June 2002 to September 2002

Second District DIU (Persons)

Man… I really did not vibe with the Third District.

I had just come from the Fifth—the Dirty Nickel—which was basically Fallujah with a NOLA flair. Calls stacked up like Jenga towers, and the shootings were nonstop. Officers had literally been shot inside the station.  You'd walk out the front door and almost have to dodge bullets like you were in The Matrix.

So when I got to the Third, where ducks floated peacefully in front of the station and officers said things like “let’s do lunch,” the culture shock hit hard. It was like being teleported from The Wire to Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. I lasted less than a year before I got out. Thankfully, I had a golden ticket back to the Second—my first home. Captain Eddie Hosli, childhood friend of Chief Serpas and all-around NOPD royalty, asked me to come handle shootings, homicides, and robberies. Music to my ears.

Back in the saddle with solid people. Sal Caronna again. Willie “My Gun Is Nearby” Bush. Kevin Bell. Stephanie Taillon. Jimmie Turner. Shannon Reeves. A team of detectives with grit, brains, and just enough questionable decision-making to make things fun.

And Gerttown, Pigeontown, and Hollygrove back then? Absolute nightmares. The station wasn’t even in Gerttown yet.  We spent a good chunk of time in that area tracking groups like the one led by Kevin Frank (Lil Black) and Marchello Jones. Truly evil guys. Not your standard stick-up crew. These were stone-cold killers. And we knew it. They didn’t hide it. One day, they’re making people disappear. The next, they’re the ones on the autopsy table. No one cried.

Star Trek, But Make It Tone Deaf

One time, Tommy Redmann and I were waiting to meet the relatives of a homicide victim upstairs at the station. A very serious task, obviously.

So naturally, we decided that was the perfect moment to have a contest to see who could do the “WOOO-WOOOO!” part of the Star Trek theme the loudest.

We’re in full vocal blast mode when the family walks in. Doors open. We lock eyes. The sound dies mid-woo.  No explanation. No excuse. Just a sudden switch to “compassionate detective mode” like nothing happened. I'm not sure if they ever trusted us again—or if that case was solved. Either way, I hope those poor people eventually found peace.

Scooter Chase: Benny Hill Edition

Tommy and I were riding around after a report of a stolen scooter in the Claiborne/Carrollton area. Not exactly grand theft auto, but we were game. We spotted it—going against traffic on Claiborne at a blistering 8 MPH. It looked like a wounded mosquito. The guy on it was hunched over, weaving slightly, and completely unaware he was starring in his own slapstick sketch.

We couldn’t pursue properly—he was going the wrong way and even we weren’t that reckless. So we paced him, dying laughing, trying to find an opening. Eventually, he figured out he was being followed and tried to ditch us by turning into Gerttown and crashing into an empty lot. He bailed. We ran. We caught him. All very routine.

Then came the problem: getting the scooter back. One of us had to ride it. Naturally, Tommy—quite a bit taller than I am—was selected. Watching this massive man fold himself onto a scooter the size of a lunch tray and ride down Claiborne was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in uniform. I had to pull over so I didn’t crash the car laughing. No lesson. No moral. Just a glorious memory.

100 MPH on Claiborne

Then there was the high-speed chase that went from “concerning” to “NASA-level velocity” in seconds. A fellow officer (name redacted to protect the currently-employed) was chasing a stolen car down S. Claiborne toward Jefferson Parish. She’s giving location updates on the radio, and the time between each one shrinks dramatically.

Command asks, “What speed are you going?” She responds: “About 100 MPH.” ONE HUNDRED?! On Claiborne?!  Needless to say, the stolen car didn’t handle it well. At the end of  Claiborne, where it morphs into Jefferson Highway, there’s a nasty S-curve—ninety-degree left, then ninety-degree right. The suspect made neither.

Instead, they flew straight off the edge, airborne, landing squarely on another car in a recessed parking lot like a twisted demolition derby stunt. And since that parking lot was in Jefferson Parish, we did what any self-respecting NOPD unit would do: let JPSO handle it. Arrests, crash report, paperwork—all theirs. That, my friends, is what we call a geographical win.