Search Warrants And Sex Toys

 

If you've been a police officer for any length of time you know there are certain truths to the job.

There are slackers on every shift in every police department. Everywhere. Guys who work harder at avoiding calls than actually handling them. We had one guy on night shift, years ago, who we started referring to as ALMO....Always the Last Man Out. On Friday and Saturday nights when the streets were hopping and we had calls backed up due to watch change, this guy would poke around on station until every other officer had signed on as 'in service' and been dispatched to waiting calls before he signed on. Whether it was taking an extended dump after roll call and jail shakedown or immediately pulling his cruiser into the wash bay to spray it off, he was always the last one out. Every time.

Your lunch breaks, at points in your career, will be interrupted by A). radio calls, and B). people with stupid questions. Take those two to the bank.

Everyone sitting in Mom's basement in front of a keyboard knows how to do your job, even as they chow down on tater tots and pizza rolls....and probably showerless for the sixth day in a row.

There will always, always, be people in command positions that have no business holding rank; some should never have become police officers but took the job for the steady paycheck and benefits and were somehow able to slip in the back door. Great test-takers, bad at street sense and interacting with common citizens....and, generally, arrogant and self-centered.

And then there's the search warrants and...uhh...'marital aids'.

Throughout my thirty-plus years as a copper I was involved in countless search warrant executions, for everything from drugs to stolen property to evidence of illegal gambling to illegal weapons...and one homicide. On easily half of those warrants, while looking through drawers, in closets and under mattresses we would invariably come across any manner of sex toys, both AC and DC powered. Some didn't even need power. Every size and shape imaginable, and the property of folks you'd never dream used them. 

We executed a search warrant years ago in an apartment, in which a dealer, who'd also been a user, had been found dead of a heroin overdose. Items in plain view inside the home and in the decedent's car were the basis of the warrant; for the uninitiated, there's this term, 'probable' cause', that is central in search warrants. You have to draw up the warrant and list reasons why you need it. You have to describe, in detail, exactly where you intend to search and what you're searching for. You then take it to a judge and, after reviewing it, if he feels you have enough valid reasons for needing to invade someone's domain in search of evidence of crimes, the judge will sign it. 

In this particular case there were needles and a cook spoon laying in plain view; in taking a look at his car, which had a couple of windows opened about an inch ( and it was a hot August day to boot) I could smell an extremely strong odor of marijuana coming from the inside. I remember telling a supervisor on scene that he could have my next paycheck if there wasn't at least ten pounds of marijuana inside the vehicle.

The total was 13 pounds, so I got to keep my paycheck.

In the bedroom, while looking through a dirty laundry basket (with gloves!), we located an under-clothing-worn mini-vibrator. We also recovered over $2300 in cash and another two pounds of wild weed and a couple of bindles of heroin. Apparently the dead man sold marijuana to support his heroin addiction.

His on-again, off-again girlfriend, in whose apartment he'd died, left this earth a few years later. She, too, died of a heroin overdose, tragically leaving behind their little girl, who would have to grow up without either parent.

In another incident, a young guy thought he could beat detection by having U.S. prescription-required phenobarbitol mailed to him from a South American country. He lived with his mother, her boyfriend and his two younger sisters in a rather affluent area. During the warrant execution, a vibrator was found under the mattress in his thirteen-year-old sister's room; in the master bedroom, nude  photos of his mother were located. We ended up seizing drugs, cash, a .50 caliber Desert Eagle handgun and an AK-47 rifle. Disgustingly, we had to leave an on-duty officer completely out of the loop on that one because he commonly rode motorcycles with the mope responsible for having his now-embarrassed family's home invaded by police.

Lastly, while working in the Special Investigations Unit, we raided a home in which two middle-agers lived, as the male had been running an illegal gambling operation by phone. I was upstairs searching what evidently was the master bedroom in this home, a rather tidy two-story, well-kept place. As I opened the bottom dresser drawer I was shocked to find it completely full of vibrators and rubber male appendages.

Then, from the bottom of the stairway, the woman of the house pleads, "PLEASE don't open the bottom dresser drawer!".

