In July the Federal Bureau of Investigation will celebrate 102 years of public service. I note this because I live with an affliction called “Old Cop Fever.”
In a previous incarnation I was the psychologist for the Kansas City, Mo., police department.
A member of a burglary ring chose to shoot it out with the officers who had come to arrest him. His aim was bad, one of the cops’ aim was good; a single shot dropped the mob-related thief.
I never knew a police officer who felt good about killing someone, no matter how justified or necessary or unavoidable it was. This officer, a decent, kind, soft-spoken, nonviolent family man simply did what he had to do.
Any time a police officer physically injures a citizen, whatever the circumstances, a tedious and unnerving investigation is set in motion. “Did I really have to do that?” the officer asks himself, even before Internal Affairs starts asking that and many other questions which, in effect, put the officer on trial, as if he/she was a wrongdoer.
The incident ate away at his insides, exacerbated by the inevitable grueling Internal Affairs investigation. He became edgy, suspicious, hostile, started saying strange things. One day he went over the edge; kicked in his home TV screen because “they” were sending messages about him through it to his family. Claiming there was a conspiracy to “take him out” and that some of his fellow officers were part of the plot, he barricaded himself in an interrogation room of the Country Club station and promised to shoot anyone who tried to come in.
I was elected.
More accurately, I appointed myself. I knew the man, and he trusted me. After convincing the skeptical station Commander that I could get him out without violence he reluctantly agreed to disburse the cadre of cops in the corridor. At the time it didn’t seem nearly as dramatic or dangerous as it reads.
After a brief through-the-door conversation I heard the scrape of a desk being moved away and a “come in, slowly.” A 90-minute conversation, which included some tricky verbal negotiations, culminated calmly when he opened his coat so I could remove his weapon from its holster. We walked out together. He was very edgy, but without incident I drove him to a hospital in my own car.
Months later the psychiatrist pronounced him fit to return to work, precipitating a siege of stomach knots among the command staff and ranks of the department. There was a strong precedent that a psycho cop is an ex-cop. The reasons are not hard to understand.
After much discussion and considerable dissent, the new Chief of Police had him assigned to a desk job instead of forcing his termination. He later returned to "detectiving", doing what he knew best; subsequently earned promotion to sergeant, and completed his career to retirement with distinction. For several more years he worked as an insurance fraud investigator.
That police chief was one of a then new breed of law enforcement administrators. His keen judgment, awareness of rapid advances in mental health care, and concern for the individual, brought him to the decision that saved a man’s career and possibly his life. It was as much an intuitive spiritual decision as an administrative one.
That chief was Clarence M. Kelly, a good cop, effective administrator, and a decent, caring human being who went from Kansas City to succeed the legendary and very strange J. Edgar Hoover as Director of the FBI. Not many men would or should take on such an enormously difficult task, but Kelly did it with distinction.
In a life full of extraordinary activities, an Episcopal priest, Dr. Wilson has carried a badge in 10 law enforcement agencies in four states. Contact him at jackscolumn@jwco.us.
