City On Edge

Late one afternoon, in an upper middle class neighborhood, a woman was murdered in her home. Her husband came home and found her. It was gruesome, not the type of thing that usually happened in our community.

Officers were assigned to guard the house in case the perpetrator returned to the scene as they sometimes do. I had the twelve midnight until eight in the morning shift.  I sat in my patrol car and watched over the house as best I could from that position. I walked around the house every fifteen minutes or so to ensure the security of the residence. It was eerie and intimidating even with my 357-magnum revolver at my side and a shotgun in my car. This was early in my law enforcement career and I had never been exposed to a murder let alone one this gruesome.

The whole city was on edge. Officers responded all night to suspicious noise calls, the residents of the city were horrified and scared they could be next.  Residents and officers were highly sensitive to strangers and suspicious noises throughout the following few weeks. The work the local officers did concerning the murder was extensive. The reports, interviews, photographs and other pertinent paperwork filled several large three ring binders. Many leads were followed but the case remained unsolved for years.

This case was classic. The case was used as a training example in several crime scene investigation and criminal justice training courses in which I was a student.

Eventually the case was solved only because the killer bragged about several of his exploits of which this was one while drinking at a bar in some other part of the country. Fortunately someone hearing the information contacted our agency.

What can we gleam from this situation? Several things. Crimes often don’t make sense. This victim was randomly chosen, not for retaliation or any other reason, but randomly chosen while out shopping and followed home. Why certain neighborhoods? Why certain victims? Why so gruesome? Second, the officers thoroughly and professionally processed the murder scene in addition to the whole house and little useful evidence was found and what was didn’t lead to the identification of the assailant. Television shows and movies make catching the “bad guys” look too easy sometimes.  Its not that the police aren’t trained enough or don’t work hard enough.

Until Later,

Sally S

What You See and What You Don't

While on patrol one Sunday afternoon I was sent to a domestic along with another officer. (A few additional points you might want to know: The other officer was a stocky male with several years of military and police service.  We only had two officers working the city that Sunday which usually was adequate.)

We were met at the front door by the wife who told us her husband had attacked her while they were having an argument.  She had called the police because she was scared for her life. We entered the home and saw a large stocky man sitting on the sofa.  As we walked through the door into the living room he charged toward us in an effort to get to his wife.

We immediately tried to get the male under control to prevent injury to his wife and us.  He threw both the other officer and me off himself like we were  “rag dolls.” It wasn’t until then that I understood that expression.  Chairs and tables were knocked over.  It seemed like forever, but in a few minutes we got the subject under control by me riding on his back like he was a horse. It was hard to hold on, but I held on tight while the other officer struck the man in the stomach and other vulnerable regions.  His wrists were too large for standard handcuffs so contacted the third responding officer to bring the pair of super large handcuffs from the department.

Our next obstacle was to get the male subject into a police car to transport him to jail. He stood outside the car and would not move when asked or nudged. All three of us were of a different racial affiliation than our prisoner and a crowd was assembling in the area and getting angered.   We knew to prevent a serious incident we had to get him into the car and quickly leave.  One of us struck him in his groin, which caused him to buckle over, and we shoved him into the car.

Getting him processed and into a jail cell was no easy task either, but that is not what I want to talk about. We found out later he had previously been a football player who had sustained injuries to the brain that had caused occasional episodes of radical behaviors.  That day the episode was most likely precipitated by the fight with his wife.

To the onlookers at the scene all they saw in their minds were three officers physically abusing a prisoner.  They didn’t see what had happened previously. They most likely didn’t know the health issues of the individual. They only knew the phase of the incident they observed.  How often are police judged only by what people see at that exact moment.?  They don’t know what went on days, hours, or minutes previously. 

Until Later,
Sally S

Ethics

The recent events surrounding CIA Director Petraeus has again brought to the surface the idea of ethics. Ethics and the perception of ethics is important to all. I can speak to ethics in Law Enforcement and State Government Investigative Positions.

It is not only important that an officer’s, or any other public servant’s actions are always above reproach, but also what is important is how the public perceives their ethics from what they see.

I will present a few examples:

A store or restaurant giving an officer a free cup of coffee or a soda doubtfully would influence actions by the majority of officers and public servants, but the public sees the officer getting something merely because of their position and authority. To insure there were no misunderstandings I always made my payment for coffee or other items very verbal so all around could hear and see me pay or insist to pay. When a storeowner insisted and would not except payment I would leave something on the counter anyway. Now I will admit there were a few times I accepted a drink, cookie or other very small inexpensive item when it was apparent it was necessary to do so in an effort to maintain a good working relationship with a reporting party, victim, or suspect. It is culturally offensive and an insult to some to not accept their small signs of hospitality

An officer or public servant should refrain from doing anything that could be questionable such as consume alcohol in the geographic area they work to avoid perceptions of driving while intoxicated or the engagement in illicit sex or illegal activity. I very seldom drank any alcoholic beverages in restaurants and bars where I worked.  I tried to visit establishments in other cities or states.

Officers and other public servants need to be careful not to live beyond their publicly known income level. The public doesn’t know the reason the officer drives an expensive car, boat or lives in an expensive home is because of an inheritance or highly paid spouse. They think the officer must be accepting bribes, stealing recovered money or other illegal and unethical behavior supplement their salary.

The long and short of it is law enforcement officers and other public servants must behave and live their lives above reproach and additionally not do anything that could lead the public to perceive and question the officer’s or public servants ethics and behaviors.

Until Next Time,

Sally S.

How Quickly Things Can Change

I was on patrol late one afternoon when I was sent to a small fire outside a science building on a college campus. The fire department and I arrived at about the same time. A few minutes later the officer that was also assigned the call arrived. 

In minutes the fire was extinguished and all that was left was a small amount of smoke coming from the burned grass just outside a side door to the building. The fire department left the area, but I stayed a few more minutes to obtain information for my short report.

About 30 minutes after I went back out onto the streets, my lips started burning as did my nose and throat. Minutes later I also started having trouble breathing.  I contacted the other officer that had responded to the fire and found out he was also experiencing some of the same problems. I contacted my supervisor and requested to go to the hospital.

We both drove ourselves to the emergency room where they gave us special mouth wash to wash out our mouths and put us on straight oxygen for a while to clean out our lungs. We both went home for the day. We returned to the hospital the following morning for oxygen therapy and went back to work that afternoon.

After asking around the science building I determined students had been dumping chemicals from chemistry experiments outside that side door for many years. The fire apparently ignited ground that had been saturated with various chemicals. The chemicals were in the small amount of smoke that I had apparently inhaled. That is one of the reasons fires can be so dangerous, because we don’t always know what is burning.

This event just reinforced in my mind haw quickly things can change. I was fine one minute and it seems I was struggling to breathe the next. Life is short, how do we force ourselves not to waste any minute of it?

Until next time,

Sally S