Oceanside Chronicles – PD: Season 3, Episode 7

Get caught up:

Veterans Day had passed and Thanksgiving was still almost two weeks away.  It was a Saturday evening that was cold enough in Oceanside to keep most of the criminals, ner-do-wells and other assorted idiots inside.  The squad was working evening shift and was filling the quiet time with various traffic stops.  Since neither Max nor Sean was a trainee (anymore), there was no “pull this one over so you can learn how to do this,” type of traffic enforcement.  If they made a stop it was because they legitimately felt something needed to be addressed.  Since traffic enforcement is nearly 100% discretionary, they ignored some of the stuff that they COULD have stopped… cracked brake light lenses, the display light on a license plate that wasn’t lit, etc.

They were on a state highway – six lanes wide, three in either direction – and it was after dark, when they ended up behind an older four door sedan.  It was an ugly off-white color and Max realized that it had originally been white but had faded due to time and a lack of care.  A closer look revealed that it was a mid-eighties Chevy Malibu; a type of vehicle that had been used as a police car at one time.  This one didn’t have the spotlight still attached but the black rubber plugs that filled the holes in the trunk lid where the antennas used to be… those rubber plugs were still there.

They could only see one occupant and it looked like a fairly short person; they could barely see the top of the driver’s head over the seat’s headrest.  Still, it was commonplace for gang-bangers, druggies, dealers, and general riff-raff to take decommissioned police cars, from any era, and drive them.  The upgraded suspensions, pursuit motors and general appearance often helped the bad guys who drove such vehicles to get out of tight spots.  The local gang, The Breakers, had a fleet of such vehicles and were notorious for driving them at excessive speeds, flashing their headlights, honking their horns and using the spotlights to intimidate other drivers.  The police department would regularly get calls of complaint about “the undercover cops who drove so rudely and aggressively.”

As Max and Sean traveled along behind the decommissioned police car they paid attention to how it was driven. The driver was keeping it within the speed limit and stayed pretty well centered in the lane.  The driver also used blinkers to change lanes and wasn’t tail-gating anyone.  It was then that Max realized the registration was expired.  The tags showed an expiration of March 2015 – and here they were in November.  Max activated the emergency lights while Sean called the stop into dispatch.  When he was done on the radio Sean started typing the vehicle’s license plate number into the mobile data terminal (MDT) that was mounted between the front seats of their cruiser.

The driver of the target vehicle took a few moments to realize that there was a police car behind it trying to stop it...

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Read the rest of this episode, part of Season Three, in the anthology ebook available exclusively on Amazon for kindle: http://amzn.to/2jcbPVB