Dude Looks Like a Lady

In the city where I'm a patrol sergeant, there are many warehouses, factories and miles of railroad tracks where crimes occur. They include commercial burglary, employee theft, stolen cars being stripped, vandalism and narcotic use.

One Saturday afternoon I was checking the railroad tracks behind several buildings when I saw a man walking towards me, about 200 feet away. I hid from view and carefully watched him as he walked towards a large set of bushes near the rear entrance of a company. He looked around to see if anybody was watching before entering the bushes.

All the businesses in that area were closed, so I suspected that he was an employee at one of them who had stolen property during working hours, hid it in the bushes, then came back on Saturday to retrieve it. I called for backup and set up a perimeter around the area.

After the other officers arrived I saw a different subject step out of the bushes who didn't look anything like the man I had just seen entering them. I wasn't exactly sure what was going on so I had my officers closer to the bushes move in and detain the new suspect. As the officers moved in, the suspect started to run towards me, but fell down and was stopped by my officers.

As they called me over the radio to walk over to them, both officers were laughing hysterically. As I got closer I realized that the suspect was the same man I saw go into the bushes. Except now, he was wearing a miniskirt, blouse, bra, makeup and high heels. My officers told me that he tripped over his high heels when he tried to run from them.

The man said that he wasn't doing anything wrong and enjoyed dressing as a woman. He told us that he kept his ladies clothes behind that building and dressed up here because he didn't want his family to find out about his "secret."

I explained to him that if he came back to the area again we would arrest him for trespassing and book him in whatever outfit he was wearing. He then decided it would probably be better to find a different dressing room so he could avoid being booked with hardened criminals while dressed as a teenaged girl.

He departed with a cheery wave, leaving me to realize that while it wasn't the type of crime I was expecting, I had been left with a story that I enjoy telling always.

Ben R. Busse
Police Sergeant
Vernon Police Dept.
Vernon, CA