Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III

ferdi254

Banned
It actually has nothing to do with German grammar. Often town name street are written as Berliner Str while Name and street can be one way or the other while Full name and street are often separated. Einsteinstraße vs Abert Einstein Straße.

But here we are not only talking about the name but also about the natural phenomenon so all bets are off and both ways are actually possible.
 
Part 119, Chapter 1985
Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Eighty-Five



19th May 1970

Los Angeles, California

“They call Platoons a Zug, other than that they typically they have what they call a Gruppe, like a Squad but typically organized around a machinegun” Ritchie said, “Usually there are nine or ten men led by a Noncom, three of them are there to shoot and feed the machine gun though all of them are packing ammo for it. The rest are riflemen with at least one of them having an AG44.”

“Around a machine gun?” Wilkinson asked, somewhat in disbelief.

“Their idea of a machinegun at a squad level is not like our 1919’s” Ritchie replied, even as he said it, he knew that the U.S. Army had been trying to get rid of the old Browning machine guns for years. They had yet to find a satisfactory replacement and there were more than a few fossils in the Pentagon how saw no reason for a replacement at all who were thought to be the key drivers in that sort of thinking. “They look like are made out of sheet metal and spit out bullets at twelve hundred per minute. The slang terms they throw around translate to bonesaw or the Kaiser’s zipper.”

“You saw this in action?” Wilkinson asked.

“Cooperative training missions” Ritchie replied, “What amounted to them helping us clean up our mess, the details are still secret.”

“If that ain’t a load of horseshit” Wilkinson said.

It was early Tuesday morning in the hours when even the hairiest of the local wildlife had to go home and sleep, so the streets were empty. Ritchie and Wilkinson were presently engaged in what was called orbiting. Mostly that amounted to driving around through side streets a few blocks away from Central Station, killing time until the end of the shift which was only a matter of minutes away. This avoided the problem of being spotted having parked somewhere and having the Captain land on them like a ton of bricks. Out of boredom they had ended up talking about Ritchie’s Guard Duty, his time in the Green Beret, and eventually what he had seen of the German Army while he had been over in Europe.

“That is just how it goes” Ritchie replied, “There were a lot of things that I saw in places that most people couldn’t find on a map that you wouldn’t believe, but Uncle Sam says to keep a lid on it or else.”

“Sounds like the Department Brass” Wilkinson said, “Doing things just to let those on the street know who is boss, because they can.”

Ritchie knew that it wasn’t quite that simple. Many of the things he had done in other countries could result in a nasty diplomatic incident if they were lucky and a war if they weren’t if word ever got out as to who the responsible party had been.

“You never said why most of the old-timers call you Billy the Kid” Ritchie said knowing that he was treading on dangerous ground. In the months since they had ridden together, Ritchie had heard Wilkinson called that several times. But had never asked why he was called that.

“The name Micky Cohen mean anything to you?” Wilkinson asked.

“He was a gangster back in the day” Ritchie said, “I remember him from the Crime doesn’t pay presentations back in school, they had a photograph of him on a mortician’s slab with bullet holes in his chest.”

“Three shots from a thirty-eight” Wilkinson said, “Care to guess who put them there?”

“Oh” Ritchie replied, “I had no idea.”

“Uncle Sam isn’t the only one who likes to keep things under wraps” Wilkinson said as he turned the car down a different block. “I was protecting some scumbags from New York from the scumbag they had been sent to kill and the Roosevelt Hotel had a new claim to fame by the time I was through. I never was particularly proud of that one though it was considered righteous. Justice would have been if I could have shot the whole lot of them.”

“Wait, that one?” Ritchie asked, “Are you saying that happened more than once?”

“Having a reputation as a gunfighter is one of those things that tends to snowball with time” Wilkinson replied, “Going mano-a-mano with a stone-cold killer like Cohen and coming out on top was just the start. Just remember that if you ever have to do it yourself that you are just putting down a dangerous animal. What have we here?”

