Once A Cop, Always A Cop

The old saying goes, "you can leave the job, but the job never leaves you." That truth has been proven to many a retired copper through decades past, and I have the feeling it will always be true.

It held so on Christmas Day.

As was on Christmas Eve, a thick fog blanketed the landscape early Christmas morning here at Black Gold Homestead. The heavy mist left anything exposed to the elements with a glistening sheen; sporadic hissing cut through the gray curtain every time a vehicle passed by, which wasn't often at all.

This Christmas morning, as is our tradition every year, Stacy and I leisurely enjoyed our cups of steaming Tim Horton's coffee, or 'black gold', as I like to call it, while lounging in the living room of our modest home, recalling the family gathering of the night before and the laughter that is always the main thread of such events. We have some rather fun relatives, you see.

Afterwards we readied ourselves to visit the one family member missing the night before; Stacy's mother was hospitalized with a gastric issue that will require surgery.

Leaving the house and heading west up the hill, past a harvested field of corn on the left and woods across from it, I saw a big, gray box laying in the ditch on the south side of the roadway, probably three hundred yards from our home. Turning to my bride, I remarked, "that's a commercial safe. Somebody's business got burglarized."

Turning around in our neighbor's drive, we traveled partially down the hill to where the safe was located. I activated the emergency flashers on our Jeep and got out.

The large box was laying door side down, its door, having been removed, was on the wet leaves beside it, the long door handle and round, electronic dial facing up. I punched in the number for the Sheriff's Office on my cell phone and notified dispatch of what we'd found.

"We'll have a deputy en route shortly. Will you be standing by?"

I advised the dispatcher I would not, explaining about my mother-in-law. "You can't miss it, though", I laughed. "It's pretty big."

We left.

Stacy and I returned home around 1 PM, noticing the safe and its door were gone. "Wonder what they used to haul it out of the ditch", I mused. That, as they say, would be that.

Or so I thought until around two o'clock this afternoon, when Detective Joe Rotuno knocked on my door.

Det, Rotuno explained that he was investigating a business burglary in his jurisdiction, Perkins Township in Sandusky, and that the business' safe had been found not far from our place.

"Yeah, I'm the guy who found it." I explained what had transpired on Christmas morning, adding that I was a retired police officer. I shook his hand and introduced myself, Joe's face split by a grin. Knowing he was dealing with a fellow copper made things seem more...familiar, for lack of a better term. Law enforcement is, indeed, a brotherhood.

Joe explained that, through watching the business' security video, a Little Caesar's pizza franchise in Perkins Twp had been broken into....at 0600 hrs on Christmas morning, a mere four hours before Stacy and I found the safe! The culprits, who'd been wearing masks, entered through the shop's drive-through window; all told, from time of entry to wheeling the safe out a rear door on a dolly, the obviously experienced thieves spent six minutes on the job. Figuring an hour's drive from Sandusky to Mansfield, they'd had to have used a van or small box truck, at the very least, to haul the safe to Richland county, and had worked on its door while traveling.

"Apparently, when Richland County recovered it, the safe still had some paperwork from our Little Caesar's in it; they called us and, when we checked the business, discovered the break-in", the detective remarked. "Otherwise we'd never have known where the safe was from."

We passed a few more minutes chatting, then Det.Rotuno moved on to our neighbor Kay's house. to see if she'd noticed anything unusual Christmas morning. I reclaimed my spot in the recliner as Roscoe, our pit bull, continued to doze on the couch; he'd lost interest in the stranger who'd knocked on the door once it was apparent Joe Rotuno wasn't there to kill me.

 Questions began running through my mind, along with a few scenarios.

Why would a safe crew travel from Sandusky to Mansfield after pulling a job? Were they local to this area? If so, why go all the way to Sandusky to snatch a safe? Could it be possible they were from somewhere south of Mansfield, and just found a remote spot on a foggy morning to dump the safe while passing through town? Why dump it where it would almost immediately be found, instead of, say, rolling it off a bridge into a river or creek?

My own personal conjecture? The mopes are professionals, definitely, though I can't imagine they'd get more than a few hundred bucks from a Little Caesar's. Why pick that spot? Had they scouted it beforehand? Could an ex-employee have been involved, maybe knowing how much might be in the safe in addition to knowing where it was located inside the store and that it wasn't secured to the floor? The criminals might be from this area; Lord knows Richland County has produced its fair share of safe-crackers...but why go all the way to Sandusky if that were true?

I caught myself halfway through trying to answer all those questions.

I'm retired. Let the next generation find those answers.

But I'll always have that cop's mindset, until the day I die...just like all my other retired brothers and sisters.

Back In Time With A Brother In Blue

Rotator cuff surgery is not a pleasant experience; just ask medically-retired former Mansfield Police Sergeant Keith Coleman.

Or me.

Keith's accumulated a variety of nicknames through the years, from Bubba to Biscuit to Keefus and plain old KC. He's a good-natured man with a hearty laugh, who now makes his way in this world as a registered nurse.

That's right, RN. After being forced to retire from law enforcement due to a rare blood condition, KC went back to college and earned a nursing degree. He's in the Oncology department at an area hospital, caring for patients requiring chemotherapy, among other things.

My old pal, an avid golfer, tore his left shoulder muscle swinging a golf club last summer and recently had it repaired; he's wearing a wedged sling on his left arm, one that holds his forearm away from his body so as to aid the repaired muscle's proper healing. I had the same procedure back in '17 on my right shoulder and it's no fun.

Getting old, you see, isn't for sissies.

Knowing he can't yet drive, I picked him up yesterday for an excursion to the city building and then lunch at Coney Island on the square. I figured I'd give his lovely wife  Lisa a little break from having KC under foot around the house as he recuperates.

We never made it to lunch.

The purpose of our trip to Mansfield's muni building was to visit with a few long-time friends not yet retired, folks we'd both worked with back in the day and hadn't seen for awhile.

I parked my GMC in the lower east lot at a metered space, immediately realizing I had absolutely no change with which to feed it. "Hey, the next one beside it has an hour and twenty-four minutes left on it", Keith observed, and so I maneuvered into that spot. Problem solved.

Not. Keith and I spent well over twice that amount of time wandering the halls of MPD.

Our first stop was the second floor where command staff offices are. The first thing I missed was seeing Nettie Ballard's always-smiling face behind the glass at the receptionist's desk. It also required an explanation of who we were and why we were there to the gal manning that post, as she had no idea of the years KC and I had put in at the police department.

Before it was said and done, we were in Assistant Chief Joe Petrycki's office, along with Chief Keith Porch, Captain Shari Robertson, Captain Doug Noblet, Lt. Jason Bammann and Lt. Mike Napier. Needless to say, stories, laughter and good-natured ribbing  were in abundance. A little pang of nostalgia began to faintly glow deep in my chest, much like the coals of a beginning fire in the heat stove that sits in my living room here at Black Gold Homestead. And, just as in the stove, it would eventually glow white-hot.

Shari, or 'Sis', as I call her, joined us as we moved from place to place, after Keith and I first made a stop in the radio rom. Lewanda Curry was the lone person the two of us knew in the communications center and, being her usual self, smilingly chided us for not bringing her an order of hot wings. Apparently Lew has moved on from the apple-pie-and-ice-cream she used to ask for when I was a patrol sergeant back in the mid-90s. She's one of those bubbly gals who can eat anything and not gain an ounce.

Next stop was the detective bureau, where we found Dave Scheurer, still plugging away as he nears retirement; then it was into the elevator to the first floor. Would we even know anyone there anymore?

Of course we would, as we invaded the sanctum known as the traffic bureau. Sgt. Paul Lumadue was in, dealing with the ever-present myriad of tasks and complaints over parking tickets and faulty meters. Shari then led us pair of dinosaurs through the brown, electronically-locked heavy steel door into the patrol bureau; this was where things got a little weird. Nearly every face roaming those halls was unbeknownst to us, though Shari made sure to introduce Keith and I and explain that we'd been sergeants back in the day. She got into the routine of asking each officer, as we were shaking hands with them, what their badge number was, then telling them mine had been 135 and KC's 139. Those kids' badges ranged anywhere from the mid-200s to 313, the newest guy on the department. Talk about feeling ancient...some of those folks hadn't been born yet when the two of us were driving patrol cars and locking up mopes.

We ran into Tony Tambasco, who still runs the crime lab and was always a part of our Pittsburgh hockey trip crews, and Cindy Reed, a lab technician Keith and I had both worked with who still loves to laugh. Even Sgt. Andy Boor, who I worked with on night shift, made an appearance and it was great seeing him after all these years.

