Ride along

Arriving with a deputy, we parked down the street from the apartment. I patted my pockets, double checking I had everything I needed.

Nervously kneeling behind the squad car, I watched the SWAT team positioning itself around the building. The lead officer pounded on the door, barking out orders for the perp to come out, arms raised.

No sounds or movement from inside brought the team back around front. A slight twitch in the window blinds…

‘There’s someone inside.’

On my word alone, they stormed the house. If they didn’t bring somebody out, I would for sure lose my credentials.*

The 100 Word Challenge, a writing prompt created by Velvet Verbosity, takes a single theme to tell a story in only 100 words ~ no more, no less. This week’s theme is ‘Credentials.’

*During my tenure as a small town news reporter, I had a few opportunities to ride along with our local constabulary. On one rather large drug bust, our news photographer and I were watching from a safe spot as deputies and a SWAT team go in to raid a dealer’s apartment. After checking the perimeter, and at doors and windows they determine the apartment was empty… that was until I whispered to our photog that I saw movement in the window blinds, like someone had lifted a slat to look out. We tell the deputies, who then break in the door looking for my mystery peeper.

The whole time they are inside, I’m dying. This was my first raid. I was slowly building trust with both the police and sheriff’s office, and they were rushing an apartment solely on my belief that someone was inside.

Fortunately for me, they did find the dealer, but not before he had deposited the bulk of his illicit drugs in the toilet. I made major brownie points that day, but also sprouted my first grey hairs.