RAMESH NYBERG
Finding the Strength to Laugh
I’m writing this just a few days before Election Tuesday, so it’s a given that all of us – regardless of what side of the aisle you might be on – could use a laugh about something nonpolitical, couldn’t we?
It’s no secret that cops need laughter to alleviate the stress of our work. Laughter is the “best medicine,” they say, and that is for everyone – law enforcement or not. Dr. Elizabeth Scott is one of many physicians who are big believers in laughing, saying that it “strengthens our immune system by increasing antibody-producing cells and enhancing T-cell effectiveness.” Other studies have shown that laughter is associated with lower rates of cardiovascular disease. Yes, everyone should laugh and laugh often. In police work, there’s probably just as much to laugh about as there is to weep for. Police humor is specialized. It comes from our need to unwind and to see the world in less harsh terms. We probably laugh at a lot of things which civilians don’t. Oftentimes, we don’t have to look any further than our own squad rooms. Today, I’ll highlight some of the exploits of the more “interesting” cops I have had the pleasure to work with. I know that you all have plenty of your own, so I hope you’ll enjoy my collection of knuckleheads. The names have been changed for obvious reasons, though I fear some of my colleagues will have little difficulty identifying these misfits.
I’ll start with my uniform days and a guy named Butch who believed wholeheartedly that he was the reincarnation of Elvis Presley. I’m not talking about an Elvis devotee; I’m talking about a guy who wore a gun and a badge and would look you dead in the eye and tell you he actually was Elvis. He even had the little upper lip thing going on when he spoke.
Two other guys I worked with on the road also had colorful reputations, mostly for their screwups and wild behavior. One was Roy Shore, a bear of a man everyone wanted to have as a backup. The problem was that Roy’s IQ was akin to a bear’s as well. One night, Roy was dispatched to check on some suspicious people down by the waterfront, in an area which hadn’t yet been developed for a future marina. When he arrived, he got his vertically-mounted shotgun out, but inadvertently hooked his thumb in the trigger guard, sending a load of 00 buckshot through the roof. Roy, however, was halfway out of the vehicle and didn’t realize it. He thought someone was shooting at him. He promptly announced “shots fired!” on the radio and asked for emergency backup. Of course, damn near the entire district arrived, only to discover that Roy’s overhead lights had been blown off the roof. As you may well imagine, that story followed Roy around forever. But, Roy wasn’t done.
In the same area of waterfront wilderness, Roy drove down there to do an area check. (You would think that spot held some bad karma, but…) He noticed two guys and a girl there with a broken-down van. They had been fishing, they said, and realized the van now wouldn’t start. Roy cheerfully got them a tow truck and gave the grateful trio a ride to the station, where they called a friend to pick them up. It turned out later that the van was packed with about 40 bales of marijuana.
James Lionel, known as an outspoken prankster in his district, wanted to take the sergeant’s exam. During this time, the county announced that a preference would be given for female candidates during the promotion process. Many thought this to be unfair, but James did more than voice his opinion. He showed up at the testing site in drag – completely decked out in a dress, wig, heels, makeup (courtesy of his girlfriend), the works. I saw the photos and, truth be told, he didn’t look half bad. The test administrators might have been amused, but they didn’t show it. They sent him home.
During the late stages of my career in homicide, my partner was a guy named Greg Smith. Greg had a reputation for attracting calamity, breaking things and screwing up electronic items just by being close to them. This happened so often that he earned the nickname, “Ziggy,” after the cartoon character who could never catch a break. When I first heard of this, I was sure it was all exaggeration, but I worked with Greg for 15 years and saw it firsthand. I watched as a crime scene tech handed Greg a flash unit (from a 35mm camera) and saw the flash unit instantly start to hiss, pop and smoke. It was ruined and had to be replaced. I saw Greg cause a fax machine to churn to a stop by standing next to it and laughed when Greg’s county issued cell phone went haywire the day he turned it on. Perhaps my favorite of Greg’s escapades was when he was on a cop show featuring one of our cases. It was a Canadian produced show, so Greg had to go there for the taping of the case reenactment. They had a set with palm trees trucked in to make it look like Miami and, just before they started filming, one of the trees fell – right on Greg, cracking his nose. Greg Smith was probably the only person in history to be struck by a falling palm tree in Canada. But, that was Ziggy.
The greatest “funny cop” of all time is Inspector Clouseau. Maybe it’s that deadpan while he’s saying or doing something ridiculous, getting bitten by the hotel clerk’s dog, or destroying some wealthy person’s grand piano. Perhaps it’s his insistence that he knows what he’s doing and is capable of mastering all tasks which usually spirals into chaos. Maybe it’s because the bumbling Frenchman lands on his feet in spite of his incompetence. But, either way, it’s hard not to love him. In South District, we had our own Clouseau: George Rove.
George was one of the most lovable guys you would ever meet and would give you the shirt off his back. He had an unfailingly positive attitude on the job, but was such an immense, clumsy doofus that it almost defied belief. There are a dozen or more George Rove stories which could fill this entire column, but I’ll leave you with the three which have remained South District lore for five decades now.
George pulled over a guy who seemed to make a furtive move while George ran his license. George panicked, pulled his weapon and shot the guy’s ear off. After the motorist was taken to the hospital and the investigation began, it was discovered that George’s earless victim was wanted for murder.
Back in the early 1980s, we carried those oxygen units in our cars for people who were having trouble breathing. They came with a small tank and a plastic mask. George arrived lights and siren on a call in which a car had gone off the road and into a canal. He ran to his trunk and got out the oxygen unit, put the mask on and – with the tank under his arm – jumped in the canal like some badge wearing Jacques Cousteau. It didn’t take him long to figure out that this was not bona fide SCUBA gear.
On another call, George was dispatched to a burglary in progress, but he got the avenue and street reversed on the address and ended up nearly ten miles away, on the extreme outskirts of town, where civilization fades into the edge of the Everglades. There are maybe five houses in ten square miles out there, but George pulled up to one which just happened to have two burglars coming out of a back window and he caught them both.
Oh, we have more stories than we have beer to tell them, don’t we? Let’s keep them alive so that we can always keep laughing.
Happy Holidays to all!
Ramesh Nyberg retired from law enforcement in November 2006 after 27 years of police work. He lives in Miami and teaches criminal justice at a local high school. He also teaches regional law enforcement courses through Training Force, USA. He enjoys getting feedback from readers and can be reached at ramesh.nyberg@gmail.com. Also, Ram has written a new book, Badge, Tie and Gun: Life and Death Journeys of a Miami Detective, which is available on Amazon in both Kindle eBook and paperback.
