Another Late Night

I was called out again to help this last Saturday with surveillance on some businesses. Being Saturday, there was a lot more activity in the area. For the first part of the night, until about 2am, I was covert, meaning I parked in some shadows so no one could see in through my tinted windows. I parked in a apartment comlex's parking lot, so no one would be suspicious of a parked car. It gets really stuffy inside a car when it has been as hot as it's been. We had a vehicle driving around, acting suspicious. I noted it passing within 15 minutes of setting up. My partners had the tag, as it had been around driving around for several hours. When they got the info back, the tag didn't match any records, so it was decided I would place myself where I could follow the vehicle and confirm the tag number.

I was really glad for that, because I got to role my windows down and catch the breeze that was blowing. That made it a lot more comfortable. It also allowed me to hear what was going on around me, which is nice because when your sealed up in a car, your primarly visually active, being able to hear expands your awareness. With my windows down, I parked across the street in an empty parking lot and waited for the target vehicle to drive by. Within the first 45 minutes of being overt, I had a skinny black guy try to sell me a eight-ball, and had a hooker ask me for a light. The hooker had a lump or growth on the side of her face. It didn't take long for the locals, a paranoid bunch, to notice me and I could tell I made them nervous. They had me fingered as a cop, so there was a lot of calls placed and people looking around corners and people walking by staring at me and then going back to their place. All the girls on the street disappeared too, lol.

Part of the surveillance craft is becoming accustomed to the environment. It was interesting to see all the activity going on and watching the people. By the end of the night, you could tell where the drugs were being sold and the apartments the streetwalkers were using. During the night we heard several gunshots north east of our position, and there was a stabbing a couple of streets over, but we weren't involved in any of that.

Since I was part of a three man team, and we had radios with ear-pieces, we kept up a steady stream of information.Suspicious cars, pedestrians, bicyclists moving through the area, and, of course, all the illegal stuff we saw going down at night. No, we didn't call the cops, they already know what's going on and we were trying to help our clients and catch the thieves operating in the area that were costing them tons of money.

We never caught anybody, but we did lock the area down and no thefts occurred while we were there. We may be back, or we may not. We spent a lot of time there already, and I wouldn't mind a change of scenery.