bar brawls...

None come to mind as memorable, but words of wisdom ~ watch your gun side. Many drunken fools either try reaching for it for a bit o mischief, or want to talk "man to man" or tough talk about your weapon...except the problem with this is they are too stupid to understand that if they reach for your gun in the middle of you're tryn to handle a situaiton, chances are you're not going to be polite. Especially when you and your partner need to clean out the bar at closing time after a fight you'll get people that become chatty.

and the best thing to do is to divert chatty, drunken people's attention to something else. Yell "Look out! cockroaches the size of rats!" ~ Since most have trouble seeing, they go a running...that's usually how one can clear the bar when it's time to close. ;-) Less conflict that way.

RE: November 2008 Patrol Response: to Bar Fights

When I was in San Antonio, we had one nightclub that we had fights at on a regular basis. Closing time on Wednesdays was 2:00 a.m., which was also the cutoff for alcohol sales (weekends they stayed open an hour after they stopped selling alcohol). After a while, my partners and I started showing up at about 1:30 and telling the manager we were there for the regular Wednesday night fights.

One night, we got there and had two fights break out in front of us by about 1:45. I had one prisoner we cuffed and put in the back seat. He decided to start kicking the window out. When the window broke, we pulled him out and w restraining his legs and getting him back under control. While we were fighting him again, another fight broke out in the parking lot. Someone leaving that fight decided to shoot his pistol in the air as he was leaving. We quickly had more help there than we thought we could get, and could have used more to control the crowd.

Funny reaction...

I had a pretty funny encounter to a bar fight one night while on patrol with my partner (who that night happened to be my husband). We were on foot patrol near the fire station and the park next to it.

It was around bar closing time which is a mandatory 0200 in the State of Michigan, and we heard "Fu*k you you muther fuc*ing....bleep! bleep! bleep!" (you get the point). Immediately both my partner and I knew what was going on. The problem bar in the town was having a fight. It's a short jog over there so we hoofed it.

We get there, and there are about eight guys all standing in a circle fighting with about most of the bar patrons crowding around trying to see what was going on (about 35-40 people), and some trying to convince the two actually doing the fighting to knock it off. We start asking questions and pulling the eight or so fellas off of each other, but...we got resistence because some guy just had to knock the other guy for messing around with "his girl" which turned out to be some chic who he had just met that night (too drunk to know what the hell, basically).

So while my husband was trying to get order, I said screw this, we will have order...

I called in to dispatch what was going on and where and asked the "Available patrol cars to come and help persuade these folks to go home"...

We get about two cars at once and, one neighbor jurisdiction car showed up to help within seconds. As soon as they get on scene (they all where in the immediate area knowing this bar usually has problems)

Just about everybody in the fight and at the bar ran and some going "Oh no! It's a bunch of cops! They're everywhere!" and they all started to get a move along...LOL!

The two actually fighting immediately stopped and started to apologize to each other because they didn't want to go to jail.

Beautiful...LOL.

If you have it, get your brothers and sisters to show up in numbers...people freak out at times and want nothing more to get away, which is exactly what the police want.

"Is your number still 911?" - Ofc. Rachel T.

bar fights

Oh my, Steve ~ sounds like all the stupid ones ended up at the same bar on the same night, nd Murphy's Law.....you had to deal with them...LOL. Glad to see you made it out fine. That is the important part

window in the patrol car...

There's big brother...

Long time no chat bro :-)

I got a question: why is it that when we get pissed off subjects in the back of our patrol cars that they feel the need to kick or bash their heads into the window dividing the front and back? First, they can be charged for damaging police property. Second, does it really make sense to bash your head against a hard object to show that you're pissed?

We had one in custody that did that (bash his head against the dividing window). All I could do was laugh at the moron which pissed him off more. Dude, spare your brains and save what brains you've got. Obviously, they don't have much if they are sitting in the back of my car.

"Is your number still 911?" - Ofc. Rachel T.

RE: November 2008 Patrol Response: to Bar Fights

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I've made it a habit to roll through the lot of our problem bar at least twice before last call. I make myself very conspicuous. When the crowd lets out I'm right up front where they can see me. Any monkey business is nipped in the bud. You may get one or two chatty cathys that want to come over and say hi but most are only too happy to slip out of the lot w/o being stopped and tested.

RE: November 2008 Patrol Response: to Bar Fights

Todd,

In many cases, I agree and try just that tactic. As a matter of fact, that is what we were doing at that club I referenced. You would normally think that parking four patrol cars by the front of the bar a half hour before closing would convince people to behave. We would even walk through the club so they would see us there in uniform. Nothing seemed to help.

We did get some relief when we talked the management into staying open for one hour past last call to let people ease out. We saw this working on weekends and said they should try it during the week when we had problems.

Rach,

I have no idea why they do that. I actually think it is more frustration at themselves than anger at us. The ones who get angry at us usually try to lay down and kick out the car windows, in my experience. Other than adding a felony charge to their misdemeanor public intoxication charge, it does nothing but irritate the officers too.

RE: November 2008 Patrol Response: to Bar Fights

Sometimes it's frustration, sometimes it's so they can beef ya. You get them downtown and they start screaming that you worked them over even though you didn't.

Back in the old days cops used to conduct 'screen tests' with unruly suspects in the back seat. Funny, a lot of young cops I talk to have never heard about it.

bar fights

Screen tests, huh? How do you know about that? ;-) Spill it buddy.... :-)

"Is your number still 911?" - Ofc. Rachel T.

RE: November 2008 Patrol Response: to Bar Fights

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