STORY BEHIND THE POEM ANNIE, ANNIE WHERE
IS ANNIE
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Anne Drennan is our Media Liaison officer
and does a great job. She is respected by the guys on the street, by the
bosses and even more importantly, by the Press that get their story lines
from her.
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On this occasion, there had been an armed
robbery of a corner store by a man with a handgun. He had been wearing
a mask, but the storekeeper recognized his voice as a regular customer.
When he ran out of the store and down the lane, he pulled off his mask
and a witness saw a head full of flourescent orange hair. He followed and
saw the suspect enter an address.
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Containment was quickly set up, ERT was
called in as was the Negotiators to try and talk him out. After many attempts
with the bullhorn (the address had no phone), it was decided to punch holes
through the front windows to either cause a response from the suspect and
to allow him to hear us better.
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Anne had been called to the scene during
all of this, to speak with the numerous Press people who had gathered.
Events kept unfolding and still no Anne. Radio was asked and they kept
advising that she showed onscene.
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ERT did a tactical entry of the house
and found it empty (still no Anne). It turned out the suspect went in the
backdoor, dumped his gun and immediately bolted out the front door. This
happened before we got to the address.
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The operation was wrapping up and we got
word the suspect had been arrested several blocks away. Still no sign of
Anne. Suddenly she rolled up to the address looking very flustered and
embarrassed. It turns out that instead of coming to the 1100 block, she
had misread the call and went to the 100 block, roughly a mile away from
the scene.
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She was all set, ready to do her interviews,
but could not see any ERT operation, meanwhile we were doing the operation,
but, couldn’t see Annie. Well, it was all good news. Nobody got hurt, the
suspect was arrested, Annie found her way and the Media got their story.
Me? I got to coordinate the call, but even better, I had new material for
this poem.
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