It's 1 a.m., and I'm crammed into a broom closet with a police captain who has lost his pants. Not the ideal reporting situation, but when you're covering the after-party for the biggest drug bust in Titusville history, you roll with the punches. Or, in this case, the keg stands.
Let's rewind. The kingpin is down, the streets are (theoretically) safer, and the entire Titusville PD is ready to blow off steam. I walked into the station expecting a few beers and some war stories. What I got was a bacchanal.
Picture this: a rookie crowd-surfing on a riot shield, a K-9 unit doing the limbo under a suspect's confiscated lingerie, and the chief of police breakdancing on top of the evidence locker.
"This is how we celebrate justice, baby!" yells a detective, shoving a fistful of confiscated cash into my pocket. "Tonight, we're all kings and queens!"
The air is thick with cheap cologne, burning evidence and an alarming amount of Axe body spray. The makeshift dance floor, once a sterile interrogation room, is a sweaty, pulsating mass of blue uniforms and questionable dance moves.
I try to interview a few officers. Their answers are mostly mumbles about perp walks and "taking down the big guy." One sergeant tries to handcuff me to a stripper pole that has inexplicably been installed in the break room.
Things get wilder. A food fight breaks out, with donuts flying like Frisbees and ketchup splattering the walls. A rookie tries to impress a dispatcher by juggling confiscated hand grenades (they were inert). And a mariachi band appears out of nowhere to serenade a conga line of cops and their significant others.
By sunrise the station is a wreck. There's confetti in the vents, handcuffs dangling from the ceiling fan, and a suspicious white powder coating every surface. I'm not going to ask.
I stumble out covered in glitter and smelling of stale beer. It was a night I'll never forget, and one the Titusville PD will try very hard to.
