Thursday, May 4, 2006

Coppers

As some of you may know, my work is rather eclectic in that it is technical, but revolves around planning, design, consultation and technical support. One of my clients happens to be the Toronto Police, so yesterday I went out on a field ride in one of their off-duty unmarked cruisers. We were doing some technical network tests around the Danforth (a street in Toronto), where they were experiencing some latency issues. The area is known for it's problems and gangsta-style kids who walk around with attitude and pants that hang at their knees.

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Our tests required numerous stops, U-Turns and circling of the area. Obviously, this made residents rather suspicious and to be honest, the unmarked cruiser isn't all that inconspicuous to most kids and residents in the area, who probably thought we were doing some surveillance. What we didn't expect was to be pulled over by another on-duty cruiser.

Our driver, who is part of the Police Force, but within the I.T unit pulled over, and started to laugh and joke about how this had never happened before. We turned on the radio and tuned into the frequency for that Police division:

Dispatcher: Officer pulling over suspected 2-0-8.
Officer: We have the cruiser pulled over. No obvious signs of damage. Three visible occupants. I don't think this is the 2-0-8. Description does not match.
Dispatcher: Your orders are to intercept and contact this 2-0-8. Proceed please.
Officer: Approaching driver side. It is an off duty unmarked cruiser, but it looks like...

The officer comes into sight and looks at us and starts to laugh and says to us:

Officer: Hmmmph, I thought that was what this was.
Our driver: Heya, how are you officer?
Officer: Good, thanks. Sorry, we were ordered to pull you over.
OD: What's going on?
Officer: One sec.
Oficer (to dispatcher): Cancel the 2-0-8 . It's one of our Mobile I.T cruisers. Will update shortly. Over.
Officer (turns back to us, smiling): So, I assume you guys are testing the dead spots?
OD (pointing at us): Yeah, these guys are from (company) and are on the run with us to troubleshoot.
Officer: Nice to meet ya. Sorry for the scare. We just got a call in that there was a stolen unmarked Police cruiser, that was on a rampage driving into other cars. Apparently you have been driving in circles and were seen as suspicious by 2 other cruisers.

How much more excitement can I ask for? Woo Hoo?

7 comments:

tornwordo said...

Sounds like an exciting day!

JM said...

Fun. You got to go in a ride along.
Thank God there was no real gangsta activity.

Anonymous said...

i was hoping the cop would take you out, throw you against the car and start patting you up and down. now that'd be hot!

Snooze said...

Not many people get a chance to ride around in a cruiser without being under arrest. Cool experience. And hilarious what people report to the police.

St. Dickeybird said...

Sounds like fun!

Greg the Surly said...

Shoulda got out screaming "You'll Never take me alive Copper!"

epicurist said...

tornwordo - It was interesting to say the least.

angel jr - well, I think there was gansta activity. Probably why there were so many cops in the area.

Aethlos - The Cops...definitely!

TribecaTexan - Actually, they were both super hot, in their late 20's. Big brutes and super sexy... I was drooling!

Brad - Trust me, you wouldn't want to see any...they were skanky looking ganstas.

Snooze - Well, I've been in a cruiser a few times, but we'll just leave it at that.

St. Dickeybird - Cops are always fun aren't they?

Greg - LOL, I'll remember that for next time!