Stopping in Capt. Doug Noblet's office (he's the patrol bureau commander now) to chat a little further, I was shocked to see a guy who'd been on my afternoon shift squad in the late 1990s, now-Lieutenant Chad Brubaker, one of the funniest guys I know. I say 'shocked' because Chad had undergone an extensive body transition since I'd last seen him and had lost probably sixty or 70 pounds. Chad's the day shift watch commander.

On the way back to tour where the old jail had been, I told Keith we had to make a swing through the locker room. I wondered aloud if the linoleum that had been on the floor back when he and I had lockers next to each other was still there; you see, KC once had his revolver go off (that's how long it's been, we were still carrying Smith and Wesson 686 wheel guns) as he checked the firing pin function, a routine all of us did prior to holstering and hitting the streets. The accidental discharge caused his bullet to gouge out a chunk of linoleum before it ricocheted into the ceiling at the far end of the locker room.

It was still there, that gouge, and I had KC pose for a picture with it. He's taken a lot of good-natured heat due to that incident over the years and I just couldn't pass up the photo op.

A little further down the hall and a sharp right turn took us into the cell area....or at least where they used to be. Part of the jail had been merged with Tony's crime lab; it's also where we found Jerry Botdorf. Jerry started out as a dispatcher/police aide way back when; he took the city's civil service test for the police department, finished very high and, for reasons that are still a mystery to me, was passed over. That had to be a crushing blow, but I'll say this: he sure bounced back much higher than those who rejected him. Jerry went on to spend a career in the Ohio State Highway Patrol, rising to the rank of Lieutenant before retiring, then was hired by the city to run its communications center. He's since transferred to the crime lab. "Less stress", he laughingly told us.

The rest of the old jail had been converted to a gym area; the big 16-man cell, the felony cell and the women's cell were all gone. Both individual cells were still standing, now securing equipment used by special operations, and the stark, dank drunk tank was still there, with its concrete cots and floor sloped to a center drain.

KC and I both posed for pictures with Shari in the jail control room, which used to be called the 'inner jail', then strolled back up the hallway into the roll call room, where we'd gather at the beginning of a shift to go over incident reports from the preceding two shifts and bulletins and memos from the second floor. It, too, had undergone a transformation of sorts. The bulletin board was still there but our open mail boxes had been replaced by individual metal ones which could be locked. A large-screen digital monitor was mounted on a wall behind a small, elevated platform where shift supervisors sit while reading the reports aloud.

Being in that room, where every shift of my time at Mansfield PD started, brought back a flood of memories: Brian Kerr, a muscular Marine, darting from his chair and flying across the room after the praying mantis we'd found on the brick wall in the police compound crawled up out of his styrofoam coffee cup....he was scared to death of bugs. All of the jokes now-retired Sgt. Jan Wendling told. Lt. Billy Howard's yearly fall admonishment to be careful driving on wet, leaf-covered roadways because they'd be just as slick as ice. Capt. Dan Brant's ninety-minute long roll calls. Being disgusted when a fellow officer sitting in front of me obviously hadn't showered before work, as she had a thick, sweaty dirt streak on the back of her neck. Another officer (male) who had an aversion to soap and water, generally smelling bad. Being able to smoke in roll call. I could go on, but maybe that'll be for another blog post.

The last stop on our trip down memory lane was on the 9th floor, in Safety Director Lori Cope's office. Lori, a few decades ago, was an auxiliary officer who came in and rode patrol with me; we've been friends ever since. She was hired by the police department and served 9 years, I believe, before being forced into early retirement due to injuries received in a cruiser accident.

KC and I cooled our heels as we waited for Lori to return from a late lunch...and it was worth the wait. The three of us chatted and shared memories, both good and not so good, for I don't know how long. All told, Keith and I spent over three tremendously nostalgic hours in the municipal building, staying so long that we decided to have lunch another day.

And I paid the traffic ticket for overtime parking that was waiting for me on the windshield of my truck.

With Capt. Shari Robertson

                                                  Keith pointing to the damage he caused

                                                    With Safety Director Lori Cope

You Want Frustration? Apply For Healthcare As A Retired Cop

I don't want to rant here....but I'm going to. For those who'd rather not read angry words today, feel free to navigate to another page where there's sunshine, butterflies, rainbows and unicorns, because there ain't gonna be any of that here.

Having turned sixty-three on the 27th of last month and being retired through Ohio Police and Fire Pension Fund, the time of year has come where decisions need to be made concerning healthcare coverage, with the current pre-Medicare enrollment period ending after December fifteenth.

Last year, OPF decided to opt out of providing affordable (emphasis on 'affordable') health coverage for its retired members, changing course to a third-party vendor.

It was, and apparently still is, a disaster...especially for those of us under age 65.

This third-party vendor, Aon, made available a very short list of health plans to me, all through Medical Mutual; I couldn't go out and find my own plan, which would have disqualified me for a $685 monthly stipend to help cover premium costs, nor could I enroll on my wife's plan, provided by her employer.

I paid $1313 every month for healthcare in 2019, aided by the OPF stipend, but the coverage was terrible. The yearly deductible is $6500, and not a single one of my current physicians is in network.

"But that $685 a month from OPF..." you say? Well, that has a cap. These last three months of 2019 took $3,939 directly out of my rather shallow pockets. I'm retired on total disability, you see, and secondary employment would endanger my pension, so getting another job isn't an option. Besides, my lower spine couldn't take the added demands.

Which brings us to today.

OPF changed its rules regarding the stipend this year, I'm sure due to the howling of us retired pre-Medicare coppers and hose-draggers. Now we can go out on the open market...but our outside plans must be compatible with those outlined in stipulations set forth by the (Un)Affordable Care Act back in 2008. As an aside, back when that went into effect, my monthly premiums more than doubled; you know, so you, I and every other working stiff could pay for the healthcare of those streaming across our borders illegally and those in our population that are able-bodied but refuse to find gainful employment, choosing rather to remain on the generational government dole.

My current health plan's premium will increase to over $1500 a month in 2020, a plan that I didn't use at all in 2019. Everything was out-of-pocket; doctor's visits and prescription drugs. I skimped on my scrips in order to make a supply last longer and only saw Doc Becker twice, both times a six-month checkup for my diabetes. Other ailments that popped up, which should have included seeing Doc Becker? Nahh...

So, as our last few days of searching for something that resembles a decent health insurance plan (which, like the aforementioned unicorns, doesn't exist) dwindles from days to hours to minutes, I pause to wonder where this madness will end; why, after giving 31 years of my life to serving the public and putting myself in harm's way for the good of the citizenry, I can't afford my yearly December checkup with my cancer specialist. Why I have to endure pain of varying degrees daily in my metal-reinforced lower spine, metal knee, shoulders and hands, all due to on-the-job injuries. Why I can't afford a nine hundred dollar invoice that comes with getting pain-relieving injections in those hands and shoulders. I have to sleep in my recliner nightly in order to sleep at all; can't sleep on my back or sides anymore.

It all just makes me want to throw up my hands and quit, stop the checkups and medication and take my chances. We all have a number attached to our lives, a number unbeknownst to us that, sooner or later, will come up.

The Good Lord willing, mine will be much later rather than sooner...provided He guides my bride and I to that unicorn healthcare plan.

I Am Amazed

Two weeks ago my wife was in Riverside Methodist's cardiovascular intensive care unit, a little over twelve hours removed from laying unconscious on an operating room table with her sternum separated and heart stopped.

Yesterday she helped me clean the house.

Nothing strenuous, mind you; dusting furniture, washing dishes and the like. Still, up and around, doing normal household chores.

She's getting back to being the Energizer Bunny. Never sitting still for too long, always doing something, but I am keeping a very close eye on her. Stacy is well aware that she'll yet have physical limitations for some time and knows not to overdo things.

I am amazed, both by modern medicine and my bride's ability to bounce back.

We were very fortunate on surgery day; the surgeon was able to repair her balky mitral valve rather than replace it entirely. I didn't particularly care for the possibility that she might have a pig's heart valve in place of the one God gave her.

Currently she's sitting at the dining room table, reading her morning devotionals while picking at a blueberry muffin and sipping on a hot cup of Tim Horton's black gold. Her home visit nurse stopped in yesterday, checked her over and was very satisfied with her progress; same with this past Monday's visit to her surgeon's office in Columbus.

One thing Stacy isn't happy about is her recent weight gain...a whopping four pounds. There's good reason for it, though: every day since she came home a mere four days after cardiac surgery, friends and family have stopped by and dropped off all manner of food. It either means she has a lot of people who love her or they were afraid she'd wither away due to my lack of culinary skills.

You can only survive for so long on bologna sandwiches and hot dogs.

We have certainly been very blessed throughout this chapter of our lives and will be eternally grateful to everyone who's made this journey with us.

