Trey R. Barker's Blog, page 8

CopStories: 28,492 = Five (Part 1: Let’s Go A’vestigatin’)

It was such a simple beginning.

We got a call of a registered sex offender playing basketball at a local school.  I arrived and found the offender doing exactly that.  Ultimately I arrested him and it was during the jail interview that things got interesting.

From another deputy, I’d heard there was an underage girl who not only knew the 20-year old offender, but who the offender had been texting.  During the interview about playing ball, I casually asked if he knew this particular 15-year old girl.

He grinned.  ”Oh, yeah, I text her all the time.”

Quickly, I moved on.  Damn sure didn’t want him realizing that he’d just admitted violating a major part of his particular set of sex offender restrictions.

No contact, in any way, with anyone under 18-years old.

But he knew immediately.  While we talked, while he futzed with his Miranda rights form and tried to justify being on the school grounds, he got less cooperative.  Every answer, even to basic questions about his job and car, became vague and pissy.

The fact that he’d realized it annoyed me.  I’d wanted to be smooth and casual, as though it was a random question.  Sometimes, in investigations, I want the subject to know I’m hunting them.  I want them to hear my footsteps.  I want them nervous and scared and filling their head with thoughts of prison and boyfriends named Bubba and Tyrone and Hector.

But sometimes, I have to dance with more subtlety, more delicacy.  This seemed to be one of those cases.  I wouldn’t know until weeks later that everything he would go to prison for had already happened and the proof was safely locked away by a telecomm company.

So I began with that one girl.  Her interview led me to another girl, which led me to another and another.  Each of them, and the list grew exponentially in a matter of days, had been pressured for sex via text.

Eventually, I subpeonaed my offender’s texts.  They covered mid-December, when he got out of jail on his first sex offense conviction, to the day I arrested him for being on the school grounds three months later.

Twenty-eight thousand, four hundred, and ninety-two.

Scores of conversations.  Some with Mom, some with friends.

Most with women.

Nearly all underage women.

Reading those conversations was when I realized what a predator he actually was.  It wasn’t just about the girl he’d previously been convicted of molesting, who’d been four years younger than him at the time of that conviction.  It wasn’t just about having sex with a Special Olympics athlete (which was a theme I’d find again and again in this investigation).  It wasn’t just about sex (which was his ultimate excuse…that he was a sex addict).

It was about manipulation.  It was about exploitation.  It was about self-gratification, the consequences be damned.

The problem with the texts was that they were in chronological order.  In other words, if he was carrying on eight or ten different conversations at once, those texts came in the order he sent and received them.  It made following the through-lines of each conversation incredibly difficult…at least for a Luddite like me.

So I asked a programmer friend to write a program which would separate those conversations.  I figured it’d take him a few days, maybe a week.  Yeah, it was like a half hour.  Write a few lines of code, run the thing, write a few more lines to tweak, done.

His program blew me away.  It separated out a file for each individual conversation, still in time order, so I could easily follow any conversation I wanted.  But it also gave me a total file that color-coded the conversations, each recipient with a different color.  Seeing those colors piled on top of each other in a such frenzy reminded me of one of Pollock’s drip paintings.

I read those messages for weeks.  Built white board displays so I could cross reference them.  Made lists of names and numbers that appeared randomly, tried to hook those to known names and numbers.  Compared messages sent on a particular date to a  particular friend with others sent at a different time to a different friend, but referencing the same incident.

What I found, ultimately, was a man with a desperate need for sex, but one that he was unable to consummate with adult women.  Therefore, he went after girls who hadn’t the tools to put him off.  These girls were Special Olympics athletes, they were from broken homes, they were victims of previous sexual abuse.

One victim, a 14-year old, had been victimized, in fact, by her father and stepfather.  I believe she also had been by one of her mother’s boyfriends, though I could never prove it.  This girl, so fragile and yet one of the toughest people I’ve ever met, told me over and over and over again that they loved each other.

He seduced her with marriage plans and even bought her a ring.  He texted her hundreds of times a day, spinning out a fantasy world where she would never get hurt again.

Of course she responded to that. Of course it was exactly what she wanted to hear.  She’d grown up in a sordid world, one filled with depravity and darkness and painful, stolen sex masked as love and when she had a chance at love that didn’t hurt, she jumped at it.

Of course she refused to tell me.  She refused to lay out what he’d done because even though she knew it was probably wrong, it was the only love she’d ever been shown that didn’t come with pain automatically attached.

So I kept digging and interviewing and asking and talking and thinking and then…in the midst of those 28,492 texts, I found a short conversation between the 14-year old and my offender.  She mentioned stomach pain.  He asked why she hurt.  She said he knew exactly why.

And he answered that it couldn’t be his fault because he hadn’t gotten it all the way in.

Sometimes I’m not a particularly smart cop, but that is what we in the trade call a clue.  Hell, that is what we in the trade call a fucking smoking gun.

The investigation wrapped pretty quickly after that.  I interviewed him a last time (on video tape).  He denied.  I showed him the series of texts.  He rationalized, justified, obfuscated.

Then a grand jury, some negotiations back and forth, and a plea agreement that will leave him in prison for five years.

So this case that was about manipulation and exploitation was, for me, about self-control.  Because I never throttled him, nor did I put a double tap behind his ear and dump him in a ditch for the vultures to dine upon.

That would have just made him a victim of cannibalism.

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CopStories: 28,492 = Five (Part 1: Let's Go A'vestigatin')

It was such a simple beginning.

We got a call of a registered sex offender playing basketball at a local school.  I arrived and found the offender doing exactly that.  Ultimately I arrested him and it was during the jail interview that things got interesting.

From another deputy, I'd heard there was an underage girl who not only knew the 20-year old offender, but who the offender had been texting.  During the interview about playing ball, I casually asked if he knew this particular 15-year old girl.

He grinned.  "Oh, yeah, I text her all the time."

Quickly, I moved on.  Damn sure didn't want him realizing that he'd just admitted violating a major part of his particular set of sex offender restrictions.

No contact, in any way, with anyone under 18-years old.

