The Rookie
In 1971, a police officer’s hands were not tied by all of the criminal rights, touchy-feely stuff that restricts police officers from doing their jobs today. The “Miranda Warning Law” was enacted when I was just a rookie and it was a big deal back then, but now it is just taken for granted. The “Miranda Warning Law” didn’t really affect what I did as long as I wasn’t trying to question a suspect and use what he said in court. Back then we had a lot of discretion in certain situations. If a criminal were to lead me on a high speed car chase and then suddenly pull the car over, to jump and run on foot from his more than likely stolen vehicle, it was at my discretion if I wanted to fire at least one shot at him, just to let him know that I was thinking about him. This discretionary action usually persuaded the fleeing culprit to stop running and fall down on the ground trying to surrender, before he got killed. If an officer did that nowadays, there would be tons of paper work, law suits and anger management classes. In the end he would probably face suspension or termination. It was a lot more fun being a cop in 1971.
My first day on the job and I was very nervous. I was sworn in, issued my uniform, given my badge #44 and given my very own standard issue Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver. Not a bad weapon, but the one issued to me was old and worn. It must have been in use for twenty years or more. A .38 caliber bullet has very little penetration capability. The thing I liked best about my old .38 revolver was that it would not shoot through a car. That sounds strange, but I learned early in my police career that the safest place to be, when involved in a shootout with bad guys, is behind your police car, preferably behind a tire. I also learned that you have a better chance of a fellow police officer shooting you than any criminal ever shooting you. Since all the officers in the department were issued the same gun as I was, it was hard for any of them to shoot me if I was hiding behind a car. That is why I liked the lack of penetration of the department issued firearm.
Sergeant Gene Hunter took me under his wing from the very first day. He was slim with graying temples, I figured about forty years old and a nice guy that really seemed to care about all the men on his squad. I had been through a long vetting process before being sworn in as a police officer. All the things I had ever been caught for were done while I was still a juvenile. They didn’t count, so I passed the background check with flying colors. It seemed like the biggest hell raisers in high school and college turned out to be the best police officers. Sergeant Hunter asked me a lot of questions that first day. He was trying to see if I was cut out to be a police officer. I answered all of them just how I figured he wanted me to. I did not show any indecision in my answers and let him know that I fully intended to enforce the laws of North Carolina. I did not appear to be too “gung ho”, but just “gung ho” enough. I think I answered everything the way he wanted me to.
My second day on the job I showed up with paper and pens, because I was supposed to start the sixteen week police officer training school. That didn’t happen. I was surprised, when I was assigned to a training officer that I was to ride with for the next six weeks. To gain experience in the field, the Captain said. The training officer part was supposed to come after the sixteen week classroom course. When I first started with the police department, Rev. Martin Luther King had recently been assassinated. There was a lot going on at that time in our country. Riots, looting, arsons, snipers and police ambushes all were quite common. The Greensboro Police department needed more bodies on the street and didn’t care if they were properly trained bodies or not. The rumor was that the department did not have enough officers in the field to handle the racial tensions they were expecting to develop. So the answer was to give me a gun and put me on the street, scary isn’t it? They put twenty six untrained new recruits on the street that day, with guns, to calm racial tensions, what a great plan. I did not know then, that it would be well over a year before I would ever get to attend the recruit training school. I had to learn on the job by trial and error during that time of racial turmoil and violence. Sure I made some mistakes, but my common sense and survival instincts saw me through. When I finally did get to go to recruit school for the sixteen week course, I already had a wealth of street knowledge to fall back on and I finished at the top of my class.
It is hard for me to describe Clark Roman, my new training officer. Physically he was as tall as I was 6’1”, had a dark complexion, thick black hair, and a black mustache. He was a handsome guy. He was about thirty years old and had never been married. He lived on a large farm that was left to him when his parents had passed away and owned his own airplane that he kept in a barn on his property. He had been a police officer for six years now and I figured that he must know his job well to have been appointed as my training officer. Clark was, as I soon discovered, also the craziest son of a bitch I had ever met. First impressions can sometimes be wrong. Clark seemed like a conscientious, experienced officer that really had his act together. This was my first impression of him and that impression lasted for a little less than one hour.
