, where is the father of this child?

I read tonight that Casey borrowed a shovel around the time the child went missing.  Now, sure, she could have been planting flowers but why wouldn’t she just admit where the child is so she wouldn’t be suspected in her disappearance? An innocent person does not act this way.

It makes me wonder how much Cindy Anthony knows about the disappearance.  Does she know her daughter killed the little girl and now, in a desperate attempt to save her daughter (since her grand daughter is beyond help) she is covering for her? Parents can turn blind eyes to their children but murder? I suppose Casey could have told her mother it was a terrible accident but that she is afraid she wouldn’t receive a fair trail so Cindy is trying to protect her child.  I don’t know but Cindy’s vehement defending of Casey and professing her innocence, it makes them both look all the more guilty.

I hope they do find this child alive and well but I would say that, with all the lies Casey has been spouting, it is getting pretty evident that the child met with foul play.

Oh My Goodness

About 5 am a severe thunderstorm struck our area.  Alarms started going off everywhere, my police units couldn’t see in front of them to drive, I had guards out trying to find cover, we lost power and county set off their sirens without notifying us.  What a mess.

I know I did several things wrong during this massive incident but am not sure what all it is.  I will let my replacement know and she can evaluate the calls and let me know what I need to do differently next time.  This was my first major weather incident since working here so it was crazy.  I relied heavily on my Lieutenant to know what to do and pretty much followed what he said.  Hopefully that was correct.

I hope my replacement comes in early enough to discuss it because I can’t stay late when I have to be back in at 3pm.  She doesn’t have a trainee today but I bet it is still a hopping day for her with continued problems due to the storm.

Yes, it was crazy and I was a bit under pressure - but overall, I had a good time with the emergency.  I work well under pressure as a rule and even better when the pressure is weather related because I love natural disasters…not what they do to people but the awesome force they wield.

Hills had straight line winds which caused a lot of damage from what the county is saying over the radios.  No one was  hurt though so that is always good! Whew, glad it is over now and I can go home shortly!

Now He’s Dead

Person was riding along on his motorcycle, probably thinking about beating the severe thunderstorms home so he wouldn’t get soaked when out of nowhere, KABLAM!

I don’t know yet whether the person was wearing a helmet or even whose fault the accident was. I sent my officer’s out to help with traffic control as the City works the crash at a popular intersection. The mc driver was DOA - probably, hopefully, died instantly so felt no pain.

What is so scary to me, and so much a reminder of how fragile life is, is that he had no idea even a split second before hitting that intersection, that he had just used up his last moment on Earth. The bell tolled for him, his account for life canceled, the owl called his name, and the Grim Reaper was there to collect him.  That quickly a life can be extinguished - a person who had hopes, dreams and concerns about his life suddenly has no ties to life here at all.

Granted, we can’t think constantly about how this could be our last moment here but maybe we should take time every day to realize a lot of people won’t be alive by midnight tonight and that we never know when we might be included in that group. Appreciate the day, always. Appreciate our blessings and even our trials because having problems is a sign that we are still alive.

It’s Friday Night in Iowa City

Ohmygod! What a night so far!  We have had traffic stops, a couple of fights, several drunks, a naked man running through downtown, a man who was hit in the head who had a concussion, two people struck while in the crosswalks right outside our building, and a suspicious guy hanging out down by the river.  City has called us several times to back them up because they were so busy that they couldn’t handle it all either.  What a mess!

I really don’t know what the city is coming too.  I guess it is a sign that things are returning to normal after being so repressed by the flooding.  Students are out in force living it up on a Friday night but if they could use a little common sense, that would be nice.

It is after 3am now and the bars should be getting the last of their customers out.  The streets have cleared, the rain has stopped, and one would hope it means things will slow down now.  Our campus has become a non-smoking campus - meaning people can’t even smoke outside anymore.  It isn’t overly enforced and we haven’t had time tonight to even think about dealing with people violating the policy.  The City has also gone smoke free but they are not writing citations for people who still want to smoke.  Guess most people feel about it the way I do, if the smokers are outside, who cares?  I get tired of “big brother” always out there trying to dictate our civil liberties.

