Flyinbowtie
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I'll be up front with you all. I read this when I was done with it and almost flushed it. I thought, "this is too real, too close to the edge. People don't need to hear this." This is as real as it gets.
I sent it to RD, and let him decide. He told me to post it, he felt it had some value, to both the readers and the writer. As I go through all the stuff I have in the loft memories are flooding back, that file drawer has cracked open, and things are falling out. maybe I am sweeping some of this stuff away, and you are the victims of my house cleaning, hell I dunno. I know one group of people I am writing it for, and that is my fellow badge toters, both present and past, who know.
Because if ya don't know, ya don't know. They know, and, maybe, just maybe, they will find some solace in knowing they are not alone.
So hear you go.
The first shift. And the oldest entry in that “file”.
I put on a uniform for the first time when I was 22 years old. I was what was then called a Post Certified Level 1 Reserve, which took about 200 hours of training and education to get. The classes counted towards my AS and BS, which helped, and I got both eventually. So Reserve training and collge at night and on some Saturdays and 40+ hours a week on a water well drilling rig. Cindy and I were planning to get married and we were renting a little shack together. I went through a written test, a physical and an oral board to get “hired” as a Reserve, and once I completed the training…on my dime and time, I was accepted into the program.
Legally I could drive a unit solo, but my agency kept the Reserves doubled with a senior partner.
The department used the program to “feel out” potential future full-time hires, and beef up staffing on weekends and holidays in the summer season, at the fair, etc. They also hired guys who were former full time peace officers that just wanted to keep their certs current.
I was the former. I wanted a full-time position. The department got another benefit here. Us reserves…we worked for free. Volunteers. Yep. Free. That ended about 4 years after I got on board dull time as I recall.
So, my first shift I was doubled with a fellow named Larry. Later in my career he was my Lieutenant when I was a Sergeant. He was a great guy, low key, smart as heck, and knew his job. The first shift was a Friday, briefing was at 5:30 pm. I got off the drilling rig early, hauled ass home, got cleaned up and went up to the office. Got suited up. It felt strange looking at myself in the mirror, in full uniform, with a badge and a duty belt…but even then, I knew it was right, I knew I was where I belonged.
We listened to the sergeant do the briefing, a guy with 3 stripes and 4 service hash marks on his sleeve, which, to me seemed impossible. That meant 16 years on the job. The last uniform I wore had 6 on the sleeve. I used to remind myself of that when I was a sergeant running briefing and new guys rolled in, and to try to be as welcoming as possible.
It was a clear, cold, winter night. We worked a swing shift, which was 5:30pm to 3:30 am. Graveyard filled in with us at 9:30, we all worked 4-10s. best schedule I was ever on. There was ice on some of the roads, it was a Friday night, but the cold tempered the crazies and it was pretty quiet. Larry took me under his wing, he taught me some tricks for traffic stops and contacts in general, showed me how the stuff in the car worked, explained how the radio worked, and how it sometimes didn’t, and gave me some advice on how to survive in the job in general. Larry had about 6 years on at that point. I listened. He gave me a good tour of some of the hot spots…I knew most of them…after all I had been a teenager in that town myself ya know?
We handled a couple of calls, covered for a city unit in a bar fight at 10pm, and at 11ish we got the call. CHP didn’t have any units on the road (typical in those days) and there was a report of an accident up on the highway east of town, about 7 miles up the hill, CHP was requesting an area check. This highway is a 2 lane through the national forest, with towering trees on both sides of the road. Big, Big trees. CHP advised they would call out an officer if we “located any accident”
When we got about 5 miles out of town we slowed way down, cranked up the ambers and the alley lights, and both got on our spotlights. Larry spotted it first, some visible disturbances in the snow and brush on my side of the road.
We stopped, and both spotlights lit up the back end of a small pickup, one of those little Mini Trucks popular back then, smaller than an S10 or any Toyota type truck of today.
The truck was about 75 ft off of the road, and it had hit a 5 ft diameter Douglas Fir tree head on. The impact pushed the engine almost into the cab, blew out the windshield completely, the damage was horrendous.
