First Week Back on Patrol

Friday was my first day back on patrol with my new-hire Steve Burt. Steve is a very experienced officer who came to Manvel from the Houston Community College PD. He is a former Robbery-Homicide Detective at the Humble Police Dept. so he brings a very good background to the department. The first day was spent showing him around the city, all the city limits and such. We had a few calls, but nothing major.

Saturday morning, Stella and I went to Cameron's first baseball game which started at 8 AM! They came from behind and won the game, and then completely dominated the second game of the day. They didn't have to play a third game and went into Sunday's game in first place! We got our week's shopping out of the way Saturday between Cam's games. We went to the new Best Buy in League City and bought a USB hub for the desktop computer and a card reader so I can download our pictures onto the computer. Stella bought another hub for her work computer to add more USB outlets. We looked at some really nice laptops while we were there too, a Gateway, a Toshiba and a Qosmio brand that I've never heard of. We're trying to find something to use when we go on the road. Today its twelve months and 21 days to go......!


The team they played on Sunday in the semi-finals game spanked them, beating them 15-0, so the we came home for the day. We cut grass and hung out at home for the rest of the day.

Monday I gave Steve the day off so he could take care of leaving HCC PD. He said they ran him all over town, turning in uniforms and getting his retirement taken care of, but he got it done. He said that people are dropping like flies at HCC; they have lost 6 officers in the last two months. His Lieutenant was very upset with his decision to leave. He had just been offered the training officer Sergeant position.

Tuesday patrol with him began early because of T/S Eduardo. We came in at 6AM as a precaution for high winds, but it was a non-event. There were no winds at all and only a small amount of rain. We needed the rain, but it just didn't come. Then there was more showing him around town and trying to familiarize him with the metropolis of Manvel. Manvel is actually the second largest city in Brazoria County in area. The population has doubled since I worked there before and should continue when the development begins sometime next year.

Wednesday patrol was interesting. I let Steve start driving, thinking that he will learn faster by actually driving the area. He did just fine, as expected. Again, we had a few calls but nothing major until the afternoon when it began to rain pretty hard. We got alarm calls back to back, and then a call of a red truck parked in the road on FM 1128. The truck turned out to belong to Mark, Kim's ex-husband. We had the truck picked up because it was a traffic hazard and later learned that it had been stolen from the park and ride on SH 288. Mark was a jerk when I saw him, and later he took the truck without paying the towing company for picking it up because his credit card was denied. One of the guys with him paid the bill and he went on his way. It all worked out in the end, his stolen truck was returned to him with minimal damage and it only cost him $75.00. He's still a jerk.

So long for now,