Clark was very detail oriented and it took us thirty minutes to check out the equipment in our patrol car that first morning. I was anxious to get out on the street and start policing. I wanted to put bank robbers in jail and stuff like that. Clark, however, had a long check list and we went over every item from first aid kit to the shotgun with great detail. He took time to explain the importance of each item on the check list. When he was finally satisfied with the condition of all of the cars emergency equipment, he drove us up the concrete drive and out of the police parking underground. He got on the radio and told the dispatcher that we were on duty and we headed out to our zone. A zone is what the police department liked to call a beat. There were four zones in the city and each zone was broken down into three sections. Our zone was zone four. It encompassed the North West quarter of the city and also the downtown area. It was the nicest zone, full of pretty houses and nice people that liked the police. We got about two blocks from the police department before I began questioning my training officer’s sanity.
Clark insisted on driving the patrol car, which was alright with me, since I was nervous as hell anyway. I just wanted to make a good impression, not make any stupid mistakes and do some crime fighting. Clark had explained, as we left the parking garage, that driving the patrol car was not a right, but a privilege and that he would bestow this privilege upon me when he thought I was ready.
Rush hour traffic in downtown Greensboro was sort of heavy on that warm sunny morning. We had only driven two blocks, when Clark happened to glance over to his left and notice a very pretty young woman dressed in a business suit and high heels. She was apparently walking to her job on the wide Market Street sidewalk. Suddenly I was slammed against my seat belt shoulder strap so hard that it almost knocked the wind out of me. Clark had stomped the patrol car’s brake pedal and came to a screeching halt in the middle of morning rush hour traffic. I could hear the screeching tires of the cars behind us as they slammed on their brakes to avoid hitting our police car. I fleetingly thought that Clark must have witnessed a violent crime in progress. All my senses were on edge and my adrenaline was pumping. Clark shouted something that I could not understand as he gestured toward the young business woman on the sidewalk about twenty feet from our car. It took a couple of seconds for what he was saying to sink in. “Look at that piece of ass! God she is fucking beautiful, I would love to fuck that”. I had trouble believing my ears. OK, I know that’s sort of guy talk and maybe it only seemed crazy to me since we were in a police car holding up morning rush hour traffic. I remember thinking that maybe he was just a very horny guy and I figured I could overlook this trait for six weeks if I had to, except for what happened next. As soon as he had shouted those words, he covered his eyes with his hands and started ranting a strange sort of prayer, “Oh Jesus, please forgive me, I didn’t know what I was saying. Oh Jesus, forgive me”. I think he also began talking in tongues, because I couldn’t understand most of what he was saying.
OK, so maybe Clark was a real religious horny guy. Maybe I could deal with that for six weeks, no problem. Involuntarily, during his strange penance prayer, His right leg straightened as if it was controlled by some higher power and his foot pushed the accelerator pedal down and the patrol car burned rubber. The patrol car sped forward while Clark had his eyes covered with his hands as he sobbed begging for Jesus to forgive his indiscretion. My face must have been white as a sheet as I grabbed the steering wheel and tried to keep our car from crashing into any other car as he continued to rant in the early morning rush hour traffic. I remember thinking, “This has to be a test of some kind, nobody on the police department could be this crazy”. After a few close calls with other vehicles and my screaming at him to open his eyes, he started to regain his composure and took the wheel back with tears streaming down his cheeks. To me the tears were what let me know that this was no surprise field training test or weird joke. I realized this guy was actually crazy as a loon. Five minutes later it was as if none of it had happened. Needless to say I was wary of Clark from that day forward. Over the course of my six week field training session we had many insane adventures. Riding with him was like being in a mobile insane asylum.
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