Since our hand held radios didn’t really work, I returned to the car at Larry’s direction and summoned rescue and the CHP. I returned immediately. As I did my flashlight hit something in the snow that glinted…it was reflective, I looked closer.
It was the eye of a stuffed bear. A pink teddy bear.
A child's toy. Larry saw me looking at it and stood up to see it. He said one word.
“Shit”.
We managed to get into the truck. I will spare you the details, but there were a young woman and a female toddler in the truck. They were both killed upon impact. Larry told me to cancel the ambulance and the rescue and roll a mortuary. You see, in many smaller agencies the sheriff wears several hats, and we were deputy coroners as well as deputy sheriffs.
Our sergeant rolled up, he arrived before the CHP. He gave us a hand on the scene and told us we were “off call”, knowing this would consume the remainder of our shift. We waited for a tow and the call out CHP officer arrived about 10 minutes later. The 4 of us took a moment and looked at the road. There was no evidence the driver had tried to brake, no evidence of any alcohol in the truck and no odor of it in the truck. Our initial thought was that the driver fell asleep at highway speed, which, in that area, would have been posted 55, most people do 65. So, being kind, the truck went from 55 to zero instantly. When the blood work came back there was no reason to change this, and CHP, who does the accident portion of the case, ultimately put this as cause. Driver fell asleep. Anyway CHP rolled a tow that had an indoor storage to put the truck in as they would want to go over it in more detail in the following days and we didn’t want every asshole in town sneaking around a tow yard to look at it. Yes, there are people like that.
We left after the truck was pulled out and put on the hook.
Our work had just begun. We found the woman’s purse and ID. She lived in an adjoining county. It is generally accepted in the law enforcement community that death notifications are always done in person, when the next of kin is in another county we send an official teletype via the state system asking for someone to make notification and contact the investigating officer. (us)
The mortuary arrived and, after we place the victims in the rig, we followed them to their office. We had collected the purse and other valuables from the truck, but had other work to do as well. On the way there, Larry told me that he considered our care for the deceased an important part of our job, that everyone has someone that loves them, and he said that he handled this part of the job with the kind of compassion that he would want some other cop to have in the event it was one of his family involved in the case. Many years later I would write that line into the FTO manual, as a guiding principal in these investigations. Larry told me what we would do at the mortuary, and we did it, including fingerprinting the decedents, and removed the jewelry from the young woman. I will never forget that, as long as I live.
At the scene we had found enough paperwork to determine that this woman was traveling with her daughter. She was not married, but we found she was living with the father of the little girl. They were indeed from out of town.
We went to the Dispatch center and Larry showed me how to put together a teletype (computer message nowadays) to send the agency where the father lived to ask them to send an officer to make notification. To my surprise, he had the dispatcher list himself or “Deputy FBT” or the watch commander as the contact on our ends. It took the dispatcher about 30 seconds to load the data and hit the send button.
We then returned to our office to begin the paperwork, and book the property.
I handled the property, which we held for safekeeping to be released to next of kin. Larry then began putting the paperwork together as I watched, and listened. It is a terrible thing to do these kinds of reports, when we are talking about the death of a mother and child. I don’t know of a single cop I ever worked with that it did not eat away at, and we all did our level best to keep that principle in mind…respect, dignity, professionalism. But every time you deal with the death of a child it eats away at a part of your soul, I don’t know how else to put it, it just does. You never forget. And this…this was my first shift, remember.
About 3 hours into the paperwork Dispatch called the report writing room, they had the little girl’s father on the line, the agency had made contact and notified him his girlfriend and daughter had passed. The officers had found a chaplain and he was with the man, so the poor guy wasn’t alone.
Larry looked at me and said, “do you want to try this, do you want to talk to him? You were there, you know what he needs to know and what he absolutely does not need to know. You do this by telling him the same way you would want to be told. Do you want to do it?
My head nodded yes.