"Too late", I replied, which was followed by the woman's wail of embarrassment.

Now, sex toys in and of themselves are not illegal to posses or own; in all of the instances mentioned, none were taken as evidence of a crime. However, if you're going to be involved in crimes which might subject your home, office, apartment or car to being searched by law enforcement, save yourself from embarrassment by NOT having sex toys on hand.

...though there was the time a plastic vibrator had been thrown by a wife, which struck her husband in the head, during a domestic dispute; THAT one was taken as evidence.

What Cops Do During Heavy Snow

 

Well, right now here in north central Ohio we're getting some significant snowfall accompanied by gusty winds, meaning it will be drifting. Since the wind is howling out of the north, that means east/west roads will be subject to some large drifts. Our local Sheriff just declared a Level Three snow emergency, meaning only emergency vehicles are permitted on the roadways

The Sheriff, J. Steve Sheldon, has been a good friend since the early 1980s, when I was a pup at Ontario PD and he was a road deputy on midnight shift. We'd often eat lunch together at Denny's at around 0400 hours. Off duty, we got into more than a few capers together, usually involving alcohol. All I'll say is, I'm glad I stopped drinking a few decades ago.

Back in those bygone days, most smaller law enforcement agencies didn't have 4-wheel-drive vehicles in their inventory; I clearly remember, though installing chains on our cruiser tires in order to get around. Hey, you did what you had to do to get by. I also remember Sgt. Lou Bemiller, who was in charge of vehicle maintenance, chewing me out for going too fast with chains on, which caused one of the chains to come loose and beat the crap out of the rear fender. Lesson learned.

One weekend night shift, during which it was snowing like crazy, the Chief ordered everyone to double up instead of riding solo. I was paired with a guy named Rex Knee. Rex was a nice guy who was four years older than I, very laid back, who absolutely loved Neil Diamond and eating the British burgers at the aforementioned Denny's.

He was also, as I would come to find, very cold-blooded. Not in the sense of being ruthless, he just had a hard time staying warm. The entire shift was a fight over the heater settings and me opening my passenger side window. Rex had the inside of that cruiser feeling like a blast furnace, to the extent that I felt like I couldn't breathe. 

That one lands in the top three longest-8-hour-shifts-ever.

At Mansfield PD it was a different story. We had a street crew who actually did a pretty fair job at making the streets passable; the real issue was boredom. On those very slow, snowy nights when nothing in the city was moving, five or 6 of us would 'coop' in the city parking garage, which once stood right next to the municipal building. We'd park, side-by-side, five cruisers across; most times, one or two of us would stay awake to monitor radio traffic while everyone else slept. If someone napping got dispatched to a call, we'd wake them up and away they'd go.

Yes, coppers do sleep on duty. Not every guy I ever worked with, but a large number of night shifters.

It's not only the coppers working nights. Several years ago there was a long-time dayshift officer who was found sound asleep in his cruiser...in the middle of the day...in the parking lot of a busy shopping complex. He retired a short while later.

I mentioned boredom earlier. When a young police officer is bored, the mind runs wild, and no time during the year is more boring than winter on night shift during/after a heavy snow and/or extremely low temperatures. 

One night, while I was training a young officer, we were cruising the northwest end of the city and pulled into the parking lot of a closed restaurant. We sat idly chatting about the job, life, who was stepping out on his wife....whatever it was, when we heard another unit call in a dead possum in the roadway. Yes, that's how boring it was. The dispatcher replied that she'd put it on the street department's list for pick up.

Out of curiosity, after we were sure the other offer had left the area, we drove the short distance to where the animal was located, finding it in pristine condition...well, for it being dead and frozen solid.

"Grab the yellow emergency blanket out of the trunk", I told my partner, "We're gonna do something with this."

Gary scooped it up, wrapped it and in the trunk it went.

So began the legend of The Possum Drag, which is a story for another time. 

Things sure were a lot more fun back in the day, is all I'll say. 

Then Versus Now: Police Cruisers

 "I miss the old days."