But he knew immediately.  While we talked, while he futzed with his Miranda rights form and tried to justify being on the school grounds, he got less cooperative.  Every answer, even to basic questions about his job and car, became vague and pissy.

The fact that he'd realized it annoyed me.  I'd wanted to be smooth and casual, as though it was a random question.  Sometimes, in investigations, I want the subject to know I'm hunting them.  I want them to hear my footsteps.  I want them nervous and scared and filling their head with thoughts of prison and boyfriends named Bubba and Tyrone and Hector.

But sometimes, I have to dance with more subtlety, more delicacy.  This seemed to be one of those cases.  I wouldn't know until weeks later that everything he would go to prison for had already happened and the proof was safely locked away by a telecomm company.

So I began with that one girl.  Her interview led me to another girl, which led me to another and another.  Each of them, and the list grew exponentially in a matter of days, had been pressured for sex via text.

Eventually, I subpeonaed my offender's texts.  They covered mid-December, when he got out of jail on his first sex offense conviction, to the day I arrested him for being on the school grounds three months later.

Twenty-eight thousand, four hundred, and ninety-two.

Scores of conversations.  Some with Mom, some with friends.

Most with women.

Nearly all underage women.

Reading those conversations was when I realized what a predator he actually was.  It wasn't just about the girl he'd previously been convicted of molesting, who'd been four years younger than him at the time of that conviction.  It wasn't just about having sex with a Special Olympics athlete (which was a theme I'd find again and again in this investigation).  It wasn't just about sex (which was his ultimate excuse…that he was a sex addict).

It was about manipulation.  It was about exploitation.  It was about self-gratification, the consequences be damned.

The problem with the texts was that they were in chronological order.  In other words, if he was carrying on eight or ten different conversations at once, those texts came in the order he sent and received them.  It made following the through-lines of each conversation incredibly difficult…at least for a Luddite like me.

So I asked a programmer friend to write a program which would separate those conversations.  I figured it'd take him a few days, maybe a week.  Yeah, it was like a half hour.  Write a few lines of code, run the thing, write a few more lines to tweak, done.

His program blew me away.  It separated out a file for each individual conversation, still in time order, so I could easily follow any conversation I wanted.  But it also gave me a total file that color-coded the conversations, each recipient with a different color.  Seeing those colors piled on top of each other in a such frenzy reminded me of one of Pollock's drip paintings.

I read those messages for weeks.  Built white board displays so I could cross reference them.  Made lists of names and numbers that appeared randomly, tried to hook those to known names and numbers.  Compared messages sent on a particular date to a  particular friend with others sent at a different time to a different friend, but referencing the same incident.

What I found, ultimately, was a man with a desperate need for sex, but one that he was unable to consummate with adult women.  Therefore, he went after girls who hadn't the tools to put him off.  These girls were Special Olympics athletes, they were from broken homes, they were victims of previous sexual abuse.

One victim, a 14-year old, had been victimized, in fact, by her father and stepfather.  I believe she also had been by one of her mother's boyfriends, though I could never prove it.  This girl, so fragile and yet one of the toughest people I've ever met, told me over and over and over again that they loved each other.

He seduced her with marriage plans and even bought her a ring.  He texted her hundreds of times a day, spinning out a fantasy world where she would never get hurt again.

Of course she responded to that. Of course it was exactly what she wanted to hear.  She'd grown up in a sordid world, one filled with depravity and darkness and painful, stolen sex masked as love and when she had a chance at love that didn't hurt, she jumped at it.

Of course she refused to tell me.  She refused to lay out what he'd done because even though she knew it was probably wrong, it was the only love she'd ever been shown that didn't come with pain automatically attached.

So I kept digging and interviewing and asking and talking and thinking and then…in the midst of those 28,492 texts, I found a short conversation between the 14-year old and my offender.  She mentioned stomach pain.  He asked why she hurt.  She said he knew exactly why.

And he answered that it couldn't be his fault because he hadn't gotten it all the way in.

Sometimes I'm not a particularly smart cop, but that is what we in the trade call a clue.  Hell, that is what we in the trade call a fucking smoking gun.

The investigation wrapped pretty quickly after that.  I interviewed him a last time (on video tape).  He denied.  I showed him the series of texts.  He rationalized, justified, obfuscated.

Then a grand jury, some negotiations back and forth, and a plea agreement that will leave him in prison for five years.

So this case that was about manipulation and exploitation was, for me, about self-control.  Because I never throttled him, nor did I put a double tap behind his ear and dump him in a ditch for the vultures to dine upon.

That would have just made him a victim of cannibalism.

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Gimme Some Ed’acatin’

(a month? really?  wow, I gotta do this blog thing a little more often)

So the education is over.

For now.

In March, 2008, I began working on my Master’s.  As of a few days ago, I finished it.  Three and a half years, twelve classes, one thesis, and something like 1800 written pages later, I’m all smart.

I feel smart, too.  Witty and wise.

And I’m sure the world is now at my feet.  I’m sure I’ll get a gigantic raise and promotion, that young officers will flock to me to take advantage of my experience and knowledge.

hehehehe…haaaahhhaaa…bwaaaahhhaaaaaaaa….

Oh, stop, you’re making my side hurt.

I will get nothing practical out of this education and believe it or not, that’s perfectly okay.  I love education for the sake of education.  If I could, I’d be enrolled in one class or another every day for the rest of my life.  And if I learned anything useful, great.  If not, that’s fine, too.

Here’s the thing: while I make fun of having gotten a degree in a place that will never, ever reward me for that extra education, I do believe education is the silver bullet.  I believe, without reservation, that education can solve most, if not all, of this country’s problems.

I don’t care if the education comes from an Ivy League university, a state college, a for profit place like Kaplan, or a technical school.  Any place that puts knowledge in someone’s hands can only be a good thing.  Any institution that teaches people how to think critically can only be a good thing.

A friend of mine recently finished snatching up an associate’s degree.  She managed to do it while in a house with a husband, three youngish kids, three dogs, and a pile of other animals.  She grew up in a tough household and wanted to move beyond her formative experiences.  She took the hard road and managed to complete her education in spite of all kinds of people – including people close to her – telling her it was a waste of time or money or both.  Now she’ll get a job in her chosen field and eventually will move far beyond those formative experiences.