The light on the button on the line he was on was flashing. I took a breath, and picked up the handset, and pushed the button, and identified myself.
He was still deciding if this was real, or a nightmare. In truth, it was both., and I completely understood. They were engaged to be married; her folks were both deceased. Traffic accident.
Then, gently, we went through it 3 times, and when I was satisfied he understood, and was in the processing phase, I gave him the daytime contact info for the chief deputy coroner, and Larry’s contact info, explaining to him I was “a reserve deputy and wasn’t here every day”. I answered his questions as best I could, and told him how this was a joint investigation between our office and CHP. I gave him the CHP officers contact info.
He thanked me profusely. Right before we said goodbye he called me by my first name and said, “Jeff…you said you are a reserve deputy, I am in the National Guard. I swear to God I wouldn’t have your job on a bet, I don’t know how you do this, but I am thankful this came from you tonight, if it had to come from anyone. Thanks for caring.”
I put the phone on the hook, Larry had been in the report writing room next door, and was listening on the phone. He looked at me and said, “You did fine. The paperwork is done, lets change out, you wanna go find a cup of coffee?” I looked at my watch, somehow the hours had flown by. It was 5am.
I knew I wasn’t gonna sleep, so I said yes. We changed out and while walking out in the night air, our breath condensing in the cold, we decided to nix the coffee. He looked at me as he unlocked his truck and I went past him towards mine he said, “Well, that was one helluva first shift, wasn’t it?” I said it sure was, and he replied, “You are gonna make it, you can ride with me any time, you got your shit together and you listen.”
I said, “well, in that case, I will see you tonight. OK?
“OK. Hopefully we will get time for code 7 and I will buy ya lunch. G’night”
As best I can tell that happened about 42 years ago. I recall that shift, and what we were tasked to do that night, as if it were yesterday. It truly is the first in “that file” I talked about in the Christmas story. Larry was a superb cop, and I found out his rule with reserves was one shift, and if he didn’t want you in the car you never rode with him again.
I rode with him most weekends of that winter, and the rest of that year. I learned, met people, got to understand the place. When the word came out they were gonna test for full-time positions, and pay for the academy if they found someone they wanted, I asked him what he thought. He told me I would be up against seasoned cops, but that the agency knew me and that mattered.
I applied, and found out that there were over 200 people testing, a few were guys I had gone through the Reserve academy and had some college classes with, but hadn’t been picked up yet. They were using the “shotgun method” of applying, filling out the application and testing everywhere, trying to get on anywhere…
“200 guys” I thought. 4 positions, the list is active for a year. Tenured cops up the wazoo here to test. Great.” Well, I will get some experience so when I have to test again I will know what to expect.
“I might as well buy some more 501’s, I am gonna be drilling for another year or two,” I told myself.
I got picked up for the full-time position 2 months later, and they paid me while I attended the academy, and paid for the POST academy, which was a rare thing in those days. I was lucky as heck, but they knew me, and they must have liked something they saw, so off we went…
Through my career I wound up the first cop at a lot of accident scenes; and the impact they had on me never lessened. I am sure I am no different than any other cop, rolling up and seeing children’s toys strewn across the highway makes your gut knot up almost instantaneously, and you say to yourself, “No Lord, Please God not again”.
And sometimes you are able to do something, and help.
And sometimes you can’t, and you still have a job to do.
Either way, you do what must be done, what the job requires, and you do your best, and do it with compassion, and dignity, and professionalism, and you try to go home at the end of your watch clinging to the thought that you did the best you could, and hope that you will be able to sleep.
And you hug your wife and kids.
Whether you sleep or not, when it is time you get up, shower, get cleaned up, shine your boots, and go back and do it again, never knowing what the day will bring, because they are all different, and all the same. We try to make a difference, sometimes we can, sometimes we can’t, and there is nothing that eats at the soul like a child you can’t help. You have the badge, and the gun, and the of power incarceration, of life and death and all the authority that goes with it, but sometimes it just isn’t meant to be. And then you do the only thing you can.
