Since I am getting such a nice response from morons in the thread I started about my driving career, I thought I would take the time now to relate my experience with the Burbank, CA police department when my friend Danny’s wife killed herself while suffering from post-partum depression.
Kelly was a wonderful human being. She had it all. Incredible looks, brains, sparkling personality, warm heart. She and my man Danny were married, and they were both working for me at my video production studio. She had become a talented Avid editor and Danny was showing his chops using Lightwave and Photoshop, as he still does today. Danny and Kelly had a beautiful daughter, Deja, during this time.
Shortly after Deja was born, Kelly started showing symptoms of Post-partum depression. One night when we were having a few drinks at the studio, she outlined a macabre scenario for her own suicide. Her Mother was there, as was Danny. She described the exact method she would use, running out the front door of the very house where I am typing this, and down the street where she would lay on the on-ramp to the southbound 5 freeway from eastbound Alameda, where she would then proceed to lie down and wait for the next car.
Needless to say, this alarmed the crap out of me, and the next day I contacted a therapist that I had done IT consulting for, and got a referral. I offered to pay for her to get therapy, either from my client’s referral or a therapist of their choice. Sadly, I was greeted with derision. “Kelly isn’t crazy, Stan, Your’e the one that’s crazy!” said her Mother. She doesn’t need help!
A few weeks later, on Danny’s birthday, she fled the celebration and carried out her plan.
I had been working late at the studio, and came to the party in time to find them arguing over food. There were probably 20 people there, and Kelly had apparently been drinking most of the evening and was fighting with Danny because all the barbecue had been eaten, trivial shit.
Not wanting to deal with the drama, I headed off to Ralphs, and picked up some prepared food. As I came back, I noticed a bunch of ambulances and cops at the 5 on-ramp, but didn’t think anything of it.
When I got back to the house, everyone was gone except for a couple of close friends.
“Where did everybody go?”
“They all took offf.”
“Who took off?”
“Danny, Kelly…”
At that point I realized that something wasn’t right and I went down the block to the freeway onramp. The cops asked me what I was doing, and I told them that they probably wanted to talk to me. I asked them what happened, and they said a girl had been run over, and at that point I knew for sure. I insisted on looking at the body, and of course it was her.
Cops told me to get in the car, but I insisted on walking back to the house, where I was interrogated.
“Why did Danny kill his wife?” “What gang does he hang out with?” “Who are his gang friends?” “Where would he go?”
I could answer the last one. I told them that he probably went to my studio, something he had done before when his wife became unreasonable. I told them where to go, what his van looked like, etc.
They came back and claimed that he wasn’t at the studio. I was taken to the station and given the 3rd degree for the rest of the night. “Do you know the names of any of Danny’s gang friends? Where do they live?” “Where does Danny keep his guns?” and on and on.
Danny has never been in a gang, and I doubt if the man could even load a gun, or know which end to point, much less fire one, but I guess the cops thought that any Hispanic person must be in a gang, and armed to the hilt, because they refused to believe me. Finally dawn comes, and, lo and behold, they spot Danny’s van parked behind the studio, just where I told them it would be. They took the keys to my business and went in swat team style. It is a miracle that they didn’t murder him on the spot.
At that time I was allowed to return to my place of business. They had the van up on a flatbed, with a bunch of cops going over the undercarriage. I walked around the vehicle, and loudly proclaimed (so no-one could make any mistake) “No blood here, not even a speck, and the van has not been washed!”
Some young jerkoff cop confronted me and said “Do you get off on being right all the time?” “No, I get off on not having my best friend framed for murder by stupid cops.” Pissant little puke.
Well, that pretty much put the kibosh on their stupid theory that Danny had somehow chased his wife out the door and run her over. The detective in charge admitted to me that at that point it did not look to them that Danny was culpable, and I was thankful that truth had prevailed. What a fool I was.
During the whole day, after they had exculpatory evidence, they were still trying to get poor Danny to confess. They used the “Lie Detector” (1000% voodoo science) on him, grilled him six ways to Sunday, etc. Danny later related to me that “They had me believing I really did kill her.”
So, to make it short and sweet, fuck the police. I have never needed them, they have never helped me, and in fact, when my house was getting broken into, it was little old me that singlehandedly apprehended the 3 burglars and handed them over to justice, but that, children, is a story for another time. 