You'll hear that said by pretty much any retired copper who started out in the sixties, 70s or eighties. Times were simpler then, though the anti-Vietnam war protests were a huge thorn in the sides of big-city police departments in the late 60s to early 70s. Serial killers seemed to abound three of four decades ago, too, something we don't hear about much anymore.

I started my journey of wearing a badge and enforcing the law in September of 1979, back when disco was king and country was cool, largely thanks to John Travolta and Debra Winger's 'Urban Cowboy' film. Dudes wearing cowboy hats and big belt buckles were everywhere...and not a one of them had every roped a calf or even sat on a horse. I hated it. I also grew to hate the Bee Gees.

But it sure was fun being a copper.

Plymouth Fury with the 440-cubic inch V-8? I drove one. Chevy Impalas and Caprices? Yep. Ford Crown Vics? We got a shipment of them in the late 1980s at Mansfield PD; guys would line up in the police compound in order to snag one from the guys coming in on the previous shift. I preferred the boxy Impalas.

I did not, however, every drive a Dodge Diplomat. Side story: we had a guy in the mid-eighties who got into trouble by lightly damaging a cruiser and not reporting it. Instead, he bought a can of black spray paint and did a little back-alley cover-up paint job. Of course, he got caught. As punishment, he had to drive one of the old K9 cruisers...a Diplomat...throughout the summer on afternoon shift; in addition to smelling like a hot, unwashed dog, the air conditioner didn't work, nor did the AM radio. He was miserable.

Speaking of radios, it was rare to have AM and FM, but then the music was a lot better back then, by far. At Ontario PD in the early 80s, we had our own cruisers which you could take home if you lived inside the then-village (it attained city status several years ago). As such, you could make personal, minor alterations if you wanted. I installed an am/fm/cassette player, 7-band graphic equalizer and some after-market speakers. I also added a ten-band scanner so I could monitor neighboring agencies. Before that, if I wanted to listen to, say, the sheriff's office, you had to take an extra hand radio, set it to the SO's channel and wedge it under the passenger side head rest.

The police radio was a pretty straight-forward setup, 4 channels, including the LEARNS network. If you got into a multi-county pursuit, you could use that channel to talk to any other police agency equipped with it. Some of the cars were equipped with an external loudspeaker, which meant an extra microphone in the setup. Then there was the siren control box, which let you choose between a wailing siren or a warble. The European high/low didn't come into vogue until the late eighties. I never used it.

A couple of us also mounted the air cleaner lids, which sat directly over the carburetor, upside-down, which added a powerful roar to the engine. Hey, we were young guys who thought they were indestructible, right? We'd find, though, that it was kinda tough to stealth up to a break-in in progress with that loud engine.

In my early days at Mansfield PD, there were a couple of cruisers fitted out with the Federal Signals siren system. If you had to run 'hot' somewhere, if you could get the selector switch set just right between 'wail' and 'warble', it would produced a higher-pitched warble, which sounded a lot like the police sirens in Mel Gibson's 'Mad Max' movie. I think the old-timers hated it; as I got later into my career. I'd find that some of the things younger pups did grated on my nerves, too.

That was it; simplicity in the driver's seat. Nowadays, you slide into the seat of a patrol car and there's lights and switches everywhere. There's also a mounted laptop computer that will do everything but wipe your nose. Run plates, sign off and on calls, write traffic citations and police reports. Heck, in my early days, we typed our reports...on a typewriter. Then we went to handwritten reports. Nowadays coppers tippity-tap reports on the in-car laptop. Sitting in a present-day cruiser is like sitting in a space capsule.

When I retired in 2013 we had the in-car laptops. I didn't like them but there were certain tasks we were compelled to use them for, there wasn't a way around it. Suffice it to say, I retired at the right time, having worked across five decades.

Man, do I miss the old days.

Typical early-day radio/siren set up

Present-day cruiser

A Man Among Men Has Left Us

 

I haven't made any blog posts for quite a while, I know. To be honest, I think I'd just lost my passion for writing.

Until today.