God, my friends, is very good.

Absent For A Reason

You've no doubt noticed a paucity of posts on this page; for that, I apologize.

But there's a reason. Several, actually, but none more sobering than what I am about to share.

Our home, in which we've resided nearly a year now, has taken a lot of love and work to get it to where we want it, though we still aren't finished. Patience has truly been a virtue; however at times it seemed as though our projects might have been a little too much for us to handle.

Just getting it habitational last January was huge in itself. Our brick 1930 farm house, which had been the original dwelling for the surrounding acreage, had been empty for nearly two years. It had no heat, the water supply was negligible, yard and fields overgrown and strewn with any manner of trash and junk, much of the electrical system in dire need of rewiring....there was much to do.

To this point, we've done it. As I put this entry together, contractors are installing the exterior stove pipe for our coal stove, which will supplant propane as our primary heat source. The grounds are finally in the condition that I want, phase one of the landscaping is finished, the deck's been resurfaced and painted, all our vegetation has been trimmed and cleaned out, we've eliminated two low brick walls that held moisture against the foundation, the second bath upstairs is nearly finished, plumbing issues have been resolved...there's much more we've accomplished but I won't bore you with details.

Suffice it to say, we love our little slice of heaven south of the city, surrounded by corn fields and nature. It couldn't have been done without my red-headed angel of a wife, Stacy.

Later this week, Stacy will have her heart stopped so surgeons can repair it. I am scared to death.

Two years ago her physician informed us that she has a heart murmur, that it wasn't all that bad but he wanted to "keep an eye on it." Since then Stacy has been having irregular episodes of her heart pounding; not faster, just beating harder. She's also noticed that she sometimes gets winded easily.

We consulted with a cardiac specialist in Columbus, who ran another round of testing; the results were not what we wanted to hear. This specialist in turn passed Stacy on to one of his partners, whose specific skill is heart valve replacements. The bottom line is, he wants to repair the mitral valve, which controls blood flow from one chamber of the heart to another. Worst case scenario would involve replacing the troubled valve entirely.

As a result, she'll be placed on a heart/lung machine, during which time my angel's heart will stop working on its own while the problem is corrected, an evolution that may last in the ballpark of three hours.

It will be the absolute longest hours of my life. Please, if you talk to the Lord, ask Him to guide the surgeons' hands.

I cannot make it without her.

                                                           

Overnight Rain Recalls A 37-Year-Old Memory

Having worked midnight shift for most of my career, I'm often up and around long before the rising sun colors the morning sky. This morning it was 0400; surprising, because most of yesterday was spent driving home from Easley, South Carolina after a 4-day visit with Mom, my sister Chris and brother Jim. I was exhausted, having began my Sunday at 0315; I also prefer driving during the very early morning, as there's no traffic to speak of and the all-night AM radio talk stations abound.

Drinking my usual cup of Tim Horton's black gold, I sat in my very comfortable old leather recliner, reading the bottom-of-the-screen running banner rather than hearing the talking heads on the twenty-four-hour news station that flickered on the TV screen; I keep the volume very low so as not to awaken my bride as she sleeps in our upstairs bedroom. The stillness was only broken by the soft snoring of my old pal Roscoe as he dozed on a blanket in Stacy's recliner.

It began to rain; it had been, off and on through the night, but this time the rain was a steady downpour, its volume heightened as it fell on the vast rows of corn that stand in the field across the road. I strolled out into the sun porch, where its north-facing, large window was partially opened, to better hear the rain's song as it fell on the orderly rows, the descending sheets visible in the light cast by a lone street lamp keeping silent vigil on the corner.

Standing and staring, coffee mug in hand, my mind's eye whisked me back to late spring of 1982, when I was but a young pup at Ontario PD, recalling a night very much akin to the scene just outside my window.

I had been at the State Patrol academy on 17th Street in Columbus, which sits directly across from the Ohio State Fairgrounds, attending a week-long course on traffic crash investigations. Believe me, there's nobody better at accident investigation than our State Highway Patrol and, as I weaved my white cruiser through the pre-rush hour traffic northbound on I-71, I wondered how I'd ever get to sleep when I got home an hour later; I was due in at midnight for my shift.

My rest was fitful, and a mere 90 minutes before the alarm went off at 2300 did I fall into 'true' sleep. Pat Benatar on Cleveland's WGCL jarred me awake, asking me to hit her with my best shot from my bedside clock-radio; I showered, shaved, dressed and crammed a couple of slices of turkey down my throat as I headed out the door a half hour later.

It was raining heavily.

Wonderful, I thought as I wheeled my cruiser into the rear lot of the old station/village hall on Park Avenue West. I'll have to remember to get my rain coat out of the trunk and also throw the waterproof cover on my eight-point hat.

No policeman ever, past or present, likes working in the rain.

I exchanged good-natured insults with the guys on the outgoing afternoon shift, read the radio log and checked my mailbox for messages as I downed a 12-ounce soft drink; finishing, I headed out to the cruiser and signed on the air in the steadily-falling rain with a simple "112, signal 2", wondering how I'd ever pass the time in the next eight hours. The rain would slacken traffic passing through the village which, at that time of night, had only Denny's Restaurant as an attraction, and I would be bored out of my mind.

How wrong I was.

At 0100 hours, a mere ten hours after successfully completing OSHP's accident investigation course, I was dispatched to a semi tractor-trailer versus car accident at the intersection of West Fourth Street and Rock Road.

It was a fatal accident, the very first I'd ever seen but, over the next three decades, far from the last.

As I slid to a stop on arrival, what I saw nearly overwhelmed the senses: the tractor trailer was just past the intersection, the rear end of the trailer blocking the westbound lane of Fourth. The car that was struck was twenty yards into a field on the northwest corner of the intersection, its back end sitting on the rear axle, as both rear wheels had been snapped off from the force of the commercial rig slamming into it as the car attempted to cross West Fourth in front of it. The right rear passenger area  of the car was crushed inward, two of its occupants milling aimlessly outside it, no doubt dazed by the impact. A female was screaming/wailing; Springfield Township fire and rescue apparatus, sirens blaring, rolled up, along with several firemen who arrived in personal vehicles, having responded directly to the scene from their homes. As I ran up to the car, mindless of the cursed rain and mud, a young female who'd been a passenger clutched my raincoat, screaming, "JIMMY'S NOT MOVING!"

The rain became torrential.

There had been four occupants of the car when the accident occurred, the crash resultant, I'd discover later, of the drunken teen driver's attempt at playing 'chicken' with the truck as it approached from the east. As the westbound commercial vehicle neared, the car's driver floored the accelerator and shot out in front of the truck, the rig's right front bumper striking the passenger side of the car just back of the door post.

'Jimmy', the sixteen-year-old right rear passenger who'd snuck out of his house after his parents had gone to bed, took a direct hit from the behemoth truck. He lay slumped to his left, a lone trickle of blood fleeing the corner of his mouth; aside from that, he looked as if he were merely asleep. Later examination by the coroner would find that he'd died of internal bleeding, caused by organ laceration when jagged broken ribs were driven inward by the force of impact.

One other passenger, if I recall correctly, suffered a broken hip.

The panting of Roscoe joining me on the sun porch broke that nightmarish memory and the events of the rest of that terrible, rainy night...

...and the thought that I would never again, for the rest of my days, be faced with similar horrors took its place.

For that, I thank God.

All Seriousness Aside...

Sometimes you get to the point where you just don't want to think about current events and all the negativity that comes with them. That being the case, let's lighten things up...

There's a little shop here in Mansfield that serves specialty coffee and tea, along with baked goods, occasional live music and local art. It's called Relax, It's Just Coffee and is located on North Main Street. I've never been there, but the name got me to thinking about maybe opening my own little shop, with one caveat:

It's only clientele will be senior citizens. I'd call it 'Relax, It's Just Arthritis.' Our main offerings would be ibuprofen, ice packs and analgesic creams.

On our way back from Nashville/Lebanon/Murfreesboro, TN last Sunday, Stacy and I stopped at the Sunbury exit off I-71 to grab a bite to eat. As we made our way around to KFC, we saw two semi tractor-trailers parked behind the restaurant, marked 'ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball'. Voila! The Tribe is playing on ESPN right now and I'm bouncing between the Browns and the Indians on the tube. I must say, though, that I can barely tolerate SNB on ESPN; between the field mics being way too loud and an 'analyst' who never set foot on a professional baseball field popping off about what players are doing wrong, well....I'll only watch because it's the Indians. That would be like me critiquing an airline pilot on whose plane I was flying.

...and what's up with on-field halftime shows during seemingly every NFL primetime game? Last I really watched any No Fun League games, celebrity singers lip-synching songs only happened at the Super Bowl.

