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?

Foot patrol.

Walking a beat.

When’s the last time you saw a police officer walking, patrolling a business area?

For me, it’s been awhile. That’s too bad, too, because foot patrol was a very effective technique. An officer assigned to a foot beat became very familiar with the everyday people in his assigned patrol area, the shop owners, the residents and even the crooks and undesirables. He/she knew whether or not someone belonged to the area. He/she knew the trouble spots. He/she knew what belonged and what didn’t.

Business people generally loved when the beat cop walked into their shop or restaurant, because they’d know there wasn’t a chance of trouble happening. Neighborhoods got to know the cop on patrol because he wasn’t gliding on by in an air-conditioned cruiser behind tinted glass. He was real and he was present. He was personable, a cop you could actually hold a conversation with.

Back in the day we had foot patrol, but even then it was a dying assignment. We’d have guys/gals walking assigned beats on ‘all-hands’ days; those days during the shift cycle where no one was on scheduled days off. We’d have plenty of two-officer cars because we didn’t have enough cruisers for all the personnel who were working. Even then, though, the department was beginning to feel the budget bite; that was one reason we didn’t have enough cruisers. I always looked forward to all-hands days, because I knew there was a good chance I’d be assigned to downtown foot patrol, and I enjoyed it immensely.

You were assigned in pairs; back in the 50s and 60s, guys would walk a beat alone, being dispatched to calls via blue-painted call boxes mounted on poles seemingly on every corner. The call boxes generally had a red light on top that would flash if the beat cop needed to contact the station for a call, and the copper carried a key that would unlock the call box door, where the phone awaited use.

Call boxes were long gone before I started my career, replaced by big, boxy, heavy portable radios. Between the radio on one hip and the .38 revolver on the other, well, that leather gun belt rode low on your hip bones, which could become painful.

Anyway, we walked in pairs, making it a point to stroll several times through the bars that were known for trouble, like ‘showing the flag’’; you wanted the mopes to know that you were around and could appear unannounced at any moment.

We didn’t just stroll the streets, either. Oftentimes, we’d get up on top of a building and just watch activity below us. I remember one particular instance where my pal Keith ‘Biscuit’ Coleman and I were on top of the Reed’s Building on the square, just watching. We noticed a car come around the corner, pause in front of the store and then back in to a parking space. It was a Sunday, late afternoon, and Reed’s department store was closed. Why would a driver do that? No one ever backed in those spaces. The guy never got out of his car. We waited about fifteen minutes and then decided to pay him a visit. Keith and I climbed down the rear fire escape and approached from an alley that ran between Reed’s and the Olympic Lounge; the car was parked in a space near the mouth of the ally, so the guy couldn’t see us approach. We walked up to him on the driver’s side and he never saw us. In his lap he had a Frisbee, loaded with loose marijuana, and he was rolling joints. Every so often he’d raise his head and look around, but he never looked behind his car, so we stood, just back of the driver’s door, watching him through his open window. Finally, I spoke.

“What’s up?”

The guy’s head snapped around, seeing two policemen standing right beside his door, a look of surprise and horror on his face. Then his chin hit his chest, realizing he’d been caught red-handed, and he just handed that marijuana-laden Frisbee out the window to us.

“You got me”, he said dejectedly. It was priceless.

I miss the old days.

Life Imitating Art?

  Writing.

   It has become a passion. I started putting fingers to keyboard a few years back after having a dream about terrorists holding parishioners hostage in a mega-church, so I started developing a plot line, characters and settings. Then I started typing.

   88,000 words and four years later I’m still working on my crime thriller. It’s almost finished, just a couple more chapters to go, but it has been quite a journey. Hours and hours of research, phone calls, map and image searches…and miles. I traveled to Charleston two years ago, where part of the novel is set, specifically to research locations I’m using for certain events in the story.

   The issue I’m having is that current events in the world have come very close to the heart of my book, and I’m now having second thoughts about trying to get it published. Is it morally right in light of the shootings at the Emanuel A. M. E. church in downtown Charleston last year or, more recently, the Orlando nightclub massacre?

   Tom Clancy, one of my favorite writers, told a tale in his 1994 book Debt of Honor that, seven years later, was mimicked in the terrorist attacks in 2001; in Clancy’s book an embittered Japanese airline pilot, after losing his son and brother in a conflict with the United States, flew his fully-fueled Boeing 747 into the U. S. Capitol Building during a joint session of Congress, almost decapitating our government.

   We know what then happened on September 11^th.

   In 1997 two bank robbers, both armed with AK-47s and wearing body armor, were met outside a bank they’d just robbed in North Hollywood by responding LAPD officers; nearly 1750 rounds were fired, with eighteen civilians and police officers being wounded during the running gun battle in the streets. The only lives lost were those of Larry Phillips Jr and Emil Matasareanu…the two perpetrators. Two years prior to this incident the film Heat, starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, was released; in the movie, De Niro and his heavily-armed crew encounter police as they exit a bank they’d just robbed…and a running gun battle through the streets of Los Angeles occurs.

   Life imitating art, or just two instances of pure coincidence?

   I’ll still work to finish my novel, but I’m certainly not assuming it will be accepted for print. Getting a work into book form is extremely difficult and highly competitive.

   IF I decide to submit it.

This Morning...

…the Orlando massacre is much worse than first reported yesterday morning. A total of fifty people were murdered by a radicalized Islamist during the worst mass shooting in United States history.

…I pray first for the families of those lost; I also pray for the police officer who was working security at the night club, who first exchanged shots with terrorist Omar Mateen, because I know he must be blaming himself for the lives lost after that initial encounter.

…although calling it “…an act of terror…”, Barack Obama never mentioned radical Islam, even though Mateen himself called 911 during the attack to tell police that he pledged his allegiance to ISIS.

