At the Ingleside police station, on Ocean ave., there's an old slab of bullet-proof glass hanging on display next to the desk where they write down reports and deal with the public. The lexan (i think that's what they call it - now) has five highly visible impacts from what I guessed was a 12ga. shotgun firing 00 buckshot. It looks quite striking, hanging there on the wall. It's the first thing you see when you walk into the station. The second thing you see is a plaque commemorating an officer who was killed in the line of duty, back in 1971.
Now I don't know why, but 1971 just seems like the year that kind of thing would happen. The early seventies has this tough, psycho, bluntness to it; or so it seems to me now. Maybe it's just the way cars were designed... Those Detroit irons, with their V-8 hemmies and glass-pack mufflers were the chariots of that decade's villains. There were certainly a lot of tough-guy movies (DOG DAY AFTERNOON, DIRTY HARRY, TAXI DRIVER).
I found it easy to imagine the night it happened. The parking lot full of cruisers, and fog rolling in from Daly City... Some Hellborn villain with a trenchcoat and three-days growth of a beard, skulks up to the old wooden door of the precinct house and slips in under the greenish glow of the bare flouro tubes... Pulling that sawed-off duck gun from under the coat and...
"Can I help you sir?"

In any case the night that the cop got killed was the same night the lexan got that nice, decorative etching. I asked: That's how I know. I happened to be there at the precinct because some fool kid with a shaved head in a souped-up Honda Civic hit me in my truck and then drove off. It was more dramatic than that in the moment, but I'm just tired of recounting the story. I changed lanes, pulling in front of him: He didn't like it, so he pulled into the emergency lane and passed the two cars on my right, cut hard across two lanes of traffic so that he was 4' in front of my bumper, and then he locked his brakes. I didn't have a chance of stopping, so I skidded right into the back of his car. He booked out of there, but another car stopped and the driver said he saw the whole thing and would testify the guy had made a reckless, deliberate move causing an accident - and then fled the scene. So I'm probably not going to get shagged for any money (thank God).
But it's looking like there's nothing I can do to that punk kid. The cops won't touch a traffic violation, unless an officer witnesses it. No one really cares. What the kid did is basically legal, because it's not covered by any part of the vehicle code. I doubt that kid even has a licence, let alone insurance. Driving like he was I would guess he is a convicted felon. No one just pulls a move like that suddenly - out of the blue.

When i finished the paperwork at the police station, I asked one of the cops what happened to the guy who shot up their station house.
"Did he get the San Quentin gas chamber?" I asked the desk sergeant.
He barely looked up from his paperwork.
"He was never caught." He grumbled.

So why in Christ's name do they have that 30 year old nightmare hanging on the wall like a trophy? Is that to show what a tough job it is? Or to remind people to be patient when they wait in line for an hour to report their injury or wrongdoing? I was really puzzled about that as I drove home. These guys adorn their station with a souvenir of the night some psycho came in and shot the place up like a Terminator - and then got away - through a parking lot full of cop cars. Whatever.

I was just grateful to get my car home and into the garage without any altercations, road rage or freeway shootings. There was a humorously ironic moment as I drove home, and looking back in the rearview mirror, I noticed my new punched-steel cab screen that protects the rear window (since it got smashed in three weeks ago). I cover my back, and I get hit in the front! What do i need now? Roo-Bars? A roll-cage? Self-inflating tires? I'll just have to go back to the truck accesory center and spend some more money. Just make the check payable to Mad Max.