Education is the silver bullet.

And I can’t figure out why there are people who disagree.  I can’t figure out why there are people who think education is simply a waste of time…or money…or both.

Had a supervisor once.  I asked him if I could go to a training class, one that was specific to my job and that would yield results within days.  He looked me dead in the face and said, “I’m tired of people taking time off for training.”

I remember standing there, stunned speechless, and staring at him.  He dared me to say something and then didn’t give me the days off.

At the other end of the spectrum is some training I’ve got coming up in Houston.  The sheriff found something he thought I’d enjoy and would be good at, and he’s basically ordering me to go.  It’s going to be amazing and interesting and I can’t wait to jump head first into it, though it makes me nervous because it’s a whole new set of skills; something I’ve never ever done before.

Something I’ve never done before is good.  Paths not only not taken, but unknown to me until recently, are the most interesting paths.  Find me the darkest forest…one with no trail, no light, no map at all.  Then get the fuck outta the way because that’s where I’m going.  I’ll find the trail and I’ll figure out the light. I’ll bring a flashlight or a box of matches.  Or I’ll make some matches, or set a woodland creature on fire or something.

But that place where I’ve never been is where I’m going.

And hey, right now, that place I’ve never been is hiding down in Houston, where I have been.  But Houston in February has got to be better – and much warmer – than Illinois in February, right?

Plus, it’s Texas!  Barbeque…Tex-Mex…pick-up trucks with gun racks in the windows….  Ah, my homeland.

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Gimme Some Ed'acatin'

(a month? really?  wow, I gotta do this blog thing a little more often)

 

So the education is over.

For now.

In March, 2008, I began working on my Master's.  As of a few days ago, I finished it.  Three and a half years, twelve classes, one thesis, and something like 1800 written pages later, I'm all smart.

I feel smart, too.  Witty and wise.

And I'm sure the world is now at my feet.  I'm sure I'll get a gigantic raise and promotion, that young officers will flock to me to take advantage of my experience and knowledge.

hehehehe…haaaahhhaaa…bwaaaahhhaaaaaaaa….

Oh, stop, you're making my side hurt.

I will get nothing practical out of this education and believe it or not, that's perfectly okay.  I love education for the sake of education.  If I could, I'd be enrolled in one class or another every day for the rest of my life.  And if I learned anything useful, great.  If not, that's fine, too.

Here's the thing: while I make fun of having gotten a degree in a place that will never, ever reward me for that extra education, I do believe education is the silver bullet.  I believe, without reservation, that education can solve most, if not all, of this country's problems.

I don't care if the education comes from an Ivy League university, a state college, a for profit place like Kaplan, or a technical school.  Any place that puts knowledge in someone's hands can only be a good thing.  Any institution that teaches people how to think critically can only be a good thing.

A friend of mine recently finished snatching up an associate's degree.  She managed to do it while in a house with a husband, three youngish kids, three dogs, and a pile of other animals.  She grew up in a tough household and wanted to move beyond her formative experiences.  She took the hard road and managed to complete her education in spite of all kinds of people – including people close to her – telling her it was a waste of time or money or both.  Now she'll get a job in her chosen field and eventually will move far beyond those formative experiences.

Education is the silver bullet.

And I can't figure out why there are people who disagree.  I can't figure out why there are people who think education is simply a waste of time…or money…or both.

Had a supervisor once.  I asked him if I could go to a training class, one that was specific to my job and that would yield results within days.  He looked me dead in the face and said, "I'm tired of people taking time off for training."

I remember standing there, stunned speechless, and staring at him.  He dared me to say something and then didn't give me the days off.

At the other end of the spectrum is some training I've got coming up in Houston.  The sheriff found something he thought I'd enjoy and would be good at, and he's basically ordering me to go.  It's going to be amazing and interesting and I can't wait to jump head first into it, though it makes me nervous because it's a whole new set of skills; something I've never ever done before.

Something I've never gone before is good.  Paths not only not taken, but unknown to me until recently, are the most interesting paths.  Find me the darkest forest…one with no trail, no light, no map at all.  Then get the fuck outta the way because that's where I'm going.  I'll find the trail and I'll figure out the light. I'll bring a flashlight or a box of matches.  Or I'll make some matches, or set a woodland creature on fire or something.

But that place where I've never been is where I'm going.

And hey, right now, that place I've never been is hiding down in Houston, where I have been.  But Houston in February has got to be better – and much warmer – than Illinois in February, right?

Plus, it's Texas!  Barbeque…Tex-Mex…pick-up trucks with gun racks in the windows….  Ah, my homeland.

 

 

 

 

 

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Falling Through Floors…and Robbing Banks

I'm a fairly well-educated guy.  Not particularly smart, but I got a whole lotta receipts for a whole lotta dough spent on getting a whole lotta educated.

So when it comes to inanimate objects, I generally assume I've got 'em licked.

Uh…no.

Let me back up a little.

I've got a yen for abandoned things.  Barns, houses, corn cribs, cars, whatever as long as it's been left to the vicissitudes of time and memory.  To me, for whatever reason, abandoned places represent lost hearts and spirits; maybe searches for the solid in life that can never truly be found.  I find myself melancholy and wandering through my own imagination about what once might have been.

When I find those places, if they show me their hidden selves, I spend hours with my camera trying capture what I think I see.

A few weeks ago I found a farmhouse.  What I noticed first were the windows, broken and jagged things.  They seemed, in that particular sunlight, like tears on a granite face…as hyperbolic as that sounds.

After getting permission from the owner, I scoped the place out, tramping through the rooms and across the piles and piles of broken and dead furniture, past the giant tractor tires stored in an interior room, on top of the long orange pipes stacked neatly in an upstairs bedroom, past the rusted child's toy left in the other upstairs bedroom.

The two downstairs rooms were a jumble of old textbooks (the owner had been a teacher) that had long since decomposed into a sort of gray confetti that hid the condition of the floor.  So when I stepped hard into a pile of confetti, I didn't see that the floor was soft.

Sank a couple of inches.  Broke just a bit of floorboard.  I chuckled and thought about how lucky I was to have not gone through the floor into the unexplored, but completely pitch fucking dark, basement.