...and does anyone really care that alleged (innocent until proven guilty, unless you're a conservative) sexual predator Antonio Brown says he won't be playing in the NFL anymore? How will I ever sleep knowing that?

Stacy and I have been grandparents for nine months now. It is awesome. Our little granddaughter Mila is at that age where she's curious about everything and gets into anything. When I'm holding her while she consumes her bottle, she likes to reach up and grab Papaw's beard while watching Sesame Street (hey, whatever happened to Bert and Ernie?). Then there's moments like this:

Have a great night, everyone!

Is America Forgetting?

Never Forget.

Soon after Islamic terrorists hijacked planes loaded with passengers and flew them into both towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., as well as United flight 93, whose passengers fought back and caused their aircraft to crash in a field in southwest Pennsylvania, America took up that slogan.

It was on everything from billboards, t-shirts and coffee mugs to bumper stickers, key chains and magazine covers. Suddenly, divisiveness disappeared and all of America came together. Through our grief, we became stronger.

Today, eighteen years later, it seems a large segment of our society has forgotten.

Broadcast media memorializing September 11, 2001 and those lost on that terrible day varied from channel to channel; locally, one print media outlet posted two stories online connected to that day: one a hand-me-down from USA Today and the other dealing with 4th-graders making lunches for local police, fire and ems personnel.

Two stories, then it's move on to adopted cats and rescued deer.

It kind of feels like the line from Islamic Democratic Socialist Representative Ilhan Omar a few weeks ago: "Some people did something", referring to the sons of Satan who hijacked the planes and killed over 3,000 innocent civilians and civil servants.

Today's era of fragile feelings and micro-aggression makes people hesitant to mention the words 'Islamic' and 'terrorists', though in Omar's case, what she said was a premeditated slight to freedom-loving Americans.

As I drove through the county today, federal, state and municipal offices all had their flags lowered; sadly, very few private residences and businesses followed suit.

Where has out patriotism and remembrance of that horrible day gone? What happened to all the cars, and pickup  trucks especially, flying American flags as they traveled our roads and highways? Would today's 'look-at-me, I'm-offended' prima donna athletes dare to kneel during the playing of our national anthem eighteen years ago?

I think not.

The United States gravely needs to regain its unity and shed the hatred and profanity-laced name calling that is becoming prevalent in the 24-hour news cycle.

We need to do it NOW, without the terror-driven impetus of monsters flying planes into buildings.

Who's At Fault? The Police, Of Course...

In the last few weeks, liberal politicians aspiring to this nation's highest office have publicly renounced law enforcement for political gain.

Not surprising. In this day and age, it's almost expected.

A few years ago, Ferguson, Missouri became a flashpoint of unrest and rioting after a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed black man. The predominant....and wrong...public perception, boosted along by media and television news talking heads, was that the victim had been trying to surrender and had his arms in the air; protesters, with their arms raised, chanted "hands up, don't shoot!" nightly on our television screens as Ferguson burned.

A St. Louis county grand jury, after hearing days of testimony from eyewitnesses to the incident and being presented with forensic evidence, later determined that Officer Darrin Wilson had acted in self-defense as Brown charged at him; the 6'04", 292-pound victim had initially attempted to take Wilson's service weapon as the two struggled inside the officer's cruiser. 

A separate federal grand jury later came to the same conclusion, yet left-leaning Dems seeking their party's nomination in next year's presidential election still espouse the 'hands up, don't shoot' narrative.

In recent days another, far less intense incident happened locally. A man, running for Mansfield City Council, was stopped for a traffic violation. During the course of officer contact the violator opened his vehicle's center console, whereupon the officer believed he observed the top slide of a semi-automatic handgun. The officer and his back-up both drew their service weapons, though they didn't point them at the driver. Cruiser video shows both policemen holding their guns at their sides, pointed downward.

The candidate was not taken into custody but was cited for driving while under suspension.

Since then, the council candidate has called for a public summit; in attendance will be the city's Chief of Police. Based on past personal experience, the police will be guilty in a large segment of the public's eye before the summit even starts; the local print media's parent company is already attempting to make the incident a national story.

If Michael Brown would have complied with Officer Wilson's instructions he would be alive today. Likewise, had the council candidate not chosen to drive an automobile while his license is suspended, I wouldn't be writing this post.

Personal responsibility for one's decisions and actions needs to make a comeback.

Evil Revealed

I wrote a few months ago about one of my earliest memories being the assassination of JFK. At the time I was too young to grasp the magnitude of the event or understand that it was a national tragedy. I didn't understand why my teacher cried when the President's assassination was announced over the public address system at Raemelton school.

I was just short of my seventh birthday.

Three years later I heard on the news about eight student nurses being murdered in one night by a guy named Richard Speck; he'd held them hostage in a dorm room after breaking in and then, one at a time, taken them into a hallway and stabbed them to death. Speck unknowingly left a witness, though; Filipino exchange student Corazon Amurao had hidden under a bed while another of the student nurses was being led out of the room. Amurao stayed there for seven hours and eventually testified during Speck's trial. He died in 1991 in prison, his death sentence having been commuted to 1200 years behind bars.

Even though I was only ten years old, that saga began my introduction to just how evil the world is.

Throughout my years until today, as I type this entry, evil has seized headlines at an ever-increasing frequency. Can't watch a newscast or pick up a newspaper without being assailed by man's brutality to man. Charles Manson's 'family' was responsible for the Tate/LaBianca murders in southern California. John Wayne Gacy raped, tortured and murdered thirty-three boys. Ted Bundy, whose actual name was Ted Cowell, confessed to raping and killing 30 women. Cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer raped, murdered, dismembered and ate sixteen young men and boys.

And then Islamic fundamentalists started flying commercial airliners into buildings.

Evil, though, doesn't really resonate until it touches you in some way, close to home, or until you see it for yourself. As a law enforcement officer you'll see it all too often.

A woman stabbed 31 times by her boyfriend early on Thanksgiving morning. Another shot in the back of the head as she exited her home by a jilted boyfriend. The brother of an acquaintance of mine shot and killed as he walked along West Fourth Street. A man found beaten to death with a bumper jack, in a field across from a bar where he'd been drinking the night before. A father shot and killed by his son as he sat in his living room over the killing of the son's dog. A son stabbing his mother repeatedly because he didn't like the man she was dating.

That's a small sampling of the evil I've witnessed. Even my wife's cousin, a local business owner, was found beaten to death several decades ago; a guy I grew up with went to prison for killing a man during a drug deal.

Evil has been around since Cain killed his brother Abel in the book of Genesis...and it has gotten worse through the ages.

All I can say is, God help us.

Seriously.

It Would Have Fallen On Deaf Ears

Ever have occasion to impart advice to someone who would benefit from it but you kept silent because you knew they wouldn't listen anyway?

That happened to me a few days ago as I was buying barn paint at a big-box home (barn?) improvement store.

I'd stepped up to the service desk in the paint department; apparently, six other folks had the same idea as I...take advantage of the beautiful, rain-free weather and paint something outside. The store had three people assisting customers at the desk, so I had to wait a bit. I wasn't about to leave without having this can of paint violently machine-shaken for three minutes to ensure its contents were well-mixed, as I had a week earlier with the first one. Mixing by hand in the garage for what seemed an eternity sucked. I probably needed another shave by the time I'd finished.

"Hey, I really like your shirt." This from one of the male employees behind the desk, a baby-faced, stocky young man with steel-rimmed glasses.

I'd just received a "I Stand For Freedom' t-shirt from Nine Line Apparel the day before and had donned it for the trip to the store.

"Thanks."

This started a conversation between he and I; he owned several patriotic shirts from the same manufacturer. During our conversation the youngster mentioned that he was attending a police academy, mentioning names of some of his instructors. I knew a few of them, explaining to the young man that I'd spent three decades in law enforcement in this area.

His face lit up and I was peppered with questions; then he started talking about how he couldn't wait to start his career and that he thought he had an 'in' with a neighboring county's sheriff's office.

"I hope they put me in the detective bureau." His wide-eyed enthusiasm shined behind those spectacles as he took my can of red barn paint, secured it in the shaker and started the machine.

Inwardly I cringed. I didn't have the heart to burst his bubble, to explain that he'd have to work years in a cruiser, answering calls for service, and that he'd have to prove himself before being considered for such an assignment.

I also couldn't bring myself to recount some of the morbid, horrible things he'd be exposed to, the hardships he'd have to endure, the sometimes unimaginable scenes his eyes would see but his brain would not want to accept as real.

