Meth House Call- Video

This call, as I say in the video, was day two of a call that began when a fire at an in the middle of nowhere ranch led to the discovery of the meth lab that was there. The Fire Department and the Sheriff's department usually responded to calls like that together, this time it paid off for them. For the owners, not so much.

I had begun to stop leaving the date and time on all the time on the camera. I used to get tired of seeing it in most of the videos on shows of the era like "Funniest Home Videos" so I went to great pains to not show it in our videos. If I had at least jotted down the info that would have been a great alternative!
Now, in going over the videos I have while converting them to DVD, I wish I hadn't omitted the information so much as having that day and date sure would help over a decade later!

Back to the call-
It had begun the day before, a Saturday if I remember correctly (see.... no date!), with me having to bring a horse trailer from the valley to help area officer Suzanne, start the process of picking all the animals up that were on the property. All the residents had been arrested and that was standard procedure back then. If there were no people left or identified as care takers for any animals, they all got impounded and could be later reclaimed at the shelter. In this case all the animals were to be taken two hours away to the Devore Animal Shelter.
So after I made the over two hour drive with the trailer we got busy after finally finding the place, literally out in the middle of nowhere off a power line road near the Harper Dry Lake area North and West of the community of Hinkley, California.
Hinkley was later made kind of (in)famous by the 2000, Julia Roberts film "Erin Brockovich" about the polluted and undrinkable water from the chemical plants in the area and the dumped chemicals getting into the local ground water. Oh, and by the way, that is still happening all these years later too. I saw a few months back that bottled water was being trucked in for the school and residents because the water was so unsafe, still!! I guess luckily for me, I always carried my own 5 gallon cold water container in my truck and NEVER drank the local water while 'out in the field'.
Again, back to the call!-
At the 'ranch' there were a couple of dogs and quite a few horses, chickens, pigs, all kinds of hay and feed for everything too. Suzanne and I loaded up our trucks and the trailer with what we could and took it down to Devore and impounded it all. Since everything at the ranch was in OK shape and with all the food and such there, we made sure everything would be alright overnight and arrangements were made to go back the next day with another ACO, Stacy, and the other larger "stock" trailer the department had at the time to pick up all that was left and still there.
We were to pick up the animals and also take all the hay and feed we could load into the trucks and trailers to help feed all the animals we were taking.
As the video shows and I say, it was another two plus hours out the next morning and we get there and see what's still there to take. Believing that, correctly, some of the possible owners of some of the horses might, after hearing of the bust, might sneak in and take their animals. The property being so far out wasn't under any kind of guard overnight. So anything could have happened.
What we did find though on arrival as I mention was that since the place was going to be a "practice burn" and demolished since it was an illegal drug house, the fire department personnel had come through and 'cleaned out' the place of all kinds of equipment that could be used by the station or by them. Things like several generators, power tools, things like that. The thing that bugged us was the personnel that had large livestock at home had taken every bit of the Hay and horse feed that had been there the night before.
Yes, we would have taken it all too had it been there, we still took all the bagged feed still there, but we wouldn't take it for us. It would have been to take care of all the livestock we were taking.

So we loaded everything we could up. I remember that some chickens may have escaped. That did often happen with those especially if there were many loose, even in a large enclosure, it was very difficult to catch and remove them without a few getting out too. They would be left to fend for themselves because after escape they could never be caught again. In typing this I'm remembering the phrase that one ACO used to say all the time about the "circle of life". Oh well.

I know the video doesn't show any of the work of catching and loaded or even unloading the animals. Most of the video, and I had to trim it to fit the 15 minutes YouTube maximum length, is of the long drive out and the desolate area. I know I remember back then I wanted to be able to show what the area was like to drive and be in. Nice in winter and miserable in Summer, Stacy and I once talked about maybe moving farther 'out' since our area had begun to get crowded, to the Barstow area, NOT Hinkley! We'd also thought about moving to the mountains and the Big Bear area, but that area was already overcrowded, winter and summer!

We thought about it, didn't happen. I really have never been a fan of really hot, like over 110 F (+43 C) in the daytime with a low of 90 F (+32 C) at night. That happens in mid summer in that area due to the lower altitude and distance from any cooling winds like the Phelan area had from the Cajon Pass and the valley that cooled that high desert area down except for a few summer nights each year. Relatively cooler yes, but still often much cooler than out towards Barstow, Dagget and Newberry Springs!

The outcome of the call? Well as I mention in the video, Stacy found paperwork that many of the horses the department had impounded were actually papered and worth a lot of money each. They were all ultimately reclaimed as I recall. I never had to go back out there on any calls so i don't know if the fire department had their burn or not. Probably did though as that was often exactly what happened with drug places like this one was.

