INSTANT FIELD SOBRIETY TEST

  One of the things about being a Cop that always appealed to me was the uncertainty. Other jobs, when you go to work you have a pretty good idea of what the day has in store. Not so in the Cop business. Your duties can involve anything from guarding the President of the United States to being careful not to get in the middle--and killed--in a domestic disturbance call. Or, you might slap yourself in the face and drink a gallon of coffee to keep awake during a long, uneventful, night. And these nights are the worst.

  All Cops find ways to deal with the boredom. Dark humor is usually a cornerstone to these survival techniques. If you can get a laugh out of it, how bad can it be?

  Since drunks get on my nerves in a hurry, I had to invent ways to inject a little humor into the encounters. One was an instant field sobriety test, that although unconventional, was indicative of the liquid stupid level in the customer. No walking the line, saying the alphabet backwards, or touching the fingertip to the nose. Just repeat this simple phrase:

 "I'm not a fig plucker, or a fig plucker's son. But I'll pluck figs 'til the fig plucker's come."

 A drunk will become an instant animal molester. And you'll be chuckling 'til your watch ends.

DAYS OF WINE AND HOSES

  Dave Johnson sends this tale of hard drinkin' Investigators--whether they could hold their liquor or not. Their names have been changed to protect the inebriated. As Dave tells it. . .

  Larry and Durk were having an early Happy Hour. Cops love Happy Hour! You have a selection of free munchies and drinks are cheaper--sometimes free.

  In walks a very successful local defense lawyer, we'll call Elton Ego, who proceeds to make the mistake of pulling up a chair to holster-sniff.  Lawyer Elton ordered a drink and offered to buy Larry and Durk what ever they are having.  Our heros, being stalwart, incorruptible public guardians, immediately ordered doubles of the good stuff.  

  Elton, settled in, apologizing for the sleazy job he had and explaining that you didn't take what he said in court personally, it was just his job. Larry and Durk commiserated until Elton excused his self, saying he had to call home. Elton, you see, was afflicted with the dreaded disease; Pusieus Whipitus. And being deathly afraid of his wife caused him to leave the table every 20 minutes to call her and assure that he was being a good boy.

  It took Larry and Durk one of Doug Hendry's "New York Seconds" to get the hint and start ordering doubles--on Lawyer Elton's tab--every time he went to check-in with the boss.  After the second round, the waitress got sugar plums over the prospect of a big tip and started bringing, without cue, ever stronger doses of Who Hit John.

  Now Larry, being older (with a more experienced liver), was able to hang with the incredible rate of consumption.  Durk, on the other hand, was a notoriously "cheap drunk" and was glassy-eyed by the third round.  This circus went on for a couple hours, until Durk got up to use the Head and promptly walked into a pillar.  He excused himself (to the pillar) and retired to the Men's lavatory where Larry found him sometime later, demonstrating how he could sleep, while standing up, at the urinal.  

  All the fun and games ended when Lawyer Elton got orders from headquarters to get his booty home ASAP.  When he got the bill, for the alcoholic hose job, he almost swooned.

 Larry did the sensible thing and took Durk to a very early breakfast to try to sober him up.  This not working, Larry did the decent thing for his beloved junior partner, and took him home.  Of course, Larry was decent but no fool. So, not wanting to encounter Mrs. Durk, he dumped his pal on the front lawn and peeled out before his car could be ID'd.  

  Thus were the days of old, when good whiskey over-ruled good sense, every darn time. Much like today.

NPD 4TH PLATOON FEB 1972

   The NPD 4th Platoon standing tall on the old City Council Building steps. Pictured, from left to right, front row, Gary Coopersmith, Chester Keene, Terry Massey. Back row, Darwin Muir, Ken Burdette, Frank Baughman, Mike Ashley, John Lester.

BAD HABIT BREAKERS, TOO

  A few years ago Sheriff Don Hunter started a juvenile boot camp in Immokalee. The idea was to turn the life around of juveniles at risk of becoming habitual adult offenders. It wasn't an easy program. The juveniles lived on site and their routine, both academic and physical, was rigorous. The instructors, Drill Instructors, were Deputies who had recieved training from the toughest DI's going: The Marines at Parris Island.