It took some terrible, terrible news to get me in front of my laptop in order to tell you about Joe.

I first met Joe Wendling in August of 1984, during my first few months at Mansfield PD. He was one of four Wendling brothers to serve the citizens of our city while wearing a badge. One brother, Jim, had already retired from the department before I started, having been shot in the line of duty during a very short gun battle. Jim killed his assailant during the encounter, but suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen which ended his career. I've yet to have the pleasure of meeting him. John, Joe and Jan were still working, though and, through the coming years, I'd get to know each on a personal level, at one point serving on night shift under Joe's command. Great, great policemen, all of them highly-decorated by the city and veterans of the United States Marine Corps.

All four brothers saw combat in Vietnam. A lot of it.

There are many memories I could recount involving the brothers and the police department; some comical and others tragic. It was when I interviewed Joe for a story about his service in the Marines, years after we'd both put down the badge, that I gained a totally different insight and level of respect for this man. Not that I didn't respect him before but I was to learn just how decent, honorable and...well, heroic... he was over the three hours we spoke.

It was a late autumn afternoon when I rang the bell on Joe and Candy's house, a spacious, two-story stone and brick affair in a quiet suburb southwest of the city, the lawn meticulously trimmed to perfection. Joe, his usual affable self, invited me in. We sat at his dining room table, looking through photographs from that time so long ago when the young Marine was nineteen or 20, dropped into the middle of green, stiflingly hot jungle to defeat Communist insurgency.

Joe wanted to tell me about Operation Union 2 but he couldn't; this man, who I'd witnessed arrest hardened criminals, was lost for words, tears welling and voice strained by the memory. Instead, he handed me his Bronze Star with valor device citation summary, which recounted his actions when his company came under fire as soon as the transport helicopters landed.

Entrenched Communist troops. hidden in thick vegetation at the edge of the LZ, opened up with machine gun, mortar and recoilless rifle fire on the exposed Marines, killing or wounding many of them. Joe, who'd been returning fire with the M-60 machine gun he carried, ran 100 meters into the clearing and dragged/carried four wounded men to safety before collapsing due to heat exhaustion.

The corpsman attached to his company thought he was dead.

"My brother came to inside a body bag" his brother Jan had told me after the story had been printed. I cannot comprehend the horror Joe must have felt; I fully understand why he hadn't spoke of it.

Joe served two tours in Vietnam, his interview giving me more than space would permit in the newspaper. I had a word count, you see, and his story was very tough to cut down in order to meet that count.

After retiring in 2009, I asked Joe why he hadn't every applied for the Chief's job; he would have been perfect for it. "I don't want the headache of dealing with all the politics involved", he'd told me, which I should have expected. Joe would have always put his street coppers first because he was a true leader.

At the end of the interview Joe thanked me for listening. This man, this true American hero, showed his gratitude by giving me a chromed bayonet. I was at a loss for words and didn't want to accept the gift, but he insisted. "It meant a lot to have someone listen."

Joe Wendling, retired Lieutenant of the Mansfield Police Department and also retired Lt. Colonel from the Ohio Air National Guard, died this morning...

...and I will grieve and miss him greatly.

God rest your soul, Joe; you earned it.

Joe Wendling, 2017

                                                        Shouldering his M-60 in Vietnam

New Posts Coming Soon

 

It's been a while since the last post, I know; I've been out of state tending to Mom but will have a couple of new stories very soon.

Iwo Jima, Tasers And A Dirty Cop

 Being a student of history, particularly from WW II, I've developed an immense respect for those who fought and sacrificed in that war, a war that was fought on two fronts against three enemies: Germany and, to a lesser extent, Italy in Europe and the Japanese in the Pacific theater.

When I was writing the veterans stories for our local newspaper, my favorite subjects to interview were the veterans from the Second World War. That generation of men...they were just a different breed from a bygone age. They are and were, truly, America's Greatest Generation.

I mention that in order to tell this story.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of seventeen years ago I was working night shift with my pal Troy Weaver, who's now a captain at Lexington PD, and another guy I'll refer to as Goof, a man that should never have worn a badge.

