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 did not help my state of mind. I was already starting to feel bad for hurting the guy so seriously. Granted, I’m glad he didn’t hit me in the face with that one pound rock. If he had, I might be the one in the hospital waiting on the neurologist.
I had only been with the police department a little over a year and had, so far, avoided having to deal with Internal Affairs. I showed up at their office at the appointed time and met with Sergeant Mike, who was going to interview me. He had read my report and had interviewed the witnesses. This made me feel better because I knew that he at least had all the facts in front of him. He asked me a few questions about the incident and about what we did at the scene.
The next thing Sergeant Mike did, though, was to give me an update on the suspect’s condition. He told me that the neurologist had diagnosed him with a serious medical condition. The brain had been damaged when his skull smashed into the pavement and he would never fully recover. He would require some type of care for the rest of his life, or as Sergeant Mike so tactfully put it, “He’ll need someone to water him and turn him towards the light a couple of times a day.”
I was devastated. I had not intended to injure the man. He had tried to punch me and I managed to get him first. I quickly went over the scenario in my mind and really could not think of any other way it could have been handled. That did not make me feel any better, though. Here was a man that I had essentially robbed of the rest of his life. The look on my face must have shown how bad I felt.
Sergeant Mike then reached into a manila folder and pulled out a sheaf of six or seven sheets of paper. He handed it out to me and said, “I want you to read this. It is the suspect’s criminal history.” As I started to read, I began to feel better. I came to realize that this had been a very dangerous man. He had been arrested on multiple occasions for assaulting police officers, resisting arrest, assault and battery, public drunkenness, as well as many other offenses. The only surprise was why he was not already in jail. Some of the charges had been reduced to less serious ones to dispose of them.
When I finished reading the Criminal History, Sergeant Mike said, “I know you feel bad about this. None of us wants to hurt anyone. But I want you to know something. By taking this guy out, you may have saved another police officer’s life. You might have saved a citizen’s life. This guy was a powder keg just waiting to explode. Because of your actions, Officer Spell, we do not have to worry about this man anymore. He will never cause anyone another problem.” Sergeant Mike’s words were exactly what I needed to hear. The cloud lifted off of my mind and I left that interview room knowing that I had done my job and had done it well.
4
Church Burglar
I was working another winter’s night in 1985. It was after midnight and was very cold. There was nothing going on. The police radio was silent. There was little traffic on the road. It was a good night to drink coffee and maybe read the newspaper. It was not to be. The police radio crackled to life and dispatched me and Officer Georgia to a Burglary in Progress at a nearby church. Officer Georgia had been one of my academy mates.
I was close by and was on scene within five minutes. I pulled into the lower parking lot of the Lake Lucerne Baptist Church with my lights off. I intended to park and walk around the church until I found the point of entry. As I got out of my police car and started walking, I could hear voices and yelling coming from the upper parking lot. I ran up there and saw a group of people standing in a circle around four men fighting with another man who was on the ground. Actually, they weren’t really fighting him. They were holding him down and punching him every time he tried to get up. One of the punchers was yelling at the man they were holding down and said, “You sacrilegious piece of . . .” The rest was covered by the rest of the crowd chiming in. Someone in the crowd saw me and pointed at the man who was being held down and said, “He’s the one, Officer. He’s the one who was breaking into the church.” This group of people that had apprehended the man were incensed that this fellow had tried to burglarize a place of worship.
One of the onlookers told me that they had all been at the bar directly across the street from the church. They were all drinking and having a good time when they heard several loud crashes and glass breaking across the street at the Baptist Church. They looked out and saw the man they were restraining smash out the light fixture near the front door and then try to force the door open. The witnesses called the police and waited, maintaining a visual on the burglar. The witnesses saw me pull into the lower parking lot, but so did the suspect. He slipped around the far side of the building and might have escaped had not these concerned citizens jumped into action.
Several of them ran across Highway 78 and tackled him so he could not get away. My police car was now parked about one hundred yards away, almost on the other side of the building. The burglar was still resisting as the four men held him down. Rather than try and walk him all the way around to my car, it would be much easier to bring my police car up to the upper parking lot.
I said, “Hey, can you guys hold him for a couple more minutes while I go get my police car?”
One of them replied, “No problem, Officer. He’s not going anywhere.”
By the time I got back with my police car, the suspect had had enough. He was no longer resisting and said, “Please, just take me to jail.” I handcuffed him and secured him in my car. I noticed a marble vase lying next to where the burglar had been lying.
One of the witnesses handed me another one and said, “He had this one in his jacket.” These marble vases were the kind like you might find flowers in at a cemetery. The weighed a couple of pounds apiece. The suspect also had a plastic beer pitcher that said, “Oliver’s” on it. Oliver’s was another bar about half a mile up the street.
Officer Georgia had arrived and had checked the outside of the church. She found a screen pried off in the back and some other lights broken out. One of the pastors was called out. After checking the building, he told us that it did not look like the man had managed to
