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.

Projects and Obsessions

I’m currently working on three writing projects. Simultaneously.

The first one started just before the Presidential elections in 2008 that has turned into a still-forming novel. Yes, that’s right, eight years ago. That’s a long time on any author’s time card, let alone a fledgling such as myself. I only have a few chapters to complete; the problems, however, are many. Too many moving parts. Too many characters, but each one needed to be able to tell the tale in its entirety. Complexity can be a bad thing in a case such as this because you have to keep going back to check sections of storyline in order to maintain flow and pace.

 That work is already 80,000 words and rising; the scary thing is that, in the book, there have been events I’ve put on paper in this fictional story that run surprisingly close to actual incidents that have occurred since the book’s inception.

The idea for the storyline came to me during a dream one night, and my wife will tell you that I’ve had some pretty wild ones. This dream in particular, though, was so real, so substantive, that I got out of bed and started jotting it down so that I wouldn’t forget. Jotting turned into typing…and it is ongoing even today. It has become a labor-intensive endeavor, one that I must self-motivate for in order to work on it. It is my personal Frankenstein; a baby I’ve worked on that has grown into a monster. That baby’s working title is ‘Siege of the Holy City’…and no, that city is not The Vatican.

The second fictional project I started two months ago and it has nothing to do with law enforcement, although I’m toying with the idea of using one or two characters from the novel in bit parts of this story, since the location/setting I’m using is one which is central in the book.

The working title is ‘Diver Down’, and it will be a series of stories developed from a fictional piece I wrote last year that I entered in a writing contest…and won.

The issue I’ve encountered is that, in order to be factually-correct concerning the main character’s occupation, I need to speak at length with a former diver in the U.S. Navy. I’ve sent emails to the Navy’s PR liaison office, reached out to the Veterans of Foreign Wars and AMVETS, both through their state and national offices, and gotten nowhere. Today I am calling the Navy’s main Diver Training Center to ask if they have resources available that could put me in contact with a former diver because, without their assistance, I can’t complete this project. It’s a shot in the dark but I’m running out of ideas; I won’t finish it if I can’t be factual, plain and simple.

The third? It’s much easier, because it is a collection of stories and events I’d experienced during thirty-one years behind a badge; a non-fiction work whose authenticity will be questioned by some.

 The one central question that will be posed after people have read the book will be this: “Did that really happen?”

The answer will always be the same: Yes it did.

It will cover events ranging from the shooting of a fellow police officer in 1981 to my retirement in 2013; it will be shocking, sorrowful, hair-raising and sometimes downright hilarious. It will be, above all, emotional.

It already has been for me. The writing of some of the events has brought back long-forgotten facts and the people involved in them. I’ve made phone calls, researched records, sent and received emails and re-read old newspaper stories. I’ve been contacted by old friends I’d lost touch with decades ago after they’d heard what I was working on, guys that, during my formative years in cop-world, were idols to me, role models that made me the police officer I became.

It will be politically incorrect; you have to remember that, during the late 70s, the world was a different place. Things that happened back then absolutely would not be tolerated in today’s media-driven-cameras-everywhere law enforcement environment. Some names will be mentioned, most won’t. Some parts of stories will be changed to protect identities but the main theme will not. It is becoming the obsession that ‘Siege’ initially was.

…only this time, I’m not stopping until it is completed…

…which is why I arose and started writing at 0230 this morning, the soundtrack from HBO’s ‘The Pacific’ miniseries playing in my headphones while the rest of the house sleeps peacefully.

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, ‘The Hanging Man’ in 1982…

He Whose Name I Shall Not Speak ( Or Write )

The QB-Whose-Name-I-Will-Not-Speak: In these United States we have a Constitution which guarantees many rights; those who exercise some of those rights may not be ones we agree with, but I will defend those rights because they are included in our Constitution. That being said, a now-third string, over-rated, overpaid professional sports athlete made a decision to sit during our National Anthem prior to a preseason game, causing much furor and gnashing-of-teeth. He said he did so because he was "...standing up for oppressed minorities..." in America.

To borrow a rap-world term ( which I shal never, ever do again ), the third-stringer has no street cred.

Here is a man who is biracial, adopted by white affluent parents and raised as their own, wanting for nothing. His adopted father, Richard, is VP of Operations for a major dairy manufacturer. 3rd-stringer, to his credit, did actually graduate with a degree from his university but obtains his millions-per-year playing a sport which has nothing to do with that degree. How many underprivileged students...black, white, Asian, Hispanic...can't afford to go to college because they're not athletes, are denied the opportunity of higher education because their families are less-than-blue-collar income earners...if they even earn at all? Dining for generation upon generation upon the National Breast is another topic for another time.

Third-stringer knows nothing of national service, honor earned on an actual battlefield or sacrifice for country, the very things which our National Anthem's words embody. Those that have made the Ultimate Sacrifice did so to preserve this nation...AND its Constitution. Does he have the right to sit? Yes. Do the vast majority of Americans agree with 3rd-stringer's decision? NO.

And the very word 'oppressed'? I suggest 3rd-stringer travel to places like North Korea, Iran, Communist China and Africa or live among the populace of those poor Christians trapped in Islamic State-controlled areas. Then, and only then, might he have some actual understanding of the word...if he survived.

