Stupid Cop Story-Blood, Bullets and a Lucky Dog

Two middle-aged men were having an argument one bright and sunny early Sunday morning. The argument got out of hand and one guy shot the other in the stomach and fled the scene as quickly as a circus performer geting shot out of a cannon. After receiving frantic 911 calls, the cops arrived on the scene and helped the wounded man until the paramedics arrived. Soon afterwards, the police started collecting evidence. One piece of evidence was the completely blood stained t-shirt of the victim.

Blood evidence should be handled and stored in certain ways. As an example, it should not be placed in plastic containers for long periods and it is acceptable to let items air-dry. Well, the officer who collected the shirt placed it into an empty garage stall, which was often used for larger pieces of evidence like bicycles or motor vehicles. In addition, the garage also had several animal cages in it. The cages were used to hold dogs picked up by police which would be held temporarily until the animal warden picked them up.

Soon after the blood-soaked shirt had been placed on a hanger and then hung on a fence material in the garage, an officer picked up a friendly lost dog. The officer pulled his cruiser up to the garage and used his police radio to have office personnel electronically open the garage for him. Once opened, he started to put the dog into a cage but thought that it was so friendly that he’d just let it have free run in the garage until the animal warden arrived. The usual wait for the animal warden was several hours. He did not notice the dangling blood-soaked shirt. Shortly after the officer left, the dog noticed it though.

About an hour later, a detective went into the garage to examine the shirt and found an ugly mess. He found a dog with blood on his face chewing away on a piece of the shirt. He also saw numerous small shirt shreds scattered throughout the garage. Oops! Someone was in trouble! Not the dog though as he was just doing what came natural. Perhaps the officer who placed the shirt in the garage and then did not tell everyone concerned what he had done? Perhaps the animal loving officer who didn’t follow departmental procedure by not locking the dog up? There was probably a little blame to go around for them both.

I came in for the afternoon shift and I walked in on everyone laughing about what had happened. I was happy I hadn’t been the one who screwed up—so I laughed along at the expense of the officers in hot water. No one got into any real trouble though. As for the evidence . . . what evidence? There was none, at least not from the shirt. The shot man survived and his assailant was caught and quickly pleaded guilty. The dog found its way back to its owner and probably thought his escape from home was pretty good taking into account his gourmet appetizer that he had been handed. Everyone makes mistakes, some big, some small, and some gross. This too shall pass—life goes on.