No, I don’t smoke either - never have.  The policy makes me angry because, as I said, it is just one more thing government thinks they can force on us as if we are not capable of making decisions for ourselves.  It is reminiscent of Sarasota trying to enforce a “no cussing in public” ruling.  If I want to cuss in public, then damn it, I’m going to.  It is ridiculous.  I feel like lighting a cigarette and walking around just to rebel against the idiots who think they have the right to dictate my rights.

Whew, I’ll climb down off my soap box.  Just irritates me.

Busy Night

What a busy night! So much for a nice quiet one - this one was anything but.  We made three arrests, went on two fights, and did countless other things in between.  I’m worn out.

I got a little ticked at one of the newer officers tonight and talked to the LT about it.  The officer went “out” with a vehicle but gave no license plate information.  I got backup going right away but had the driver of that vehicle decided to shoot my officer before backup got there, I would have had no information on the vehicle the officer pulled over.  Yes, backup arrived quickly but still - it is standard operating procedure for the officer to give the license plate BEFORE even approaching the vehicle.  When I asked him for it, he told me to “standby” and then never gave it to me.  The second officer gave me the information when he arrived - he happened to be the LT.

Sure, chances of something happening are slim but isn’t that usually when disaster strikes? When we are least expecting it? Just irritates me.  The officer hadn’t even ran the plate himself yet soooo…had he been gunned down they couldn’t even have looked at the last plate he had ran.  Just disturbing to me.  The LT agreed and said the officer made several other mistakes too that he would address with him - one was letting the scene get out of control, something this newer officer has struggled repeatedly with since finishing the academy and training.  He is new but again, isn’t that when bad things can happen? He has to be able to maintain control or he has lost the battle.

Now I have all three officers out on a suspicious person at one of the ramps.  Such an eventful evening.

The city should start waking up here shortly - already the street sweepers are out sweeping the main streets clean for another day of hustle bustle.  It truly is amazing, when I have time to watch, seeing the city go to sleep and then wake back up.  It is two so totally different crowds too.  At 3am it is the college students headed home in their skimpy outfits, walking none to steady.  At 5am it is the business crowd in their suits, walking briskly and with a purpose totally lacking in the younger groups.

The rain seems to have retired though forecasts reveal it will be making a comeback all day today.  So much for it being too rainy for people to get into trouble.

I must say once again, it sure would be fantastic to be so rich I wouldn’t have to go to work each day.

End of the Day Finally

I must admit, the last hour at work was quite harried.  We had a big diesel spill from a generator which involved calling in a ton of people and then we had a couple of guys we stopped and started investigating because they found burglary tools on them.  I left before the latter one was resolved - don’t know if they will arrest anyone or not.  One was a sex offender who had previously molested a little boy and the other had drug arrests but neither of them was wanted at this time.  Still, it made me hustle.

I have to say, by the time my replacements arrive at 6:45am, I was more then ready to go but still was working right up till 7am.  There are two dispatchers working the day shift plus a trainee so I figured, and they agreed, that they could handle wrapping up my cases for me.  If I ran late then I would have to pay for parking so I try to get out of there right at 7am.

About fell asleep on the way home.  Well, might have fallen asleep had it not been for the sun shining directly in my eyes the whole time.  Yes, I put my visor down but it still was bright, making my eyes water.  Now, of course, it is cloudy out and the sun is nowhere to be seen. 

I took some Tylenol PM so that added to the feeling of being tired.  Right now I just want to curl up in my bed.  I put a movie in the DVD player right now to watch while I was writing emails and updating this blog but I have no plans to stay up to finish watching it. 

Well, my brain just hit its threshold mark so time to give it some rest.

Freezing

Well, it is freezing everywhere in the building except in dispatch.  My teeth were chattering in the breakroom as I tried to read on the book my sister gave me to read when I left tonight.  Back in dispatch, it is a little bit warmer but still too cold - I turned up the a/c when I got back in hopes that it will warm up a bit.

When I came in earlier, the a/c hadn’t been working for hours and it was stifling in dispatch.  About midnight the a/c kicked in and, as the thermostat was set down as low as it would go, it quickly cooled off in here.  Originally I had a fan on but by 3am or so, I turned it off because it was cooling off nicely in here.

