News stories involving cops and guns make me think fondly of one of my favorite police officers, from Paris, Ontario.
We’ll call him Reg. (Name changed to protect the guilty).
When I knew Reg he looked exactly like Sam Elliott as he appeared in the movie Roadhouse. He was 6’5” tall and had a southern drawl that came from the very bottom of the keyboard.
In his salad days Reg was a paratrooper with U.S. Special Forces. He did two tours of duty in Vietnam, and then was a street cop for years in Toronto.
Yeah. Reg was as tough as a fuzzy bunny.
During what turned out to be his last shift with metro city police Reg and his partner shot and killed a teenage boy who was crouched on a garage roof pointing a replica handgun.
Despite a lengthy and thorough inquiry into the tragedy, it was never revealed which officer’s bullet caused the fatal wound. Even though both men were exonerated of wrongdoing, the media attention was intense. The partner quit policing and Reg got the heck out of Dodge and accepted a position as constable in a small town.
Reporters and cops aren’t exactly born enemies, but it’s foolish to deny they have a mutual and reciprocal wariness. Cops think reporters are likely to get a story wrong so they resist releasing information to the press. The press knows full well it’s a whole lot easier to get a story right when police release all the information.
(It ought to be noted here that Princeton RCMP are fantastic with media releases – some of the best in the business.)
But Reg, he had more reasons than most to be gun shy. It took the staff of the local paper some time to win his trust.
This was when cops walked a beat – rattling downtown door handles after dark and showing the colors. Reg developed the habit of dropping by the office on production nights for coffee.
On one memorable occasion - it was about 11 p.m. - and were busy in the back, armed only with our exacto knives.
Reg moved through the office silently, and appeared with his hand on the butt of his revolver.
Insert your favorite expletive – he pretty much used them all.
You ladies DO know we are looking for a serial killer in town, right?
We did know, actually. It was on the front page - and page two, and page three. It had been quite a day in the little town of Paris. In all the excitement we forgot to lock the door.
Sometimes Reg would drop a lead on my desk, tidbits that got missed in the weekly press releases. Our homes were close and eventually our families spent many summer nights around the backyard campfire talking life and shop.
None of this kept Reg out of the newspaper. There was the day he backed his cruiser – with considerable speed – into a tree. You can bet we hightailed it out to the impound yard to get a photo of the damage.
Another time Reg mistook someone’s beloved 18-year-old family pet for a rabid cat. He shot and killed it. Adding insult to injury, he disposed of the body in a mixed bag of animal pieces on a shelf in the freezer of the town’s veterinary clinic.
The paper was all over that story like a blanket. It’s true. We’d throw anyone under the bus for letters to the editor.
It should be noted the paper also reported when Reg went back to the vet’s, dug through the assorted animal carcasses to retrieve the cat, and returned it to its devastated owners.
For months afterwards we greeted Reg by sticking our hands in the air, meowing, and then crying: Don’t shoot.
I had occasion for professional dealings with Reg on another level.
One afternoon he pulled me over in a speed trap, and started to write me a ticket.
Seriously?
Insert your favorite expletive here. I pretty much used them all.
Reg ordered me to step out of the vehicle. He proceeded to crawl all over my car and composed a list of driving violations that totaled more than $1,500 in fines. They ranged from a burnt out tail light to an absent wallet – no driver’s license, ownership or insurance papers on my person.
Reg tore up the list, handed me a ticket for $52 and then cuffed me gently on the side of the head. He told me to stop driving like a teenager because he wasn’t about to watch me get shovelled off the pavement one night.
Then he gave me a hug, and his brown eyes were a little misty. “You have kids. Smarten up.”
Cops and reporters have this much in common – the job isn’t an exact science. It’s emotional and situational and the good ones do the best they can with the skills and experience they possess, and they make judgment calls and sometimes they get judged in return.
Anyways.
That’s my friend Reg.
Tough as a fuzzy bunny.
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andrea.demeer@similkameenspotlight.com
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