A Blue Life: An Inside Look at Policing

By James J. Foley

Former Quincy court clerk tells story of local policing through the decades

—The Patriot Ledger, June 6, 2023 Issue:

“... A Blue Life includes stories of policing in a different time and the realities of policing in the "Defund the Police" era. There are chapters focusing on specific officers, other sections on detectives and how they do their job, a breakdown of a few unsolved murder cases and looks at interview tactics, dealing with informants and how racism affects the job....”

Why do people become police officers? How do police deal with the dangers of their job and the tragedies they encounter?

In A Blue Life, author James J. Foley provides his firsthand account of what daily life is like for the Massachusetts police departments that he served alongside for more than forty years as an attorney and assistant clerk-magistrate. The men and women presented in his narrative face armed assailants, investigate murder cases, deal with drug addicts, the mentally ill, and crooked cops, while navigating through a legacy of racism and sexism.

Are the right people being chosen as police officers? Are they receiving the proper training? Foley explores these questions and more, providing clear and fascinating insights for anyone curious about the police and the important job they do.

• Language: English
• Publisher: SDP Publishing
• Release date: Jan 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9798986283357

James J. Foley

James J Foley is an attorney and served as an assistant clerk magistrate in the Massachusetts court system for over forty years. During his career, he worked with the police on a daily basis, reviewing their requests for arrest warrants, criminal complaints, and search warrants. He issued arrest warrants or search warrants in over a hundred murder cases.Mr. Foley served on criminal procedure committees advising the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and to the Massachusetts District Court. He was called upon to address statewide conferences of judges and other court personnel on developments in criminal law.Mr. Foley was very involved in international outreach efforts and hosted judges, attorneys, professors, and public officials from over twenty countries at his courthouse.He has traveled to every continent, writing travel articles about his journeys for the Boston Globe and other newspapers Mr. Foley is also a photographer and has had a number of exhibits of his photographs.

Book preview

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all the police officers who took the time to speak to me. Some of what I have included in this book is not flattering to police. But I tried to present an honest look at the law enforcement profession.

I would like to thank Jacqueline Collins and David Klein for their assistance and valuable suggestions.

I would also like to thank Lisa Akoury-Ross and everyone at SDP Publishing Solutions for their hard work in guiding me through the process of publishing this book.

Introduction

Police lieutenant: Other people have good days and bad days at work, but few encounter a life-or-death situation. For cops, most of the time, everything’s okay. But there may come the day when, if you’re not fast enough, or smart enough, or just unlucky, you won’t go home that night.

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I served in the Massachusetts court system for more than forty years as an assistant clerk-magistrate. My responsibilities included issuing arrest warrants and search warrants. I was on call 24/7, and nearly every day, I would receive calls from the police: there had been an armed robbery or a murder. A detective needed an arrest warrant for the robbery suspect or a search warrant for the murder weapon. If the police made an arrest when the court was closed, they called me, and I decided if the person under arrest could be released. If I released him or her, I would have to go to the police station to have the person sign a form promising to appear in court.

In the thousands of hours I spent with police officers, they talked to me about how they saw their job, how they carried out their responsibilities, the dangers they faced, and why they had become police officers.

All the incidents related to this book are true; all the people I describe are real people, but all the names have been changed. The dialogue I quote is based on extensive notes I made just after the conversations took place.

Most of the police officers I describe are male. That was simply the reality of the police forces with whom I worked. Even today, it is a predominately male profession. But I have a section on one of the best detectives I know, a Black woman with remarkable tenacity.

A few notes:

A controlled buy is when a drug unit detective has an informant buy drugs from a suspected drug dealer. The detective supplies the informant with the necessary amount of money, observes the drug deal, then retrieves any drugs the informant purchased. The controlled buy can then serve as a basis for obtaining a search warrant for the dealer.

The Registry is the Registry of Motor Vehicles.

OUI is the term used in Massachusetts for a person operating under the influence of alcohol or drugs. B and E is breaking and entering, A and B is assault and battery.

For most of the period related to this book, possession of marijuana was a criminal offense. Now in Massachusetts, possession of a small quantity for personal use is legal.

