Read Online Fire Lover by Joseph Wambaugh - Free Book Online
Authors: Joseph Wambaugh
Tags: General, True Crime
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law-enforcement officers.
So the real cops could just get over it. He wore an ankle holster and a Walther PPKS .380 semiautomatic, and his little investigative unit was considered low maintenance and brought in several thousand bucks a year in restitution. But he didn't catch any of the arsonists setting those brush fires.
John and his senior partner, Dennis Wilson, were given a tiny office in the old headquarters fire station, but had to scrounge their own desks, typewriter, and file box. Their car was a Ford with a red spotlight, a radio, and eighty thousand hard miles on it. Wilson was a big, fifteen - year Glendale cop with graying hair and a macho cop mustache. The detective was, according to his partner, gruff, irritable, and nonverbal, a family man and a recreational bowler. He intimidated John with his "standard-issue cop attitude."
This was in evidence on one of their first assignments. Glendale police personnel were required to pack a gun at all times, but no fireman, not even the brand-new arson investigator, was allowed to pack while riding in a fire truck. But after a call - out, John climbed aboard a five-ton GMC to drive it to a suspicious fire explosion, and Dennis Wilson made his partner take off the .357 Magnum and stow it in the trunk of the arson car, which Wilson drove to the blaze. That was the first humiliation.
John decided to tie the knot in April with number three. He figured that maybe the third time was the charm. He felt that her daughters got along well with his, and they'd all get together for Ozzie-and - Harriet weekends.
John thought he saw felons everywhere, and sometimes he did. While on a weekend jaunt to a swap meet in Santa Clarita with fellow firefighter Don Yeager, they parked Yeager's Chevy Blazer by a busy highway while they moseyed among open-air stalls. When John happened to glance toward the Blazer he saw somebody sitting inside and it wasn't Yeager, who was talking to some chick at one of the stalls.
Next thing you know, John Orr and a car thief were out there on the highway, in asphalt-melting one-hundred-degree heat, thrashing around and grappling for choke holds. A California Highway Patrol unit happened to be cruising the other way on the highway, spotted the donnybrook, spun a U-ee, and, in that moment, while John was sweating, breathless, scared of being pancaked by a passing eighteen-wheeler, what did he think of when he saw the CHiP running toward him, gun drawn?
"I theorized it wouldn't carry much weight to shout, 'I'm a fireman, don't shoot.' Knowing cop attitudes toward wanna-bes, it might lead him to the wrong conclusion."
So, using cop jargon for "grand theft auto," he yelled, "I'm a cop! This guy's a GTA suspect!"
The traffic cop couldn't possibly have cared if the citizen fighting the dirtbag was a fireman, a cop, or a plum picker from Modesto, yet John Orr was obsessing about cop attitudes toward wanna-bes.
John Orr bagged his first pyromaniac when a landlord reported a series of small fires in an apartment complex. On the last one a "bystander" shouted a warning to residents and escorted some of them out before the engine company arrived. He was the same guy who had recently spotted a purse snatching and captured the thief after a foot pursuit.
John immediately suspected the bystander hero. He wrote, "This guy sounded like me. He even looked like me right down to the mustache."
Then the hero was a bystander once too often and tried fighting a fire with a garden hose, but got overcome by smoke and ended up in an ER with an IV in his arm. He had to give the address of his employer for the hospital records, and he did, but the address belonged to the Glendale Police Department, a clue to the hospital staff that the guy just might be a head case.
John went to see the fellow and got incriminating admissions, filing not only arson charges against him but also bigamy, after the firebug's estranged wife admitted that he hadn't bothered to divorce his first
So the real cops could just get over it. He wore an ankle holster and a Walther PPKS .380 semiautomatic, and his little investigative unit was considered low maintenance and brought in several thousand bucks a year in restitution. But he didn't catch any of the arsonists setting those brush fires.
John and his senior partner, Dennis Wilson, were given a tiny office in the old headquarters fire station, but had to scrounge their own desks, typewriter, and file box. Their car was a Ford with a red spotlight, a radio, and eighty thousand hard miles on it. Wilson was a big, fifteen - year Glendale cop with graying hair and a macho cop mustache. The detective was, according to his partner, gruff, irritable, and nonverbal, a family man and a recreational bowler. He intimidated John with his "standard-issue cop attitude."
This was in evidence on one of their first assignments. Glendale police personnel were required to pack a gun at all times, but no fireman, not even the brand-new arson investigator, was allowed to pack while riding in a fire truck. But after a call - out, John climbed aboard a five-ton GMC to drive it to a suspicious fire explosion, and Dennis Wilson made his partner take off the .357 Magnum and stow it in the trunk of the arson car, which Wilson drove to the blaze. That was the first humiliation.
John decided to tie the knot in April with number three. He figured that maybe the third time was the charm. He felt that her daughters got along well with his, and they'd all get together for Ozzie-and - Harriet weekends.
John thought he saw felons everywhere, and sometimes he did. While on a weekend jaunt to a swap meet in Santa Clarita with fellow firefighter Don Yeager, they parked Yeager's Chevy Blazer by a busy highway while they moseyed among open-air stalls. When John happened to glance toward the Blazer he saw somebody sitting inside and it wasn't Yeager, who was talking to some chick at one of the stalls.
Next thing you know, John Orr and a car thief were out there on the highway, in asphalt-melting one-hundred-degree heat, thrashing around and grappling for choke holds. A California Highway Patrol unit happened to be cruising the other way on the highway, spotted the donnybrook, spun a U-ee, and, in that moment, while John was sweating, breathless, scared of being pancaked by a passing eighteen-wheeler, what did he think of when he saw the CHiP running toward him, gun drawn?
"I theorized it wouldn't carry much weight to shout, 'I'm a fireman, don't shoot.' Knowing cop attitudes toward wanna-bes, it might lead him to the wrong conclusion."
So, using cop jargon for "grand theft auto," he yelled, "I'm a cop! This guy's a GTA suspect!"
The traffic cop couldn't possibly have cared if the citizen fighting the dirtbag was a fireman, a cop, or a plum picker from Modesto, yet John Orr was obsessing about cop attitudes toward wanna-bes.
John Orr bagged his first pyromaniac when a landlord reported a series of small fires in an apartment complex. On the last one a "bystander" shouted a warning to residents and escorted some of them out before the engine company arrived. He was the same guy who had recently spotted a purse snatching and captured the thief after a foot pursuit.
John immediately suspected the bystander hero. He wrote, "This guy sounded like me. He even looked like me right down to the mustache."
Then the hero was a bystander once too often and tried fighting a fire with a garden hose, but got overcome by smoke and ended up in an ER with an IV in his arm. He had to give the address of his employer for the hospital records, and he did, but the address belonged to the Glendale Police Department, a clue to the hospital staff that the guy just might be a head case.
John went to see the fellow and got incriminating admissions, filing not only arson charges against him but also bigamy, after the firebug's estranged wife admitted that he hadn't bothered to divorce his first
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