QUICK SOMEONE LOCK THE DOORS AND PUT OUT THE GONE FISHING SIGN

I worked the front desk, the happy greeter, the ambassador of goodwill towards the public at large, you know happy go lucky officer friendly. And I almost made two arrests while I was there.....

Nitwit number one came in like a ball of fire, yelling and screaming and demanding to know why there was such a long response time to his burglar alarm call. I was more than professional but I calmly advised him that I was unwilling to answer any of his inquiries until he could compose himself and speak to me in a calm and rational manner. He tried.

I checked the computer and the first thing I observed was that there were a ton of "accidental alarm activations" (false alarms) from the address in question. (Now mind you, thats not a reason for a slow response time) But an officer must weigh the reprecussions of going lights and sirens and putting citizens in danger for business owner who refuses to fix the bugs in his system or even send a responder to check the building time and time again. But I digress....
I then checked the response time and it was 7 minutes from the alarm co. calling us to when the officer called off on scene. Seven freaking minutes, the officer could not have gotten there faster if he took the freaking Space Shuttle. I advised him of this and he began talking to me like I was a kindergaten student and then started yelling again, waving his arms, calling me a fucking liar. Generally getting under my skin. To which I countered him with raising my voice and letting him know that I was interpreting his actions as bordering on disorderly conduct. This guy gets all high and mighty after treating me like crap and tells me that I should not take that tone with the public because I'm a police officer, and if I continue he would have to ask to speak with my supervisor. So I offered to get my supervisor for him. I guess he didn't know what do do with that because he turned around and left the station.

Nitwit number two was a process server who was trying to serve two of our detectives with subpoenas. They werent on duty last night and he was trying to pawn the service off on me. They are tricky like that, Service needs to be in hand and signed for by the subpoeneed but some of the slicker process servers have conned the younger rookies into taking them at the window and then writing it up as served, thus being able to collect the money from the person who wants the doccument served. Which is illegal and puts the recipient at risk because if it is served than the person is expected under pains of law to answer the subpoener in court, and if he doesn't get it because it gets lost in the paper shuffle then hes on the hook.

I told him that I refused to accept on behalf of the detectives, he hemmed and hawed and when I wouldn't budge. He demanded to see my supervisor. I obliged and the supervisor told him the same thing. I took a walk to the water cooler and when I returned he was trying to stuff the paperwork into one of the file baskets at the window. I suprised the hell out of him when I asked what the hell he was doing. He started stammering out some explanation and I told him that if I find out that he tried to forge my signature that I would make sure he becomes a guest of our fine establishment. He also packed up quickly and left.

Most of the rest of the night went smoothly until just before quitting time a guy walks in, wearing sunglasses and a trench coat and requests an ambulance, I asked him what his chief complaint was and he said that he was feeling suicidal. He then advised that he did not wish to answer any more of my questions. I made sure I got my ass out to the lobby and searched him for weapons. All I could picture was this guy yanking out a piece and firing at will. And I sure as hell didn't want that to happen. Hey, just because Im paranoid dosent mean they aint out to get me OK?