—James J. Foley, Hingham, Massachusetts

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CHAPTER

1

THE LIFE OF A COP

At midnight on a cold February night, I was sitting in the interview room at the police station in Sheldon, a working-class suburb of Boston. My position in the court system often required me to spend late-night and early-morning hours in police stations.

Sgt. Jay Hall, a tall, burly man in his mid-thirties, stood in the doorway. He’s generally low-key, but at that moment, his adrenaline was racing. He said, Most times when we get a call about someone with a gun, we never find the gun. Guys carrying illegal firearms are generally smart enough not to hang around ’til the cops show up.

Tonight was different.

A guy in the Alehouse Cafe complains that the bartender, a young woman named Rachel, is taking too long getting him a drink, Sgt. Hall says to me. "The guy whistles at her, snaps his fingers. Two of Rachel’s friends, Tracy Maura and Jody Davis, tell him he’s whistling at her like she’s a dog and to stop it. The guy yells, ‘You’re disrespecting me!’ The manager orders him to get out. He eventually leaves, telling Rachel’s friends, ‘You bitches are lucky.’

"When the restaurant is about to close, a waitress, Brittany, sees the guy standing outside and says to the manager, ‘Why is he hanging around?’ The manager calls us and says, ‘I’m worried about this guy.’

"Brittany knows him. His name is Cameron Lenk, and she walks out to talk to him. He tells her, ‘I’m waiting for those girls to come out,’ meaning Rachel and her friends. Brittany tries to defuse the situation, saying, ‘It’s freezing cold. I’ll give you a ride if you need one.’ He gets in her car. They only go a short distance when he tells her to stop. He gets out and walks back toward the restaurant. Brittany texts Rachel, warning her.

Rachel’s friends, Tracy and Jody, are worried about Rachel’s safety and wait in their car for her; Tracy is in the driver’s seat. Lenk walks up to their car and points a gun at Tracy’s head. She tries to apologize for what she said. He tells her, ‘Shut up or I’ll blow your head off.’

Officer Keith Holmes, who was on dispatch that night, was next to Sgt. Hall while Hall told me the story. He said: "The other woman in the car, Jody, took out her cell phone. The guy tells her, ‘You better not call the police.’ She pretends she’s taking a call from her sister but actually calls 911.

The call goes to the state police. A trooper transfers the call to me but tells me, ‘I don’t understand what she’s saying.’ The woman is afraid to say what’s going on because the guy is right there. So she’s trying to talk in a kind of code. The trooper might have decided, ‘This is some drunk,’ and hung up on her. Good thing he didn’t. I figure out what she’s doing, so I ask questions she can answer without alerting the gunman. I ask, ‘Does he have a gun?’ She says, ‘Yes, yes.’

Sgt. Hall resumed the story: "After the call from the manager, I put blue lights on and race down. But the manager calls back and says, ‘The guy left.’ When I arrive at the parking lot, everything looks normal. A tall, heavy-set guy is talking to two young women in a car. Seems like a casual conversation. Then Keith, on dispatch, tells me the guy is pointing a gun at the women.

"The manager saw the guy leave but didn’t realize he came back. You expect dangerous situations on this job. What’s disconcerting is being told everything’s okay, you relax, then find you’re in something potentially deadly.

When Lenk sees me, he yells at the women, ‘You don’t know what the hell you did!’ I draw my gun. He throws something metallic into a snowbank, then walks toward me. I tell him to stop but he keeps coming. I’m assuming he tossed away the gun, but I don’t know that. Again, I tell him to stop, but he gets closer. I put away my gun because I’m afraid he may try taking it. I grab him and try pulling him to the ground. I’m a big guy but he’s bigger. [Officers] Susan Galvin and Tom Sheffield arrive, and it takes all three of us to handcuff him. Tom injured his knee pretty badly in the struggle." (Officer Sheffield would be out injured for three months.)

"I walk over to the women in the car, and Tracy says, ‘I could hug you right now.’ She begins crying and says, ‘He pointed the gun right at my face! He said he would kill us! I thought I was going to die!’

"I can’t imagine what it’s like to have a gun pointed at you. You feel so helpless. The women were there out of concern for their friend and wind up with a maniac threatening to kill them.

