STORY BEHIND THE DANCE

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 Steve Shaw and his partner Darren Foster were working together in 2E11. It was an unusually quiet night in District 2, so when a disturbance call came in, they volunteered along with half of the units in the District, looking for something to do. As it turned out, this was probably a wise move. It turned out that the guy creating the ruckus was a mentally disturbed, neo-nazi, I know redundant term. Anyway, this guy was screaming a lot of hate phrases common among his type. He was also going quite off the deep end smashing furniture in his room and swinging at unseen demons.

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The other distinctive thing about him was his size. He was HUGE! He was so big he looked like a mountain on legs, and strong. Wow! Anyway after much calm talking, they got him to volunteer to submit to restraints and he was led to the ambulance without incident. He was being arrested under Section 24 of the Mental Health Act and being taken to hospital for a 24 hour psychiatric evaluation. The procedure is that one officer rides in the ambulance for security and the second follows behind in the car so he can pick his partner up. All the local hospital psych wards were full so they were routed to the University of British Columbia Hospital. Going there meant crossing District boundaries, so Steve flipped his car radio to Channel 4 so he could hear anything going on, and kept his portable radio switched to District 2.

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Well, it seems also had the car AM/FM radio on and was listening to Z95 FM a popular Vancouver rock station. Well, a really lively tune, one of Steve's current favourites came on, and since this was a routine transport, he cranked up the sound on that radio and was bouncing along with the beat of the music. Along with that and driving, he was trying to type something into the computer. He went to hit the transmit button, but his attention wandered and he unknowingly punched the emergency button. This sets off all kinds of alarm bells in the communications center, indicating an officer in trouble. Knowing that these guys were transporting a potentially dangerous prisoner added even more import to the situation.

Channel Two radio tried calling several times with no luck. Channel four tried several times also without success. Darren in the ambulance could hear them calling but could not transmit on his portable due to shielding caused by the ambulance and by the screaming that their prisoner was doing. He was frantically waving out the back window of the ambulance trying to get Steve's attention without success. Luckily just as the Chief Dispatcher was about to broadcast a citywide officer in trouble call, the song ended. Steve turned the radio down and could hear all this commotion on the radio. It was then he discovered his faux-pas. Well, at shift end parade Steve sheepishly related the story and so the poem was born.