So on my next day off, I bundled up some water and extra batteries, memory cards, tripods, filters and lenses, all manner of bullshit and off I went, snapping photos off like .22 shells from a varmint gun.  Then the inside.  Up the stairs and into the bedrooms and out the upstairs windows.  I banged out about a million and a half shots and was feeling really good.

And then, back downstairs, I found that soft floor.

Not the same spot, mind you, 'cause I'm smarter than that.  Remember all that education?  All those classes and tests and papers and projects and bullshit made me more than smart enough not to put my foot in the same damned place, right?

So I stepped a foot, maybe even two feet, beyond the soft spot.

Gotta tell ya, that soft spot was a damned sight bigger than I'd thought.  Son of a bitch ran probably another foot beyond where I stepped!

And yeah, I went crashing through.

Left foot went through and my left leg followed.  Right leg folded up like a card table and when I realized the toes of my right foot were just behind my right ear, I knew I was having a problem.  Both arms came out flat and slammed against the part of the floor that didn't collapse, thus insuring almost perfectly equal bruises on the insides of my biceps.

But mostly?  My upper back jammed hard between two joists.  Hard between them.

HARD!

My howl split that still afternoon air and pain rocketed up into my brain like somebody had heated up some piano wire and jabbed it straight into my eyeball.

And then I realized, as I sat there, that no one in the world – the world – had any friggin' clue where I was.

Hehehe…see, when I go photograph, I just go.  No place to be, no time to be there.  Just me and where ever the winds take me.

Which also means that when I die in an abandoned farmhouse, nobody's going to know until some kids looking to scronk find my desiccated bones.

So that sucks.

I take a long breath.  Then a shitpile more, thank the Cosmos I'm not dead, and start to climb out.

When my phone goes insane.

Because less than two miles from where I'm standing over a big-ass hole in the floor, some mope is robbing a bank in one of my towns.

Literally at that second.

Everyone's reaching out and touching me with the news.  I figure I'm right there so maybe I can help.  I jumped…okay, limp slowly…into my truck and race to town.  I give the detectives a few minutes of help tracking down witnesses and video, and that was about all I could do.

'Cause I hurt.

Like a mofo!

Ultimately, I ended up with the biggest bruises of my life.  Huge one on my back, both biceps, my left ankle and foot, a few other smaller abrasions.  And pain that lasted for three weeks in my left ankle and knee.

Plus, I got yelled at, if you can dig it.

A lot.  By everybody.  It generally went like this: "Are you stupid?  You go wandering around and almost kill yourself and no one knows where the hell you are?  What if you get hurt?"

But then one dear, dear friend said, "If you die, can I have your police gear?"

It was a lesson learned.  I always want to appease my friends so in that day, I learned to let them know when I'm going to be somewhere.

Hah.  Hehehehehehe!  Haaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!  Bwaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, stop, my side hurts!  Telling people where I'm going is not usually how I play.

Couple weeks later, photographing in an abandoned corn crib, about twenty or twenty-five feet off the ground, with my fetish model thirty feet away and handcuffed to the -

Hang on, wrong fantasy.

Standing on a joist that what?  You got it, ladies and gentlemen, cracks beneath my very feet.

Got to another one safely but it scared the crap outta me.

And I'm up there, praying none of them break and I don't go tumbling to the ground, and I'm thinking: son of a bitch, once again nobody knows where I am.

Why?  'Cause apparently all that fancy, expensive education didn't take.

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How to be a better nation…have better journalists.

Though I hopped out of journalism just about eight years ago, it is something I still love dearly and follow closely.  But it also makes me tear my hair out.

The problem, from my lofty perch as commentator rather than working newsman, is two-fold.  The first is corporate ownership, which is transforming the press into The Media.  Newspapers and TV stations, radio, even internet platforms, are more and more group and corporate owned.  Corporations are, damn near by definition, terrified of offending anyone.

When I worked at the Bureau County Republican, I had story after story, including one I wanted to write about the paper itself, shot down because it might offend someone.  I never got pushed down by the publisher, it never went that far.  I got pushed down by the editor because of what he thought the corporate office would or would not support.  He never once tested those assumed boundaries and so our stories never addressed local problems nor offered local solutions.

The second problem is the individual journalist.  The men and women of journalism are under great corporate pressure, and the fear of offending someone rolls downhill just as fast as a heaping pile of crap.  Reporters can't risk offending a source for fear that the source will cut off access.  If the reporter exposes a problem at a local government agency, for example, they will find themselves no longer welcomed at that agency.  Or worse, still able to visit the agency but with informational limits that are worse than being cut off.

That fear is strangling journalism and ability of reporters to make our society better just as surely as heart disease is strangling, and will one day kill, me.

Having said that, there are those who want to make journalism better.  Jay Rosen's blog PressThink.org works extremely hard to raise the bar.  To that end, he recently posted the new reporter guidelines from the Voice of San Diego, which is a public-service, non-profit news gathering organization focusesing on investigative journalism.  These guidelines are exactly how journalists should think and work.  If all of them did our world would be a much better place.

Voice of San Diego: New Reporter Guidelines.

We only do something if we can do it better than anyone or if no one else is doing it.

* We must add value. We must be unique.

Three things to remember for each story:

* Context

* Authority

* Not just what is happening, but what it means

There is no such thing as objectivity.

* There is such thing as fairness.

* But everyone sees everything through their own filter. Acknowledge that, let it liberate you. Let it regulate you.

* We are not guided by political identification, by ideology or dogma. But every decision we make, from what to cover to how to cover it, is made through our own subjective judgments.

* We are guided by an ability to be transparent and independent, to clearly assess what's going on in our community and have the courage to plainly state the truth.

Our bent: Reform. Things can always be better.

* We don't have a dogmatic or ideological bent. But we do believe San Diego can and will do better.

* We can have better infrastructure, a healthier environment, a better education system, a responsive, efficient and transparent government, a better understanding of our neighborhoods' challenges, a thriving economy and an ever-improving quality of life. If anything, this is our bias.

Be the expert.

* Write with authority. You earn the right to write with authority by reporting and working hard.

