S is for SEARCH Behind the BLUE Line AtoZChallenge

The theme of my 2014 A-to-Z Blog Challenge is BLUES, PUPUS, and REVIEWS.

Tuesday & Friday - BLUES: Art, Movies, Music, & Police 

In Search of Truth and Honor by Joanne Takasato (a look behind “the blue line”)

In the early 1980s, a young Japanese woman by the name of Joanne Takasato became Honolulu’s first undercover (UC) female police officer. As a UC, she bought the recreational drugs of choice for the time, cocaine, marijuana, and Quaaludes, from dealers in Chinatown and around the Island. She spent solitaire nights in bars pretending to be someone she wasn’t, and she frequented street corners with no badge, no gun, and no identification. Through shear will and belief in Truth and Honor, Officer Takasato paved the way for women in what had always been an all-male field of undercover police work. 

Over a period of years, Takasato severed family ties, created a false identity, and developed friendships only to betray them with arrests and prosecution. It sounds like a remake of a Donnie Brasco movie. But Takasato lived this life and kept a journal, refused to make the movie but wrote the book instead. 

IN SEARCH OF TRUTH AND HONOR by Joanne Takasato is not a light beach read for a sunny Honolulu afternoon in Waikiki. I could only read the chapters in short spurts, taking breaks to let my nerves settle. It is impossible for me to imagine actually living through those years. 

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/Search-Truth-Honor-Reflections-undercover/dp/1439258848/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398104889&sr=1-1&keywords=In+Search+of+Truth+and+honor

P is for POLICE: Walking the BLUE Line

The theme of my 2014 A-to-Z Blog Challenge is BLUES, PUPUS, and REVIEWS.

Tuesday & Friday - BLUES: Art, Movies, Music, & Police 

1920, Shots Fired, Officer Down is the title of a book. It is also a radio transmission made in 1994 by that book’s author. At the time, he was a motorcycle police officer with the Honolulu Police Department. The officer had made a stop for a possible expired license plate. The driver was cooperative but admitted he didn’t have his driver’s license with him. 

One thing led to another. 

 

 

I’ve worked on the police end and the dispatch side of a traffic stop. No stop is handled as routine any more than a domestic call is ever classified as routine. Sometimes people contest a stop and take the case to court. That’s how the court system works. 

In the case of the traffic stop in 1994, as revealed by the author in the first line of the book synopsis, the driver started firing his AK-47 semi-automatic rifle. That led to the officer’s “Shots Fired” transmission to Dispatch. The entire story of events leading up to the traffic stop, the drama that played out, and the aftermath are spellbinding reading.

But what ultimately captured my attention and brought home the reality of the situation was one particular fact. The police officer did nothing other than what he was trained to do in the line of duty. Because he followed procedure, the stop should have ended with a traffic ticket,  proof that any time an officer walks the blue line, it can lead to a radio transmission of “Shots Fired.” 

You can read more about the book and its author at Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/1920-Shots-Fired-Officer-Down-ebook/dp/B00B2FA6DS/ref=sr_1_10?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1397776107&sr=1-10&keywords=Shots+Fired