Memories kicked in. Seeing needless death for the first time outside of a funeral home, I'd answered a call at a farm in 1981; the middle-aged woman who'd called was worried because her husband hadn't returned from the barn after feeding his livestock. She was worried because he was supposed to see a doctor the next day and had convinced himself he had cancer.

I found him hanging from a rafter in his barn, rope knotted at his neck and an overturned, rickety wooden chair beneath his lifeless body. The morning sun had just peeked over the eastern horizon as I notified dispatched to have the coroner respond.

Then I had to walk back to the house and tell the distraught woman that her husband had taken his own life.

Presently the youngster turned the shaker off and set my barn paint on the counter; he obviously wanted to continue asking questions but others seeking assistance were standing in line behind me.

"It was very nice meeting you, sir. Any suggestions for me?"

I wanted to tell him what I'd been recalling. I wanted to tell him to learn how to drive a tractor-trailer or consider a career as a bricklayer or an educator. Be anything but a policeman. I didn't because I knew he'd shake that advice off, much as I would have decades ago if someone had suggested the same to me.

"Good luck."

I went home and gave both garage doors a second coat of that barn-red paint.

"Don't You Know Who I Am?"

Celebrities' preferred statement when encountering police.

I heard that question a few times back in the day. Most times I did know who they were; most times, too, I did my job in spite of that knowledge.

The very first time I had contact with someone who expected me to know who they were was way back in 1979-1980, while working for Ashland PD. A car passed me eastbound on East Main Street, right about where the old Dairy Dolly used to sit, traveling fifteen miles per hour above the posted speed limit. I activated the light bar, turned on the car and stopped it a few hundred yards away. The vehicle pulled to the side of the road and, even before I was able to open the cruiser door, its driver popped out and was walking towards me, a big smile adorning his artificially-tanned face.

The driver extended his hand. "Hi, officer. I'm Mark So-and-so, TV 5 weatherman. How are you?"

WEWS channel 5 out of Cleveland. I recognized the guy immediately.

"I'd like for you to get back into your car, sir, and then I'll need your license and registration." There was no requirement to show proof of insurance back then; heck there weren't any seat belt laws, either.

The wide, bright smile fled his face, replaced by a look of bewilderment. Eventually he received an invitation to municipal court for driving fifteen MPH over the limit. I preferred having Dick Goddard tell me what the weather was going to be anyway.

A few years later, this time at Ontario PD, I had occasion to encounter the local television sports anchor during a traffic stop. He didn't jump out of his car and extend his hand; he just flat-out asked the question after I requested his driver's license.

"Don't you know who I am?", he said with a palpable air of indignance.

"Not until I see your license, sir." Of course, I knew who he was, too. Like the Cleveland weather-guesser, the local sports talking head got a ticket.

I've had interaction with other celebrities also that didn't involve violations of the law. The Indians' Jim Thome is one of the nicest, most down-to-earth professional athletes I have ever met. I worked an autograph session for the future Hall of Famer at a now-defunct card shop across from the Holiday Inn. Chatting with him while eating pizza after the session was finished was like talking to a neighbor.  Likewise with the Tribe's Julio Franco and Albert Belle, the latter in spite of his outwardly gruff demeanor. Both very nice gentlemen.

The comedian Gallagher, on the other hand, was a nightmare.

I'd been working overnight security at the Holiday Inn a few nights a week for a couple of years. Often, when entertainers performed at the Renaissance Theater next door, they'd lodge at the hotel. This particular Friday evening the man famous for smashing watermelons had finished a show and gone up to his room. Around midnight or so, I happened to be standing at the far end of the front desk, chatting with the clerk, when Gallagher exited the elevator. He strode to the counter and, in the most vile, disdainful, profane language, asked the female desk clerk if there were any restaurants open "...in this F-ing town." He was not trying to be funny.

That incident forever changed my view of Leo Anthony Gallagher. I can't stand the guy.

Likewise, I was working a few years later when actress Glenn Close rolled into the hotel at 2AM, entourage in tow. This was when a film crew was in town to shoot prison scenes for the movie 'Air Force One' out at the reformatory. Ms. Close played the role of the Vice President of the United States in the film, opposite Harrison Ford's president. All I can say about her is....she looks better on screen.

Then again, I'm pretty sure I'd look better on screen, too....with a LOT of makeup and special effects, at about a hundred yards away.

                                                        Ashland Police Dept, 1979

.

I Just Shake My Head

The same thing that happened on the old TV show 'Cops' is starting to happen on A & E's 'Live PD'...only on a whole different scale.

It's getting to the point that I don't know if I can continue watching.

Back in the day, when 'Cops' first came on, it was mainly Miami PD officers. Not that it was a bad thing, but it was the same people all the time. The one officer, whose name I don't recall, was a real 'pretty boy'; by that I mean that his combed-back hair was always perfectly coiffed and he made sure to wear his gold....not the badge, but the necklace, rings and bracelet. This guy looked as if he came straight from central casting with the lite version of the Mr. T starter kit.

As the show expanded to other agencies I noticed another anomaly, something that non-TV cops didn't do: whenever a group of officers would finish a call, after the arrests had been made and the bad dudes/dudettes went to jail, those involved would stand in a semicircle and tell each other what a great job they did. Every call, no matter how run-of-the-mill, every show.

I used to laugh at the TV when those officers would do that.

There's a line that Clint Eastwood's 'Gunny Highway' used in 'Heartbreak Ridge' that would fit what I almost expected them to do after the show, but I want this blog to remain family-friendly.

Those of you that have seen the movie can probably imagine what I'd print, though.

That brings us to Live PD.

Great show but, on most episodes, there's one or two officers being shadowed that are definitely camera-aware...and they make sure to act and dress the part.

By 'dress' I mean that they're sure to have their uniform shirtsleeves tailored in order to display bulging biceps covered with tattoos...as long as they have the guns for it. Skin tight and ending just at the bottom of the deltoids, they seem to constantly have their thumbs on the gunbelt, arms bent and flexed.

That's not a knock on tats or fitness by any means, it's the 'hey, look at my arms and be deeply impressed' way they carry themselves when the camera is pointed in their direction.

If they thought they could get away with it, I'm sure some would be completely sleeveless.

Here's the kicker: I've seen coppers that looked like they were in chess club in high school that were great police officers and I've seen muscle-bound hulks wearing a badge that did just the minimum they could to get by on the street. All show and no go.

I don't care how much you bench press. I do care if you have the verbal acumen to talk a person out of committing suicide.

Endeth the rant.

Brothers I Otherwise Wouldn't Have Met

You work in a profession for thirty, forty years and you're bound to make some good friends. In a factory, on a construction crew, running a retail store, you'll meet people who can become like a second family.

Nowhere is that more evident than the military, in a fire house or, in my case, a police department.

Putting your life on the line, often repeatedly, with co-workers builds pretty strong bonds. Shared experiences, risks and profound events in the intimate confines of a police cruiser during an eight-hour tour produces connections that can't be found in an office building. They just can't.

I've met some real characters in law enforcement, guys and gals who, under different circumstances, I would never have crossed paths with. Some of them became extended family, people I call my brothers and sisters, who I love dearly and would do anything for, knowing that particular gate swings both ways.

A few of these fellow officers no doubt would have made it in the world of comedy.

Ted Brinley immediately comes to mind. Ted and I worked together at Ontario PD in 1983 and part of '84, he coming to OPD after several years at the Richland County Sheriff's Office. Ted had the innate ability to make anyone laugh just by facial expressions alone; throw in the razor-sharp wit and his disdain for those in command, well...I'll just say that you never knew what he would say next, but you could be sure it would be funny.

Working afternoon shift together, Ted told me that the other half of the double he lived in on Creston Rd in Ontario was open; I rented it and, for the year that it lasted, we did much carousing after our shifts. Then came the day I was hired at Mansfield PD in 1984 and moved into the city.

Ted died a few days after crashing his motorcycle in the summer of 1985. I was honored to be one of his pallbearers at the funeral.

At Mansfield it was Jan Wendling, master of pranks and scaring the ever-living solid waste right out of you. The youngest of four brothers to serve at MPD, Jan was known for using a rubber, hairy gorilla mask to scare those unsuspecting souls who were his prey. It is rumored that he once hid in the back seat of a cruiser, raising his ape-head just as the copper driving turned to look behind him as he backed out of a space in the police compound, causing that officer to side-swipe a pole. As I said, that is rumored to have happened.

One hot summer night found he and I laying on the floor of a motel room, using an overturned table as cover as Jan tried to talk an armed, mentally-unstable woman out of the bathroom. The special response team (SWAT) waited all night outside the room, then-Captain Messer deciding to have Jan continue to talk to the gal instead of sending in a negotiator, as my squad sergeant had built somewhat of a rapport with her. I lay beside Jan, armed with a 12-gauge shotgun should the woman decide to come out shooting.