* No "he said, she said."

* The day we write a headline that says: "Proposal has pros, cons" is the day we start dying.

* There is no such thing as 50/50 balance. There is a truth and we work our damndest to get there.

* Sometimes two viewpoints don't deserve 50/50 treatment.

* Most of the time there aren't two sides to something, anyways. There are 17. Who's not being represented? If they're not speaking up, how can you represent them?

* We don't just "put things out there." We're not "only asking the question."

* We don't ask questions with our stories. We answer them.

* We don't write question headlines, unless they're so damn good that we can't resist:

* We don't do this: "Did City Official Take Bribe?"

* Or, to cite a recent example: "Did Wikileaks Hack Servers?"

* We'd maybe do this: "How Did a City Official Ended Up With Millions in Donations?"

* We're not someone's goddamn transcription service.

* They can relay their own news. In a world where leaders are able to communicate directly with their constituents very easily, we have to a.) make sense of what they say and b) find out the things they don't want to say. It's the only way to effectively use our limited resources.

Tell the truth.

* This means not being mealy mouthed and not being bias-bullied.

* Stand up to bias bullies. Tell them why you did something. Let them challenge you on it.

* If someone calls you biased, don't be scared. Don't dismiss it either. Reflect on it and answer with conviction.

* Don't go quote-hunting for something you know to be true and can say yourself. Don't hide your opinion in the last quote of a story.

* Take a stand when you know something to be true or wrong.

Care about your beat more than anyone else.

* It is your way to make San Diego a better place to live.

Focus on big problems

* David Simon, the creator of The Wire, has a quote that can be paraphrased this way: Journalism is good at solving small problems or taking small bites of a big problem. It's not good at solving big problems.

* It's easy as a journalist to take a stand against a six-figure salary. It's easy to take a stand against an expensive meal on an expense report.

* Why do we take stands on those things and why are we afraid to take stands on bigger issues?

If you can't find a good answer any of these three questions, drop the story:

* Why did I choose this story?

* Why will people care? (Not why should they care, but why will they care.)

* Why will people remember this story?

Avoid 'churnalism'

* It's not your job to have everything on your beat. It's your job to have the best things.

* Don't worry about getting scooped. Worry about not consistently making an impact.

* Love the title of this Columbia Journalism Review story: "The Hamster Wheel: Why running as fast as we can is getting us nowhere."

* A quote: "The Hamster Wheel isn't speed; it's motion for motion's sake. The Hamster Wheel is volume without thought. It is news panic, a lack of discipline, an inability to say no."

* Another: "You say, 'Why not have it?' I say, 'Because it isn't free.' The most underused words in the news business today: let's pass on that."

* We are a small group with limited resource. Everything we do must [pay off for the users.]

* We can learn a lot from sports journalism. (That's for a different day.) But here's one great quote to always keep in mind from sportsjournalism.org: "Nobody cares who's first with the commodity news, but being first with what the news means still has value – in fact, it has more value than it ever has, given today's torrent of information. Readers will gravitate to such stories, share them and remember them."

Avoid the news voice whenever possible.

* Sometimes it's necessary.

* But you should never write a story [the way] you think journalists are supposed to write it. Write like you would if you were trying to get your friends interested in an email. Lighten up. Be creative. Have fun. Be conversational.

Bring us in the implications, not the event.

* So it's not "Booze Ban Voted Through Council Committee."

* It's "Booze Ban Has One Final Hurdle Left."

Don't be boring. People don't spend their free time on boring things.

* That's it.

Don't tell me stories about "critics" or "some"

* I don't have a clue who "critics" or "some" are. But they managed to be the most quoted people on the planet.

* I need to know who they are for that viewpoint to carry any validity.

* And I need to know what, if any, financial stake they have in the issue. Honestly. (Just a sample of headlines in the news in a five-minute search this fall: "Some say Escondido police union's flier crosses the line…" "Some say new constitution would solve state's woes…" "Critics say Washing Oily Birds Is Wasteful…" "Observers Say Time Right for Santander IPO…"

* I've read stories that use blanket "critics" in different spots to describe people on the opposite ends of the arguments. It was so confusing.

Have fun! Be creative! Push the envelope!

* You don't do this for the money. So let's have some fun.

* Try something that's never been tried before. Or try something that someone else did somewhere else. Don't do a story just to do it. Or because it's an interesting exercise.

* Think about what will impact people or policy makers. What will they want to read or what will force them to make a change?

* Be a student of today's great journalistic innovations.

* Be a leader of today's great journalistic innovations.

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"…carry a gun for a living," and other Bouchercon goodies

Ah…Bouchercon.

Part of the conversation Friday night, in the hotel bar, went like this:

"I'm paying for those shots," said Lori Armstrong.

"No, you're not," said I.

"Yes, I am."

"No, you're not."

'Those' drinks were the sort-of-annual Non-Memorial Shots.  They started in Madison in 2006 when, while I was still on chemo, one of my friends pulled me aside and reminded me that some of my friends were mostly glad I wasn't dead.

Each time we do it, one of us chooses the shot.  This year, Lori chose something called the Cowboy Cocksucker.

"Yes, I am."

"No, you're not."

With the server's head ping-ponging back and forth.

"Yes."

"No."

This year, in St. Louis, those drinking included the original three – me, Lori, and Sean Doolittle – plus a dear friend who simply hadn't had the chance, Karen Olson.

My thing was not letting Lori pay because she had just won the Shamus Award for best novel…besting the international bestseller Robert Crais.  She wanted to pay because she was lost in the adrenaline of such a huge night.

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"Lori, this could go on for three or four days."

"I'm paying."

So then I looked at the server and said, "Look, I'm a policeman and I carry a gun for a living.  Who you gonna give the bill to?"

Without a word, she left.

Lori and I laughed at the surprise on her face and went about our business, which meant hanging with writers, drinking far too much, and basking in the glow of Lori's win as well as her purple boots (her array of boots is actually quite impressive…most of them colored and many of them with various patterns).

Two hours later, Karen wanted to get the bill paid so we didn't accidentally walk it.  She asked the server for it and got a blank stare.

"No," the server said.

"Yeah."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"I don't understand.  Why?"

