STORY BEHIND, NEVER SAY THE Q WORD
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It was a Thursday night in District Two, an unusually
quiet night (oops, there's that word again). It is a rare night that District
Two gets a night like this. I was working with a young Reserve officer
who was just recently out of training. There were several Japanese police
officers out on ride-alongs as well with several different members. My
Reserve being young and eager I am sure was bored to tears. Well, I thought
I would stir things up a bit.
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Each Vancouver police unit is equipped with a computer
(Mobile Data Terminal or MDT for short). On it we can communicate car to
car or car to radio without using up air time. About this time I made the
fateful decision, I typed in the following words:
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"Gee its quiet out here. Yeah…too quiet"
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I sent that out city wide on what we call a PALL message
(the code means Police ALL), meaning the message is sent to all police
units that are signed on. For good measure I sent it to the Channel 2 radio
operator as well. She warned me to stop, but I thought I would tease her
a bit sending the word "quiet" to her several times.
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Without a bit of exageration, it was less than five
minutes after sending the message that our totally dead night went "to
hell in a handbasket". It started out with a car chase, a relatively minor
and slow speed on ionvolving a stolen car. It ended with a minor car accident
and the suspect started to run. He got bitten by the dog and shortly thereafter
collapsed into seizures on the street. He was rushed to hospital at deaths
door. It was only later it was determined that the suspect had eaten a
large quantity of heroin to avoid police finding it. Almost killed him.
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Then there was a large bar fight over in the West End.
Several District Two units had to race over to provide cover. There was
another car chase this time involving a suspect in a stabbing in another
neighbouring municipality. Then the radio operator got me back by dispatching
me to a three car accident. When I got onscene it looked to be very serious
and my suspicions were confirmed by paramedics who advised me it would
probably be a fatal.
.
Not long after there was a call that a car had just
backed through a storefront and suspects were loading up. A unit arrived
onscene just in time to see the car pulling out and heading down the road.
The car was lost after a short chase. 10 minutes later another unit observed
a possible suspect vehicle and tried to stop it. No dice the vehicle took
off, car chase number 4. This one left Vancouver and went across the bridge
into neighbouring West Vancouver.
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Then to cap things off for the night, just as units
were heading in to do up their reports and start in on their overtime,
a call came in that someone was seen breaking into the police holding compound.
A Sergeant and two dogs arrived in time to catch the suspect inside.
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All of this because I said the word "QUIET". It’s a
word service agencies worldwide will not say. We euphamistically refer
to it as "The Q Word". This was an example of just what happens when the
Q word is spoken.
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Anyway feeling terribly guilty about causing all this
action, the following night I purchased a dozen doughnuts for each patrol
squad (four of them) working Echo shift (7 pm to 6 am), plus I delivered
a dozen doughnuts to our radio room as well. I can't say everyone forgave
me for this faux pas, but at least I sweetened up their dispositions. As
a result of all of this, the poem was born.
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