Officer Hastings: Sacramento’s Finest

Today was the opening day of the California Charter School Association Conference and John and I planned to leave at 7 AM so we could get downtown, park, check-in, and be in our seats at the auditorium by 8. We converged in the kitchen right on time. I’m wearing slacks and a blazer; John is in jeans and a t-shirt. Back John goes to change. Since I have a minute, I sit down to post our plans for the day on FB. The phone rings. It is Sac PD. A lady asks me if this is Tiffany Millen and if I control the property at 5555 Sea Breeze Drive. “Control” was an interesting choice of words but I thought it would be inappropriate to interject that the place is mostly out of control so I just said, “Yes.”

Sac PD: “We have two officers on site at the property.”

Me: “I was just outside. I saw no one.” (I go back outside.)

Sac PD: “Oh, you are at the property?” (They assumed it was a business property.)

Me: “Yes, I live here and I’m outside and it is totally quiet.”

Sac PD: “Oh, this has something to do with a stolen car. Let me try to get more information.”

Me: “There are two cars parked here but they are both ours.” (In my head, I’m panicked figuring either Brendan’s or Alyssa’s car must be stolen. Both were purchased within the last six months.)

The lady apologizes for calling without having any information and says she is trying to find out what is going on. As she is waiting for an answer, my call waiting goes off. She told me to buzz over, it was probably an officer.

I answer the second line and learn that Officer Hastings has just pulled an all-night shift. While on duty, he stopped a stolen car and arrested the occupants. Inside, he found hundreds of pieces of stolen mail. He had a check made out to Natomas Homeschool Alliance for more than $15K. It was a check I’d been waiting for so I could run payroll for February. He was at the end of his shift and was booking each piece of mail into evidence - a major task. He had lots of checks, credit cards, income tax returns and a ton of evidence that these people were heavily into identity theft. What made that check stand out was the size of it and he figured someone needed it. If he booked it into evidence, it would be months before we would get it back. If I could come down to a little industrial complex across from the Greyhound station on Richards Blvd, and knock on a locked gray steel door behind a blue dumpster before he had to leave, he would give it me. I was at that door within 20 minutes.

Officer Hastings was trying to book hundreds of individual pieces of mail into evidence so he could go home, but he took the time to track down a name and a phone number, and to try to contact someone at 7 AM, when all he had to go on was a business name and what he presumed was a business address. I have no words for his kindness. Truly amazing. If John hadn’t decided to wear jeans and a t-shirt this morning, we would have been gone when that call came.

The entire staff of the company that sent that check was in the Auditorium at the conference when we arrived just before 8 and I was able to show them the check and share the story with them.

God is good. Tiffany