Finally, after four long months, it was time for us to graduate from the Police Academy and become full-fledged police officers. We had lost three other recruits over the course of the academy for one thing or another and we graduated sixteen. We had been issued all of our equipment and a marked police car. My first patrol car was a 1979 Chevrolet Impala. I was thrilled. I was excited. I was ready to go to work.
My Field Training Officer was Officer Steve. We rode together for two and a half weeks. Today, recruits usually ride with three or four FTOs for around twelve weeks. It was not as structured back then. Officer Steve taught me how to work vehicle accidents. He taught me how to make traffic stops. He taught me how to handle domestic calls. He also taught me the real important stuff, like which restaurants gave the police a discount.
In our first week together, Steve was still driving and I was observing. By the end, I would be driving and he would be observing. This first week, though, we got a call to a Theft in Progress. A male was observed stealing things from behind a house. The caller gave us a good description of the suspect. As we pulled up, the suspect came around the side of the house carrying his stolen goods. He saw us, dropped the property and started running. Without waiting to be told what to do, or asking permission from my FTO, I was out of the car and chasing the thief.
I chased him across the yard and through the woods. It was about 11:00 in the morning so I had no trouble keeping the suspect in sight. After about one hundred yards, he started slowing up. As I closed on him, he started yelling, “I give up!” I took him to the ground as we had been taught in the academy and applied the handcuffs. I quickly searched him and found a few other stolen items concealed in his clothes.
Only after I had the guy under control, did I realize that I was by myself. Where was Officer Steve? I got the suspect up and escorted him out of the woods. Steve had pulled the police car around to where we were. When he saw that I had caught the thief, his face lit up in a big grin. “Good job!” he said. We arrested the guy and took him to jail. This was good experience for a new guy like me.
When we went in at the end of our shift to turn our paperwork in, Officer Steve told everyone about me chasing this thief down and catching him. The Sergeant and the Lieutenant both congratulated me. Even several of the old crusty veteran officers nodded approvingly at me. What I didn’t realize until later was that I had just passed my first real test. Sure, there were a number of things that we were tested on in the Police Academy. Now, however, it was for real. The tests that I would be taking every day had life and death consequences. Before the older guys would accept us young, wet behind the ears recruits, we had to prove ourselves. They had to know that they could trust us. By chasing down a criminal and catching him, I had shown them that I was going to be OK.
3
Knock Out
It was about 12:30 at night in mid April, 1985. I was working the midnight shift and received a call to a drunk person causing a disturbance at a nearby Kroger, a twenty four hour grocery store. There were several people standing in front of the store as I pulled up. Officer Paul, my academy mate, (the same one who got beat up by the girl in DT) joined me at the scene.
One of the people identified himself as the night manager of the Kroger. He pointed at a man standing a few feet away on the sidewalk and said that he was intoxicated and causing a scene inside the store. He had made a few lewd remarks towards some of the female cashiers and customers. He had refused to leave when ordered to do so and had also threatened to “beat the hell out of” several of the male employees who were trying to get him to leave the store. The manager had then called the police.
At this point, during my conversation with the manager, the intoxicated man staggered over and started yelling at the Kroger employees. The man was about six foot one and weighed around one hundred and eighty pounds. He looked to be around fifty years of age but was athletic looking. I found out later he was a retired navy chief.
The drunk man pointed at the store manager and said, “He’s bothering me.”
I told the drunk man that he needed to calm down or he would be arrested. Instead of calming down, though, he pushed past me and advanced towards the store manager snarling, “You’re a stupid punk and I’m going to teach you a lesson!” As the drunk man drew back his right arm to punch the store manager, I grabbed his left arm and pulled him off balance. I could see that he had a round object in his right hand but I did not know what it was.
My police car was just a few feet away. I pulled the drunk towards it intending to handcuff him and get him in the car before he had a chance to attack me. This was one of those situations where even though I had another officer there with me, I was still pretty much by myself. Officer Paul was a really nice guy but was not someone you wanted to have with you in a fight.
Just as we got to my police car, the drunk jerked away from me and drew back his right hand to punch me. I saw it coming and fired a straight left punch that caught the guy square on the jaw. It was like someone had flicked the light switch in his brain to the “Off” position. He was unconscious before he crashed to the pavement. When he fell, he landed heavily and the back of his head bounced when it hit the pavement. I immediately rolled him over and handcuffed him. I quickly checked him for weapons and then inspected the object that had fallen from his right hand. It was a rock, the size of a softball. It weighed about one pound. That was what this guy was going to hit the Kroger manager and me with if he had had the chance.
I checked the unconscious man and found that he was breathing okay but was still out and our efforts to revive him were not having much effect. Officer Paul called an ambulance and I got statements from all the witnesses. One of the witnesses told me that the man had been at the Derby Food & Spirits, a classy establishment a few doors down from the Kroger. He had been there for a couple of hours drinking and becoming more belligerent with every beer. He had tried to vandalize the jukebox and was barely prevented from turning it over by security.
When the drunk man started harassing some of the female customers in the bar, the bouncers told him it was time to leave. He really did not want to leave the bar, however, and security had to throw him out. Outside the bar, he had thrown several objects at the window before deciding to go to Kroger. I obtained several witnesses’ names and information to cover myself in case this guy was hurt bad.
When the ambulance arrived, the paramedics were not able to revive our unconscious drunk either. They transported him to the hospital. When I got to the hospital, the doctor told me that they had X-rayed the subject and found that he had a fracture on the back of his skull from where he hit the pavement. He did not seem to think it was too serious. I called my sergeant, Sergeant Bob, and told him what had happened. He did not seem to be overly concerned either.
I went ahead and secured warrants on the guy for Simple Assault on me and the Kroger manager, as well as one for Public Drunk. I felt like he should have been charged with Aggravated Assault due to the fact that the rock he was holding would have done a lot of damage. The judge did not see it that way and only issued warrants for Simple Assault, a misdemeanor. These charges would be waiting for him when he was released from the hospital. In reality, however, he was not going to be released from the hospital. I got a call a couple of days later from one of the nurses. She told me that the subject was not responding to treatment and they were going to have a neurologist check him. She was letting me know because the county government was going to be responsible for the man’s medical bills and they were getting higher by the day.
When I saw Sergeant Bob, I told him what the nurse had said. He asked me, “What did you do to that guy?” I noticed that he now seemed a little more concerned. He made a few phone calls up the chain of command, letting those above him know about this situation. Somewhere up the chain, someone decided that Internal Affairs should probably look into this. That