**DISCLAIMER – all stories in this series are true. The names of suspects, victims and officers involved have been changed to protect their identity. The opinions expressed are mine only, and do not reflect the policies or opinions of any of my former employers or co-workers.**

When we last left our heroine, she was taking her first dispatched call as Pearl River County’s first “she-deputy” …….

So here I go, off to my first call. You know how every area has “those families” ? The ones that spawn the trouble-makers, the recidivist jailbirds and ones you just know are gonna be trouble ? Yea, my first call was to their house. Well, it actually wasn’t just a house, it was more of a compound. A compound strung together by some old houses, a few trailers and a dozen or so chickens shitting in the front yard. And of course, it was a fight. Let’s call this family the “Pintuns”, shall we ? Not their real name, of course. Heh. Anyway, I just happened to be about 5 minutes away from the aforementioned compound when the call came in, and being familiar with the family my “oh shit” o-meter peaked immediately.

Apparently, so did everyone else’s. My dispatcher told me she was sending the north end deputy, and our process server , who rarely went on calls, was immediately on the radio telling me he was on his way and I should wait for him at the corner store near the call. Me, wait ? On my first ever call ? WHATEVAH! Sure, I was a little scared, that’s natural.  If you’ve ever been in law enforcement and haven’t been scared at some point you’re a big fat liar liar pants on fire and are probably due for a good ass-whooping at any time.

So into the cauldron of doom I go to see what the fight is all about, and as I pull up into the compound I see a few folks milling around, and no signs of a fight. As I got out of the car one of them started walking towards me, and the first thing he said was “Who the hell are you?” Oh yes, he did. I told him exactly who I was and that I wanted to know who the hell he was and what was going on. That shut him up pretty quick. After a few minutes of talking to him he could see I wasn’t going to take any crap, so I decided that it was just a family squabble and there was no need for any charges, and amazingly enough they were quite agreeable. So agreeable that he turned to the 3 or 4 other guys standing around and said “If this girl is brave enough to come up in here alone, I reckon we’d better not give her any shit so she don’t give us none.” Well alrighty then.

I got back in my car, radioed to dispatch that I was back in service, and got back on the road. On the way out I passed two of my fellow deputies, a state trooper and a city of Picayune officer that were coming to help me. I wish I’d had a picture of their faces as I passed them, smiling and waving. Thanks boys but I got it !

And that was my first call as a “she-deputy”. I had many more run-in’s with this family, but that first experience with them set the tone , and after that they usually didn’t give me too much trouble. Usually. But I’ll tell you more about that later.

See you next time !

10 – 8 !