The guy starts shouting, ‘I’ll take a beating!’ We look at each other like, what the hell? I think he’s hoping we’ll stop looking for the gun. But I do not forget it. In the snowbank, I find an old Walther PPK. It’s fully loaded, one round in the chamber, and it’s cocked. If the guy sneezed, the gun would fire, and Tracy would be dead. We’re lucky it didn’t go off when he dropped it.

Lt. Deke Akins, the watch commander, said, "When the guy got to the station, he refused to be booked. So I told him, ‘You can’t get bailed until you get booked.’ He smirked and said, ‘You caught me with a gun. I got time hanging over my head. I ain’t going nowhere.’ Turns out, a couple of years back, Lenk stabbed someone; did a year for it. When his probation officer heard we arrested him, she called and said, ‘He has a suspended sentence of two more years on the stabbing. I’ll have a van at your courthouse to pick him up. I want him to do those two years.’

I don’t see too many really bad guys in this job, but he’s one. Often, when someone pulls a gun like this, he’s keyed up; it’s spur of the moment. This guy is a cold one. If Sgt. Hall didn’t show up when he did, he might have killed those women.

A week later, Sgt. Hall told me, The feds traced the gun Lenk used to threaten the women. It was bought by someone in Worcester with a firearms license. But the feds discovered his guns were used in murders, robberies. He [the firearms dealer] sells guns to people like Lenk, who can’t legally buy guns. The feds plan to prosecute both him and Lenk.

Officer Holmes told Sgt. Hall, I was on a detail tonight at Rudy’s [a local nightclub]. A young woman came up and said, ‘You Sheldon cops are the best.’ She tells me she and her girlfriend were threatened by a gunman at their car outside the Alehouse. I tell her, ‘I’m the officer you talked to at the police station.’ She cries, ‘You rescued us!’ She hugs me and gives me a big kiss.

Sgt. Hall sighed. Keith was inside the station that night, nice and safe and warm. I’m out in the freezing cold, worried about getting shot, wrestling with the bad guy. And it’s Keith who gets kissed by a beautiful woman. Story of my life.

Sgt. Hall was six foot three, with the build of a football lineman. His intimidating size was offset by his ever-present smile and his boyish enthusiasm despite a dozen years as a police officer. His next memorable moment was very different from a confrontation with a gunman. Hall was very excited to tell me, "I delivered a baby! A woman who was eight-and-a-half-months pregnant calls her doctor, says she’s in pain, and the doctor says, ‘Get to the hospital!’ But she and her husband don’t move fast enough, and, at one a.m., the husband calls us and says, ‘We need help!’

"I think every cop would like to deliver a baby, but it terrifies us to actually do it. When I get there, the husband points to his wife. I want to say, ‘You handle this. This is your doing. I’ll coach.’ But he’s too scared to do anything.

"I kneel down and talk to mom. I’m really nervous, but I’m an EMT, so I trained for this. And we carry what we call an OB-GYN kit. Just by chance, I checked my kit yesterday to be sure it was all set.

"I tell mom, ‘Everything’s fine.’ Meanwhile, my mind’s going a hundred miles an hour: ‘Why did they delay going to the hospital? A doctor should deliver this baby.’ But then I think, ‘Women were having babies long before there were hospitals. As long as there are no complications, I can do this.’

"The baby comes out fine, a little girl. I put the baby on mom’s chest. The baby looks around, then just goes to sleep. The ambulance crew rushes in, asking, ‘Someone’s having a baby?’ I point to mom and the baby.

I’m going by their house today to bring a little present for the baby. I’ll be on this job another twenty years, so I’ll have a chance to watch that baby grow up. I hope to hear she graduated from high school with honors and was accepted to Harvard.

His smile faded. I just hope she doesn’t take the wrong direction and I have to arrest her.

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Lt. Akins, Sheldon Police: Patrolmen have the most fun, driving around with blue lights and sirens, hunting bad guys. You get promoted to detective and still have fun, but the size of your caseload weighs you down. You make sergeant and still have fun but have the responsibility of supervising patrol officers. You get promoted to lieutenant, and your life is over.