You live with it. You dust yourself off and go back to work, and live with it.
Yeah, it was one helluva first shift.
I sent it to RD, and let him decide. He told me to post it, he felt it had some value, to both the readers and the writer. As I go through all the stuff I have in the loft memories are flooding back, that file drawer has cracked open, and things are falling out. maybe I am sweeping some of this stuff away, and you are the victims of my house cleaning, hell I dunno. I know one group of people I am writing it for, and that is my fellow badge toters, both present and past, who know.
Because if ya don't know, ya don't know. They know, and, maybe, just maybe, they will find some solace in knowing they are not alone.
So hear you go.
The first shift. And the oldest entry in that “file”.
I put on a uniform for the first time when I was 22 years old. I was what was then called a Post Certified Level 1 Reserve, which took about 200 hours of training and education to get. The classes counted towards my AS and BS, which helped, and I got both eventually. So Reserve training and collge at night and on some Saturdays and 40+ hours a week on a water well drilling rig. Cindy and I were planning to get married and we were renting a little shack together. I went through a written test, a physical and an oral board to get “hired” as a Reserve, and once I completed the training…on my dime and time, I was accepted into the program.
Legally I could drive a unit solo, but my agency kept the Reserves doubled with a senior partner.
The department used the program to “feel out” potential future full-time hires, and beef up staffing on weekends and holidays in the summer season, at the fair, etc. They also hired guys who were former full time peace officers that just wanted to keep their certs current.
I was the former. I wanted a full-time position. The department got another benefit here. Us reserves…we worked for free. Volunteers. Yep. Free. That ended about 4 years after I got on board dull time as I recall.
So, my first shift I was doubled with a fellow named Larry. Later in my career he was my Lieutenant when I was a Sergeant. He was a great guy, low key, smart as heck, and knew his job. The first shift was a Friday, briefing was at 5:30 pm. I got off the drilling rig early, hauled ass home, got cleaned up and went up to the office. Got suited up. It felt strange looking at myself in the mirror, in full uniform, with a badge and a duty belt…but even then, I knew it was right, I knew I was where I belonged.
We listened to the sergeant do the briefing, a guy with 3 stripes and 4 service hash marks on his sleeve, which, to me seemed impossible. That meant 16 years on the job. The last uniform I wore had 6 on the sleeve. I used to remind myself of that when I was a sergeant running briefing and new guys rolled in, and to try to be as welcoming as possible.
It was a clear, cold, winter night. We worked a swing shift, which was 5:30pm to 3:30 am. Graveyard filled in with us at 9:30, we all worked 4-10s. best schedule I was ever on. There was ice on some of the roads, it was a Friday night, but the cold tempered the crazies and it was pretty quiet. Larry took me under his wing, he taught me some tricks for traffic stops and contacts in general, showed me how the stuff in the car worked, explained how the radio worked, and how it sometimes didn’t, and gave me some advice on how to survive in the job in general. Larry had about 6 years on at that point. I listened. He gave me a good tour of some of the hot spots…I knew most of them…after all I had been a teenager in that town myself ya know?
We handled a couple of calls, covered for a city unit in a bar fight at 10pm, and at 11ish we got the call. CHP didn’t have any units on the road (typical in those days) and there was a report of an accident up on the highway east of town, about 7 miles up the hill, CHP was requesting an area check. This highway is a 2 lane through the national forest, with towering trees on both sides of the road. Big, Big trees. CHP advised they would call out an officer if we “located any accident”
When we got about 5 miles out of town we slowed way down, cranked up the ambers and the alley lights, and both got on our spotlights. Larry spotted it first, some visible disturbances in the snow and brush on my side of the road.
We stopped, and both spotlights lit up the back end of a small pickup, one of those little Mini Trucks popular back then, smaller than an S10 or any Toyota type truck of today.
The truck was about 75 ft off of the road, and it had hit a 5 ft diameter Douglas Fir tree head on. The impact pushed the engine almost into the cab, blew out the windshield completely, the damage was horrendous.