So, that's the story of this video!

The Pig Hauler Wreck- Video Memory

Pretty much as Stacy narrates as we were arriving at the beginning of the video, it was during the night of a December 1st, I think in 1991. While we were not 'on-call' that night, it was one of quite a few times that a call had come in that required more than one ACO to handle. In this case it was almost everyone, except for two people, that worked the high desert along with one from the low desert, and a Supervisor that lived in the high desert too.

We had been woken up around midnight or so about this big rig crash on Interstate 40 East of Barstow, California. Up and out in about a half hour to the hour and a half away call, we got there that very early and cold morning.

The truck as you will or have already seen was hauling a large load of pigs to a "Farmer John" processing plant in the Los Angeles area. The story we got when we arrived was that about 11 PM the driver had been reaching to pick up some paperwork somewhere in the truck cab and had drifted off the freeway into the steep center area and when he tried to correct and get back on the freeway it was too late and with the weight of the load and the sandy soil on that steep drop the rig overturned. In the wreck many of the pigs were killed instantly, crushed by the weight of all the other loose pigs in the hauler.
Many were injured, many apparently not injured too badly. In the turn over, the double decker trailer broke open so the ones that could and injured also escaped out into the desert and all around the accident. We were also told that the drivers wife had been a sleep in the sleeper compartment. They were both long gone before we got there. There was speculation that considering that the rig had fallen off from the 'fast lane' that maybe the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel because he should have been in the slow lane or the right of the two lanes going each way.

The California Highway Patrol arrived first, the Barstow station was less than a half hour away, and then the calls went out get people out to round up the escapees and deal with the severely injured survivors.
Animal Control, local ranchers with stock trailers, anybody in the rather isolated area were called out.

I guess luckily for the pigs, even though only temporarily, was the drainage tunnel that was the escape route for many pigs so they didn't have to climb up and be on the freeway, they'd just run through the tunnel and out into the open desert.
First thing was get the pigs! Although not taped we took three or four loads of pigs in our truck and then with the two horse trailer to an area that was set up in the East End of Barstow to hold the 'escapees'. It is no longer there, out of business long before I left, but back then there was the "Wild Horse Truck Stop" and there were also horse corrals set up at the time for some rodeo type activities that used to be staged there.
The CHP and a couple of our ACO's had to shoot the gravely injured pigs that were closest to the scene of the accident. Too many injured and too large to use the drugs that we ACO's carried to deal with severely injured or sick small animals like cats and dogs.
It took hours to catch and transport the pigs. I know that more than a couple of pigs never made it to the temporary storage, thrown in the back of pick up tucks or kept in the trailers of the helpers to become, "the other white meat" for them.
The big rig tow trucks that worked all night to get the rig back up finally were successful a little after sun up.

It was a story on the morning radio news on the Barstow "Highway Station" as well as the Victorville country station we used to listen to at the time, no XM satellite radio for a few years to come back then!
Pretty much everyone that had gone out on this call, since we'd already worked the equivalent of a shift, got to go home and get some sleep. Until the next time!

Video 2 in Chronological order

This video is one of the three I remember being mentioned as having been made for training purposes. This one is geared for "Utility Workers" with the other two being one for Law Enforcement staff and one for Postal Employees.
The footage for this video and the Law Enforcement video were recorded the same day with the same people playing different characters. Many of us "License Checkers" were there for part of the day so they could be the 'actors' or just watch it being made. Since our uniform was basically a Sheriff uniform anyway, someone had borrowed a deputies shirt, they had different shoulder patches, and they just used an ACO badge on that shirt and became the deputy in the video for Law Enforcement. Bullet proof vests weren't worn all the time by police back then as they are now.

In this video, the guy that comes to the door was a field ACO, Dennis, who had actually been off work recovering from a recent motorcycle accident, hence the limp. It was taped at his rental house in San Bernardino. The 'house wife' was played by Sara T., she was also a License Checker and had been hired the same month as I had been back in 1981. And License Checker Danny played the hapless Utility guy who is supposed to be chased by a vicious Great Dane. The dog was borrowed and would not chase anybody! It was take after take to try and get the dog to even look like it was aggressive. One of the final takes was having someone hold the dog in back and then have Danny run and the owner calling the dog. Close enough I guess.

The basic information in the video is actually still the same today for the most part.

