Summer! A time when stoplights are optional, speed limits are suggestions and human life is an afterthought. Summer in Indianapolis keeps officers busier than a cat burying shit on a hot tin roof. But before summer come those glorious springtime days where 45 and sunny feels like 75 and summer. People come out of the woodwork, all but guaranteeing an endless stream of car and motorcycle crashes to complement the shots-fired incidents. On college campuses, any day with weather like that, plus booze, means tank tops and short shorts and yard games. In the working adult world, those warm spring days mean spring cleaning lists, considering starting on those lists and then, if you’re able, opting for drinks on some patio instead. Winter will be back the next day anyway.

The streets of Indianapolis have a similar tradition. Shooters have this backlog of work that’s been on the to-do list all winter, and at long last there’s a chance to get around to it. “Finally. A decent day to get some of this murdering done.” At least that’s how it feels.

People are just plain curious, for better or worse. I see it on accident scenes every day, shooting scenes every week.

But it’s not all shootings. There’s an equal-opportunity increase in runs, from the routinely violent to the disgustingly strange: Guy in a Sam’s Club parking lot naked and masturbating in Row 6, spraying people with pepper spray and vandalizing parked cars. Woman in convenience mart denied a cigarette purchase with her food stamps card slamming displays to the ground and throwing her double XL Big Gulp at the cashier before pissing on the chips and Little Debbies she knocked down. Man sleeping in person’s backyard shed with pockets full, like actually full, of various-sized cock rings while lying atop a pile of sex toys and children’s clothes.

More disgusting than whatever that shed-sleeper may have been doing was the brawny naked young man who made his intentions explicitly clear. “Come back over here so I can fuck the shit outta you, little girl,” a witness overheard him yell at the 12-year-old he was chasing through a park. Scared out of her mind, that child sprinted close to three-quarters of a mile home before collapsing at her mom’s feet. My beat partner met the man, still naked, in that family’s backyard. As she held him at Taser-point, since he was clearly unarmed, I snuck up behind and cuffed him up. The sprint to this house must have exhausted him into temporary zombie mode, making handcuffing a breeze, before whatever drugs he was on kicked back in and reawakened his fightin’-mad physical side. We got him some leg shackles and a bedsheet as he waited on a trip to the hospital. My guess is he was on “spice,” the culprit of many a summertime shenanigan. As first responders know all too well, when it comes to spice, it’s a race against the clock with an unknown amount of time before drowsy zombie spontaneously morphs into Taz whirlwind. When that happens — and it’s obvious when it does, because the person always gets sweaty and naked — start more cars. A fight’s a-comin’.

Despite my school-age history of getting into stupid fights and appreciating the adrenaline rush, I’m not much for fighting when it involves reports and potential lawsuits, especially in full uniform under the sweltering summer sun. When folks are hot and bothered, talking and listening is my preferred route, and I’ve listened to some outlandish summertime talk.

Shitfaced 45-year-old woman in a blue-and-white cheerleader outfit and stilettos after a Sunday afternoon Colts victory: “I bet yo’ sexy po-lice ass wants to see me do the splits.” I responded with “Please don’t … never mind,” as she jumped up and landed a very aggressive hanumanasana, somehow grinding against the ground while holding the position. “See what I’m doing, Mr. Off-fic-cer? I’m pretending the ground is your—” “Ooookayyy. This is a family show. I’m outta here. Have a good day, ma’am.”

Teenage male arrested for theft from Menards on how many knives he stole: “I only took two,” as I pulled three from one pocket. “One of those I brought with me,” as I pulled two more from another pocket. “I brought those along…” as I pointed to the still-attached Menards labels, “…I just never took the stickers off.” I pulled five more knives from his jeans pockets and said, “What about these?” He was like a clown car of knives. “I’m not sure about those. Maybe somebody else put those in there.”

Young woman I’d just tackled after she ran from a stolen vehicle: Vvvwwhhooooommmppp… “Whoops. Think I squeezed one outta you when I tackled you,” I said. “Yeah, sorry about that. I had Taco Bell right before this. I’m just hoping it was only gas,” she said. “We’ve all been there,” I replied as I cuffed her up and asked if she needed medical attention. We began walking back to my car and she said, “I know I ran from you guys, but thank you for being so nice to me even when I ran from you and farted on you.” I couldn’t knock her. I’d caught the prosecutors by surprise only a couple weeks earlier during a murder pretrial conference as we attentively reviewed my body-cam footage only to hear me-from-the-past let one rip, drowning out trial-relevant radio traffic.

Genteel old man arrested for failing to appear on a drunk driving charge: “Just had my back worked on at the hospital. Three vertebrae removed.” “Really? And you’re out walking with just a cane?” He told me the name of the hospital he’d walked from, which was about seven miles north. “No shit?” I responded. “Yeah. I figure I’ve got two good legs, may as well use ’em.” I ran him and told him he had a warrant, and he said, “Well, that’s OK. Guess it’s good to get that taken care of, then. Would hate to have that hanging over my head.” “I like your attitude,” I told him. My wagon driver showed up and searched him. “What’s this crusty dark spot on your pants?” the wagon driver asked. “Aren’t bleeding, are you?” “No, sir. Just shit myself on that long walk is all. It’s down both my legs,” he replied matter-of-factly.

Woman who’d been shot the previous day: “Weren’t you just shot right here yesterday?” I asked with a nod toward her crutches and full leg brace. “Yeah, but I’m a tough old bitch.” She reeked of booze and was clearly blasted on some combination of hooch and meds, so I said, “Guess a little booze helps with the pain, no?” “Zannies and weed for me!”

Folks may be strange, but I’ll take “summertime strange” over “summertime sad” all day. Back in the scorching AC-free summers of 18th-, 19th- and even 20th-century America, public lynchings were fanfare spectacles, drawing crowds in the hundreds and sometimes thousands. It’s disgusting and morbid, but that sick fascination with death, especially violent or gruesome death, is still very much alive. People are just plain curious, for better or worse. I see it on accident scenes every day, shooting scenes every week.

That common curiosity was demonstrated one hot summer day as we looked for a lost little boy at a very impoverished apartment complex — the projects, basically. As we searched the premises hoping to find any sign of the boy, we heard rumblings about his body possibly being chopped up and scattered across multiple large construction dumpsters on site. We called the detective working the case and eventually got a dog to come out and use his nose to help search. He hit on three of the dumpsters, one of which he was especially interested in. So we called the dumpster company and waited for someone to show up with a dumpster-dumping flatbed. As we waited, a crowd formed. Like the first day of spring, people seemed to emerge from the woodwork. Folks set up lawn chairs, got music blasting, lit up a few blunts and poured on the booze. A number of people were eating; one dude even had a grill going. It had become a festival-like environment, giving “search party” a whole new meaning, all to see us recover a poor little boy’s supposedly carved-up remains. We took our time rummaging through the piles of filth right alongside the dog. Ultimately, we didn’t find a thing except for a rotting mound of maggot-rich ground beef someone had thrown out. It was all the dog trainer could do to keep his partner away from that stuff.

As police officer numbers decrease and crime at least feels like it’s on the rise, the other three seasons increasingly seem a lot more like summer. Summer-like run loads now basically start at the beginning of March, sometimes earlier, giving “endless summer” a scary new connotation. Still, actual summer takes the cake.