Since our hand held radios didn’t really work, I returned to the car at Larry’s direction and summoned rescue and the CHP. I returned immediately. As I did my flashlight hit something in the snow that glinted…it was reflective, I looked closer.
It was the eye of a stuffed bear. A pink teddy bear.
A child's toy. Larry saw me looking at it and stood up to see it. He said one word.
“Shit”.
We managed to get into the truck. I will spare you the details, but there were a young woman and a female toddler in the truck. They were both killed upon impact. Larry told me to cancel the ambulance and the rescue and roll a mortuary. You see, in many smaller agencies the sheriff wears several hats, and we were deputy coroners as well as deputy sheriffs.
Our sergeant rolled up, he arrived before the CHP. He gave us a hand on the scene and told us we were “off call”, knowing this would consume the remainder of our shift. We waited for a tow and the call out CHP officer arrived about 10 minutes later. The 4 of us took a moment and looked at the road. There was no evidence the driver had tried to brake, no evidence of any alcohol in the truck and no odor of it in the truck. Our initial thought was that the driver fell asleep at highway speed, which, in that area, would have been posted 55, most people do 65. So, being kind, the truck went from 55 to zero instantly. When the blood work came back there was no reason to change this, and CHP, who does the accident portion of the case, ultimately put this as cause. Driver fell asleep. Anyway CHP rolled a tow that had an indoor storage to put the truck in as they would want to go over it in more detail in the following days and we didn’t want every asshole in town sneaking around a tow yard to look at it. Yes, there are people like that.
We left after the truck was pulled out and put on the hook.
Our work had just begun. We found the woman’s purse and ID. She lived in an adjoining county. It is generally accepted in the law enforcement community that death notifications are always done in person, when the next of kin is in another county we send an official teletype via the state system asking for someone to make notification and contact the investigating officer. (us)
The mortuary arrived and, after we place the victims in the rig, we followed them to their office. We had collected the purse and other valuables from the truck, but had other work to do as well. On the way there, Larry told me that he considered our care for the deceased an important part of our job, that everyone has someone that loves them, and he said that he handled this part of the job with the kind of compassion that he would want some other cop to have in the event it was one of his family involved in the case. Many years later I would write that line into the FTO manual, as a guiding principal in these investigations. Larry told me what we would do at the mortuary, and we did it, including fingerprinting the decedents, and removed the jewelry from the young woman. I will never forget that, as long as I live.
At the scene we had found enough paperwork to determine that this woman was traveling with her daughter. She was not married, but we found she was living with the father of the little girl. They were indeed from out of town.
We went to the Dispatch center and Larry showed me how to put together a teletype (computer message nowadays) to send the agency where the father lived to ask them to send an officer to make notification. To my surprise, he had the dispatcher list himself or “Deputy FBT” or the watch commander as the contact on our ends. It took the dispatcher about 30 seconds to load the data and hit the send button.
We then returned to our office to begin the paperwork, and book the property.
I handled the property, which we held for safekeeping to be released to next of kin. Larry then began putting the paperwork together as I watched, and listened. It is a terrible thing to do these kinds of reports, when we are talking about the death of a mother and child. I don’t know of a single cop I ever worked with that it did not eat away at, and we all did our level best to keep that principle in mind…respect, dignity, professionalism. But every time you deal with the death of a child it eats away at a part of your soul, I don’t know how else to put it, it just does. You never forget. And this…this was my first shift, remember.
About 3 hours into the paperwork Dispatch called the report writing room, they had the little girl’s father on the line, the agency had made contact and notified him his girlfriend and daughter had passed. The officers had found a chaplain and he was with the man, so the poor guy wasn’t alone.
Larry looked at me and said, “do you want to try this, do you want to talk to him? You were there, you know what he needs to know and what he absolutely does not need to know. You do this by telling him the same way you would want to be told. Do you want to do it?
My head nodded yes.
The light on the button on the line he was on was flashing. I took a breath, and picked up the handset, and pushed the button, and identified myself.