Lt. Larry O’Connor, Sheldon Police Department, told me, "Everyone is supposed to strive for advancement. The problem is, once you make lieutenant, unless you’re in the detective bureau, you stop doing real police work. The lieutenant sits in the station, listens to what’s going on, and waits for someone to ask him a question. Mostly, I’m here to make sure the paperwork is done right.

"I loved arresting bad guys. As a patrol officer and sergeant, I was on the road all the time. Now, I send officers out when the shift begins and may not see them again until the shift is over. If the [police] radio is silent for a long time, I’m tempted to get on the radio and ask, ‘Everyone okay out there?’

"Some lieutenants get into a car and ride around. But say there’s a shooting, and you show up. The sergeant is supposed to be in charge on the street, but you’re here, so, ah, are you in charge? If decisions have to be made quickly, it’s a problem if no one knows who’s in charge.

"Another reason we want a superior officer in the station is, let’s say, someone brought in under arrest is covered in cuts and bruises. You want the lieutenant to ask, ‘How did this guy get injured?’ If your lieutenant is out of the station, the patrol officers may cover up for each other.

Once you’re off the street, it’s hard to get back to the routine. Last night, we were shorthanded, so I was on the road. First time I drove one of the new cruisers. It took me five minutes to figure out how to turn on the blue lights and siren.

Lt. Mike Rivers told me, "Since I made lieutenant, I’ve only left the station while on duty to get coffee. Today, I’m going for coffee with Sgt. Connolly, when we get a report about a gunman robbing someone at Redpoint Apartments. I say, ‘Let’s go!’

"We know the gunman is hiding somewhere in the basement. Detective

C.J. Roosevelt arrives and goes down the left corridor; Connolly and I go to the right. There’s a series of storage rooms, and we figure the gunman is in one of them. It’s scary not knowing if a gunman will suddenly pop out.

"All I was expecting to do at that moment was order a large regular coffee, cream, no sugar. I don’t have my bulletproof vest or a radio. At least I have my gun. Sometimes, when I get coffee, I don’t take my gun.

"In my current position, the greatest danger I’m likely to face is a paper cut. Today, walking down that corridor, I think: What am I supposed to do? Hunting bad guys used to be second nature to me. I guess being a patrol officer isn’t like riding a bicycle. But we get the guy; he just puts his hands in the air when we find him. It was exciting, really got my heart pounding."

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Sgt. Hall, Sheldon Police: "We get a call that someone is threatening suicide. I jump in a cruiser. Sgt. Mackie and Sgt. Morrissey gets in with me. We’re heading to the person’s house when, suddenly, this Honda coming in the opposite direction crosses over the double yellow line in front of us. It’s heading right at us, and I’m thinking, We’re all going to get killed by a little Honda.

"At the last second, the Honda zips back into its own lane. Whew! We keep going and get to the house where the guy is threatening to commit suicide. He’s pointing a large knife at his own neck. I pull out my gun but hold it to my side as I tell him, ‘Drop the knife!’ He looks at me—startled—and drops it. I’m thinking, I guess you weren’t really committed to killing yourself, not that I’m complaining.

If that Honda hit us and all three of us sergeants were killed—everyone would say nice things about us. Then as soon as we were buried, they’d say, ‘Wow! Three promotions!’

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I often heard police say, We see so much awful stuff on our job.

Dave Klein, Sheldon Police, told me about one such case: "Two brothers living in an apartment complex were robbing the other residents. Their victims were so terrified of them most were afraid to speak to us. A young woman who lived next door would call and tell me what they were doing. She whispered to me because she was frightened they would hear her. She was too scared to testify against them.

"I get a search warrant and go into their apartment. It’s disgusting—dog feces on the floor, maggots. I check under the bed to see if anything is hidden there, and I realize a bed bug is crawling up my arm. My wife is in Florida with her sister. She’s texting me photos of the beautiful suite she’s staying in overlooking the ocean. And I’m in the middle of cockroaches and maggots. I should have worn a hazmat suit. Instead, stupidly, I’m wearing my favorite outfit. I get home, take off all my clothes, and get rid of them.

