The 3 Gangsters
My career began in a college town. This town had many low income areas, but a large number of the residents were college students from middle and upper middle class families. You could even consider some to be rich. This often created an interesting dynamic which could be observed for example when you would go out to eat or shop. There would be a clear distinction between the college kids and the city residents. The college kids usually only stayed near the campus and their apartments to avoid interacting with the locals. They even came up with a word for the locals. “Eww, a mocal.” The word was a combination of the city and the word local. Needless to say with this kind of attitude towards the locals, it wasn’t a common occurrence to see students of the college away from the immediate campus.
During my first few months as an officer in the college town, there were a string of robberies. The robberies were always the same in nature. Three black males ran up on a group of college kids and robbed them of their possessions. The students also seemed to be under the influence of something. This went on for weeks but none of the officers on patrol ever saw anything or heard anything, even after police presence was increased. All law enforcement was on high alert hoping to catch these criminals.
One night My SGT., Ofc.Jon, and I were all riding together when another one of our officers, Red, called out for backup. Red said that he saw three suspicious black males at an apartment complex. Red rarely called out with suspicious people from my understanding, so this was a bit odd. When we arrived there I could immediately see why he was suspicious. All of the males in the car were wearing gloves and it was the middle of the summer. One individual had a mask next to him. (This was way before covid and the type of mask I’m talking about was one typically used in robberies, not health). What was even weirder was their body language. The driver, Moe, seemed as if he was giving up or surrendering. Head slumped all the way back.The front seat passenger, by the name of Curly, was fast asleep even though he was surrounded by multiple cops. And Larry, the back seat passenger, looked like he was about to have a panic attack. Jon went to check on the sleeping Curly and as soon as he opened the door, he began to use profane language.
The thing about Jon was that he is very respectful. Jon rarely used foul language and he never cursed at people. So the fact that Jon began to curse shocked us all. Jon then yelled out “gun!” Immediately all of us pointed our firearms at someone in the car. While yelling out the gun, Jon picked up Curly and body slammed on the hood. The gun fell to the ground. Curly, with eyes still closed, with a sleepy voice said ‘what the heck man?” Jon said; “you had a gun in your hand when I opened the door.” With eyes still closed Curly laughed and said; “oh. My bad bro.” Curly then briefly opened his eyes, closed them again and went back to sleep. All the males were pulled out of the car and were searched. We found two more guns and some weed. Then one of them admitted to what was going on. They were meeting college kids at their apartments and selling them weed. While they were there they would check out the apartment. They would then come back later and steal the weed back and rob them. This explained why the officers had such a hard time finding the robbers. The “victims” were giving us bad information on the location of the crimes because they did not want the police to know they were buying drugs.
After we finished searching the car someone asked why Curly was so sleepy. Larry said that he drank and smoked a bunch of weed to calm his nerves before the robbery. We tried to hold in our laughter but all of us were thinking “how could Curly rob anyone when he can’t even stay awake.” After the arrest of the three robbers, armed robberies in the city dropped dramatically and the college kids had to get their weed from other sellers.
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