Back to main Creative Writings page > Late Night Pizza By Commander R. It was 200 PM on a Wednesday, an ordinary day except for the fact that it was 'change day'. I will explain what 'change day' is later, but suffice it to say that it was two hours before the end of my tour. I was a relatively new sergeant working in a district that was just becoming familiar to me, driving around and enjoying the day. That enjoyment was shattered by a call from two veteran officers, to meet them at the hospital. Now I knew these officers well enough to know that if they called me, something was serious. As I made my way to the hospital, I ran many possible scenarios through my mind, thinking about what I would do. Then it hit me, its 'change day' and then I knew that I would dread whatever awaited me at the hospital. To explain 'change day' I will have to explain the scheduling of uniformed officers in District Law Enforcement. Officers worked one of three shifts, days (800 AM to 400 PM), afternoons (400 PM to Midnight) and midnights (Midnight to 800 AM). An officer worked a particular shift for 28 days and then changed to another shift. Changes took place on Thursdays every four weeks. Officers worked midnights, changed to afternoons, changed to days, and then changed back to midnights. The last day on the shift was considered your 'change day'. When you were changing from days to midnights or from midnights to afternoons you were required to 'double-back' which meant that, unless you had a day off, that you had only 8 hours off between the last day of your current shift and the first day of your next shift. When officers changed from midnights to afternoons they had from 800 AM on the day their last shift ended, until 400 PM the next day. Since everyone was off the last night of midnights, this was the evening that was set aside for the watch party. The watch party stories will be the subject of another story. There was a phenomenon that occurred on change days (at least to me). It would best be compared to the activities of people during a full moon. It seems that change day would be the day that you would be assigned the bizarre, complicated, tragic and unusual cases. During my career I would point out the day that the elevated train fell off of the tracks downtown, that was on a change day. The day construction material on a Michigan Avenue sky scraper under construction was blown all over the Magnificent Mile by an unusually strong wind, which caused injuries to pedestrians, considerable property damage, and caused a chaotic scene because vehicular and pedestrian traffic was diverted from the area, that was on a change day. The day that a guy dressed up like Spiderman and climbed the Hancock Center, that was on a change day. So it was with much trepidation that I continued on to the hospital. Once I arrived, I was met by one of the two officers. He took me into the emergency room and guided me to a curtained off area. He opened the curtain and I was just not prepared for what I saw. There, lying on one of those large portable beds was the tiny lifeless body of a girl of 5 or 6. She was quite beautiful, with brown ringlets of hair and a look of angelic innocence on her face. I was informed by the nurse and attending physician that the girl had been shaken to death and had puncture marks on her feet and other signs of abuse. They called when their examination was over. I just shook my head. We all shared a moment with this little girl, each of us thinking our own private thoughts, mine being that this trusting innocent girl was a victim of the worst kind of violence. There was work to be done. The officer that guided me to the emergency room informed me that his partner was with the parents of the child in a side room. That is where we went and spoke to the parents. The mother was young and unkempt and was also about 8 months pregnant. I wondered why she would be granted the miracle of giving birth when so many others who can't have children would have loved and cherished her little girl whose life she had just wasted away. The mother was grieving and the other person in the room, a male, turned out to be the stepfather of the little girl and the father of the child the mother was currently carrying. He looked at me and asked me if she was really dead. He then told me that he didn't mean to do it. Now I had to think fast. Separate the parents first. Find out if there are other kids in treatment. Contact the Youth Division to take custody of the remaining daughter, contact the Detectives to follow-up the crime, call the evidence technician for photographs, everything that you learned through training and experience hitting you in the head at the same time. I directed the one officer to take mom out of the room and find out if there were any other kids and then contact the Youth Division, find the kid, and get the kid into the hospital for examination. I had the other officer contact the Detective Division and inform them that we had a homicide and an offender in custody. I remained in the room with the offender. He was a smallish young Hispanic male. He was very upset. I sat him down and informed him of his rights (yes, we actually do it) and then asked him what had happened. He related to me that he was punishing his step daughter for not brushing her teeth properly. It seemed that she had accidentally dribbled spit onto her dress while she was rinsing her mouth. I asked him how he punished her and he told me that he had her stand in the middle of the basement with her left leg up in the air, positioning her foot over a sharpened awl. An awl is a smallish tool with a short wooden handle and thin metal rod, which comes to a very sharp point. Every time she would get tired of keeping her leg in the air, her foot would come down and she would be pierced in the foot by the awl. If she put her leg down and she moved her foot to avoid stepping on the awl, she was beaten and shaken. He went on to explain that he believed in discipline and thought that it was good for the kids. He was treated with strict discipline and punishment when he was a child and he thought that it was a good way to raise a kid. He never ever, so he said, meant to really hurt or kill his stepdaughter. We talked some more. I spoke to the detective assigned who agreed to meet the offender, the officer and me at the home of the offender so that he could show us where he punished his stepdaughter and point out the awl. We went to the house and in front of the detective; the officer and me related and demonstrated the entire episode that led to the horrible death. After the detective was satisfied; I drove the offender to the detective area center and left the other officer behind at the scene to await the evidence technician. Now television shows about police work are exciting and police work itself is exciting at times and interesting at times, but what it always is paperwork intensive. If they actually followed an incident through arrest and processing, most people would be asleep or would have changed channels long before the end of the processing. This does not even contemplate the multiple court appearances and other legal wrangling that inevitably occurs before justice is actually done. Eventually, I ended up in a room with the offender, who was crying and repeating he didn't mean it, he didn't mean it. I was joined by the other officers, who reported to me the status of what they had been assigned to. We now began the waiting process. Work on our reports, wait for the detective to finish his reports, wait for the State's Attorney to arrive and do his or her investigation before they approve charges, wait and wait. By this time, when we found the four of us sitting together, it was already 800 PM. The detective had told us we might as well eat, since the State's Attorney was tied up for awhile. Great. Change day. We were scheduled to start work at midnight and we haven't even turned in our vehicle and equipment from our day tour. We decided to order a pizza. I was aware that we had to make sure that our offender ate, since he was going to give a statement at some point later in the evening. At this point all you can think about is controlling yourself and making sure nothing happens to this guy until he makes his confession. You try to ensure that every possible technicality is covered. Make sure he can't claim he was beaten or denied food. So for this reason, at 1000 PM in a sterile room at the detective area center the four of us sat down and split a pizza and soft drinks. It was weird to say the least. Especially since the money for the pizza came out of my own pocket. I thought that I would really want to kill the guy right there, but in reality I kind of felt sorry for him and what he must have endured in his childhood. I didn't feel too sorry for him however, for I knew that in the prison system this guy would be targeted and classified as the lowest of the low. His time in prison, if he survived, would be a living hell for him. That, for some reason comforted me. I would have taken that little girl into my own home if they didn't want her. I thought about the other child and the unborn baby and wondered what their fate would be. At two in the morning we found ourselves finishing up our paperwork and interviews. We were already two hours late for work.