It was a very long night but, in the end, she surrendered peacefully. She'd been wanted on a felony warrant out of Franklin county for stalking a doctor and breaking into his house.

Those 'shared experiences' I mentioned? That was one of them; Jan's been one of my best friends ever since. Not that he hadn't been before, but that night cemented it.

I was maybe 20 yards away from Gary Foster the night someone took six shots at him in the middle of Bowman Street near Harker. Keith Coleman and I once turned a car stop into a search warrant at the driver's home that saw the recovery of a sawed-off shotgun, pistol and crack cocaine. Bob Powers stopped a stolen car out of Columbus one night on Walnut Street, whereupon all 4 occupants took off running; the guy I chased and caught (with the aid of a citizen) had been wearing a 9mm handgun in a shoulder holster. Big Chuck Norris and I, on one of the absolute coldest nights I ever worked, spotted a guy who ended up being responsible for a string of 18 business burglaries in the Lexington Avenue/Trimble Rd area. I was with Joe Petrycki, who's now MPD's assistant chief of police, when we crawled into a furiously-burning apartment building in search of the elderly, ground-floor occupant; luckily, she'd been at a doctor's appointment when the fire broke out.

We suffered some smoke inhalation and took a pretty good chewing out from the fire guys when they showed up a few minutes after we came out of the building. I have great respect for the job firefighters do, especially after that incident.

I call every one of those men my brothers, guys I wouldn't have had the opportunity to know had I decided to stay in the grocery business in 1979.

...and law enforcement was a hell of a lot more exciting, too.

The Dirty Cop

There's few things in life more intolerable to me than a dirty cop.

Bad drivers, rude, profane people and obnoxious, undisciplined teens? No problem. Egomaniacs, the socially-elite who parade their imagined superiority to the world? Piece of cake. Crooked cops are a whole different story.

I've had the displeasure of wearing the same uniform as a few who chose to run afoul of the law; four ended up in prison. There's another out there, a guy who is older than me and retired on disability when I was still a young copper, that eventually went to prison for trafficking cocaine. He's been out for awhile now, back in the area and no doubt back in the drug business.

He also murdered his wife. That's only my opinion, as her death was ruled a suicide, but I have strong reason to believe she didn't willingly put a gun to her head. That's all I'll say about that one.

Back in the mid-90s I was working in a ten-county anti-drug task force. It had been my goal for several years to work in the unit; you wore your hair however you wanted, grew a beard and dressed like...well, not scumbags, but not far off, either. We ran CIs, 'cooperating individuals' who, most times, would make a few buys from drug dealers for us, who would later be indicted by a grand jury, thus putting them in the court system. There's many variables to the chain of events described but, by and large, that's how we operated. Sometimes the unit executed search warrants on dope houses in the middle of the night, usually with the assistance of the county-wide special operations team...the black-garbed, automatic weapons-armed door-kickers commonly referred to by the public as SWAT.

It was the best position I would hold during my 30-plus years as a police officer.

On occasion we'd work other types of crimes, too, such as prostitution, white-collar, gambling and liquor offenses. It was a weeks-long joint venture with the state liquor cops that introduced me to my first dirty law enforcement officer.

The operation was called a '61-B' because that was the section of state liquor administrative code used to cite establishments into hearings before the liquor board. Sending several agents to the area, nearly every bar in the county was checked over several nights. My partner, who commanded our four-man afternoon shift unit, a man I called my 'rabbi' because he'd taught me so much about how to be a policeman, and I were assigned a female agent. I'll call her Janet.

Janet was short, bespectacled and rotundish, a gal who let you know immediately that she knew her job and, probably, yours too. To me she seemed a little arrogant...but she knew liquor law.

Her job was to enter an establishment and mingle, chat up the bar staff and watch for liquor violations. Our only means of communicating with her was one-way; she wore a body wire, or transmitter, that permitted us to monitor her conversations, though we had to be positioned within a couple hundred yards or so. We'd worked out a code phrase that would indicate trouble and needed intervention on our part prior to Janet entering a dive on the west end of the county on the night in question. We anticipated her spending an hour or two inside and then moving on to the next location.

That's not what happened.

Rabbi and I were parked at a closed landscaping business probably a hundred fifty yards from a place I'll refer to as The Hollow. We listened as Janet went inside and seated herself at the bar, ordering a drink that she'd nurse while doing her job. It wouldn't do to have an undercover agent become inebriated, you know.

Janet struck up a conversation with a male who obviously had taken the seat beside her. She stuck to her cover story, which I'm unable to recall now, while the male proceeded to inform her that he was an off-duty sheriff's deputy from a few counties away, originally from the community where The Hollow was located, and that he liked to come 'home' on his time off so he could party in a place where no one would know his profession.

Then things got very interesting.

Stephen, the deputy, asked Janet, the undercover state liquor agent, if she'd be interested in throwing in if he bought a quarter-pound of marijuana. Janet, God bless her, agreed, but said she'd have to go to an ATM to get some cash. She told Stephen she'd be back as soon as she could and left the bar, driving straight to where we were parked.

As soon as we'd heard the events unfolding, even before Janet left the bar, the inside of our car became a flurry of activity. Rabbi immediately got on the cell phone (it might even have been one of the ancient 'bag' phones that were all the rage in the very early days of wireless communication) and instructed the other half of our crew, Larry and Duane, to sign out some SIU (Special Investigative Unit, which we also were) cash and bring it to our location after photocopying the bills.

How they did all that in under 25 minutes, driving from our downtown office to the west end of the county, is still a mystery to this day.

Carrying our cash, Janet returned to the bar. Our plan was, after the deal was made, to take down Stephen when he left the bar; Larry and Duane were going to stop the dope delivery guy after he left the immediate area, arrest him and recover our photocopied buy money.

Janet went back inside the bar; Stephen suggested they wait in his car in the parking lot for the delivery guy to show up. A few minutes later the pair were in the crooked cop's car, chatting while awaiting their dope. At one point, Stephen was heard to say something along the lines of, 'have you ever seen one of these?' Our girl asked him what it was and, I'll never forget this, the mope says, "It's a nine-millimeter with a laser sight."

Now we've got him armed during a drug transaction, which enhances the crime.

Shortly thereafter the dope arrives; our mope gets out of the car and, with half of the money used to buy the quarter-pound belonging to us, makes the transaction. Delivery guy leaves, followed by Larry and Duane (at that time, De-Wayne, as I called him, bore a striking resemblance to actor Tom Berenger). Rabbi and I heard Stephen divide the grass with Janet; they said their goodbyes and she got out of his car.

The impending felon left the lot and drove a half-mile west to another bar, one which no longer exists today. Rabbi and I waited outside in the lot for the other half of our team to arrive, they having had a marked cruiser from the local department take custody of the drug dealer they'd stopped. Once they arrived the four of us walked inside; our man was sitting mid-bar, drinking. Rabbi, an imposing figure, stepped beside the soon-to-be ex-deputy and told him he was under arrest for trafficking in drugs. Without a word, Stephen stood up, put his hands behind his back and was handcuffed.

I can tell you this now: never, for the rest of my career, did I take more pleasure in slamming a cell door closed than I did that night.

We towed Stephen's car, got a search warrant and recovered his half of the marijuana along with the laser-sighted 9mm handgun. Janet had the other half of the dope and it all was logged into evidence. Our bills were recovered from the dealer during the book-in process, pretty much nailing his coffin shut. We spent the rest of the night completing our paperwork...and notifying the Sheriff for whom Stephen worked of his deputy's arrest.

The next morning, that same Sheriff drove to our jail and fired the mope we'd locked up, still in his cell.

 I love a story with a happy ending.

Earliest Memories Include Getting The Cops Called On Me

Dwight D. Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States when I came into this world in November of 1956, a cloudy, cold Tuesday afternoon in Portsmouth along the banks of the Ohio River.

I spent a couple of days in what was then called an 'incubator' because I was a little small.

The earliest memory I have is of falling off a swing set in our yard and cracking my head on its metal frame. Pretty traumatic stuff for a three-year-old. Dad scooped me up and took me in the house. Now that I think about it, that blow to the head might explain much.

A significant memory is the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the days that followed. His death was announced over the public address system at Raemelton school that afternoon; my teacher, Miss Lindbeck, cried, as did a lot of the staff. During the time his body lay in state in the Capitol rotunda and JFK's funeral, cartoons were preempted during television coverage. I couldn't watch Huckleberry Hound, Top Cat or Deputy Dawg. Black days for a kindergartener who didn't understand the magnitude of a presidential assassination.

We lived, back then, at 766 Lexington Avenue; at the time, Lex was a two-lane road and we had these big pine trees out in front of our house. They were the perfect cover for an incident that resulted in the first...and only...criminal contact I had with police.