  I was visiting one day watching the induction of a group of "Candidates." The juveniles had been rushed, shouted at, and bedeviled, a common tactic in boot camps to disorientate the inductees and show them who was in charge.

  A DI was addressing the group, who were quivering, standing at attention. "Any one here with A D D or one of those 'initial' things."

  A reluctant recruit held up his hand. The DI approached him and placed his hand over his head. "You are healed! We don't have 'initial syndromes' here. No A D D, D O P E, B S, any of those things. All you who claim you have them are cured. They are not tolerated." 

  And they were cured, many going on to complete high school and some entering college!

  As Jim Hansen, Commander of the camp said:  "No meds prescribed to treat those "conditions" were permitted at the boot camp and we never saw any negative affects from that.

  We firmly believed that 99.9% of those kids were lacking in self control and were manipulators. That was borne out when they realized the consequences of not following the rules and staying focused turned out to be worse than if they did. All of a sudden, we had a miracle cure! Can you imagine?"

 Wonder, if school teachers were allowed to discipline and control jerks in class, would the results be the same?

  Hmmmmmm. Gonna have to ask my friend Dr Jose Lombillo, a psychiatrist, about that one. It's too deep for me.

BAD HABIT BREAKERS

  Deputy Bounder had another bad habit; he liked to chew on pens. And not just his. Any pen he borrowed or  made its way into his hands. If he glommed your pen, when you got it back it'd look like a teething beaver had been at it. So, the big-hearted Cops who worked with Bounder--wanting to help him curtail this gnawing compulsion--decided to intervene. 

 One day when Bounder was sitting at his desk, brow furrowed over some problem, munching on his favorite  ballpoint pen, one of his associates walked by and, casually, tossed a photo on his desk. Bounder took one look at the photo, spit the pen from his lips, twisted his face into a mask of revulsion and  stumbled to the restroom, gagging, in pre-barf mode.

 What was in this photo? For this tale to be complete, you must know. Sorry 'bout that for it's sometimes better not to delve too deeply. Such was the case with this photo.

 Pictured was a CCSO K-9, head turned and staring in quizzical remorse at his rear end. Now, let's hope--for the sake of decency and to avoid a PETA sit-in--that what was depicted was the result of trick photography, some primitive form of Photoshop. Otherwise, I shudder to think how the object shown was inserted where it was. There, in the photo, protruding from the poor dog's backdoor, was a ballpoint pen. Bounder's favorite ballpoint pen. 
  Bounder took to gnawing on his knuckles after that.

 Just another example of how the Cop's way of curing you of a bad habit can be as effective as the Hell's Angel's Collection Agency.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN

  Gail Addison reminds us of some of the dark humor cops use to maintain their tenuous grasp on reality. After some of the stuff they deal with.

 An exuberant, young Investigator--who came bounding into the office each day, dove into his chair, then yanked open his center drawer to dig out work materials--was setting a bad example. No job was that much fun!

 To put him on the righteous path, his thoughtful associates rigged his desk so the next time he eagerly approached the day's duties there'd be a surprise in store. Using clear fishing leader, they tied each object on his desktop to the back of the center drawer. This included phone, clock, pens, paperclips, blotter, In-Out trays, you name it.

 The next day, when Bounder yanked open his center drawer, everything on top raced to the back, then off onto the floor, disappearing from sight. This left Bounder with something really important to do that day. Figure out what the hell had just happened.

 No one was safe from the fun and games. Wilma Horrom, a grand lady who everyone loved, used to buy fresh eggs from Steve Riley, who had a agrarian itch and raised chickens on the side. Steve would deliver the eggs to her office.

 Wilma'd then write her name on the carton and put it in the office fridge. One day, some of the guys decided this was just too tidy an operation and took the eggs to the kitchen and boiled them. After the dozen had cooled, they replaced them in the carton. Wilma took them home and spent some time trying to crack one, to fry for breakfast, before she figured out what happened.

 And when she got to work, she let the culprits know just what she thought of the stunt. Her lecture so chastened the pranksters that it was almost a week before they decorated her Calla Lily with condoms.

