Spending my night in the back of a police car

No no, I wasn’t arrested for commiting a crime. I just got to view the action of last night from the rear of one of Puente Hill’s finest.

Yesterday I spent the day in Arcadia after watching the bitter losses of both Korea and the USA. A lot of us had fun jumping from cliffs and hiking in the Santa Anita mountains. As the day started winding down, a couple of us found ourselves at an Arcadian boba place talking about how Caleb Lin is the stuff of legends.

Hitting the road around 12 AM, I felt my body hit extreme fatigue from the day’s many activities. My eyes started to flutter and my mind yearned for a few minutes of sleep. So I pulled over off the freeway ramp and parked on the side of the road for a little shut eye.

That was Mistake #1.

An hour after my self-initiated nap, I awoke to a loud banging on the driver’s side window. I didn’t know where I was or what was happening. All I saw was two figures outside of my car, yelling very loudly. So I opened the door.

Mistake #2

I was immediately grabbed by a man wearing a purple argyle sweater.

Kinda like this one, without the boobs

(Funny is that was the only thing I remember of the three men) He grabbed the keys out of my hand and threatened to end my life if I didn’t listen to everything he said. I saw and felt more hands as they dragged me to the curb. They threw me on the floor and ordered me to empty my pockets. I had only four dollars in my wallet after spending most of it during the day, so I quietly laughed at their “misfortune”. Obviously upset at how broke I was, they pulled me up and continued to threaten to kill me. I was told to walk forward until I reached a metal link fence 50 feet away.

Those fifty feet were the longest walk I had in my life. I felt like I was walking the plank, trudging to the guillotine, meeting a firing squad. And as if on queue, my life flashed before my eyes and I regret began welling within my heart.

I would never see my mom again, when I had just promised her days prior I would visit.
I would never fulfill my dreams, coming up REAL short in God’s plan for my life.
I would never meet my future wife, whoever she is.

My heart simultaneously sunk and shook violently, as at any moment I expected the sound of a gun to go off. It never came. And as what felt like an eternity, I waited for some sort of signal to move. I heard my car alarm go off and what sounded like tires screeching. I nervously turned my head around, and saw that my assaulters had left.

I ran to the Winchell’s donuts nearby. I never sprinted so quickly in my life.

Winchell fails

I burst through the door and asked the worker if I could use their phone to call the cops. This is how the conversation went.

Me: “Excuse me sir, I’ve been robbed. Can I use your phone to call the cops?”
Worker: “No”
Me: “I mean can I use the phone to call the P-O-L-I-C-E”
Worker: “No”
Me: “Are you serious?”
Worker: “Yes” I never felt so dumbfounded!

All of a sudden I didn’t feel safe in that donut shop (I will NEVER eat at Winchell’s ever again. I hope they go out of business) so I ran to the 24 Hour Mexican food spot next door. I found more sympathetic people there and they let me finally call the cops. As I was waiting for them to come, some locals struck up a conversation with me. They asked me if I could give them a description of my attackers. I told them it was three black men, and then they started speaking with other in spanish.

Finally one of them told me that the robbers could not be from this area. He stated that “the Mexicans got this place down, and local black people wouldn’t dare pull that kinda shit here.”

Strangely, their words comforted me, as if I had the Mexicans of Puente Hills on my side. The cops came a few minutes later and started to question me on what had happened. I felt amazingly stupid to tell them I had wanted to take a nap in the seediest part of Puente Hills. In fact, one of the officers was kind enough to point out that any place near strip clubs, used car lots, and zero nearby residential housing was probably NOT the best place to park and sleep. Feeling thoroughly embarrassed, I could only nod and assure him I would never do such a foolish thing again. Shoot, after tonight I probably wont drive in the dark for the next few months.

Twenty Minutes later, we were joined by a man driving a large truck. He claimed to be a witness to the events that transpired, which led me to think, “WHY THE HELL DID YOU NOT CALL THE COPS IMMEDIATELY?”. Could’ve saved me a lot problems. Nonetheless I was happy that there was a chance that the culprits could be nabbed, so I tried to listen in on his conversation with the cops. Apparently the thieves drove a white Cadillac and were heading eastbound on the 60. At this moment, I kind of got excited to be on a pseudo episode of COPS.

I got into one of the patrol cars and the cops drove me over to my car to see what was taken. I rummaged around and realized they had taken my phone but not my laptop. PC users perhaps. I jumped back into their car, and off we rode to the city of Diamond Bar.

I had no idea what to talk about in the car. Both of the officers were very quiet and stern looking. The one on the left looked like Cliff Curtis of “The Last Airbender” fame, and the one on the right was a buff looking Stephen Matsuoka. So me being me, I tried to strike up a conversation.

Me: “Man what a crappy day, first Korea and the US lose in soccer, now this.”
Officer CC: “Gruff, mumble”
Officer SM: “…”

And so I was rather unsuccessful at my first attempt to build a dialogue with these two men. Instead I started to check out the backseat. In all my years of being the son of an LAPD officer, I had never been in the backseat of a patrol car. Of course my dad would threaten to arrest me as a child, but that didn’t happen either. The seats were some military grade plastic and the barrier between the front and back seat was thick and impossible to manuever around. I began to really enjoy this!

We finally got to a gas station in Diamond bar with about fifteen patrol units swarming the area. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve guessed there had been a shoot-out. Something I thought was pretty funny at the time was the name of the gas station’s mini-mart.

“On the Run” You couldn’t make this stuff up.

I had thought I was going to be doing a line-up at the sheriffs station, but they had the guys walk up in front of me while I was still in the car. I was assured they couldn’t see my face, but in my head I was like “They robbed me, of COURSE they already knew what my face looked like”.

In any case I quickly identified the first guy, the guy who bashed on my window. In the TV cop shows I had always thought the identification process was so easy and that the victims were so idiotic to not know their attackers, but I really wasn’t sure about the other two guys. In fact, guy number two and guy number three both looked like they could’ve been anyone. I admitted to the cop I wasn’t really sure, and that I was just too frazzled to think clearly. He said it was fine, and signaled to the others to send the crooks to the jailhouse.

So I took a nap.

I awoke to Officer CC asking me if I wanted anything from the mini-mart. Free stuff always gets me feeling a little bit better! So I gingerly walked inside to grab some coffee. I puffed my chest out to the worker there who asked me if I was the guy who got robbed.

As if being robbed raised the level of my manliness!

I quickly poured myself a cup of coffee. One hour before I was worried I would never eat or drink again, but here I was mixing hazelnut syrup with Seattle’s Best. Unsurprisingly it was the best cup of coffee I had ever had in my life! All of my stuff was recovered but had to be claimed as evidence. Now I am without my phone or license for the next few days. Which I think is more irritating than being robbed. And I have to go to court to put these guys away. So annoying.

Before I got back into my own car, Officer CC left me with one comment.

“Now you got a kick-ass story to share with all your friends.”

I really do.