Goof was probably 6 foot two and, in his mind, handsome. Arrogant doesn't begin to describe his attitude, coupled with a distinct lack of respect for those who commanded him. Here was a man who'd never, in his ten-plus years on the job, done anything he could hang his hat on. Goof would do the bare minimum in order to get by on the job.

This night, dispatch got a couple of calls from a local nursing home about a resident who was highly agitated and armed with a club and a large shard of glass, threatening staff. 

The man had also recently had open-heart surgery.

The three of us arrived at about the same time, rushing inside. The nursing supervisor, obviously distressed, led us down a hallway until it terminated at a crossing hall. To the right, in a dead-end area that served as a waiting room, stood our subject, totally naked and bleeding from his recently acquired surgical scar, which ran from just below his throat to his belly. In one bleeding hand he held the piece of long, jagged glass; in the other a table leg, which still had the metal triangular fitting which had attached it to the bottom of said table.

He was somewhere around eighty or 85 years old.

"He had bypass surgery two weeks ago", exclaimed the supervisor, who was now huddled behind a large desk with a few other nurses. "He wants to see his wife."

Hearing those words, the man said, "You're damned right I wanna see my wife, now call her up and get her down here!" He then turned to us and semi-crouched, as if ready to attack. "I ain't afraid of no cops! I fought the Japs on Iwo Jima!"

The agitated man was a World War Two veteran and, if he'd been on Iwo, definitely a Marine.

About a year or so before this incident we'd had Taser training, qualifying our officers to carry and use the electronic device. I had conducted the training, having attended a week-long instructor's class.

The device delivers 50,000 volts of short, very quick waves of electricity, and is designed to sort of 'short-circuit' the connection between nerves and muscles, temporarily incapacitating its target. In my experience, if delivered correctly, it is very effective; however, at that time there were three instances in which it was NOT to be used: on obviously pregnant females, on subjects who would be injured by falling from elevation and on heart patients.

Naturally, Goof draws down on the man with his Taser.

"DO NOT use that weapon!!" I screamed. "He's a heart patient!"

Goof didn't care, keeping the Taser trained on the man. I stepped into his line of fire. "PUT THAT THING AWAY!"

He did, wearing a sneer on his face.

"I WANT MY WIFE!", shouted the old Marine.

The nursing supervisor crept up behind us, wary of the elderly man who no doubt would do harm to anyone who approached him. "His wife's been dead for three years", she loud-whispered to us.

Troy and I had a quick discussion and came up with a plan: while one of us kept the man talking and at bay, the others would retrieve two hospital-bed mattresses. We'd use them to pin the cardiac patient to the wall and disarm him. Meanwhile, we had nursing supervisor call for a rescue squad, as the distraught veteran would need more medical care than the nursing home could provide.

Weaver and I rushed the man, who'd tried feebly to swing the table leg, the blow cushioned by the mattresses. Once he was pinned, we successfully disarmed him. The man started crying, calling out for his deceased wife.

He was transported to the hospital; that was the last I ever heard of him. 

Goof? Well, all I'll say is that he eventually resigned...after a search warrant had been served a few months later on a local drug trafficker and Goof's business card, with his home phone number written on the back, was found in the drug seller's coat pocket. It seems they'd had a cozy relationship, often riding their motorcycles together; we'd planned and pulled off the search warrant without Goof getting a whiff of it, otherwise, I'm certain Goof would have warned the mope. I probably should mention that, in addition to drugs shipped from overseas and cash, a .45 caliber Desert Eagle was seized from the doper.

Who knows what would have transpired had the trafficker been forewarned.

I sometimes think about that incident, knowing that the WW II Marine is probably gone from this earth by now, and wish I could have written about his military service. 

What a story he could have told.

 

Making A Difference Over 20 Years Later

 I'm home alone during the week, save for my usually snoring dog, Roscoe. He's a thirteen-year-old pit bull and also my best buddy in the world; I spend more time with Roskie than I do my bride, who is still among the working class.