The program manager, Pat English, was taped and his voice over done in the basement of the Public Health building in San Bernardino which was were the Audio/Visual section was at the time. The County art department did the cartoon drawings and then it was all edited together. Like I say on the YouTube site, it looks pretty bad by today's standards, a kid could do better nowadays on an old computer, but back in 1982 this was cutting edge stuff. Nobody HAD computers yet! I remember Pat English going on and on about the cost of the "project", his pet project actually since he got to be in the video too.
I do remember some showings being done for and at different groups, but it wasn't long before the tapes were buried in boxes to not see the light of day for over a decade.
When found several of us enjoyed watching the video. By then only one person in the videos still even worked for the department anymore.
I came across this video even years after they had been discovered when cleaning out a storage room in the office for file space. I kept it and am glad I did! It's history!

Till next time, Tad

Some of My Video Memories- POSTED!

I have been very busy the last few months which is the main reason why I haven't been posting lately, I mean, at ALL!

Dog days: the videos, at least some of the ones I have.
I know that were I still 'in the business' I would have a basic rolling video studio with all the small and way more easily placed video cameras that are prevalent today. I truly wish now that I had recorded more video than I did back then. But like many others things recorded at the time it was often taking out the shoulder held, awkward and very heavy, VHS full size Camcorder, or a little later it was the still large 8MM Video Camcorder. And then the little smaller Digital 8 Camcorder.
Our current video camera is High Def and only ounces in weight. But sooooooo many even smaller cameras are available, still and video or that do both. And I'm not talking the Cell Phone cameras, many which now have very good photo and video capabilities.

We've had Camcorders and video cameras since our first one, a Panasonic, in November 1988. So we have lots of 'home movies', and quite a few of our 'work'. Not too many though while out doing the work and those videos are what I've uploaded and posted to be able to add to these blog posts.

This first video is the oldest video I have. I was an Animal Control newbie when the Department had a "maximum enforcement" and a show of force in an always bad area of the county, and because the program manager wanted to be in and on the TV news.
He didn't make it though.

My mother recorded the segment off the TV on our VCR. Although not the best recording, it had held up pretty good for being almost 30 years old when I converted it to DVD.

For this video the best description for it is a blog post I had already written so just go back to the post from August 11, 2009, titled "My First Thirty Seconds of Fame".
The video does help and give some context to the story.

The next few posts will be the same, a video and the 'back story' with it.

ACO Tech Continued, the 800 MHz radios

Over the years we got better trucks, cloth seats, AM/FM radios, a few even with cassette players. With the county upgrade to 800 MHz radios the field officers all got portable radios (HT's). We still had On Call pagers though, all the way up to when we left in 2006. By then several area agencies had gone to a more cell phone like way to communication with dispatch doing away with in truck radios almost all together and relying on a removable radio that only had a charging station under the dash.
Back when we first got the 800 radios they had quite the abilities! You could even make phone calls from your truck through the radio and an all county access number. With that number people could call you too but that more often didn't work well due to the number being used by so many people! Although the phone calls were just like a talking on the radio and so were 'simplex' and not 'duplex' like a phone call is, even a cell phone call. So you had to talk, wait.......... and listen for a response then talk again. Most people you'd try to talk to couldn't get the hang of talk, listen, talk again and so it made for difficult to impossible communicating, so the novelty wore off quickly for me.

I remember listening to my scanner and hearing the Sheriff department employees, street patrol and detectives both, calling in orders for food, calling home and friends and other types of "personal" calls with their county radios. Soon our department had the radio shop 'turn off' the abilities for the valley trucks and cars to make phone calls, not the supervisors though. And I'd still here Daryl or Steve making their personal calls along with the Sheriff's employees. Just no longer the valley field staff of Animal Control. Turns out the cell bills were too high with all the calls that were being made through the radios by various ACO's who were saving minutes by using the new toy of the radio/phone or didn't have cell phones yet. Not everyone did at that time, not like they do now.

To be continued again...........

Patrolling areas I liked, or didn't like

The number one thing all ACO's did and must still do, is drive.
One of the duties listed in the old job description and maybe still listed even with the cost of fuel was (is) "patrol geographic areas".
That could be incredibly boring or incredibly fascinating and fun! There were areas I really liked driving in and areas that really sucked.
My 'worst' areas, the areas I would have rather been almost anywhere else?
Number one would be when we had the city of Ontario. I drove that area for 5 years as it was included in one of three areas that split the "West End" of the San Bernardino Valley from Fontana to the Los Angeles and Riverside county lines. I didn't care for the predominantly gang areas that were located at the time between Holt Blvd North and the 60 Freeway South and from Grove, East to Ramona, West.
For Animal Control lots of cruelty calls came from the area for the "gangsta's" pit bull or pit bull mixed dogs. Often just being there where the public could see them or the gang kids would threaten people with the dogs or attack smaller dogs in the area to prove their dog was the "baddest". And if not those dog calls then it was most often the staked out fighting birds (Roosters) in the back, or front, of peoples yards as bird fighting was big business back then.

