Chain Reaction Part Two

As soon as I bailed out of the unmarked in pursuit of the fleeing Latino, I was immediately almost killed by a car speeding down Ellis Street like the driver was dyslexic and had inverted the numbers on the urban speed limit. I had already begun to key my radio microphone to broadcast: a. that we had an emergency; and, b. that we were in a foot chase of a man who we believed was armed with a .40 caliber Glock pistol. So the radio transmission I wound up making was similar to, “…CKING SLOW DOWN, COCKSUCKER! Code thirty-three! Ellis and Polk, foot pursuit Latin male blue shirt! Possible two-twenty-one (gun)!”

I ran after the suspect to the south sidewalk of Ellis and then east towards Larkin, about a third of a block back due to my brush with vehicular manslaughter. I heard Scott flip on our unmarked’s siren, and then watched him drive past me the wrong way on Ellis Street to catch up to our man. Scott and the rest of the crew followed the guy as he ran around the corner to southbound Larkin. I rounded the same corner just in time to see Scott coming to a fast stop in an alley that ran parallel to Ellis Street. I looked ahead and saw the suspect making quick entrance to the rear door of a Chinese restaurant’s kitchen.

Police work is full of surreal moments, but I must say one of the most cinematically absurd experiences of my career really began to come to fruition as I called out, “STOP! POLICE!” to the suspect and did my best not to slip and fall on the greasy kitchen floor while dodging a huge staff of cooks with giant cleavers and flaming woks. The chase spilled into the dining room area, prompting panicked confusion as three plainclothes and one uniformed policeman sprinted after a criminal between tables, past the hostess and out the front door back onto Larkin Street.

The suspect traced his own previous path and ran once more north on Larkin to westbound Ellis Street, again on the south sidewalk. Scott, a gifted runner and athlete, passed me to take the lead in the chase and was therefore granted the honor of being the first policeman to follow the supposed-Aguilar into a Vietnamese eatery, through that dining room – causing a similar commotion to the one in the Chinese place – and halfway into the women’s restroom before having a door slammed directly on his shoulder and face by the suspect… who proceeded to attempt to barricade himself therein.

Seeing Scott’s head bounce off the door and the suspect repeatedly trying to ram my supervisor violently out of the ladies room, I grew understandably upset. I shoulder checked the door at just shy of an all out run, which caused the doorknob to implant in the drywall, the suspect to reel back and Scott and I to spill into the bathroom, directly into the bad guy’s swinging fists.

Both Scott and I ate a couple of punches before we managed to get in grappling range with the guy, killing the momentum of his fists. As the bad guy thrashed and screamed, I dove down for his legs as Scott elbowed him in the sternum. Mary and Rick attempted to get into the bathroom as well, but it was a one-seater and they were pretty much stuck behind us as we attempted to force the suspect to the ground.

After far too much effort, we got the guy down on the gross bathroom tile and began the laborious task of trying to dig his arms out from underneath him to put handcuffs on. The refusal of the suspect to relinquish his hands from his front waistband was especially concerning. Scott vocalized his worry, “I think he’s got a gun in his waistband! He’s holding something!”

Scott, Rick, Mary and I eventually pulled, tugged, commanded, yelled, punched, elbow dropped, and hammer fisted the suspect into handcuffs. The five of us now all sweaty and covered in Tenderloin bathroom grossness. Scott panted out, “Help us search him,” to the uniformed officers who had responded as backup and arrived at the bathroom door.”

We pulled the guy off the floor and handed him to the patrolmen. “I think he might have a gun,” Scott warned.

Right then, I heard something buzzing at my feet. I looked down to where the suspect had just been laying, to the place where his hands were so insistent on staying. There, on the ground, clattering away on the dingy tile, was a pink vibrator.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard before, nor will I again, an “EWWWWWWWWW” the likes of which came out of Mary’s mouth after I brought the jittery sex toy to her attention. And as I laughed a deep, horrified belly-laugh, I heard Rick say that he found the custody’s identification. He was not Juan Aguilar. He was actually a convicted rapist of another name, and in violation of a stay-away order for selling drugs at Polk and Ellis. I think we all shuddered to think of the reason why a convicted rapist would be walking around with a vibrator stuffed down his pants.

After Dildoman was underway in the paddy wagon to Tenderloin Station. Scott, sweaty and gross as the rest of us, made a command decision: “Now, let’s go see if Juan’s home. Why kill the momentum?”

We piled back in the car, and drove down the block to Aguilar’s supposed apartment. We followed a resident in through the front gate and located unit 210. Scott put his ear to the door, and heard voices inside. He was about to knock, when the door suddenly opened from inside revealing the man we knew to be Aguilar. Aguilar’s eyes went wide as he started to close the door, but we were already barging in by that point and obviously breaking up the social gathering of fellow meth-addicts. There were about four other speeder types in the place, a mix of males and females. Rick and I arrested Aguilar for his warrant without incident. His only comment, “Who ratted me out? Was it that white boy?”

“It could be nobody. You could just suck at hiding,” I answered.

An ensuing search of the apartment revealed no items of significance, no gun or mentionable amount of dope. They’d clearly smoked whatever meth they had, or the girls had it stashed in areas they knew we didn’t have a right to search without a warrant. Perhaps Aguilar never had the gun and the info was embellished by Crankster to sweeten it up for us. Or just as plausible, Aguilar sold the pistol for dope. Maybe he just had a really great hiding place. Who knows?

So rarely in police work do you ever get to know what you missed. I know cops who have been in for thirty-plus years and wish that upon retirement they could get a rundown on all the guns, suspects and dope they almost found over the years.

But, gun or no, when Scott, Mary, Rick and I got back to TTF after booking Aguilar for his warrant at Northern Station, we were all smiling. It’s not every day you get to sprint down the rabbit hole and return with three handcuffed bunnies. And that vibrator thing was really damn funny.