He was still deciding if this was real, or a nightmare. In truth, it was both., and I completely understood. They were engaged to be married; her folks were both deceased. Traffic accident.
Then, gently, we went through it 3 times, and when I was satisfied he understood, and was in the processing phase, I gave him the daytime contact info for the chief deputy coroner, and Larry’s contact info, explaining to him I was “a reserve deputy and wasn’t here every day”. I answered his questions as best I could, and told him how this was a joint investigation between our office and CHP. I gave him the CHP officers contact info.
He thanked me profusely. Right before we said goodbye he called me by my first name and said, “Jeff…you said you are a reserve deputy, I am in the National Guard. I swear to God I wouldn’t have your job on a bet, I don’t know how you do this, but I am thankful this came from you tonight, if it had to come from anyone. Thanks for caring.”
I put the phone on the hook, Larry had been in the report writing room next door, and was listening on the phone. He looked at me and said, “You did fine. The paperwork is done, lets change out, you wanna go find a cup of coffee?” I looked at my watch, somehow the hours had flown by. It was 5am.
I knew I wasn’t gonna sleep, so I said yes. We changed out and while walking out in the night air, our breath condensing in the cold, we decided to nix the coffee. He looked at me as he unlocked his truck and I went past him towards mine he said, “Well, that was one helluva first shift, wasn’t it?” I said it sure was, and he replied, “You are gonna make it, you can ride with me any time, you got your shit together and you listen.”
I said, “well, in that case, I will see you tonight. OK?
“OK. Hopefully we will get time for code 7 and I will buy ya lunch. G’night”
As best I can tell that happened about 42 years ago. I recall that shift, and what we were tasked to do that night, as if it were yesterday. It truly is the first in “that file” I talked about in the Christmas story. Larry was a superb cop, and I found out his rule with reserves was one shift, and if he didn’t want you in the car you never rode with him again.
I rode with him most weekends of that winter, and the rest of that year. I learned, met people, got to understand the place. When the word came out they were gonna test for full-time positions, and pay for the academy if they found someone they wanted, I asked him what he thought. He told me I would be up against seasoned cops, but that the agency knew me and that mattered.
I applied, and found out that there were over 200 people testing, a few were guys I had gone through the Reserve academy and had some college classes with, but hadn’t been picked up yet. They were using the “shotgun method” of applying, filling out the application and testing everywhere, trying to get on anywhere…
“200 guys” I thought. 4 positions, the list is active for a year. Tenured cops up the wazoo here to test. Great.” Well, I will get some experience so when I have to test again I will know what to expect.
“I might as well buy some more 501’s, I am gonna be drilling for another year or two,” I told myself.
I got picked up for the full-time position 2 months later, and they paid me while I attended the academy, and paid for the POST academy, which was a rare thing in those days. I was lucky as heck, but they knew me, and they must have liked something they saw, so off we went…
Through my career I wound up the first cop at a lot of accident scenes; and the impact they had on me never lessened. I am sure I am no different than any other cop, rolling up and seeing children’s toys strewn across the highway makes your gut knot up almost instantaneously, and you say to yourself, “No Lord, Please God not again”.
And sometimes you are able to do something, and help.
And sometimes you can’t, and you still have a job to do.
Either way, you do what must be done, what the job requires, and you do your best, and do it with compassion, and dignity, and professionalism, and you try to go home at the end of your watch clinging to the thought that you did the best you could, and hope that you will be able to sleep.
And you hug your wife and kids.
Whether you sleep or not, when it is time you get up, shower, get cleaned up, shine your boots, and go back and do it again, never knowing what the day will bring, because they are all different, and all the same. We try to make a difference, sometimes we can, sometimes we can’t, and there is nothing that eats at the soul like a child you can’t help. You have the badge, and the gun, and the of power incarceration, of life and death and all the authority that goes with it, but sometimes it just isn’t meant to be. And then you do the only thing you can.
You live with it. You dust yourself off and go back to work, and live with it.
Yeah, it was one helluva first shift.
