-
A violent criminal had just run into the woods armed with a rifle. He’d just shot a man in his attempt to avoid capture. The boss’s directive to us was simple: “Go in there and find him.” Unfortunately, we had no idea where the suspect was hiding, but he probably knew exactly where we were.…
-
Cows aren’t bright animals. Sometimes deputies aren’t either. One night when I was a patrol sergeant, the two came together for the perfect storm of unbrightness. Joey was patrolling south of town, watching the oncoming lanes of traffic for speeders. A local cow decided that the middle of the dark road was where he needed…
-
Beginning a career as a Jail Guard opened my eyes to a whole new world of scary people. Larry was one of them. One day, when I entered his cell, Larry stood with a large metal pipe in his hand. He had pulled a piece of plumbing out of the wall. Now he had a…
-
“Unit 108, y’all meet me at the jail,” the evening shift Lieutenant said over the radio. It was around 1987, and we were one of three cars on patrol that night. LT stopped for a break at the Sheriff’s Office downtown. Back then, the jail was upstairs in the same building. While sitting in the…
-
I once thought the stereotypes of outlaws in the rural South were unfair characterizations. Then, I began a career in law enforcement… I’ve come to realize that not all the caricatures are incorrect. There are pockets of people in rural America whose family trees do not appear to branch. And, I’ve interacted with a few…
-
An·guish: severe mental or physical pain or suffering There was a time, not long ago, when life was going really well. Then suddenly, it wasn’t. One day, I was thanking God for all the good things happening in my life. The next day, I was bent over double, like someone had kicked me in the…
-
In my office, a framed newspaper photo hangs, depicting a much younger version of me. In it, I’m standing in the bed of a pickup truck that is loaded with 50 tall marijuana plants. Sporting a classic 1980s cop look, I wear a thick mustache, a tight polyester uniform, and aviator sunglasses. And, I’m basking…
-
Every cop I know is bilingual. They all speak English and another language unique to law enforcement, called the Ten Code. The radio abbreviations we use daily aren’t something we have to translate. The ten codes are words to us, just like their English equivalents. If my partner told me he was “10-39 on a…
-
Incredible – so extraordinary as to seem impossible Several years ago, a Georgia man showed up here saying he had been kidnapped. He told a rather incredible story, and I wasn’t buying it. In my defense, most of the kidnapping cases I had investigated thus far were bogus. Not all, but most. Some people used…
-
I am in California today. Anaheim, to be exact. We flew in last weekend to visit Disneyland for the first time. It’s been forty years since I was in Los Angeles last. My previous visit, however, was not so fun. My last trip to L.A. occurred when I was young and stupid. My friends told…