Saturday, January 13, 2007

Cab Tales...And the Police

Quite a bit of interaction occurs between Police Officers and Cab Companies. When they stop and arrest a drunk driver, we are called to transport the passengers, if any.

One evening I was called to a freeway stop on Westbound I-90 between Fourth and Fifteenth Streets. When I got there, the City Police Officer, (a young one) had an elderly lady arrested. It must have been a slow night, because there were six or seven Law Enforcement cars at the scene to back up the apprehension of this 72 year old lady.

Her passenger, was her Husband, an older man needing transportation. He was spitting mad. When I arrived on the scene, I asked a Sheriff Deputy what was going on. He essentially replied, "probably nothing, but it's not my stop."

I hustled the husband into my cab to get him out of there before he got arrested for "Contempt of Cop." Actually, that isn't against the law, but interfering with an arrest is. He explained to me that yes, he had drank quite a few, but his wife had only one glass of wine three hours back.

He then went on to state, that while the officer said he had pulled them over, that they had pulled to the side because it was cold and the window wouldn't roll up. The officer then pulled in behind them. They took this frail lady, securely handcuffed, guarded by at least eight of our finest, to the Grey Bar Hotel.

I explained that when the officers got to the jail they would administer a sobriety test. At that time, she would obviously be released. I felt he was too angry to take directly to the jail, so we went for coffee. I bought. We eventually arrived at the jail, and sure enough, the wife had been released without charge.

Aside from this elderly lady being roughhoused, cuffed and hauled off to jail, the car had been towed, police tows being quite expensive, and it turns out the whole arrest was based on the smell of alcohol in the vehicle. Duh...So much for the designated driver theory...

4 comments:

Mommy Dearest said...

Just curious Herb, when you were talking people out of offing themselves or calming down the angry husband, did you leave the meter running?

Bay Views said...

Mommy Dearest has raised a good point. Did I charge a fare. Answer? no. Not once. That was the humanitarian exception I referred to in my first post on this subject.

Mommy Dearest said...

Too bad this was all prior to your Potato Salad King days. You could have just carried some of your salad around and used it to talk people "off the ledge."

Mari Meehan said...

The police handling of this was abysmal. They probably are now setting the policy to mug little old ladies at airports.

I say it again, Herb. These recollections are just wonderful. You may have to back to cab driving just to keep it up!