By John
Stacy
(Rod
Bernsen, LAPD Ret., and his old partner, might be interested in this story)
Art
Davis and I were working the PM Shift north end/Brook relief car for quite
awhile. We got bored one night and conned the W/Sgt into letting us take one of
the night DB units out-the gray beat-up Plymouth. We unplugged one of the
front headlights, which made it look like an average ghetto-mobile in the dark.
We were able to get close to so many bad guys that we made it a regular
practice. One night it worked really well; we drove into the middle of about 20
"Carver Park Crips", who were having a meeting in the n/end parking
lot of the park. When they saw two uniformed Deps step out of the car: they
were so shocked that they froze in place and didn't try to run.
LAPD-77th
units gave us some strange looks-they probably thought we were part of some
new Metro-style unit.
Along with
the DB unit, Davis and I would take Stoner, the station mascot, out with us
many nights, as did other deps. (I'm sure that Vic Cavallero would have been surprised
if he had known!) The dog would sit on the back seat and act like he knew he
was on patrol. He would have his head on a swivel, checking everybody out. When
we would stop and shake someone, the dog would walk in circles around
us, pausing occasionally to sniff the subject, which greatly
distracted the subjects, who would always ask, "Do he bite?" (Which
reminds me of the mascot at LA County Fire Engine 44 in the Brook. They named
the dog “Dewey” because of the above question.) I almost believe that Stoner
was a reincarnated police or military dog because of the way he adapted to
police work and cops, without any training. He could always tell who was a cop
and who was a civilian. One night, a female ran up to us in the parking
lot and pointed to a car across the street from the station and said there
were two guys in the car who had been following her for a long time. When they
saw us coming, both ducked down on the floor and we came very close to capping
them. I wasn't feeling too friendly as I guided one of them a nearby fence.
Stoner had followed us to the susps and when I gently pushed one guy's leg with
my toe, Stoner ran over and bit the guy's pant leg, and pulled him to the
ground. We were really scared because we thought the brass would make us get
rid of Stoner, but after checking the susp's leg, we found no broken skin, and
didn't say anything about it. The susp thought he was a regular police dog.
John
Stacy 70's