I was five years old and had the police come to my house because my neighbor, Jerry Harper, and I had been throwing clods of dirt at cars as they drove by from behind the pines. Jerry was a couple of years older and easily convinced me that 'bombing' cars was a good idea. When I saw the cruiser pull into the drive I ran into the house and hid behind Mom's skirt as she worked in the kitchen, she not understanding why I was so scared...until the cops came to the door. That policeman, when he stepped into our living room, seemed 8-feet-tall and scared the ever-living crap out of me when he leaned over and, an inch from my face, said I'd go to jail if I ever threw anything at cars again.

Looking back, this is all pretty funny stuff now; you see, Jerry's Dad was a Captain on the Mansfield Police Auxiliary, yet Jerry spent a lot of time being in trouble. The policeman who came to the house had the sole aim of instilling fear...mission accomplished. I can recall several instances during my time wearing a badge of doing that very thing to a youngster, aside from telling them they'd be incarcerated. The point was to get them to behave, not make them afraid of police.

I was so scared by that brush with the law that, hours later, Mom asked where the harmonica that our elderly neighbor, Mrs. Fleming, had given me was.

"It's outside." I wasn't about to go near the door.

"Well, you better go outside and get it, honey. It's supposed to rain tonight and it'll get rusty."

The thought of going outside was horrifying. I told Mom I didn't want to.

"Well why not?"

"Because that policeman will get me and take me to jail!"

The End Is Not Always The End

There's an old saying that says, 'in each life some rain must fall' and I've found that to be very true.

Know what else is also true? After the rain falls, something new may sprout.

That may be what is about to happen...or maybe not.

I closed my social media account, which also triggered the closure of a page I ran, called 'A Veteran's Story'. While I won't bore you with details of why I'm leaving social media, the shut-down of the page where the veterans' stories I've written were posted stings. A lot.

Those stories were printed in Monday's local newspaper, something I'd been writing weekly for the past 27 months. I loved the job, the opportunity to honor veterans who served in this nation's military from the beginning of World War II through the end of Vietnam. It was an honor to sit with a different vet every week, hear his story and then tell it to the public.Theirs is history that's not taught in high school classrooms anymore.

In short, I ended my relationship with the local newspaper. It was done because, after weighing the time and effort expended each week against financial compensation, I was making less than a fry cook. Though the local editor endorsed a new rate proposal, budget constraints implemented by the paper's parent company compelled the editor to reject my offer.

Since announcing on social media that I wouldn't be continuing the veterans' stories, two friends floated suggestions on how the articles could possibly continue. I am humbled, to say the least, to have had them reach out, but the bottom line will be financial compensation.

Print media has taken a huge hit for over a decade, as more readers choose to get their news from the internet rather than traditional newspapers; this explains the parent company's directive to cut expenses. In the end, it always comes down to money

But I'll still be here, in this space.

Learning To Talk A Second Time

Baby gibberish, cooing, squeals and blowing slobber bubbles evolves into trying to mimic words. Soon they start stringing together two or 3 words. That's followed by complete sentences and, before you know it, intelligent conversations through the pubesency period on into adulthood.

For most of society that's it; they've reached the pinnacle of speech, of communicating orally with another person, never understanding there's something beyond.

Cops know this...or at least most do. There's always a select few who believe they already know everything there is to know about communicating with those they are sworn to protect and serve. Sadly, there are those wearing a badge who believe their word is law,  a law not reinforced by actual law; the 'because I said so' complex which, they believe, demands immediate obedience.

The most useful skill a copper can develop is that of communication, the conveyance of ideas and meaning, followed closely by the ability to listen and comprehend.

Knowledge of the law, physical fitness for the job and proficiency with a sidearm are important, too, but they're all superseded by verbal acumen when dealing with the public.

The realization of this, for me, occurred when I was still on coach/pupil (it's called 'field training' now) and paired up with probably the best police officer I ever saw with this skill, Sgt. Bob Poth. 'Pappy' or 'Slim', as he was also known, could talk to anyone, from bank president to skid-row wino. It was this skill that would produce scores of folks who trusted him, even those who spent their lives on the wrong side of the law.

I once watched Slim and Sgt Jack Butler confront a man who was a hardened criminal, who had at one time bitten off part of a police officer's ear; this thug was at the top of a staircase, armed with a butcher knife, drunk and enraged, as they stood at the bottom of the steps, pistols (we still had revolvers back then) pointed at him as the thug threatened to kill them.

Slim talked the man into putting the knife down and coming down the steps to be handcuffed. I was amazed. I was sure I would witness a line-of-duty shooting, only five weeks into the job.

That was an important lesson.

Years before that, while working at a smaller department, a seasoned officer allegedly told a drunk driver he'd arrested to follow through on the driver's threat to commit suicide once he got home due to the DWI arrest.

And the arrestee did just that.

Words matter. Their meaning also matters. I wish those select few coppers I mentioned earlier understood this because, eventually, they'll stain the profession.

And maybe even indirectly cause a death.

Sully versus Bosco

Back in the early 2000s NBC had a fictional series called 'Third Watch'; it followed the lives of characters who were NYPD, FDNY and NYC paramedics, and it was a great show. My favorite was Officer John Sullivan, a grizzed, overweight, cynical veteran nearing retirement because he reminded me of...myself.

'Sully' would often clash with a young go-getter who loved running hot at a thousand miles per hour with his hair on fire, who believed the answer to every issue or problem was either an arrest or citation. Bosco was a policeman who reminded me of the youngsters getting into the job as I neared retirement.

I was Bosco way back in 1979. Even two years before that, when I was sworn in as an auxiliary patrolman at Ontario PD.

Every Friday and Saturday night as an auxiliary, without fail, I was at the old police department on Park Avenue West, which is now the city's senior citizen center. Back then, when Ontario was just a village, the administrative offices were in the front half of the building and the police department was in the back. General Motors, the Richland Mall, Service Merchandise, Zayre's, Tractor Supply and a handful of restaurants were the biggest reasons anyone stopped and spent time in the village.

Chief Bob Krauss, Captain Denny Reid, Lieutenant  Cal Miller, Tim McClaran, Keith Miller, Rex Knee, Ted Brinley and Dick Hamrick are all gone from us now, as is Paul Jones, who was also on the auxiliary. I worked with Dave Pugh, Ron Dille, Mike Burchett, Ron Miller, Lou Bemiller, Allen Au and Rod Smith in those days, too. Including the chief, we had thirteen officers. If memory serves, the auxiliary corps at one time had eighteen members.

Looking back, I can imagine that some of those men would, at times, become a little perturbed as I rode with them, for a couple of reasons: I wanted to write traffic tickets, make car stops and arrest people; plus, as I learned later in my career, when you're used to operating on your own in a cruiser, a rider can be a pain in the butt. Sometimes it was easy to feel the disdain the 'regulars' had for us.

As I progressed in my years on the job a lot of my attitude toward it changed. The boldest change was the realization that an arrest or citation isn't always the best answer. "We're out here to solve problems", Sully had once said to Bosco in one episode; the younger officer, of course had the opposite view of law enforcement. At the end of that episode, the veteran was proven right.

In the latter years of my three-plus decades on the job I can recount many instances of younger coppers having that same opposite view, seeing me as an over-the-hill dinosaur who was coasting toward the end of the line. The advent of in-car computer terminals only made things worse, as some youngsters wanted solely to operate through them. Officer safety was out the window by doing that, as far I as I was concerned, because if you weren't continually staring at the MDT screen you'd never know when another officer had cleared a call or car stop. Mobile Data Terminals have made for lazy policemen.

And solving problems? Giving someone a break on a minor infraction or traffic ticket paid off countless times, as folks tended to remember what you'd once done for them. One young guy couldn't understand why people would call me or stop in to see me out of the blue with information; I told him it was because they knew they owed me because they'd been let off the hook in the past. I'd treated them as human beings, not criminals; you build a rapport with people, not make them enemies. You don't go out and see how many tickets you can write during the shift, you go out, interact with the public and show them that you're human, too....and lose the arrogant attitude. You are NOT automatically better than someone else just because you're wearing a badge.

I'm just glad that some of the veteran officers I once worked with as a young man took the time to show me how to be a police officer.

Law enforcement needs more of those kind now.

                                                               Sully and Bosco

The Innocence of Rookies

A story in the local newspaper featured the swearing-in of a young man on the Mansfield Police Department. In addition to comments from the Chief of Police and the Mayor, the fledgeling officer remarked that he'd wanted to be in law enforcement since he was "a kid".

Most little boys who are now my age felt that way, too...unless, of course, they were afflicted at a young age with that terrible disease known as HDS.

