One of my officers had stopped a car and after a few minutes called for a supervisor. I responded out and saw the officer standing beside his car, behind the Lincoln Town Car he had pulled over. It was about 1 AM, and dark, with street lights in a downtown neighborhood with a high crime rate.
“DUI?” I asked.
“No. There are two guys in the car and neither one of them has any ID on them. The driver keeps telling me he’s a famous football player, Blah Blah.” (I’m not going to include his name because I don’t want to get sued).
I shrugged my shoulders because I had never heard of him, but then again, I’m not really a football person and this guy had played in the late 70s, early 80s. The original officer was not a big football fan either, so we were a little stumped as the guy had a somewhat common name and we were not finding a match in the database for a drivers license.
I approached the driver and asked him his name. He looked at me in shock and said, “I’m Blah Blah,” in a manner that suggested, of course he is. He then handed me his Superbowl Ring. I can now say that I’ve held a real Superbowl Ring. He kept telling me, “I’m Blah Blah,” like repeating it was going to make me realize who he was. Finally, I handed the ring back and walked back to the other officer.
I asked the officer what the stop was for and he explained that the Town Car had been driving around the small neighborhood several times, driving into a couple of different parking lots and driving back out, and finally did so without turning on their headlights. The officer believed that the two men were looking for either drugs or prostitutes or both, but just weren’t familiar enough with the neighborhood to know where to look.
But since the officer didn’t have anything else to go on and a couple of tries on the date of birth finally brought up a driver license, the officer let them go with a warning.
The next morning, I called my brother-in-law who happened to be a die hard fan of the team that Blah Blah had said he played for. I asked my brother-in-law if he knew who Blah Blah was and said that we had stopped him earlier that morning. My brother-in-law was very excited and said that of course he new who Blah Blah was and gave me a run down of his career.
Finally, he asked, “What did you guys stop him for?”
I responded, “We thought he might be looking to buy drugs or prostitutes.”
My brother-in-law didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, yep. That would be him.”