The worse part? A young child is living in the apartment amid all the filth. I called DCF [Department of Children and Families], and they took the child. Officer Thomas, Sheldon Police: We charged a woman with attempted murder after she hit her boyfriend with a hammer, then a baseball bat. We found him lying on the ground, covered with blood. The woman was matter-of-fact about it. She said, ‘That’s the way we’ve lived the last fifteen years.’ They have an eight-year-old child. Imagine the trauma for that child, growing up in a home where his parents engage in this kind of violence.

Sgt. Jones, Lewiston Police: I go to a house on a larceny case. A seven-year-old boy opens the door. A two-year-old boy wearing only a diaper sits at the top of a flight of stairs. I ask the seven-year-old, ‘Where’s your mother?’ He says, ‘Next door.’ He tells me he has to go back into the kitchen because he’s cooking his dinner. I don’t know what the two-year-old is doing about dinner. I find mom next door, drunk. A month later, I’m back at the house. The two-year-old had fallen down the stairs and broken his leg.

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Sgt. Mamberg, the Sheldon traffic safety officer: "The hardest cases I have are accidents involving young people. Last month, a seventeen-year-old boy was walking home; it was winter, it was dark, and he was wearing dark clothing. Most of our pedestrian accidents occur at night and involve victims with dark, non-reflective clothing. The boy was wearing earbuds and texting as he was walking and not paying attention to the traffic. He stepped onto the street and was hit. The woman who hit him wasn’t driving fast: she just didn’t see him in time. He suffered a serious, life-altering brain injury.

"This week, a seventeen-year-old girl steps off a sidewalk and onto a cross-walk, just as a tractor-trailer is turning onto the street. I imagine she saw that the cab of the truck was ten feet away from her and thought she was safe. What she didn’t figure on was the forty-eight-foot trailer swinging around as the truck made the turn. She was also listening to music with earbuds. If she wasn’t distracted by her music, she might have realized how much danger she was in. The trailer hit and killed her.

"I met with the girl’s father. I told him the truck driver had a green light, a valid license, a good driving record, and just didn’t see his daughter. It was after the driver began his turn that the girl took two steps into the street. She was on the opposite side of the truck from the driver, so unless the driver happened to look at his passenger-side rearview mirror, he’d never see her.

The father then asked the question I hate to be asked: ‘Was my daughter run over by the truck?’ I had to tell him, ‘Yes. She fell under the wheels.’ He began to tear up when I told him that.

Sgt. Hall: "My wife complained, ‘You don’t have any empathy for people.’ We were watching a news broadcast about that big hurricane. She’s talking about these poor people who lost their homes, and I’m acting matter-of-fact about it. She thought I was insensitive. But I see so much bad stuff on my job, see so many people who did nothing wrong yet had terrible things happen to them. There’s only so much I can handle. I have to save my empathy for people I deal with personally.

When I was up for promotion, I was asked what aspects of the job I feel I do well and I said, ‘death notifications.’ I hate to do them, go to someone’s house and tell them, ‘Your mother is dead,’ or ‘Your brother is dead.’ But I try to help people through it. If they want to talk, I’ll listen. If they need a hug, I give them a hug. I don’t think older cops did this very well. If someone wanted a hug, they would have backed off. But I’m okay with it; I save my sympathy for people like them.

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In the early and mid-twentieth century, most police officers walked a beat. But today, police need greater mobility than their own two feet to respond to emergencies. Sometimes, the vehicles they employ are quite unconventional. In the Canterbury Police Station parking lot, I noticed a golf cart with pretensions of grandeur: blue lights, balloon tires. Sgt. Williams saw me staring in wonderment and explained, "It’s for off-road. Suppose a hiker in Granite Woods breaks his leg. We can’t get an ambulance or cruiser down those narrow paths. But we can pick him up with the golf cart.

One day, I’m on duty in the cart, monitoring a bike path, when I hear ‘Boom! Boom! Boom!’ coming from Chestnut Street, one of our main streets. I shout into my radio, ‘Shots fired!’ and go in pursuit. I’m driving down Chestnut Street in the golf cart, blue lights flashing, and people are staring at me, like, ‘Who the hell is that? Is that a mall cop?’

While a blinged-up golf cart may evoke smiles, motorcycles demand respect.