Hose-Dragger Syndrome.

"I think I look forward to all of it", he's quoted as saying. Well, we all did when we started the journey Officer Hout is about to begin. We all had that innocent, bright-eyed outlook that we were going to be helping people...which we did.

The trouble is, at least for the majority of rookie officers, no one talks of the toll the evil in this world will take on the psyche and spirit.

No one tells you about the senseless violence and death, about horrific cases of child or elder abuse, about suicides driven by lost loves or burdens too heavy to bear. No one tells you that you'll see bodies mangled in fatal accidents and then have to notify family members of a loved one's death, about the fear that courses through your veins as you race to a call involving shots fired with victims down and the whereabouts of the armed suspect being unknown...or being shot at yourself. No one tells you about the spousal abuse you'll see, about the woman who keeps going back to a bad man until, finally, he kills her. About the overdose deaths, which are much more prevalent now than when I stood behind a badge.

No one tells you about the physical toll, either, about the injuries you'll suffer or develop. The muscle pulls, torn ligaments, fractures, cuts, bruises, dislocations and contusions. No one mentions being exposed to extreme heat and cold, or unseen toxic substances, about needle sticks while searching a drug addict, about the vomit, blood, decomposing bodies and excrement you'll see and smell.

No one tells you how jaded and cynical you'll become before finishing your career, how, eventually, just about everyone you come in contact with on the street is a liar until they prove otherwise. You'll never understand why people lie to the police when the truth would save them.

No one tells you about the internal sorrow you'll carry for having to witness the extremes of the human condition, about certain cases or incidents haunting you even decades later, about knowing someone is responsible for a death, even though it couldn't be proven in a court of law.

No one tells you about the job becoming monotonous, about the loathing you'll develop for certain calls...or coworkers, who somehow slipped through the cracks of the hiring/training process and are wearing the same badge as you, though they'll certainly not ever put themselves in danger to protect others, including you.

No one tells you about the rage you'll feel when one of your own brothers or sisters is proven to be a dirty cop, or how the public will paint you with the same broad brush just because that crooked officer worked with you.

No one tells you about the habits you'll assume, about never sitting with your back to the door in a public building, about watching everyone, especially their hands, about endlessly looking at license plates as you travel; no one tells you your head will be on an almost constant swivel while you're out somewhere with your wife and family, or about the unrelenting, unexplainable-to-the-public need to have a handgun with you almost all the time.

No one tells you about the 'left behind' feeling you'll have the further you get into retirement, when nearly the entire department has turned into faces you don't know anymore.

Evan Hout does have one advantage, though; his father-in-law is MPD Sergeant Steve Blust, a man I worked years with and have huge respect for. I'm sure Steve will offer guidance when asked.

To Officer Hout I say, good luck; you'll need it, because you will be working in a far different world than I did.

When The Snows Came

They'd forecast this heavy snow a few days in advance. Evidence could initially be seen at the grocery stores, where the bread and milk shelves were quickly depleted. Gas stations began running out of fuel. Snow shovels and bags of de-icing salt started getting difficult to find. Pickup trucks with snow plows, some with those little $4.99 yellow flashing lights magnetically stuck to the roofs, became increasingly visible on the roadways, waiting for their dollar bills to start falling from the skies.

Then it started snowing, steadily.

My bride and I were at the house we'd just purchased when it began, discussing with a family friend the pros and cons of running water and sewer lines up to the 2nd floor, where we want to build a half bath. By the time Tom left, an hour later, it became obvious we'd be engaged in adventurous driving on the way home.

Right after trekking downtown to the BMV office. Stacy needed her yearly registration sticker.

Here's the thing about winter driving and, admit it, we all have this same mindset: nobody else drives as well in the snow as we do. Everyone else drives too fast, too slow, takes up two lanes because they have no idea where the lane lines are, don't have the faintest idea how to brake on slick streets or how to get up icy hills.

Everyone else needs to just stay home so I can get to where I'm going.

So here Stacy and I are, inbound on Woodville Road towards Cook Rd, snaking moderately through the 3 ninety-degree turns. An oncoming car, driven by a Generation X-er on her cell phone, decides the center of the road belongs to her white Jeep SUV.

Disaster averted, thanks to a drive entrance I was able to encroach upon.

People have been remarking negatively about the City of Mansfield's lack of road maintenance during winter weather, saying they never see city plow trucks working the streets. We passed two withing a 200-yard stretch, plows down and salt slingers scattering material.

We safely arrived at the downtown license bureau, where we were reminded yet again why we prefer going to Shelby's office: the employees in Whippet Country are much more pleasant to deal with.

My wife, now feeling much better for having purchased her new plate sticker (the old one expires tomorrow...she was convinced she would be stopped and thrown in jail for having an expired registration sticker this coming Tuesday), and I started for our current Melody Lane home.     

There is no way to get to Ram Field Ranch without encountering a hill. A big one.

That being the case, I took the bull by the corns and traveled across Grace Street, which my wife thought was crazy; Stacy thought that the big hill between Stewart Road and Sabo Drive would be impossible for our Chevy Equinox to climb, road conditions being what they were.

"There's a key", I told her. "Momentum. Make sure no one is in front of you when you start down the hill so you don't lose momentum because of something they're doing."

Worked like a charm. We had no problem getting up that hill because of inertia.     

We got home and in the garage. Our refuse container, which I'd had the foresight to cover with a tarp supported by multiple two-by-fours the night before, was quickly accumulating snow, which I knew I'd have to sweep off. 

Then it REALLY started snowing.

We resumed our in-home packing, preparing for next weekend's move to the new place, while the storm really started getting serious. I went out and removed snow from the tarp three more times, then got the snowblower into the mix, clearing out 2/3rds of the drive in the semi-lighted darkness.

This morning, after more snow and high winds overnight, you can't tell I even touched it. But that's OK, though....

...my wife just put a pot roast, with carrots, potatoes and onions, in the crockpot. We may not be bale to get out, but we'll be eating well.                 

The Blame Game

Raising kids to adulthood is no easy task.

I'm not talking about teaching them to read, dress and feed themselves, teaching them to play catch with a ball and glove, how to make their beds, wash their own clothes, tie their shoes. That's the easy stuff.

Teaching them values, morals, character...things that will guide them through life...is much tougher. Right from wrong, honest from dishonest, good from bad. Those are the foundations on which to build and raise a productive citizen who is an asset to those around them. A leader among leaders.

Most of all, we want them to make decisions that will have positive impacts while also learning the value of personal responsibility.

Ah, but there are obstacles along the way, pot holes in the road of life. Single-parent households, less-than-desirable friends, peer pressure...they can all work in concert to hinder the process. Some roadblocks are beyond what we, as parents, can control and can have a profound effect on our young adults.

When that occurs, in whatever form, we must choose how we, as parents, react. We pray the issues aren't insurmountable.         

Or fatal.

On the sixth of December, 2018, 19-year-old Andrew Herrera walked into a San Antonio Popeye's chicken shack wearing a mask, hoodie and brandishing a gun, intent on robbing the restaurant and patrons.

Herrera confronted a man who was dining with his family, demanding his money and pointing the firearm at the man's children. When told by the man that he'd spent his cash on food for his kids, Herrera then turned his weapon on a Popeye's employee, looking away from his initial target.

The seated patron, who has a concealed-carry permit, used the distraction to draw his own handgun and fire on Herrera, striking the masked gunman five times. Herrera died at a local hospital.

While the incident is still under investigation, a police spokesman stated there would be no charges filed against the patron protecting his family.

That brings us to the deceased gunman's mother, Cynthia Ruiz. She hasn't had an easy life; her husband died, leaving her to raise Herrera alone.

While not excusing her son's decision to attempt an armed robbery, she wonders why the man who shot Herrera didn't stop after the first round.

"Why shoot him four more times? Why did he shoot him 5 times?"

Then she added that her son, diagnosed as bipolar and schizophrenic, suffered from mental health issues and that he'd recently stopped taking his medication....in effect, blaming her son's actions on his refusal to medicate and his death on an overzealous gun owner.

Police investigators stated that Herrera was a suspect in several other armed robberies.

The blame game has become endemic in today's society, finding a way to shift guilt onto anything or anyone other than yourself. I don't blame Mrs. Ruiz for what her son did, nor do I blame the unnamed father for protecting the lives of his family and the employees inside that Popeye's on December 6th.
Herrera didn't take into account what effect his refusal of medication would have or the possibility that he would not be the only armed person inside the restaurant.

He should have. The minute he pulled on the mask and drew a handgun, young Andrew Herrera crafted his own destiny. It was his decision, and it was a tragically bad one.

No one else is to blame.