Here I sit on Superbowl Sunday, too sick to go to any of the various 'parties' my family has been invited to attend. I was trying to figure something to blog about and a funny story from when I was a cop came to mind:
I was lucky enough to receive the award of Payne County Law Enforcement Officer of the Year (either 1993 or 1994) from the local Elks Lodge. As the recipient of such a prestigious award, I received a plaque and a free lunch (woo hoo!). There were representatives of all the local law enforcement agencies (city, county, highway patrol, state bureau of investigation, etc) at the presentation. The announcement of the 'winner' was done before the lunch was served, which meant I really didn't get to eat since everyone wanted to discuss my previous year's activity. One older gentleman, who was probably a little hard of hearing, was sitting at a table next to mine. He was asking me questions in a voice loud enough that everyone was able to hear. I was trying to eat and talk at the same time, but that was about to turn into a bad idea.
At one point, just as I was stuffing my mouth full of food, the older gentleman said:
I have no idea how you police officers deal with all the bad guys out there today. You never know when you are going to turn the corner to find someone pointing an automatic jacuzzi at you!
When he said jacuzzi instead of uzi, I just about choked on my meal. At his volume level, the entire room heard his comment and there were muted chuckles all around the room. I tried to be polite, and said that I had yet run into a jacuzzi-toting gang member, but that I wore a bullet proof vest just in case!
In case you are wondering, I believe I received the Officer of the Year award for the following reasons:
- Highest level of enforcement for child safety seat compliance in the county (I wrote almost as many as the entire department combined)
- Creation of a child safety seat seminar, presented once a month at the local hospital for expecting parents (free of charge) .... also presented as two state-wide traffic safety conventions
- Multiple DUI educational talks to University fraternity/sorority groups.
(I teamed up with a local Defense Attorney for these) - High level of DUI enforcement that year
While my primary duties were education and enforcement of seatbelt and drug/alcohol related actives, I took a high level of pride in my work and excelled at the enforcement pieces!
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