Lt. Akins of the Sheldon Police told me: An officer on a motorcycle adds to our visibility. A motorcycle can scoot through heavy traffic, get places a cruiser can never go. But I like them mostly for public relations. People perceive motorcycle cops as tough cops. Bad guys think twice about tangling with a motorcycle cop. But a cop on a motorcycle is also more approachable than a cop in a cruiser. People will come up and talk to you. They may start by asking about your motorcycle, but if you develop a relationship with them, maybe they’ll give you information about what the bad guys are doing.

Lt. Akins was tall and broad-shouldered and moved with an athlete’s grace. Only flecks of gray in his hair hinted at his true age. He had a wistful look when he told me, "I’d love to get horses. There was a disturbance on my college campus one day. The campus police had horses, and this young guy taunts a cop on horseback. The cop heads toward him, and the guy runs up a tall flight of stairs. He continues to taunt the cop. Well, the horse starts up the stairs and the horse is really moving. You should have seen the look on the guy’s face. It was, ‘Oh, my God! Horses can climb stairs!’

"That looked so cool that I decided to take a horseback riding course. When I discover I’m the only guy taking it, I think, Definitely the right course.

"I’m given Charlie, a big quarter horse. Horses are smart. I tighten the girth on the horse, and the instructor asks, ‘You think it’s tight?’ ‘Yup.’ She says, ‘Try getting on.’ The saddle slips. She says, ‘Charlie was holding his breath.’ She elbows Charlie in the ribs. She’s a tiny woman but boy, does she give Charlie an elbow. Charlie deflates and she tightens the girth. Charlie got back at me for that. I’m riding, and we’re supposed to go at a leisurely pace, but Charlie starts galloping. I can’t get him to slow down. As we hurtle along, I question my decision to take the course and look for a soft place to land when I fall.

Eventually, though, I became a Park Service cop on a mounted unit. Everyone loves cops on horseback. Cops love cops on horseback. Horses give you great visibility: everyone can see you, and you get a great view in all directions. Horses are great at crowd control. It’s amazing how they can maneuver. And horses are great for public relations. People were always coming up to me, asking me the name of my horse. No one ever asked me the name of my cruiser. But the most important vehicle for every police department is, of course, the police cruiser.

Lt. Akins: "Patrol officers explore every square inch of their sector. You drive down alleys, through back lots, around loading docks, down dirt roads, anywhere you can. You come to a walkway and wonder: Will the cruiser fit? You try it and, yes, it will fit. Someday, you may be in a pursuit, and you don’t want to zoom down the walkway and suddenly realize, ‘Oh, oh, I’m stuck.’

"We don’t get stuck often. Cops know the dimensions of their cruisers to the inch. They’ll be in a high-speed chase, come to a narrow opening, and think: Can I get through? Yes! Whoom! They make it with a whisker to spare. Because we really know our area, we have an advantage in chasing someone. I love it if someone we’re chasing drives into West Village. It’s a maze of narrow, winding streets, and anyone who doesn’t know the area will go around and around in circles, and we’ll get you before you find your way out.

"Today, we arrested a guy who stole a bunch of stuff from Stop and Shop, then tried to make his getaway on a bicycle. He thought, with the bike, he could go where cruisers can’t go. He’s riding through backyards, down walkways. But we knew, if he’s going down this walkway, he’ll hit a street again at North or Walnut Street. We fan out and get him on North Street.

A couple of months ago, there was a murder at a convenience store in Braddock. [Officer] Mike Fratelli was first to arrive. A witness told Mike that the suspect—who was on foot—headed into the woods behind the store. The woods are pretty extensive. But Mike patrols that area every day and figured the suspect would get tired of stumbling through trees and brush and look for an easier escape route. Mike knew a mile into the woods there were railroad tracks. He drove to the tracks and waited out of sight. Five minutes later, the suspect ran down the tracks. Mike pointed his gun at him and captured him.

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Despite the long association between humans and dogs, widespread use of police dogs (K-9s) occurred only recently. Early efforts by police in the United States to use dogs often ended in failure because they didn’t know how to train the dogs properly. The first police dogs identified so closely with their trainers they would attack anyone not wearing a police uniform.

