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.