The server pointed at me.  "He carries a gun."

Karen laughed.  "Yeah, but he's with me.  I'm paying."

"No."

"Yes."

"No.

"Listen, it's all right, it's – "

"No.  He carries a gun.  He told me he did."

We laughed our assess off later but Karen said the server was truly concerned.  Took Karen awhile to convince her.  It's terrible, I know, but that shit's just funny.  I'm sorry she freaked out…sort of sorry, anyway.

Other goodies include a face off with a security guard who told me I couldn't stand on a public roadway and take pictures of private property.

"Yes, I can."

"No, you can't."

"Yes, I can."

Yeah, it was that kind of weekend.

The hell of that situation was that I hadn't taken any pictures of the private property, which was a metal recycling joint.  Hundreds of cars sliced, diced, and poured into waiting trucks.  But when she started yelling at me, the point wasn't whether or not I had taken pictures, it was whether or not I could take pictures.

I basically dared her to call the cops.  In the end, she shrugged and drove away.  Apparently I was a threat as long as she was in charge, but not so much when she wasn't.

Two days later, I was shooting in the St. Louis subway.  There was another security guard who really didn't like how close I got to the edge.  I kept moving closer and he'd yell at me and I'd back up.  Then we'd do it again.

Actually, I appreciated the job he was doing, trying to keep me from getting smashed to a bloody pulp by the trains.  The other guard was just being a power-mad wannabe, he was actually trying to help.

Helping or not, he drove me crazy.

As ever, Boucheron, the world's biggest mystery convention, was crammed full of writers I love and admire…and more than a few I would just as soon shoot. (Note to writers: when you're on a panel with six…six…other writers, shut the hell up for a minute, it's not a solo show).

Reconnected with Sandi Loper-Herzog and John Purcell, both wonderful people.  Karen Olson, my jazz buddy.  Alison Gaylin, my shooting buddy (actually, a whole pile of writers have gone shooting with me).  A fan named Graham who loves this blog but who's last name I can never remember.  Gina Slade, one of the most interesting people I've ever met.  William Kent Krueger (with whom I had a delightful conversation about the nature of redemption and whether or not it's really worth a shit), Sean Doolittle, and Simon Wood, three of the nicest and most incredible men in the entire world.  All of the Jordans, who work so hard to make sure every year is a great one.

Met lots of new people, including editors like Ron Earl Phillips and Kent Gowran.  They'd bought lots of my fiction but I'd never met them.  Ron was one of the true delights of the convention, wandering around with his cool pork pie delicately on his head.  Eoin Colfer, author of the 'Artemis Fowl' books, who demanded I take him shooting next time we meet and who tried valiantly, if unsuccessfully, to say 'Aw-ight.'  I really wanted to hear what that would have sounded like with an Irish accent.

Let's be honest, it would have been a drunken Irish accent, but I'm good with that.

Rick…who I kept calling Greg and who never got bent about it.  Josh…who had two of his fingers cut off or something on the first day, bled on his shoes, and then wore the bandages almost as invitations to an ass kicking for the rest of the weekend.  Bob Trulock with his orange pants and pinkish shirt, with his gray braided hair and his hat with holes in it, Gary Phillips…who made me laugh every time he opened his mouth.  Check out both of them if you love your fiction stripped down and straight up, baby.

Lots of laughing and carrying on, telling of war stories, wandering around trying to find this or that panel before finally giving up and going to the bar, threats to piss on a particular writer's shoes, and watching a woman strip down for me so she could so me a scar.  She'd just asked about my cancer surgery scar and wanted to share hers.  Sort of like whichever 'Lethal Weapon' it is when Mel Gibson and Rene Russo start stripping for scars.

It was fun to watch her strip, but the scar was kind of boring….

Didn't tell her that, of course.  I mean, come on, how can you insult a woman who got half-naked for you?

"It's boring."

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is."

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is."

"Maybe, but I got naked to show you."

"True, that.  Okay, it's not."

"Told you. Dumbass."

 

 

 

 

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CopStories: Pimping the Caddy

One of the clues, when you're trolling for DUIs (or DWIs, or OUIs, or whatever your poh-poh calls drunk driving), is bright lights.

It's called failure to dim and it's a brilliant indicator of someone who might be impaired.  If they drive around without ever dimming their headlights, they might well be three…or four…or eight sheets to the wind.

So a few nights ago, I'm bopping along, patrolling my roads, when I see a car a good mile away.  They're coming along and I'm watching and watching.  Then my hand goes up over my eyes 'cause they ain't making no kind'a move to dim those square heads.

Now, once upon a time, when the economy was good and I was on nights, I was one of the mini-DUI Kings.  I wasn't the department leader, but I was certainly in the Top 2.  But that was many years ago in a galaxy populated by a good economy and more officers on the road.  It's been probably two years since I had a night time DUI and nearly a year since I had one at all.

And since this is an incredibly perverse profession – where a good day for me is, by definition, a bad day for someone else – I started to get excited.  See, I love hammering DUIs…call it the residual baggage of people in my life getting hit and hurt by drunken assholes wielding heavy cars like weapons.

So, as the car is coming my way, I start getting my shit together: get the portable Breathalyzer ready, make sure my ticket book and tow sheets are handy, start looking for a good place to pull him over that's safe and offers a reasonably flat surface on which he can do some sobriety tests.

He keeps coming, still doesn't dim his headlights, and finally passes.

Going really slow.

Like Little Old Blue Haired Lady Slow.

Superslow.

Like Creepy White Van Stalking Teen-Aged Girls Slow.

That, in and of itself, is also a clue.  Sometimes, drunks are so intent on using their signal or staying in the lane that they end up driving twenty under the limit.

So now I'm really excited.  This is going to be a fun night.  But I also notice, as he passes, that he has only one taillight.

Dink.  Another reason to stop him.

I turn around, get him pulled over, and realize it's a Pimp Daddy Caddy.  Late '70s, gleaming white, huge tailfins, about 47.4 feet long and half as wide.

There's a sign in the back window, behind the driver: 'Just Married.'

And the passenger?  A chick wearing a white wedding dress.