…at some point today, Hillary Clinton will call for more gun control during a speech or in front of the news media. Within hours, Obama already had…and it is deplorable that, once again, he used a tragedy to further his agenda.

…several persons across the country will try to capitalize on this tragedy by producing t-shirts emblazoned with slogans relating to the shootings. I support the families and friends of the victims, but there are mopes out there who will make money on this. Numerous charity websites will be set up to aid the victims’ families, many of which will turn out to be run by scam artists.

…I strongly hope that the massive, in-depth FBI investigation will not find that some of the hostages held by Mateen inside the night club were accidentally shot by law enforcement.

…it will be found that friends, co-workers or neighbors of Mateen suspected he would commit an act such as the shootings, but failed to report their suspicions out of fear of being labeled ‘Islamophobe’. Political correctness is causing this country to suffer.

…there will be no condemnation of radical Islamists by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. Will someone, anyone, who is a leader in the Muslim community proclaim long and loud in the media that this scumbag murderer is not representative of that religion’s tenets?

Mass Shooting in Orlando

   Another mass shooting occurred overnight, this one in an Orlando night club; as of now, at least twenty people are confirmed dead and forty-two have been transported to area hospitals. The suspect was well-armed, carrying a rifle and handgun, and was also carrying some sort of an explosive device. He didn’t hesitate to attack the club even thought there was a uniformed Orlando police officer working security; a police spokesman stated that the shooter was well-prepared, indicating the execution of this act culminated as a result of planning and research.

   

   Hostages were taken; A law enforcement SWAT team made entry after police negotiators came to the conclusion that the gunman could not be reasoned with. Police exchanged fire with the suspect, resulting in his death and a head wound to one of the assault team. The officer’s life was saved by his Kevlar helmet.

   Terrorism is a possible motive. A supervisory agent from the Orlando office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has stated that there is reason to believe the suspect had leanings towards radical Islam.

   Think about that for a minutes; for an agent of the federal government to bluntly make that statement to on-scene media means that there is solid, obvious evidence at the scene that would lend credence to that theory, especially considering the President refuses to use those very words.

   As more information is released we will see politicians become involved, offering condolences to the families of victims killed and wounded. Those words will be followed by calls for more stringent gun control laws, some common-sense but most outrageous. Liberal-leaning media will magnify those calling for more gun control, claiming this act couldn’t have been carried out without ‘ease of access’ to firearms in today’s United States.

   Consider this, however: the San Bernardino massacre was carried out in a gun-free zone. The City of Chicago has the strictest gun control laws in the nation, yet firearms deaths are occurring daily at an alarming rate. Criminals and terrorists don’t follow the laws of this land and gun-free zones mean nothing to those who would commit mayhem and terror on our populace.

   It will not get better anytime soon. It will get worse. Incidents will become more frequent.

   …which is why I never, ever go anywhere without being armed. I will be prepared to defend myself, those I love and even those potential victims who would want to take away that very right to defend myself with a firearm. I will not be a sheep and I will not cower before those who want to kill.

   Endeth the sermon.

Project Vigil: Remembering the Heroes of Normandy

Seventy-Two Years Ago Today...

Seventy-two years ago, the biggest sea-borne invasion in the history of mankind was occurring at this very moment, an invasion that would change the course of history. It was an invasion that involved over 156,000 Allied troops from thirteen countries, pitted against Nazi Adolph Hitler’s ‘Atlantic Wall’. Here’s a few facts you may not have known about this significant turning point in World War II:

- Many people mistake the landings as being codenamed ‘Operation Overlord’; that was the overall title for the establishment of an Allied foothold in Europe. ‘Operation Neptune’ was the actual designation for the beach landings at Normandy.

- Actual American deaths directly related to D-Day first occurred on April 28^th, 1944, when a convoy of troop ships involved in a dress rehearsal for the landings were torpedoed by German U-boats off the coast of England. 946 American soldiers were killed.

- James Doohan, known to millions of ‘Star Trek’ fans as Mister Scott, was shot in the chest and hand during his Canadian division’s landing on Juno Beach. A silver cigarette case in Doohan’s shirt pocket saved him from death, although he did lose a finger.

- Preliminary plans for ‘Operation Neptune’ blew out an open window at Supreme Allied Headquarters in London in the summer of 1943; they were found by an elderly pedestrian who immediately returned them, saying his poor eyesight kept him from reading any of the top-secret documents.

- Famed American author J. D. Salinger landed on Omaha Beach with the American 4^th Infantry Division carrying his unfinished Catcher in the Rye in his pack. Salinger would go on to fight in the Battle of the Bulge and the Battle of Hurtgen Forest.

- A Spanish-born double agent working for British intelligence, Juan Pujol, was so adept at his craft that he convinced Hitler that the D-Day invasion would not occur in June of 1944. Adolph Hitler awarded Pujol with the Iron Cross for his service without ever realizing he’d been mightily duped.

- The ‘D’ in D-Day means nothing; many believe it stood for ‘Deliverance’, ‘Doom’ or ‘Debarkation’ but that was never the case.

- War photographer Robert Capa came onshore with the second wave of troops at Omaha Beach. Despite taking two reels of film, only eleven survived for publication. An assistant developing his pictures over-dried the rest, ruining them.

- John Steele of the American 505^th Parachute Infantry Regiment was part of the unit that was mistakenly dropped into the French town of St Mere Eglise; his ‘chute snagged on a church steeple, where he hung for two hours before finally being taken prisoner. Steele later escaped and rejoined his unit, which took the village from the Nazis. For his actions and injuries during combat, Steele was awarded a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. Steele was so enamored with St Mere Eglise and its townspeople that he often visited after the war; a tavern, Auberge John Steele, is named after him there. Steele died in 1969 of throat cancer.