It can get very quiet most days, especially in winter, when I can't get outside and tend to the flower beds or mow our little slice of heaven. I take great pride in our home and don't consider its upkeep as work. In winter, however, there's only so much to do as I await the arrival of spring. The quiet...well, that is an advantage I didn't see when I first retired, but I've come to savor the solitude.

A guy can watch only so much television, right?

The silence affords time to think, reflect and remember, to recall, mostly, the job. Sometimes I relive the hilariously funny episodes that occurred while wearing a badge from the fall of 1979 to early August of 2013; other times, its the moments that normal people never see or encounter, times that have drawn tears and reopened old wounds in the soul.

Sometimes, though, an encounter with someone from my time as a cop brings me sheer joy. Today was one of those times.

Stacy only works a half-day on Mondays and we've gotten into the routine of going out for lunch when she gets home. As she usually does, my wife called just after noon to let me know she was on the way, and asked if I'd be interested in eating in town; of course I would! I'm a big fan of food, you see.

Shaving while awaiting Stacy's arrival, I ran through the list of possible eateries we might visit and settled on one of our favorite locations, knowing she'd agree. We bustled out the door of Black Gold Homestead a mere five minutes after she got home. Arriving in town, I slid to a stop at a parking meter in front of The Mansfielder (not the restaurant's actual name), dropped a dime in the meter and walked inside with my redheaded angel.

I'm not going to describe the eatery in detail because I wouldn't want to reveal the identity of the person I'm about to tell you of; suffice it to say the place is nothing fancy and has been around for awhile, and the food is always good.

After being seated and reviewing the menu I looked around the place, sitting as I always do, facing the door. There were probably five people working in the place, but one in particular piqued my interest; I knew the woman from somewhere, but where? Even though she was wearing a surgical mask (is anyone else getting sick of seeing them?) I knew I'd come across her before sometime back when I was on the job.

Stacy and I ordered (the mystery gal wasn't our waitress) and I told my wife about the woman behind the mask, that I knew her from somewhere. Once our food arrived and we'd started eating, the cop part of my brain worked in the background, trying to remember...

Then it hit me. I'd arrested her for drug possession a little over two decades earlier. This story, however, has a bit of a twist to it.

Back on that day, as she sat in an interview room at the department, she was a little scared and apprehensive, as she should have been. It was her first arrest for drug possession. I knew her from another restaurant in town, one I'd visited a lifetime ago (read: back before I met and married my wife) on a semi-regular basis. I was surprised this woman (barely out of her teens back then) would be involved in drug use.

"Annie (not her real name), you know me; I can't tell you how shocked I am."

Tears started flowing down her face.

"How do you get from being a young, beautiful girl with your entire future in front of you to sitting in a police station in handcuffs?" I should mention here that Annie had dropped off the radar, leaving the restaurant where she'd worked about a year before this episode, and the ravages of dope use had taken a toll.

That began an extended conversation about the pressures of life as a single mother and succumbing to drug use. We talked about getting clean, of changing your environment, including who you hung out with, ways to make it in this world, of inner strength and considering the effects your actions will have on your family and children.

I took a lot of time with Annie because I knew she could be better. I knew she was worth it. I hoped my erstwhile counseling session took hold.

Now, all these years later, here's Annie again. As she passed by our table I stopped her.

"Excuse me, but do you know who I am?" The heavy, gray goatee and added age lines in my face, I was surprised by her reaction.

"I sure do! You're the policeman who saved me!", she said, pulling her face mask down to reveal a beaming smile. "That talk we had...I can't tell you how much it meant to me. I've been clean for almost twenty years now, I'm married to a great guy and have three kids, and...well...thank you."

Annie's eyes started to tear up; this old copper had a lump in his throat.

Not wanting to embarrass her (or myself), I changed the subject, introducing Annie to my wife; we chatted about Covid and the weather. Before she left our table, though, Annie remarked to Stacy, "He was one of the good ones."

By taking a few minutes out of the decades I wore the badge, I made a difference in just this one life. Maybe more, I'll never know, but seeing this former addict alive and flourishing...

It was worth it.