had hauled off and punched him in the chops! And the ten-year-old kid nodded yes, and swore to it.
The broker was quite a big shot around Glendale and had friends. He threatened to sue the city for a million bucks and did. But there was some horse trading done.
the city quashed the citation that John had written and the broker settled his million - dollar lawsuit out of court for five hundred bucks. John Orr was informed that he'd been lucky because some of the city bigwigs had considered filing assault charges against him!
With everyone around him getting exhausted by his antics, John decided that there might be something wrong with his approach to citation writing, and maybe he needed to learn how real cops did it, so he asked permission to do ride-alongs with the Glendale police, and was told, yes yes, anything to prevent future punch-outs and lawsuits. So he rode several times with a Glendale cop who, John said, was "ferocious on the job." That cop's ferocity was irresistible and intoxicating. He almost fell in love with her.
It was during this time that Glendale hillsides were frequently being set on fire, especially near the affluent homes in Chevy Chase Canyon. Nobody ever caught anyone, but the arsons were forcing Chevy Chase property owners to do their part in brush and weed abatement.
John devised a scheme where he would phone up a brush-clearance company that would work without front money, and posing as the owner, he'd make appointments for the properties to be cleared.
He would say "Bill me, please," giving the owner's address or the P. O. box that he'd ferreted out.
And it worked, but it wasn't easy because the goddamn post office wouldn't show him the box applications as they would for a real cop. The way he solved that problem was by dating a not-so-hot - looking letter carrier who introduced him to a postal inspector at a party, and from then on, the post office was his.
He later portrayed how he loved tracking down these miscreants and ticketing them:
The violators I dealt with were minor bandits, but their evasion tactics were better than some career criminals'. I found it challenging to conduct the "hunt" using any tracking abilities I had to find them and make the "kill" - writing a citation or getting the hazard eliminated - as the "trophy head." A bit like my pursuit of women during my days as a single man.
The zealousness of Glendale's fire - prevention guy struck some of the firefighters as quite peculiar. John not only responded to all brush fires while on duty, but he'd even show up off duty. He said it was to study "fire-fighting tactics and fire behavior." And why should he worry about what a bunch of guys thought, guys who spent so much firehouse time on their backs that he felt like drawing a chalk line around the whole station.
Everyone knew that 80 percent of brush fires were set deliberately, and this was at a time when John longed for Glendale to form a real arson unit. He was doing a kind of "arson profiling," before the profiling of serial criminals by the FBI had been given much publicity. And since almost all the brush fires were roadside starts, he said he "put himself in the arsonist's car, and in the arsonist's head." He began looking at traffic patterns, searching for homes or landmarks from which a fire starter could be spotted gazing at his handiwork.
While poring over old reports, one conclusion became inescapable: the past arson investigations were inadequate. He found places where fire setters must have parked to admire their fires, yet so-called arson cops had never thought to head for the high ground or other locations where an arsonist would likely sit and observe.
And then he discovered his first incendiary device. It was at a small hillside brush fire, and he'd traced the fire path to a blasted chaparral bush where the damage fanned out as if from an explosion. The battalion chief had ordered his firefighters to turn off their lines so as not to interfere with
The broker was quite a big shot around Glendale and had friends. He threatened to sue the city for a million bucks and did. But there was some horse trading done.
the city quashed the citation that John had written and the broker settled his million - dollar lawsuit out of court for five hundred bucks. John Orr was informed that he'd been lucky because some of the city bigwigs had considered filing assault charges against him!
With everyone around him getting exhausted by his antics, John decided that there might be something wrong with his approach to citation writing, and maybe he needed to learn how real cops did it, so he asked permission to do ride-alongs with the Glendale police, and was told, yes yes, anything to prevent future punch-outs and lawsuits. So he rode several times with a Glendale cop who, John said, was "ferocious on the job." That cop's ferocity was irresistible and intoxicating. He almost fell in love with her.
It was during this time that Glendale hillsides were frequently being set on fire, especially near the affluent homes in Chevy Chase Canyon. Nobody ever caught anyone, but the arsons were forcing Chevy Chase property owners to do their part in brush and weed abatement.
John devised a scheme where he would phone up a brush-clearance company that would work without front money, and posing as the owner, he'd make appointments for the properties to be cleared.
He would say "Bill me, please," giving the owner's address or the P. O. box that he'd ferreted out.
And it worked, but it wasn't easy because the goddamn post office wouldn't show him the box applications as they would for a real cop. The way he solved that problem was by dating a not-so-hot - looking letter carrier who introduced him to a postal inspector at a party, and from then on, the post office was his.
He later portrayed how he loved tracking down these miscreants and ticketing them:
The violators I dealt with were minor bandits, but their evasion tactics were better than some career criminals'. I found it challenging to conduct the "hunt" using any tracking abilities I had to find them and make the "kill" - writing a citation or getting the hazard eliminated - as the "trophy head." A bit like my pursuit of women during my days as a single man.
The zealousness of Glendale's fire - prevention guy struck some of the firefighters as quite peculiar. John not only responded to all brush fires while on duty, but he'd even show up off duty. He said it was to study "fire-fighting tactics and fire behavior." And why should he worry about what a bunch of guys thought, guys who spent so much firehouse time on their backs that he felt like drawing a chalk line around the whole station.
Everyone knew that 80 percent of brush fires were set deliberately, and this was at a time when John longed for Glendale to form a real arson unit. He was doing a kind of "arson profiling," before the profiling of serial criminals by the FBI had been given much publicity. And since almost all the brush fires were roadside starts, he said he "put himself in the arsonist's car, and in the arsonist's head." He began looking at traffic patterns, searching for homes or landmarks from which a fire starter could be spotted gazing at his handiwork.
While poring over old reports, one conclusion became inescapable: the past arson investigations were inadequate. He found places where fire setters must have parked to admire their fires, yet so-called arson cops had never thought to head for the high ground or other locations where an arsonist would likely sit and observe.
And then he discovered his first incendiary device. It was at a small hillside brush fire, and he'd traced the fire path to a blasted chaparral bush where the damage fanned out as if from an explosion. The battalion chief had ordered his firefighters to turn off their lines so as not to interfere with
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