You Sure You Want to Write THAT Memo?

Last evening, my son came back in the house, kind of freaked out. He was taking out the garbage cans, as Friday morning is trash day around here, and there was an injured, and VERY pissed off Bat hiding behind one of the garbage cans.

I don't know how many of you are familiar with the common Bat here in the Salt Lake Valley. They are about the size of your average mouse, but they have wings the size of a House Finch and lots of scary looking, sharp teeth. It's good to have them around, they eat mosquito's, and they don't bother people.

But, they have a reputation as transmitters of Rabies. So I told him not to touch it, and I'd call Animal Control to have them come and pick it up, and, "dispose" of it as they thought best.

Put in a call to 911 who assured me they would have Animal Control call me back, and left it at that. I thought about putting a plastic bucket over it to keep it from getting away, but the little sucker was WAY too angry for me to get THAT close to it. I just left it there.

After one missed phone call, I finally got a call back from a Sargent of the Murray Police. I'm not sure I heard his name right, so I won't bungle it here, but he was very nice. He basically told me that this was a, "Circle of life" issue, and they wouldn't send out animal control, and I should let it die and then scoop it up, and put it in the trash. And contrary to what I heard, they don't normally carry rabies, so I could just put on rubber gloves and pick it up when it was dead.

Really? Picking up, "apparently dead" things with lots of teeth, like snakes and bats and crocodiles is ALWAYS bad advice.

I used to play a game with myself when I was working in law enforcement. It was called, "Do you really want to write THAT memo?". And it was played when you were faced with a situation that could go either way on you. Could make you look like a hero, or a total moron.

Like, you were about to arrest a guy who could jump off a balcony and he said something like, "If you come near me, I'm going to jump!" Here's your decision point. Every fiber of your being WANTS to say, "Knock yourself out. You'll just go to prison AFTER the hospital. And I won't have to chase you."

But, do you really want to write THAT memo? I mean, everyone around you HEARD you say that. The guys on your team are thinking the same thing, trust me. But when the bandit's family calls the Department and repeats that to your boss, do you really want to have to put THAT in writing? No. No you don't.

You HAVE to say, "Dude! Don't jump! We can work this out. You don't want to get hurt. And you don't want to hurt anyone on the ground under you do you? You just need to do your time. Be a man and come over here, and let's deal with this, OK?"

And you keep documenting those efforts. "Have a nice fall, asshole!" makes for a bad memo.

So, I was kind of thinking of this while I was listening to this very, noble, well trained Sargent last night on the phone. Assuring me that the animal didn't have rabies, I could just pick it up with my rubber gloves, "circle of life" etc.

I finally, as a former field training officer (FTO) just had to bust in and say, "Hey, Sarge, I gotta ask you, as a guy who spent 23 years in your line of work. You comfortable writing this memo? After all, I'm NOT the kind of guy who's going to call the Mayor's office on Monday and complain, but the Animal Control guys have been out to my house less than a year ago to pick up a sick wild animal. So, "we don't do this" isn't going to stand the test of time.

And you assure me Bat's don't have rabies, but every story you see on the news says they do.

And you're telling me to let this animal die and then shovel it's lifeless body into my trash can. I'm OK with that.

But, what if I was some, PETA member? And I told the Mayor that you told me to let this injured animal die a prolonged, and painful death before unceremoniously, dumping it's lifeless body into a garbage can. you OK with that? Is this your standard policy and procedure? You're OK with this?"

He kind of laughed, which let me know, he knew I was just making sure he was covered, and said, "Yeah, I've written that memo. This is how we do it now."

I thanked him for his time, and told him to be careful out there. He got it.

I used a shovel, cleaned it off with bleach when I was done.

I'm sure that as that poor Bat was coming in for a landing late last night, one of the mice who lives in the wood pile probably woke up it's mother and said, "LOOK, MA, an Angel!"

At least I didn't have to write that memo.