I can’t believe how much the temperature changes here in our little complex.  The locker room was so cold that I didn’t even want to go to the bathroom in there.  Mind you, I’m wearing a short-sleeved shirt but a zip up sweatshirt jacket too.  The jacket is required since I’m not wearing a belt as my uniform code demands.

Less then two hours to go.  I’m sure ready to call it a night! But of course the best part of the shift is just starting and that is the sun rising in the sky.  The sky is a dark purple at the moment - in less then an hour the streets will start to come alive with people bustling off to work.

Music

I have spent the last 40 minutes trying to figure out a way to make music play on this computer at work.  It finally occurred to me that the speakers set up aren’t actually speakers connected for music but more for the dispatch radio.  Bummer.

I had to turn on the weather channel just so I could listen to something other then the “Breaking News” that has been repeating over and over for the last four hours.  How can something be “breaking” for that long? Some of it is stuff from a week ago.  Rather ridiculous.

I need to bring in my mp3 player with some little speakers so I can listen to music here.  It just gets too quiet when no one is talking and nothing is going on.  I need background noise.

Even while reading, I need background noise - I can’t concentrate if it is so quiet I can hear a pin drop.  Really wanted to be able to listen to a radio, not my mp3 player but none of the live stream radio stations on the internet work without those speakers.  It is forbidden for me to hook speakers up to work’s computer though so, unless I get a laptop, I’m stuck.

Have three hours to go.  I have a guard who is suppose to check in every 30 minutes who, for whatever reason, keeps checking in every 15 minutes.  I don’t know why he suddenly feels the need to do so unless he is feeling isolated out there in the storage lot.  He is a new guard so I think that is probably it.  Either that or he doesn’t have a watch and the time is really dragging for him so he thinks more time has lapsed then has.

The night shift has been pretty quiet tonight.  It is due, in part, to the flood that, though subsided, has our officers not doing normal patrol.  Thus we aren’t doing traffic stops or looking for public intox people.  We are basically patrolling our locked down buildings and keeping people moving.  Have had a couple guys from out of town who had nowhere to stay so we’ve taken them to the emergency shelter.  That pretty much is it.  I guess if someone were obviously intoxicated, we’d have to arrest them but we aren’t out seriously looking for them tonight.

Usually we get one to two DUI’s and a couple public intoxes every night but haven’t had many since the flood hit.  Early estimates are that the University suffered $124 million dollars worth of damage.  I’m sure that will go up as time goes on.

Work Today

Today was a much slower work day then yesterday’s hectic one.  I had each of the trainees for a couple hours a piece so did some training but mostly tried to fill my time up looking busy.  Don’t get me wrong, we were busy but it came in spurts and most things were quickly handled leaving empty spans of time.

The work day drug horribly and I know it is because this is my last week before vacation.  I’m very excited to be going on vacation and can’t wait.  But my excitement makes the days go by slower as I watch the clock too much.

Because I have my head buried in the sand (see other post from yesterday), it is difficult to get a sense of what is going on around me.  I kind of check out mentally so I’m going through the motions but not really processing much.  I’ve spent months in this kind of fugue state - something that irritates me greatly when I finally pull my head out of the sand to look around - but for now it is a must to get through this week.  I spent all last weekend dreading this week so much that I realized the only way to get through it was to shut down to the bare minimum brain activity.  I know that sounds weird but I can’t explain it any better.  I better understand now how my mother could sit and stare at a wall for hours…she was in this same state of mind only probably deeper.

Part of it is depression, sure, but a lot of it is self-preservation.  If I continued to worry and freak about work like I did this weekend, when I caused my blood pressure to skyrocket, then I would end up having a stroke.  Since I can’t change what has to be done this week - working days - I had to do something and this is what works for me.  My therapist said I was compartmentalizing the problem area and didn’t seem to think my approach was a bad one as long as it didn’t go on for weeks, months or years.

Oh well.  Once the week is over then I’ll be able to read the books sitting on the desk, I’ll be able to go to a movie and out to eat and really enjoy myself, and I’ll be free of worrying about the daytime work problems.