Questions

 On August 4^th, I will celebrate my third year of retirement. That alone is surreal for me, because in my mind I could still gear up, get in a cruiser and work a shift. The reality, however, is much different.

I retired after having surgery for the second time on my left knee in 2013. Well, the fourth; I had a couple of scrapes/clean-ups in the 90s after stepping in a groundhog hole. At night. While trying to arrest a drug trafficker who was thought to be armed. He’d crashed his car over an embankment way out on Beal Road, on a very dark fall night, after an extended vehicle pursuit. Larry Caudill and I were partnered up in an unmarked minivan while working in METRICH, the ten-county drug task force, and had driven by the guy’s house to see if he was home; a judge had revoked his bond on a drug trafficking charge and we were actively looking for him. In the end, he went to jail and I ended up in the ER.

The knee wasn’t my only issue. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that I was a frequent flier with the medical community. Look up the term ‘accident prone’ in the dictionary and you’ll see my picture.

So it’s been three years. A lot changes in three years, especially concerning the law and law enforcement. I do, however, get calls seeking advice on legal issues still to this day on an almost weekly basis. If you are now or have ever been in law enforcement, you know what I’m talking about. People will call, stop by the house or grab you by the elbow if they run into you in a store and ask about all kinds of scenarios, explaining the difficulty or situation they’ve encountered in a particular event. You’re expected to know the answer or solution immediately.

The truth is, sometimes we just don’t know the answer. Other times, you give them what you know or think they should do…and they don’t like it.

I haven’t kept up on changes in the law or legal procedures that have occurred since I took off the badge for the last time, unless it’s something that might affect me directly…such as the ‘if your windshield wipers are on, your headlights are on’ law that went into effect a couple of years ago. Civil or domestic issues? Your guess is as good as mine, but I can steer you to who you need to talk to in order to deal with them.

The question is…will you listen?