Jack-freaking-pot.  Coming back from a wedding reception where you know – you know – they got tanked.

I get even more excited.

Get up to the car and the window doesn't come down so the driver opens the door.

And I get blasted with the thickest, funkest stench'o'booze what's ever assaulted me.  I'm almost instantly drunk just from the contact high!

Dude, it's like Christmastime!  This is going to be a fabulous DUI.

Start going through my patter, ask for his license and insurance.

He's clear as a bell.  No slurred words, no red eyes, no hesitation.  She's the same way, but she also looks a bit angry.

"Have you been drinking?" I asked.

"Yeah, a while ago."

"And yet…you smell like a cheap brewery."

She was instantly steamed.  "Son of a bitch spilled all over me."

When I looked, I noticed her beautiful white dress, at least in the front, had quite the yellow tinge.  Could'a been piss…smelled like beer.

"This son of a bitch?" I asked, pointing at the groom.

"No, no, the other one."

"Ah."  I paused.  "So where you guys headed?"

They got instantly silent.  He looked at his feet, then at her, then at his feet, then at me.  Mouth worked, but nothing's came out.

And she was as beet red as anyone I'd ever seen.  In fact, I'm not sure I'd ever seen anyone blush this much.  It was all I could do not to laugh.

"Uh…," he said.  Then looked at her again.  "The hotel."

"Ah.  Well…have fun with that."

hehehehe…I can be a monstrous butthead.

"Why were you driving so slowly?"

Again, he looked at her and she blushed.  Hardcore cherry red this time and her hands instantly came together in her lap.  They'd been on the door and in between them on the seat.

And body language says…hands were…exploring?

"Uh…no reason.  Watching for deer?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?"

I left them with that and went to check them out.  They were fine.  Just married and no warrants!  A good way to start the wedding bliss.

Back at the car, I noticed army-issue fatigues in the back seat.  "Military?"

He nodded.  "I report for my first duty station Monday."

"Married on Saturday, leaving her on Monday," I said.

She giggled, but didn't say anything.

"Kentucky," he said.

"Fort Bragg," I said.

"No, Fort Campbell," he said.  "Screamin' Eagles."

"Eighty-Second," I said.  "Cool."

"No, 101st."

I stared at him as she laughed out loud.  At me, I'm pretty sure.

"So obviously I know dick about the military," I said.

I think she muttered 'obviously,' but I'm not sure.  If she did, it didn't feel malicious so I'm good with that.

I asked him to count backward for me from some number to some other number, fairly well convinced at this point he wasn't drunk.

And he promptly screwed it up.  Badly.

"Dude, what's up?  You nervous?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"

He looked back at her.  She blushed again.

"Right," I said.  "First night nerves."

I leaned in the car, handed his license back, and whispered, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

And walked back to my squad, whistling.

They were still sitting, looking stunned and embarrassed, as I drove off.

I hope he had a good night.  I hope he had a good night the next night, too, 'cause he's military now and while everyone in Washington says they want to end the wars, no one has taken a single damned step toward actually doing that.  For all I know, that kid, embarrassed on his wedding night, could already be on his way to his own killing field.

Keep your head down, dude, and make sure you come back for that whacked out Pimp Daddy Caddy.

 

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CopStories: Show Me The Skin, Baby!

It was a simple call.

Under-age drinking party.

Come on…a rural county…summer time?  We get those constantly.

Sometimes we find kids drinking.  Sometimes not.  Sometimes those parties get out of control (a few years ago, two drunk teens ended up dead in a car crash), sometimes they don't.  Sometimes they're in houses, sometimes at the canal, sometimes in odd, random places that are difficult to get to.

But because of the toxic brew of kids and booze, we take them fairly seriously.  Thus when I got the call, I got my entire team together, had a little pow wow, and off we went, in search of drinking youths.

Which was…not quite what we found.

When we were still fifty yards away, through the fog, I saw the cars parked in a field entrance.  That surprised me because probably better than three-quarters of the time, the calls are empty.  Some old lady who's cranked off that teenagers are having fun.  Or a concerned citizen who assumes the worst when they see teenagers together…sort of an updated version of the teenagers-as-monsters movies from the '50s.

So as I got closer to the cars, I blasted them with my spotlight, expecting to see heads lolling back and forth in the seats, or kids splayed out over hoods, drunk off their asses.

Instead, I immediately see eight or ten pale-like-the-belly-of-a-fish bodies explode from one soybean field, past the cars, and into another soybean field.  And I mean GONE!  Like they never existed.

I know they're not getting far because they've left their cars behind and they're running into a bean field.  Tends to slow the escape down.

But I jump from my squad anyway, damn near before it stops moving.  "Whoa.  Get your asses back here!  Freeze!"

There are certain clues you look for as a cop.  One of those basic clues is: are they following my orders.  When it comes to a foot chase, the suspects never follow my commands.  They're scared to death, thinking they're going to jail.  They run and run and run some more.

So I yell out my commands and sure as hell they -

- Stopped!

Freaked me out so badly I almost didn't know what to do next.

Luckily, I had my guys with me and they are absolutely professional.  They immediately jumped out of their squads, started running plates, started checking the area looking for others, etc. Top shelf professional.  Best guys on the road.

The problem was, when they started doing their thing, they left me with these eight or ten young men.

"Hey," I said.  "You guys are naked."

"Duh," one of them said, with a tone that actually said, 'Wow, cain't get nothing past these professionally trained cops, huh?'

"Why are you naked?"

To this day, I haven't gotten an adequate answer.

So now I have eight or ten guys in front of me, pale as the moonlight, slowly shrinking in the chill air, and trying to cover themselves.

Except one guy.  He's very obviously not covering up.  In fact, he's just staring at me, a satisfied grin on his face.  I half-expected him to give me a thumbs up.

What I almost said was, 'Somebody get me a camera!  That's impressive!'

(Which is why he was grinning so big.)

What I actually said was, "What in hell are you guys doing?"

And behind me, I heard my guys laughing.  Did I mention professionals?  Top shelf professionals, I think I wrote.  Yeah, whatever.

"Well, see…uh…," one of them said.  "I know the guy who lives here and…well…we prank each other a lot."

"So getting naked for him is a prank?"

