Breaking News At Last! (a/k/a Bad Santa)

As promised, the continuation of my slow ass news night on Saturday.

So I'm hanging out at my news waiting locale on Decatur and Sunset when my scanner stops on Henderson Fire:

Engine 81, Rescue 81 copy a 17 Alpha 1 at 223 North Stephanie.

It didn't really peak my interest. A code 17 is a fall, and if it's an Alpha response that means they don't use lights and sirens. But then I heard more.

R81: Dispatch, Rescue 81, what is this call?
Dispatch: It's an assist for PD. Someone is trapped in the hood of a grill.

That raised my eyebrows. I quickly switched over to Henderson PD.

Dispatch: ...Fasuto's, employee came in to find feet hanging out of the ventilation shaft going from the grill to the roof. Apparently a 406 (Burglary) suspect who has gotten stuck. Fire is staging on Stephanie and American Pacific.

I've got to see this. So I drop my Mountaineer into gear and head down to the 215 and roll down to Henderson. The freeway is empty so I get there pretty darned quickly. Plus, as an added bonus, this place is just a couple of blocks north of the freeway.

Just before I arrive I hear another comment on the radio:

Control, we're code 4. Send in fire.

There is hysterical laughing in the background.

I arrive and look around. I see cops and firefighters laughing, walking in and out of the store. I walk up to the entrance and look in.

Inside I see a pair of black boots hanging about 2 feet (no pun intended) above the grill. I look to an officer.

"He's not dead, is he?"

The officer shakes his head.

"How long has he been in there?"

The officer replies, "A couple of hours."

I can't help it. I start to laugh my ass off. I run back to my car, grab my camera and tripod and start to shoot. Every now and then you see the guy wiggle his feet, all the while firefighters are trying to figure out how in the hell they are going to get this schmuck out of there.

They eventually decide that he is going to have to go out the way he came in. They call out a ladder truck and go to the roof. After about thirty minutes they pull him out. I almost missed the perp walk, as they were going to arrest him in the back, but my keen ears caught some scanner traffic and I drove quickly to the backside.

The cops must have seen me at the last minute, because it looked like they were going to put him in the side of the car away from me, but then decided to put him in the car on my side. The truly priceless moment was when he and the cops came walking around the car. He looked up, saw me, and then turned away with a look that said "Aw fuck."

I almost felt sorry for this numb nut.

I made my way back with my EXCLUSIVE video (my station LOVES to say that, so why shouldn't I?) only to have to return even deeper into Henderson for a man found dead with a gun shot wound. That turned out to be a suicide, which we don't cover, but I did find something interesting in the area lovingly known as 'Old Henderson.' That's coming tomorrow!