A man was staggering down the middle of the street. The unsteadiness of his footsteps suggesting that he had had a few, as if the half-full bottle of cheap liquor in his hand wasn’t already enough of a clue. Cursing under his breath, Wilkinson stopped the car. They were so close to the end of the shift, encountering a drunk like this was the worst sort of bad luck.

The man turned around and looked at then through bloodshot eyes. He had skin the color and texture of an old pair of brown boots, his hair and beard were grey and unkempt, much like his clothes.

“Good morning Sir” Wilkinson said firmly, “You know you cannot have an open container on the street.”

Ritchie knew what was coming before the man opened his mouth.

“No Inglés” The man said, in a tone suggesting that he was hoping that he would be more trouble than he was worth to them.

“You are in luck then” Ritchie said in Spanish, earning himself a scowl from the drunk as he repeated Wilkinson’s question.

The slight smirk he saw cross Wilkinson’s normally expressionless face suggested that Ritchie had just crossed some sort of unknown bridge with the Sergeant.
 
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I think this could be the start of having more multi lingual Police in California.
You can often achieve more with a quick phrase in a different language than you can with a nightstick, as Richie has just shown.
 
I think this could be the start of having more multi lingual Police in California.
You can often achieve more with a quick phrase in a different language than you can with a nightstick, as Richie has just shown.
Nononono... The drunk knows english, but he also knows that the night shift is almost don. So he plays dumb and hope that the cops let him go because the want to go home to..,

And that hope just got dashed, by Richie LOL
 
here is a link to the original gangster squad.


There is also the Hat Squad:


A good book about this time, and a true story not fiction is L.A. Noir The struggle for the Soul of America's most seductive city.

 
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Now you've got me wondering what Wilkinson's reaction to Ritchie getting a Aust. G Panzerweste.
"Hmmmm, I've been on the force for 30 years and we never had anything like this, if we had, there would be a lot more retired cops. Now where can I get one of these"?
 
IOTL the LAPD under William H. Parker was becoming a more professional, militarized force basically ending foot patrols and going with patrol cars to keep contact between the police and the public to a minimum because of fears of corruption.
It was also down sizing the numbers of police officers in order to reduce the chance of having corrupt officers getting on the force in the first place, even to this day Los Angeles has a very low number of police to population ratio compared to cities like Chicago and NYC.
With that in mind the vests from Germany will be more than welcomed and SWAT with Ritchie refining the training and tactics that will be copied by other police forces around the world.
Chief Parker was the master of Public Relations and shows like "Dragnet" and "Adam12" will still be made with official support from the LAPD.
 
1 Adam 12, Swat unit one. Hostage situation at the German embassy, medical personnel being held. Supposedly a German Princess.
 
1 Adam 12, Swat unit one. Hostage situation at the German embassy, medical personnel being held. Supposedly a German Princess.

Ritchie: "Those poor dumb bastards. Hell of a way to commit suicide."

RV: "Has any one tried negotiating yet? We have those people's safety to think about"
Control: "The hostage takers have been in contact and assured us that the hostages are safe"
RV: "Oh, I know the hostages are safe, it's the hostage takers I'm worried about, if we don't start resolving this soon there'll be none of them left to arrest".
 
Part 119, Chapter 1986
Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Eighty-Six



21st May 1970

Moscow, Russia

Things in Russia were suddenly unsettled in a way they had not been in a generation. Alexy, the Patriarch of Moscow had died the month before. His death had been anticipated for ages. It was to everyone’s amazement that he had lived on as long as he had. Nearly blind, deaf, and widely considered senile, Alexy had clung to power right until the end. Gia knew the truth though. He had never been as senile as everyone had thought, and he had taken a great deal of joy in the fact that having lived to the age of ninety-two he had managed to outlive all of his rivals.

