Credit Where Credit Is Due

There's an anti-government, therefore anti-cop slant to this blog.

Cops are part of the government, so when I bitch about the aspect of government that's in their sphere, I am bitching about cops too.

Unlike a good many people who are anti-cop, I am not opposed to the idea of the police.

I like the idea of cops.  It's just that our governments, laws and regulations are so out of whack that it's easy to start blaming the police themselves for the shit sandwich we're all eating.

Last Tuesday, the Pasco and Pinellas County Sheriff's departments got to do good old fashioned peace officer, help someone in need work.

I imagine the kind of work that lots of officers, deputies and troopers crave:

While I was in Seattle, one of the staff from The Boy's school volunteered to hang with him after school until Harvey got home from work (that way she could save her paid time off).

On Tuesday, The Boy convinced the volunteer that since, "Mommy never more than ten minute late!" that it would be OK for the volunteer to leave at the normal time even though Harvey wasn't actually home yet.

He's OK to be alone for short periods, even a couple hours, so a theoretical ten minutes is machts nichts.

Mommy was twenty minutes late.

She got home and there's no Boy.  Front door was ajar.

The Boy has been known to take walks around the block, so she called him.

A call to his cell phone gets a connection and hang up.

A call back gets the someone-has-shut-off-the-phone-straight-to-voice-mail.

NOW she can panic!

Calls go out to everyone whom he might want to visit.  They station someone at that destination and send someone along a route to our house searching.

No sign.

911 call.

"At least 12 deputies," show up, ask their questions and begin their search.  Our proximity to the next county causes them to be called in as well.

The Boy turns up at a Wal Mart seven miles away.  Two of our friends work there, so he decided that he wanted to see them.

The people at Wal Mart got him to turn on his phone and one of our friend's daughters was serially dialing his phone hoping for a connection.  She got him on the phone and asked where he was, "Me at <friends> Wal Mart!"

This information is relayed to the deputies stationed at our house, then to the next county, then they hauled ass to the store to collect him.

Then they collected him and sped him home.

HUZZAH!

Ultimately, our social network actually found him, but credit is due to the departments not equivocating, stalling or delaying their search.  Too many retarded kids up and vanish because some department policy about missing people means there's a mandatory minimum time before they can start looking.

Double kudos to Pinellas County for telling the nice folks at Wal Mart to just hang out with him out front instead of attempting to confine him in the offices.  This "loose tether" approach is the appropriate way to treat people like The Boy.