Thanks to a quirk of the scheduling system, the squad ended up working the evening shift for two weeks in a row. It only happened once a year, but it was still that annual event that every squad in the department complained about. USUALLY the squads rotated days and evenings, with a dedicated midnight shift that never rotated (and, oddly enough, seemed to like it that way). The weeks of day shift and evening shift flip flopped but once each year they got stuck with two weeks of evening shifts. Truth be told, most of them would prefer that instead of having to do two weeks of day shifts, but they still liked to grumble about it. Police officers are like everyone else in that aspect: they like to have something to complain about every now and then. This scheduling “glitch” was an easy target.
As a result, the squad was on its ninth day of their evening shifts in a two week period. The weather wasn’t terrible. The temperatures were typical for the winter months in the mid-Atlantic region and there were plenty of gray clouds overhead. It looked like it wanted to snow, but the closest they’d gotten so far was some REALLY cold rain; not quite cold enough to freeze, but only a degree or two off of that.
Max and Sean were quiet as they patrolled. It wasn’t that neither of them was talkative, but the gray overcast day seemed to put a damper on their usual energy. Max was thinking about the fact that JP was on daywork and was going to be waiting for him at his place when he got off shift. Sean was thinking about what he wanted for dinner. The rest of the squad was similarly quiet in their cars.
Unit 1094, Eddie, had gotten out on the road late. He’d run into Saul Panadopolus again and Saul had asked him for an opinion on data storage. Saul was pushing hard for a single source buy for the agency’s upgraded video storage and access unit. He wanted to purchase the Quantum product but had to argue needs and capabilities to make the contract a sole source option. Otherwise, Quantum was going to have to submit a proposal to get the bid like every other storage solution company in the market.
Eddie didn’t know a lot about the data storage options. He knew enough to know that he didn’t want to get moved out of patrol and into the Communications & Records division. He WAS aware, though, of the huge amounts of data the video capture systems generated and he’d heard complaints from folks like Saul about how it was costly to store all that data. At roughly $1000 per officer per year in data storage fees just from the body-cams used by the agency, Oceanside PD was absorbing roughly a half million dollars per year. Saul said that Quantum could save the agency over a quarter of that (he said 28%). It sounded good to Eddie but he wasn’t sure it was a big enough case to make Quantum the sole source provider. It might still have to go through the proposal and bid process.
The conversation kept Eddie in the station for a half hour longer than he had wanted. By the time he’d gotten out to the streets, his squad was well settled into their patrol routines.
Unit 1095 was Max and Sean. They weren’t gloomy per se, but they weren’t their usual boisterous selves either.
Unit 1096 was the twin towers of terror, Mike and Kyle. Their patrol car was usually quiet because neither of them was an overly talkative person. They were both aggressive officers, eager to catch a bad guy, make a big arrest or a big drug seizure. They were on patrol like sharks just off shore looking for prey.
Unit 1097 was Sam and Dave. Sam was a prior service Marine who was aggressive and energetic enough, but he took his lead from his senior partner, Dave. Dave was on the downslope of his 25 years before retiring. He was about 17 years in and hadn’t even taken the Sergeant’s test for promotion. He was a comfortable corporal happy to work but not really wanting to break a sweat doing it.
Unit 1098 was Pete and Bill. Both were veterans of the police department with a combined time on between them of almost 40 years. Pete had been partners with a squad member named Keith Winston. Keith had recently passed away, quite unexpectedly, leaving Pete without a partner. Bill had been JP’s senior partner until she transferred over to beach patrol. Eddie put Pete and Bill together knowing that they’d get along and be productive (and also knowing that neither of them really cared for the younger generation of officers hitting the streets).
It wasn’t long into the shift when the radio squawked.
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