In the 1970s, with effective training regimes established, police began the widespread employment of K-9s. One factor that makes dogs so valuable is that they can be used in so many ways: tracking down suspects or missing persons, finding evidence of a crime, locating narcotics, explosives, firearms. Early one morning, I ran into Nick Ridge, a K-9 officer on the Sheldon Police. He told me, "Today, for the second time in three days, my dog bit someone. I hate it when my dog bites someone. Do you know how much paperwork I have to do? We’re worried the person who was bit will sue. I tell anyone who is bitten, ‘Better to get bitten by a police dog because it’s a clean bite.’ I don’t know if it makes them feel any better. I’m much happier if the guy I’m after just surrenders. I can slap handcuffs on him and pat my dog, ‘Good boy!’

"Everyone complains if we cops hit them. But guys get bitten by a dog, have to go to the hospital to be treated for the wound, and there’s no complaint. If someone asks what happened, they say, ‘Ah, the dog got me.’ They figure the dog is just doing what it’s supposed to do. One guy who had been bitten by a dog from another department told me, ‘If that other dog bit me like your dog bit me, I would have given up.’

"If an armed suspect is holed up, I’d take a real chance going after him. So, I shout, ‘Come out or I’ll send in the dog!’ Nine times out of ten, they come out. They’ll tangle with us cops but not with a dog. If the guy doesn’t come out, I send the dog in, and usually, in a few seconds, I hear, ‘I’m coming out! Get the dog off me!’

My dog is relentless, Officer Ridge said with a wry smile. "I’m chasing a suspect who runs into a deserted building. The dog chases him up the stairs and latches onto his leg just as the floor gives way. The guy is hanging upside down, a single beam keeping him from a twenty-foot fall, and the dog, also upside down, is still holding onto his leg.

I’m always getting wet and muddy. When the dog gets a scent, he follows it everywhere, into swamps, lakes. He can track in water if the water is still. If the dog goes into a lake, he’s lighter than me, so he only goes in a few inches. I’m weighted down with my equipment and can end up waist-deep in mud.

Lt. Akins: When Nick comes to a lake, what we hear from Nick’s radio is a small splash, which is the dog going into the lake, followed by a large splash, which is Nick going into the lake, followed by a whole lot of cursing by Nick.

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Lt. Deke Akins, Sheldon Police: "People say they want to be a police officer to help people and, for most of us, I think that’s true. They like the idea of being part of something bigger than themselves, this police fraternity. I don’t know anyone who does it for the money.

"Some look for that adrenaline rush: the fantasy of driving your Ferrari police cruiser, shooting it out with the bad guy. But those who join for a sense of adventure are generally disappointed. They spent their entire lives watching cop shows, and it seems exciting. After a few months on the job, they find it’s very repetitive. Officers who keep looking for excitement switch departments a lot. They’re trying to find the department as exciting as in the cop shows, the one that doesn’t exist. After they stopped a hundred cars for running a red light and dealt with a hundred drunks, they think, I should have been a firefighter. Now, that’s an exciting job."

Lt. Capelli, Hampshire Police: Job security is an incentive. You won’t get rich, but you get a steady paycheck, a pension, and have little risk of being laid off. I used to hear, ‘I always wanted to be a cop.’ As pay went up, I began hearing: ‘This is a good opportunity.’ I hate bullies, those who take advantage of people physically, financially, or emotionally. This job gave me the chance to do something about it. I love arresting bullies.

Detective Peterson, Newport: Officers looking for excitement usually sober up after they see a motor vehicle crash where the driver was crushed to death, or after they respond to a 911 call about a baby in distress and find the baby turned blue and is dead.

Sgt. Hall, Sheldon: "For some, it’s just a way to earn a paycheck. Others live the job around the clock. We feel good when we help someone; when we can say, ‘I made a difference today.’ Some cops might not admit it, but that’s what keeps them going. It’s like people who serve in the military; you want to protect your community.

Let’s face it: a sense of power comes with the job. All of us feel it. Someone sworn in as a police officer is given a uniform, a badge, and a gun, three symbols of authority. He didn’t have to earn respect; he got it automatically. We try to weed out those who want to be a police officer just to use that power. Maybe they got beat up as kids, were unpopular, and now they want power. I hope, through psychological testing, we eliminate those people.