The problem was that had created a power struggle in the Russian Orthodox Church. This wasn’t helped by much of the Church’s Senior Clergy being seen as compromised by the choices that they had been forced to make during the Soviet Era. The loudest voices condemning them where those of the Church who had gone into exile, though like everyone else Gia could see perfectly well that their actions were self-serving with the charge being led by Simon, the Metropolitan of Germany. He had leveraged his outsider status as a former exile to shove everyone aside in his own successful grab for the top spot. That was followed by him engaging in a long overdue housecleaning. Nearly everyone in the hierarchy of the Moscow Diocese who had spent the last few decades scrambling and scheming for the top spot found themselves reassigned to distant Monasteries. Usually in cold, isolated corners of Russia.

All of this might have been a diversion for the people of Russia except unknown to everyone, Georgy had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer a few months earlier and the Doctors had advised him that his only course of action was to put his affairs in order. That was why his sudden death the day before had thrown things into such disarray. Most people in Russia hardly gave the Czar or the Patriarch much of a thought, but Georgy and Alexy had been a constant stabilizing force as Russia had struggled to reemerge from the chaos that had followed the end of the Soviet Era.

Now, Gia stood with Fyodor and their son Alexei as she watched as her cousin’s son was Crowned as Mikhail II, Czar of Russia. At the age of twenty-three he looked exactly like what he had been until just a few days earlier, a University Post-Graduate Student who had been pursuing an advanced degree in Anthropology. This had caused a bit of consternation among the powers that be in Moscow. They had their own preferences that had been filled nicely by Georgy, who had fought the Soviets with the French Foreign Legion and he had proven his mettle on the bloody Russian Front during the Second World War. Mikhail was an intellectual and that was outside their experience. What they didn’t know was that Georgy had encouraged his oldest son to go to University. Personally, Gia felt that he was well equipped to be the new Czar because she knew that he had spent months conducting research by observing the behavior of Rhesus monkeys in an enclosure in the forest outside of Moscow. Her understanding was that they were vicious little creatures who weren’t above attacking their keepers or flinging feces at anyone unfortunate enough to be in range. Gia considered that perfect practice for any future dealings with the Duma that Mikhail might have.

“Message for you Sir” Vladimir, Fyodor’s latest Aide said as he handed him a folded piece of paper.

“I thought I said I wasn’t to be bothered at this function?” Fyodor asked in a low voice that promised ruin if he wasn’t given a satisfactory answer quickly.

“The Marshal’s Staff sent that to tell you that…” Vladimir started to say, only to have Fyodor silence him with a raised hand.

“The Marshal is standing across the hall from us you idiot” Fyodor growled, “Leave now and I will deal with you at a more suitable time.”

Vladimir should have been very afraid of what Fyodor was promising to do to him in the near future, but he didn’t show it outwardly. Instead, he stood at attention until he turned on his heel and strode away. He had been appointed to be Fyodor’s aide because he was considered to be an extremely promising young man by the Moscow Higher Military Command School. Gia had not liked him from the instant she had met him, finding Vladimir to be an oily weasel in human form though he was only seventeen years of age. Finding out later that he was the son of a member of the NKVD had almost resulted in Gia having him removed forcibly from her house. Fyodor had talked her out of it though, saying that he should get a chance to beat the smarminess out of Vladimir before she threw him out. So far that hadn’t taken, and Gia was seriously considering hiring a group of thugs to break Vladimir’s legs as soon as he was ejected from the house. She might be considered something of a saint, but even Jesus himself had limits and who was she to think that she was better than that?

“I’ll be rid of him soon enough” Fyodor said in a whisper that only Gia was close enough to hear. At the same time, the Coronation had reached the end of Alexei’s attention span and he was starting to fidget.
 
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ferdi254

Banned
That would be Vladimir Putin.
Oh and for the LAPD. If your hiring process gives you 10% corrupt officers they way to do is not to decrease the number of officers. Having less of them and those more powerfully equipped will even increase the likelihood of corruption (power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely)

But changing this would be too much. Id rather go with the less well armed but much better trained German police force.
 
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