The sad things here are: because of his actions, third-stringer's team and team mates will suffer. They will be hated, ridiculed and derided on a national level because of one player. Millions across the sports world will hope his team loses all sixteen games. ( No, 3rd-stringer does not play for the Browns ). Also, was this 'oppressed minorities' topic the actual driving force behind a decision that third-man-on-the-depth-chart made....or does he realize that he is becoming irrelevant in the world of professional football and, by immersing himself in controversy, people would take note of him again? I mean, even the Browns had a chance to pick him up during the off-season; how badly does that make him feel being rejected by Cleveland, a word in the Native American world that stands for 'place where quarterbacks go to die without honor'?

Patriots stand up for and defend their country....not sit during the playing of the National Anthem. Third-stringer's name should never be mentioned in the same breath as 'patriot'.

Ever.

How To End This Madness

Heroin overdoses happen multiple times a day in the county I live in. So much so that the OD revival drug Narcan is now carried by almost every segment of the first responder community. Some private citizens even carry it.

The drug heroin now being trafficked across the nation is being cut with Fentanyl, a very powerful opioid used to treat patients for pain immediately after surgery.

Why?

Because it enhances the 'high' so intensely that the user wants more. Sooner. Thus, more overdoses. More deaths.

I had the opportunity to have an extended conversation with a sitting Common Pleas judge, a man I've known for around twenty years, about sentencing of heroin traffickers....and drug traffickers in general a few months ago. I told him how it infuriates me that a person either convicted of or pleading to trafficking in heroin generally gets probation on a first offense, yet someone who is a deadbeat parent that has fallen far behind in child support payments gets jail time. Not that the deadbeat doesn't deserve it, but how much crime does a deadbeat cause compared to a heroin dealer?

Home and business break-ins happen almost hourly. Robberies and thefts are on the increase. Families are being torn apart and our health care system, along with ambulance and rescue squad crews, are taxed to the limit. Drug enforcement units can't actively investigate drug trafficking because they frequently are called upon to respond to overdose calls in order to attempt to ascertain where the user bought their heroin. Most times, they won't talk.

The judge told me that, due to current sentencing guidelines, there's no presumption of prison time for first-time offenders. Our prisons are full, so probation is the answer. In other words, the judge's hands are tied by the legislature.

That needs to change. Now, as soon as possible. My thoughts? First-time heroin traffickers get a mandatory one-year sentence. Period. No plea deals, no early release. Second offense gets them five years. The third? Life, with possibility of parole after twenty years.

If the public seriously wants to cut crime, this needs to happen. Contact your representatives, let them know that we cannot...will not...stand for this tsunami of crime caused by heroin addiction. The addicts? Get them the help they need. Dry up their sources.

Now.

Here We Go Again...

Sandusky County, home of the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library, Mad River Railroad Museum and a host of other small-town attractions, is in the national spotlight.

And it is bad.

It seems that Sheriff Kyle Overmyer has a problem. A huge legal one at that, involving theft in office, deception to obtain prescription pain medications and tampering with records, to name a few.

Overmyer has been indicted on 38 felony counts following a year-long investigation by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations, which was begun at the request of Sandusky County Prosecutor Thomas Steirwalt after allegations of misconduct by the Sheriff came to his attention.

Suspicions arose when, during Sandusky County's drug give-back event, Overmyer himself visited several police agencies to collect the unused drugs, a highly-unusual practice. It is alleged that Overmyer searched each container, helping himself to those drugs that appealed to him. He also visited several area physicians and asked for prescriptions for pain medication for unnamed maladies.
Overmyer also fudged the books on the Furtherance Of Justice funds in his office, monies to be used to pay for law enforcement-related expenditures.

Thirty-eight felony counts, along with an assortment of misdemeanor charges. That is serious business, whether you're the county Sheriff or a local trash collector. My guess would be that Mr. Overmyer is drug dependent, refusing to recognize his addiction and take steps to get help for his problem.

Now he will pay a price, even in the very unlikely event he is acquitted of all charges. Once a scandal is out there in the media, the damage has been done. It cannot be unread, it cannot be retracted. For an agency such as BCI to gain thirty-eight felony counts against an individual, well, where there's smoke, there's fire.

It's just too bad that the citiens of Sandusky County and all law enforcement officers everywhere will be stained by Overmyer's actions while Sheriff.

Under the Heading of 'What Was He Thinking?'

There's a little beach spot in South Carolina between Murrell's Inlet and Myrtle Beach called Surfside. Never been there, but I'm sure it's quite popular with the vacation crowd during the summer months when there's no school. The town's residential population is listed at 4,119 residents, its beach advertised as 'family friendly'. It boasts a fishing pier, branch of the Horry County library, a zoo, an aquarium and lots of small Mom and Pop diners.

All in all, it sounds like a very nice little community.

Bion Legrand Shoemaker III, one of Surfside Beach's residents, just gave the town...and Socastee High School...a black eye.

Shoemaker, 45, is a teacher there, instructing special needs students. Apparently he was looking for summer income, as many school teachers do, when school is out. He, despite his college education, decided on the sideline of becoming a criminal.

It seems that Shoemaker had a penchant for breaking into vehicles and homes. When school started on August 17th, Shoemaker didn't show up for class; he was arrested by SBPD the next day. “We are pleased to be able to recover some of the victim’s property in these cases. This is still a very fluid investigation,” said Surfside Beach Police Chief Rodney Keziah. “We anticipate recovering more property and possibly making additional charges.”

Shoemaker is currently jailed at the Horry County Correctional Center and is on paid administrative leave from Socastee High School pending the outcome of his trial.