Lt. O’Connor: In the criminal justice courses I teach, a lot of male students say they want to be a police officer so they can be a detective or a sniper on a SWAT team. I warn them. ‘Four or five years working the midnight shift, breaking up bar room brawls, will drain the excess enthusiasm out of you. And if you want to join SWAT, we need time to find out whether you’re crazy.’

Sgt. Maguire, Lewiston Police: I’m impressed by most candidates who served in the military. They’re really squared away and have a good work ethic. Our officers who saw combat, nothing surprises them. Something another officer might get excited about, they shrug off. But we have to be concerned whether someone who saw combat is experiencing psychological effects from that service. One candidate told me, ‘I don’t have a problem shooting people.’ Wow! We thanked him for his interest but told him we wouldn’t hire him. He became a firefighter. Much better career for him than one where he’d carry a firearm.

Lt. Akins: I warn candidates. ‘I’ll really dig into your background. I’ll talk to your family, your friends, your neighbors. If there’s any dirt, I’ll find it.’ We had one candidate who seemed excellent; clean record in the military, seemed a hard worker, married, and had a couple of children. His neighbors said, ‘Great guy. And his children are so polite. They say, Good morning, sir. Good morning, ma’am." ‘Really? Sounds like a throwback to the 1950s. Did he pay them to say that?

"He sounded too good to be true. But after all the digging, I became convinced we needed this guy on our department. I really checked on him because of what I found with a prior candidate. His record seemed clean. But on our in-house computer, I found a report about a B and E. When he was seventeen, he stayed home from school one day and broke into the house next door. He went to the bedroom of the sixteen-year-old daughter. The daughter was home sick from school and caught him going through her underwear drawer. The family said they didn’t want to ruin his life by bringing criminal charges, so the matter was dropped.

"Dick O’Malley and I are interviewing the candidates. I ask this guy, ‘Remember being caught going through an underwear drawer?’

He puts his head down, ‘Yeah.’ I ask, ‘Why did you do it?’

"He says, ‘I liked women’s underwear.’

Well, an honest answer, at least. I ask, ‘Do you still like women’s underwear?’ He says, ‘Ah, yeah.’ Dick puts his hands over his face and mutters, ‘Oh, god!’

"When the guy left, Dick says, ‘I don’t believe you asked that.’ Hey, imagine the embarrassment if we hire him and, when he’s supposed to look for evidence in a house that was burgled, the homeowner catches him fondling her underwear.

We only knew about this incident because it was on our department’s computer. If he had applied to become an officer in Newport or Hampshire, they wouldn’t have known about it. Probably would have hired him.

Lt. O’Connor: "A week after we selected Sam Joseph as a recruit, he’s charged with armed home invasion. We wondered: How the hell did he slip through? Turned out an angry ex-girlfriend made the whole thing up.

"Our biggest concern was Derrick Best. Derrick had good qualifications:

M.P. in the Army, college degree, passed the psych tests. While waiting to start the police academy, he’s working as a security guard. He comes to me one day and says, ‘At work last night, a couple of us had to wrestle with a guy. And, well, he died.’ I say, ‘Well . . . um . . . did you tell the police?’ He says yes and hands me the card of a Boston homicide detective.

"Worst case scenario: our new recruit will be arrested for murder. But even if no criminal charges are brought, do we have a recruit who is too aggressive in using force? For however long he’s in the department, will we deal with brutality complaints about him?

I call the Boston homicide detective. I say, ‘I know it’s early. But can you tell me: Do we have a problem?’ He says, ‘No. The guy who died was a drug addict. He was all coked up when he got into a fight with these security guards. Drugs killed him.’ Whew! Derrick’s been on the department five years, and we’ve had no problems.

Attorney Jack McCaffrey: A friend of mine applied to join the Philadelphia police but was turned down for psychological reasons. He was very upset. He thought of himself as a normal, well-adjusted person. When he appealed the decision, he was told he was too nice. The department was worried he’d be eaten alive on the streets. He was okay with that. Much better to be considered too nice to be a police officer than to be considered bonkers.

CHAPTER

2

DETECTIVES

Lt. Akins, Sheldon Police: "The relationship between patrol officers and detectives ranges from friendly rivalry to outright hostility. Some patrol officers say, ‘Detectives do what they want, go where