An Exceprt From 'Cop Tales'...

This is a short story from the compilation I'm working on, entitled 'Cop Tales...True Stories From My Time Behind A Badge'.

I hope you enjoy!

                                                                   *****
                                                     

I was working a Sunday day shift on a bright, sunny, fall early afternoon in 1983. Nothing spectacular had happened ( it rarely did in Ontario back then ) and traffic flow through the village had been relatively light.

I was westbound on Park Avenue West, just passing under the railroad bridge west of Chambers Road, when I came up behind a mid-sized sedan being driven by a very short person with white hair; he/she was doing fifteen miles per hour…maybe.

In that location, you travel over a bridge and then come to a stop sign at the intersection of State Route 309. Now, this isn’t your normal intersection; Park Avenue ends at about a 45-degree angle to 309, requiring a driver to look over their right shoulder in order to check for traffic before pulling westbound onto the highway from the stop sign.

I watched this driver stop, place the vehicle in ‘park’ ( I saw the back-up lights flash as the gear selector went from ‘drive’ to ‘park’ ), adjust the rear-view mirror so that it could be used to check for approaching westbound traffic on 309, re-adjust the mirror to its correct rear-view position, put the gear selector back in ‘drive’….and pull out directly in front of two westbound vehicles approaching from the east, nearly causing an accident.

Of course, I initiated a traffic stop, activating my emergency lights; no response. I briefly hit the siren a couple of times; again, no reaction. The siren then stayed on until it got the diminutive driver’s attention, at which time the car pulled to the right…almost striking a mail box in the process.

As I got to the driver’s window I saw that the driver was an elderly female, looking just like the ones portrayed in every TV commercial that calls for…well, and elderly grandma-type. She had a look of bewilderment, asking, “Have I done something wrong, officer?”

After obtaining her driver’s license from her, which was just a couple of months from having to be renewed again, I told her she had failed to yield to traffic from the stop sign and had, in fact, nearly caused an accident.

“Oh no, officer, that can’t be; I checked with my mirror and didn’t see anyone coming.”

I was a little torn as to what I was going to do next: cite her for nearly causing the collision, call a relative to come drive her car for her and give the elderly woman a break or just give her a verbal warning to be more careful and let her go on her way? If she’d caused that 3-car accident, someone could have gotten hurt badly, and I’d be up to my neck with an injury accident: measurements, written statements, taking photographs, possibly having to go to the hospital in Mansfield to get some of those statements, there would have been fire/rescue apparatus everywhere, traffic would have been snarled….

…so I issued her a traffic summons. I also advised her that I would be sending a form to the State Bureau of Motor Vehicles asking that she be re-tested for driving privileges at the earliest opportunity. She wasn’t nearly as upset about the ticket as she was at being told she’d be sent in for re-testing. Looking back now, I know that one of the fears that come with growing older is losing your independence; she was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to drive anymore, meaning she’d have to depend on someone else to get around.

This sweet, elderly woman began crying over that, and it took a few minutes to calm her enough that she could continue on home, which is where she’d been going, just west of the village. The route would also take her directly past the police department.

I assisted her in re-entering the flow of westbound traffic on 309 so that I wouldn’t have another incident to take care of, then I pulled into a nearby business lot and started to write the ticket’s narrative on the reverse side of the document. Just as I was beginning to fill out the BMV form for requesting a driver re-test I got a radio call.

“100 to 112…signal 23 ( ‘report to station’ ) for a private property accident.”

Great. Wonderful. I absolutely detested accident reports more than any other type of call for service. I responded, “112 copies, en route”.

Two minutes later I pull into the lot where the village offices/police department stood, expecting to see a motorist or two waiting to file an accident report over a collision in a business lot…which happened a lot back then.

The only car I saw was the elderly woman’s car that I’d cited scant minutes before.

She’d come on station to complain about being flagged for re-testing…and had hit the accelerator instead of the brake while attempting to park, running smack into the side of the police department with enough force to push the brickwork inward.

I rest my case, Your Honor.

                                                        taken in 1980 while at Ontario PD

Just Like All Lives Matter, All Unsolved Murders Matter, Too

JonBenet Ramsey's unsolved homicide is fast approaching its 20-year-anniversary.

Stand by for non-stop media coverage.

In 1996, six-year-old child beauty pageant participant JonBenet Ramsey was initially reported missing by her parents, Patsy and John Ramsey, from their mansion in Boulder, Colorado and later found beaten and strangled to death in the home's basement. The as-yet unsolved homicide, which the Ramseys claim was the work of an intruder, became the leading story on the national news front for months.

Now, twenty years later, Oprah Winfrey-employed Dr. Phil McGraw, otherwise known as 'Dr. Phil', is airing a three-part interview with the victim's brother, Burke, who was nine years old at the time of the slaying and has remained silent through the passing years. In addition, a CBS documentary, an A&E network special and a slew of other interviews are all planned to hit the airwaves marking the twenty years that have passed since this tragic murder.

Why?

What about all the media coverage and interviews over all the other unsolved murders from 1996? Or any other year, for that matter? Not to lessen or demean the death of this six-year-old child, but what about the unsolved murder of Amber Hagerman, the ten-year-old from Arlington, Texas who was abducted and found dead in a ditch four days after last being seen riding her bicycle near her home, whose death inspired the creation of the AMBER Alert System? Or Barbara Barnes, a thirteen-year-old from Steubenville, Ohio who was found strangled to death in a riverbed two months after being reported as missing by her family?

Are their unsolved murders any less important to this nation's consciousness than JonBenet Ramsey's?

No, they are not. Each of the victims were mere children who died in horrific manner, whose families still grieve...and remember. The only one the rest of America will hear about, though, is JonBenet Ramsey.

All the others, from Hagerman to Barnes and the thousands of other victims whose killers have never been apprehended, deserve the same sorrow and grief that will drip from the national media's coverage of JonBenet Ramsey, 6-year-old child beauty queen and the daughter of affluent parents. No national front-line interviewers from major networks will revisit any of the other deaths, will mark the anniversaries of their unsolved slayings.

And that is shameful.