 Just good, clean fun at the CCSO. 

HOW MUCH IS THAT DOGGY UNDER THE WINDOW?

  Here's a story from Dave Johnson about John Hisler. John is a superior former Deputy who now regularly demonstrates his excellence as an investigator in the private sector.

 John and I were working the east end of town when we got a burglary in progress call at an apartment complex. When we arrived, we eased up to the apartment, which was on the 2nd floor. We could see a broken-out window by the front door. All was quiet and it appeared that whoever broke the window was long gone.

 John has an innate curiosity which made him an excellent cop. Sometimes of course that nose can get you in trouble. And it did. 

 The broken window was chest high, and the hole was sizable. Just enough clearance for John's curiosity. He stuck his head inside to have a look around, then said to me "Hey, I smell a dog". 

 Now there are two kinds of watch dogs. First, the kind that makes so much noise when it hears a noise that the intruder beats a hasty retreat. Then there's the second kind that, when alerted, lays motionless and silent, waiting to rip the ass off the surprised intruder. The dog John smelled was the second type.

 No sooner had he mentioned a hairy sentinel, when a bear-sized German Shepard lunged at his mug. The dog had been quietly laying below the broken window, diligently protecting his master's domain. 

 John is not a small man, and some would've been surprised at how fast he can move when the urge to is upon him. How he got that big head of his out of that window without cutting it off on broken glass is one of those miracles God occasionally uses to demonstrate his love of street cops. I darn near split my trousers laughing. 

 As for John, he was beset by another urge, too. And left the scene to change his laundry.

COPPOLINO COHORTS

COPPOLINO AND F. LEE BAILEY 

  Probably the most famous trial held in Collier County--aside from the Benson case--was for a murder committed in Sarasota. In April of 1967, the Dr. Carl Coppolino's trial began after being granted a change of venue for fear the notoriety could preclude selection of an unbiased jury in Sarasota.

  Dr Coppolino was being tried for the murder of his wife. He'd already been tried--6 months earlier--for another murder in New Jersey and found not guilty thanks to the brilliant witness cross-examination by his attorney F. Lee Bailey. That charge alleged that Dr Carl had murdered the husband of his lover. The victim had been injected with a chemical that sent him on his way. Coppolino's wife died of the same chemical being injected. What a coincidence!
  Ken Mulling and I were assigned chauffeur duty for a key witness, Dr. Milton Helpern. Helpern, from the NY Medical Examiner's Officer, was world renowned. He'd been called in to do autopsies on the exhumed NJ husband, and Coppolino's wife.
  In Jersey, F. Lee had pretty much taken the Doctor's testimony apart, one of the key reason's Coppolino was acquitted. Probably for that reason Helpern despised Bailey and badmouthed him at every opportunity.
  "A squeaky-chair lawyer," Helpern would say. This from a trick he claimed Bailey employed of finding the squeakiest chair in the courtroom and claiming it for his own. Then, when he wanted to take attention away from the witness, he'd rock in the chair making an annoying racket. (This ploy is originally attributed to Clarence Darrow)
  "The worst attorney I've ever seen." he'd say. "Never took a case unless it meant big headlines and an imbecile could get them acquitted." There were those who would disagree, F. Lee being counsel for The Boston Strangler, Sam Shepard, Patty Hearst and, much later, O.J. Simpson.
  But, Doctor Helpern got his revenge in Naples. Instead of finding a jury pool of sleepy rustics Bailey had hoped for, he discovered most were retired professional folks, much above the normal for a jury pool. And, there was no way they couldn't have known about the  media saturated New Jersey trial and the controversy over the verdict. So, even though Bailey did his best to discredit Helpbern again, it didn't take and Coppolina was convicted of 2nd Degree Murder.
  F. Lee and Helpern both stayed at the old Golfing Buccaneer Hotel on the corner of Mooringline and US 41. Bailey held court at the bar each evening and was a popular attraction for the locals. Helpern, much the elder, went straight to his room and stayed there. That was probably for the best since it kept the two from encountering each other. I'm sure Bailey would have cooled it, but the old Doc may have gone after him. Seriously!