This week’s anecdote is about one of those times I could have done much better than I did, but I was caught off guard until the opportunity to act had passed.
Last week I recounted getting bounced off the hood of a car while working at a gas station off duty from my regular police job when a driver skipped out on a bill. This incident happened at the same gas station.
A recent year model Chevy Blazer had pulled into the station and the driver picked out a set of expensive off-road tires from the tire rack. He asked to have them put on his Blazer right away. It seemed unwarranted because he already had a set of off-road tires of the same size on his Blazer and they showed almost no wear, certainly not enough to need replacing.
Nonetheless, he had cash and the sale of a new set of high dollar tires would boost the day’s receipts at the station. I was waiting on cars and pumping gas out front while a couple of the other attendants mounted and balanced the new tires.
I had happened back into the mechanic’s bay just as they had finished tightening down the lugnuts. As they were lowering the Blazer back the floor I had happened to move around to the front of the vehicle. I could see through the tinted windows to the bright daylight behind the Blazer through the open mechanic’s bay doors.
As the wheels touched the floor, I realized I was looking at the silhouette of two very large potted marijuana plants in the back of the Blazer. In hindsight, I realized later that I should have immediately bolted for the lift switch and raised the truck back up off the floor to prevent the guy from leaving. But at the time, I was so flabbergasted that all I could do was stare. The driver immediately got into his vehicle and having already paid from a large roll of bills in his pocket, he backed out and took off for the interstate headed east.
When I snapped out of my stupor, I ran to the phone and called the police dispatcher. Highway Patrol set up few miles east of town and stopped the vehicle. Sure enough, the Trooper made the arrest for two of the largest potted marijuana plants he’d ever seen. The stop occurred across the county line, though, and I never learned what became of the case.
My guess as to why the guy bought the new tires was that he had left tire tracks of his old tires somewhere in commission of a crime, possibly on a farm outside of town where he was cultivating marijuana. From that experience, I learned that even off duty, when I saw an offense, I had to act fast. I had failed to do so and the narcotics case could easilty have slipped away.