Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)

SnapShot: Dayuuuummm, You Fine!

Aaron...DJ, Musician, Superhero Season 2 Episode 72

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"Damn you fine...you aight." Four simple words that sparked a decade-long inside joke between two police officers and perfectly captures the unexpected moments of levity in law enforcement.

Nothing humbles you quite like trying to command a situation while someone completely ignores you for your partner. There I was, nine years into my policing career, undergoing field training with my new department in Portland. Every aspect of my performance was under scrutiny—my decision-making, my people skills, and especially my command presence. The uniform was perfect, posture on point, ready to tackle whatever came our way.

Our call led us to a notoriously dangerous apartment complex, the kind that consumed 80% of department resources and required backup for even routine matters. As the trainee, I needed to take control of the interaction with our complainant, an African-American woman with a neighborhood dispute. But my partner—a muscular, older officer with unbuttoned uniform, visible tactical vest, and what kids today would call "riz"—had unwittingly stolen the spotlight.

Despite my best efforts to position myself as the lead officer, the woman couldn't stop staring at my partner. Mid-complaint, she paused to exclaim, "Damn you fine," to which he graciously replied, "Thank you." When I jokingly asked, "What about me?" her brutal honesty—"You aight"—delivered the perfect ego check that would echo through department hallways for years to come.

Those moments of unexpected humanity and humor form the bonds that help officers survive the daily pressures of the job. We're both retired now, grateful to have made it through our careers, but that brief exchange remains one of my favorite memories from my time behind the badge. Sometimes the most meaningful police stories aren't about the calls we take, but the laughs we share along the way.

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Speaker 1:

All right. So there I am right. I just started with my police department here in the big city metropolis of Portland, oregon area and I'm on field training. I've been a cop nine years at this point and I feel like I carry myself pretty well. I feel like I can wear a uniform and I know how to posture myself. I know you know my buttons, buckles, balls everything is in a straight line. Uniform is looking tight. F thing is they're good. So I'm out on field training.

Speaker 1:

One day and my partner and I we get sent to this apartment complex in the middle of the ghetto. There's a certain part of our town that it requires 80% of the resources, 80% of the time, and the apartment complex I'm going to is right in the heart. Now this apartment complex is an African-American apartment complex I'm going to is right in the heart. Now this apartment complex is an African-American apartment complex. A lot of gangs live there. It's an apartment complex that, literally, if we're on patrol and we do a traffic stop and somebody rolls deep into this complex, we're not going to go in without cover. It's that kind of a complex, right, and I think anybody listening to this who's worked in big cities you understand what I'm talking about. The clientele is not really police friendly. Anyway, we get a call for service there. So our call for service I can't remember what it was, it was pretty something mundane, but I go there and, being in field training, it's going to be my job to lead that call. I am being graded on everything that I do. I am being graded on the way I interact with people, my solutions, my decision-making process, my lack of decision-making process, the way that I mitigate and mediate things. All that stuff is getting judged right. So I need to be the one in charge of this and if people don't see me as the one in charge, then I get knocked down for that, because that means my command presence isn't good. No matter how good my uniform looks, my command presence isn't there. So I go knock the door at this complainant's address and this lady comes to the door. It's a black lady. She comes to the door and she's like you know, hey, my neighbors, or blah, blah, blah, whatever the complaint was, and I'm like all right. So you know, as I'm, as I'm talking to her, I noticed that she's distracted.

Speaker 1:

But I want to describe my partner, my partner on this call. He is probably 20 years older than me at the time Probably still is. He is shorter, stocky, bodybuilder. He's that guy that wears bedazzled jeans on the weekends. His shirt is unbuttoned, probably one more than everybody else in the department. He's wearing that internal vest that you can see constantly flexing the muscles, like bodybuilders do. I don't know why, I'm not a bodybuilder but they flex the muscles all the time and just kind of, you know, twitch and flex A little bit of chest hair hanging out, short haircut, kind of a Rico Suave looking cat. You know kids these days would say dude's got riz, he's fire little skibbity riz, ohio, whatever. Kids would say. That's what they would be saying about this guy.

Speaker 1:

And I noticed that the gal talking to me is distracted by him and she like, literally she's talking to me but she steps to the side. Now she's completely looking at him, talking to me but staring at him. So I'm like I got to take control of this, right. So I step over, I get back in front of her and I'm like all right, you know, ma'am, focus your attention on me. So I'm talking to her and she steps to the other direction so she can get a better shot at my partner back there and we're mid-talking, mid-sentence, and she stops what she's talking about and she's like, damn you fine, talking to my partner, and he's like, well, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1:

And I'm like, hey, so what about me? She's like you aight, damn you, fine, boy. I'm like, oh well, I guess I'm just aight. Anyway, we finished that. Call so for the next 10 years. As I'm walking around the police department with this dude, every time we pass each other in the hall, I'm like, damn you, fine, he's like you aight. And that was our you aight call. So anyway, it was fun, it was a fun memory, and that guy's now retired, I'm now retired, we're both living better lives and blessed to have made it to the other side. That's a Murders to Music snapshot.

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