He looked confused, standing there still naked.  "What?  No, no, the naked…that's just…well, we just got naked.  No, the prank was the toilet paper."

Inside their cars, we found probably fifty empty bags of toilet paper.  No booze, no drugs, no girlie mags.  Just toilet paper wrappers.

"So you're TPing the house?"

Then they all smiled and I gotta tell you, there is nothing more disconcerting than seeing ten naked guys, each holding their schvantzes while they grin at you.

"Dudes, put your clothes on."

I had thought I was torturing them by making them stand naked in the chill, but I think they were actually torturing me.  And enjoying the hell out of it.

"Uh," I  said.  "There isn't anyone else, is there?  Any chicks, maybe?"

And they all looked so disgusted, like they still believed girls had cooties.  What I realized was that this was a male-bonding thing, not a cross-gender bonding thing.

While they got dressed and my guys finished up their thing, I went and checked the TPing.

And was horrified.

It was terrible.  Utterly, pathetically, mind-numbingly terrible.

"Who's responsible for this?" I fairly yelled.

Lots of mumbled 'whats?' and 'uhs' came back at me.

So I marched back to them and said, "What in the hell is all that?  First of all, there are only two or three strands of toilet paper even visible, and secondly, it's mostly on the ground."

"Yeah, we bought cheap."

"One ply?" one of my guys asked.

"Hardly even half-ply," I said.  "Look guys, don't go cheap.  See how humid it is?  That shit fell apart before you barely got it out of the package.  So now it's flaccid."

"It's what?"

You guys would be so proud of me.  I did not give him the obvious definition, which would have been more show and tell than anything.  Instead, I continued on exactly how to best TP a house.

"You've done this before, haven't you?" one of them asked me.

"Yeah, but the difference is, I did it better…and dressed."

"But we were in a hot tub and – "

"Naked?" I asked.

"Yeah."  Again, with the tone that implied, 'Duh.'

"So this isn't your first communal nude experience."

"Uh…no?"

At some point, I realized I probably shouldn't explain to them how to better get away with vandalism.  So I became Mr. Cop.  Furrowed brows and cocked stance and gruff voice.

"It's three in the morning," I said.  "You're playing around a man's house.  I get you're pranking his son, but he doesn't know that.  All he knows is that there are eight or ten guys out here fucking with his castle."

They blanched, having not thought about where I was taking them.

"Yeah.  What if he's got a shotgun?"

They got appropriately freaked out by that thought, which was good.  If you can't scare them with jail, scare them with death, I always say.

I told them to leave and as my guys and I were getting ready to leave, one of the Naked Vandals said, "You want us to clean up first?"

I frowned.  What?  Never had a vandal offer to clean up his mess.  I looked around.  It was pretty clean already.  "Uh…yeah.  Uh…don't let me find any trash in that farmer's bean field."  I frowned and played the hardass again, then I drove away with my guys.

Laughing my ass off and feeling sort of left out.

'Cause it wasn't that I'd been smart enough not to do it naked…it was that I hadn't had the balls to do it naked.

 

 

 

 

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Family Jewels: Golden Jewels

So this kid, Conrad Reed, comes wandering along the Georgian outback one day back in 1799.  Trips across a 17-pound rock in the stream on his father's property.

Turns out the rock is a gold nugget.

Seventeen pounds.

So they do what any self-respecting family would do with 17 pounds of gold…they use it as a door stop.

And thus begins…and just as quickly ends…the first gold rush in Georgia.

They later sold that hunk of yellow rock for $3.50 to a jeweler.

A few years later, along comes Benjamin Parks, Jr., my fourth great-grand uncle.

He was born in 1802 and shuffled on to other gold rushes in 1895.  But when he was 27 (sometime in 1828), he reignited the Georgian gold rush by finding gold in the same area.

At the beginning, apparently, it was a stampede the likes of which Georgia hadn't seen before.  An Illustrated History of the Georgia Gold Rush and the United States Branch Mint at Dahloneg, Georgia (by Carl N. Lester), quotes a bit of writing from old Gold Fingers Parks himself:

"The news got abroad, and such excitement you never saw. It seemed within a few days as if the whole world must have heard of it, for men came from every state I had ever heard of. They came afoot, on horseback and in wagons, acting more like crazy men than anything else. All the way from where Dahlonega now stands to Nuckollsville there were men panning out of the branches and making holes in the hillsides ."

That distance form Dahlonega to Nuckollsville is about six miles, and the earlier name for Dahlonega was actually 'Licklog.'

That's funny all by itself, but when you combine Licklog with the following account, it's nothing but damned funny.

"I can hardly conceive of a more unmoral community than exists around these mines; drunkenness, gambling, fighting, lewdness, and every other vice exist here to an awful extent."

Lewdness and vice in a place called Licklog. Almost hard to believe.  Those crazy Georgians.

There were about 15,000 miners there at its height, with all kinds of businesses.  One was called Sprawls Hotel and it was called "an establishment," where drunk miners were allowed to "ooze" until they were dried out and wandered back on their way to their holes in the ground.

I've dealt with a lot of drunks and I've heard them called, and called them, lots of things.  Not once have I ever heard it called oozing.  Going to have to try that one on one of my DUI arrests.  Might freak them out so badly it leaves them in a quiet and cold sweat in the back of my crime cruiser.

This all happened on land that had only recently – and in some cases still – belonged to the Cherokee Nation.  And yes, the forced march you think you remember, the Trail of Tears, was at least partially to get them damned redskins off our land so we could get all that yellow money out the ground.

There were also state-sponsored lotteries which awarded 40 acres of gold-bearing land, yes, land once owned by those same Cherokees, to whoever held winning lottery tickets.  That apparently spurred the gold rush further and faster and farther.

There are no records, at least that we've found yet, of what he did with his find, or how much gold he managed to yank up out of the Georgian dirt, but I can tell you we ain't rich now.  And haven't any records of being rich in the past.

Soooo I'm guessing whatever he managed to find wasn't much.

Or, he could have been like the rest of the miners.  Maybe he dug it, sold it, then drank it, and simply oozed until it was time to pick up that shovel again.

 

 

 

 

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