Number two area was Lytle Creek. I used to say and I imagine it still would be, "the armpit of the valley". A small village with only one way in or out back up in the foothills it was split into two sections, the lower canyon and the upper canyon. The expensive homes were the upper canyon and most calls there were loose dogs and leash law complaints about neighbors. The lower canyon was the less expensive homes to downright and literal shacks. And getting cooperation was almost never easy. Often the dogs the upper canyon complained about were following the 'creek' up from the lower canyon.
Third would be Bloomington and Fourth would be Muscoy. And Fifth of the bottom five would be Fontana areas we had then didn't then did again as the contract with the city came and went and came back.

My favorite areas were usually in the deserts with hours of long drives which I especially enjoyed when I was involved in a good audio book. When we started getting XM satellite radio the Christmas of 2003, then it was listening to old time radio shows, movie themes or such that I wouldn't want to stop and do the call and have to miss something! Stacy and I both did and still do love the ability to listen to great music or whatever, wherever you are with XM.

In the valley though, and most of my years in the department were in the valley, I liked working in the "Alta Loma" and Rancho Cucamoga areas. Another 5 year stint area but a few years after working in the Chino and Ontario areas, I liked the definite "higher income" level of this area. I was working Sunday to Wednesdays then and with hardly any calls on Sundays it was often just driving around, patrolling and just being seen. I liked seeing all the very expensive collections of autos out on their "Sunday Drives".

One of the most interesting things I used to see often, and in many areas, was as I was driving around in the residential blocks, people would, even if they were in their own yards, pick up their dogs and take them inside when they'd see the truck. Always funny to me!

I got to go to the 1984 Summer Olympics as the shooting events were done out in the Chino area and people would go to see the events and bring their dogs and leave them locked in their cars. As it was summer and hot, the security would find the cars with dogs in it and call for a pick up. We'd make the security break into the vehicle and we'd take the dog. I did that twice in a work week. That kind of call also became a standard summer call in the many restaurant and mall parking lots as the population boomed.

Years later at the Fontana Speedway I was given an all access tour of the facility, got to drive on the racetrack and go see the "executive" and Press viewing boxes as well as got to be in the infield for a race event walking and patrolling with Stacy for our shift of the event. Million dollar RV's and in the middle of the race.
Oh well, more memories later!


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ACO 'Tech'

I was thinking back to how things had evolved over the years, tech wise.

When I started with the department back in 1981, the field officers basically got a citation book, a Thomas Guide map book of San Bernardino County, a rope 'leash', a 'control stick', and a set of keys to a regular Chevy 1/2 or 3/4 ton standard cab pick up with the bed removed and cages welded on the frame instead. Back then we didn't have "HT's" or Handy Talkies, or any cell phones (yet). The only radio in several of the trucks was the VHF radio that in the cars/trucks that was a 'head' unit with a channel selector and a microphone under the dash area with the main radio box that was the size of a large briefcase behind the seat in the trucks, in the trunks in the cars and in the very back in the station wagons the department had.
When 'on-call' each person was given a numerical pager. You'd get a page and have to hunt down a pay phone booth and call in. At least there was the '800' number so it usually didn't cost the quarter to call.

As the years went by most ACO's would acquire or make equipment that would help make the job easier for them.
Pet stores, no Petsmarts yet, could provide decent quality leashes and such. And there were a few companies around that could be found that you could buy equipment from. I located a company in Texas, now long gone, that I spent over $150.00 on for a different kind of control stick and a smaller cat sized model too. Everyone thought I was crazy to spend that much of my own money, but I liked them! The issued control sticks made the 'noose' smaller by pulling the wire from the back. This new type had a tube within a tube with an offset cam to lock it in place. The larger dog sized control stick had the feature of a pull to release "bite bar" that opened the noose and released the animal. Great for very aggressive dogs. I still have the dog control sticks, the cat one failed and could no longer be repaired since the company had gone out of business.

We did start to get better vehicles and by the late 1980's and dual gas tank trucks were in the "fleet" purchases that our department got. Good range but still only AM radios and those lousy vinyl covered seats. Guaranteed to cause a sweaty butt and back!
Before the county upgraded to the 800 megahertz "trunked" systems the VHF radios sent out a tone with the radio signal. After few months it was easy to hear that tone all over the place! Our dispatchers also had to say the station ID at various times during the day.
In those VHF days we had to share the frequency with several other agencies. It could often make it a bit difficult to get a word in edgewise too!
With the trunked radios the stations were all still there but the computer could keep them separated so it seemed like the radio was all ours then.
By the late 1980's even though there was no Internet yet, there were companies springing up that catered to the Animal Control field.
More later........



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