“The Pickle”

I work as a Public Safety Officer in a small university setting where we don’t have a lot of crime but are always aware that things can happen. One such incident occurred in the school bookstore/snack bar area. The officer’s report read:

A known suspect was seen stealing a pickle from the bookstore area by another student. Surveillance video shows the male suspect bending over in front of the counter and stuffing a pickle up his coat sleeve. The suspect was seen leaving the bookstore and going into the smoking/lounge area outside of the building. Upon further investigation the video recordings showed the suspect taking his pickle out of his coat sleeve and tossing his pickle into the air several times in front of other students. Officers approached the male suspect and took him into custody. On the way back to the office with the suspect, Officers could clearly see his pickle in his coat pocket. Upon entering the office, Officers requested that he take his pickle out of his pocket and lay it on the table. Upon laying his pickle on the table, officers could see that the pickle was no big thing, and decided a warning would suffice. The suspect was advised to pay for his pickle and he was released with a warning. The suspect was last seen outside the building tossing his pickle into the trash container. Case Closed.

Here is my business card

I had just finished working an injury accident and noticed that there was a vehicle blocking the ambulance from leaving. I saw a couple of young ladies in white scrubs near the accident scene. Figuring the car may have belonged to one of the ladies; I yelled over to them and asked, “Does that car belong to one of you?” One of the young ladies replied, “Yes, it is my car.” With that in mind, I advised her that her vehicle was blocking the ambulance from leaving, and that I needed her to move it now! She advised she would and slowly started walking with her friend toward the car.

It was very apparent that she was headed toward the car at a very slow pace. I again stated, “Ma’am, I need you to move your vehicle now, as I have injured people in the ambulance that need to go to the hospital.” She stated, “I am going to move it!” However, she continued to walk at a slow pace.

Frustrated and getting mad at this point, I advised her that when she got to her vehicle, she needed to pull it over to the side of the road. She finally got to her vehicle and the ambulance went on its way. I proceeded over to her vehicle and leaned down to the driver’s window so that I could talk to the driver.

Since she was wearing white scrubs, I figured she was in the medical field and may have been assisting the paramedics at the accident scene. I asked, “Are you a nurse and were you assisting the paramedics?” She advised that she was not assisting and was just a bystander. I said, “Ma’am could you please tell me what in the hell took you so long to move your vehicle?’

“I am crippled!” She said. “Couldn’t you tell?” She said.

I told her, “No I couldn’t tell, otherwise I would not have had you pull over.”

I advise her, “Ma’am please wait here.” I went back to my cruiser and then came back to her vehicle with my business card in my hand. As I handed it to her I told her, “Ma’am please feel free to make a complaint on my behavior.” With that being said, she responded by explaining that no one had every treated her as being normal and that she was pleased that I did not treat her as being handicapped. She advised she did not want to make a complaint.

I was still embarrassed, and humbled.

The Movies

I received a call in my sector of a disorder involving a drunk. Upon arrival to the scene, I was met by a belligerent drunk at the top of a stairway in an apartment complex. I advised the gentleman that he was under arrest and that he would have to come with me. It was then that he advised “you’re going to have to fight me first.”

All you would had do to was look at this individual and see that he had many fights under his belt. Not only did he have scars all over him, but his nose was bent to one side and his ears looks as though he had taken many hits. He appeared to be an old fighter from the heavy weight division. Now I, on the other had never professionally boxed anyone and if I did I would have been in the lightweight division. However, duties do come first.

Remembering an old movie, I decided to go for a new approach. I picked up my radio and acted as if I had keyed the microphone. I said into the radio microphone “headquarters send me a paddy wagon to 456 West Third St. and while you’re at it send an ambulance, as he is going to need both of them.”
I then picked up my night stick and told the gentleman “okay, now I’m ready…let’s have a go at it.”

At this point the gentleman advised that he was not going to cause any problems. He walked down the steps and was searched prior to being put into the back of my caged cruiser. I seem to remember that the scene played out the same way in the movie the ‘New Centurions’. Whatever movie it was, it worked as I never had to fight the individual.

Police fighter

Seems as though every town has its police fighter and mine was no different. It was a clear day downtown in our fair city when as a rookie I met my first police fighter. I was riding the paddy wagon picking up prisoners for other officers making arrest that day. This was my favorite duty as we got into the thick of things because someone was always calling for us to make a pickup.

Toward mid-day, myself and the senior officer were called to pick up several prisoners near some local bars. Upon arrival to this particular location we found the arresting officers had picked up several belligerent drunks and one in particular was built like a refrigerator and weighed as much.

Now at this point you have to understand that when qualifying for the police department I lied about my weight. I was 15 pounds under weight in order to be hired. Going through the physical exam for the department at the local army reserve center, I was weighed at one location and had to walk over to another location inside the armory to tell the individual how much I weighed. Now my thinking was that they would not have done this if they did not expect me to lie, so I gained 15 pounds from point A to point B. Thus I passed the physical.

So you can see with me being underweight and meeting the ‘refrigerator’ I was a little out of my league. Not being one to shirk my duties and my head being bigger that the rest of me, I picked the ‘refrigerator’ to put in the back of the paddy wagon first. Did I mention that the prisoners were un-handcuffed? The ‘refrigerator’ submitted to the search for weapons prior to being placed into the wagon, but then decided that he wasn’t going to go in the paddy wagon. The ‘refrigerator’ decided to walk off. He had been facing the back of the paddy wagon and he exited to the right (my direction) and was walking away. Being the rookie I was, I grabbed him by the right arm and guided him in right hand circle, until he was again facing the rear of the paddy wagon. He, being drunk was completely confused about which direction he was going and he actually climb into the back of the paddy wagon.

Now the other officers were amazed that I had actually not had to fight him. I think it was something they had planned on, as they then advised me if I knew who I had just arrested. I advised “no, why?” They proceed to tell me his name and that he was a police fighter, and it usually took 5 to 6 officers to arrest him. They also proceeded to tell me a secret that would assist me in the future if I ever had a problem with him.

Years later with more experience and weight (15 pounds), I had another encounter with the ‘refrigerator’, but this time I was by myself.

A local university bar and grill had called in saying that there was an extremely large individual in their bar and that he had all of the patrons including several of the state university football team members lined up around the wall in fear of this individual. This bar was in my sector, so I responded to the call. Upon entering the bar and grill I noticed the caller was right. All of the patrons were lined up with their backs to the wall and one individual setting at a booth drinking a beer, the ‘refrigerator’. Now remembering my weight being something less than desirable, the bartender looked at me and asked “Anybody else coming?” I looked at the bartender and told him that I would handle it. Now it was apparent that the ‘refrigerator’ had been having a few drinks prior to my arrival. To everyone’s amazement in the bar and grill, I went over to the booth and set down across from the ‘refrigerator’. I spoke to him for a few minutes then I got up and went over to the bartender and said “I will be out in my cruiser. To his astonishment I left. As I got to my cruiser, I looked behind me and the ‘refrigerator’ had walked out of the bar and was walking over to the cruiser, where he put his hands on the cruiser and awaited a search.

After the search, I put the ‘refrigerator’ into the back of my caged unit. I then walked back into the bar and asked the bartender if he had any more problems with the ‘refrigerator’? Taken aback, he advised “No! What did you say to him?”

Smiling, I said “I told him that if he did not walk out and get in my cruiser, I was going to tell his mother that he was drunk and causing problems.” The secret the senior officers told me when I was a rookie paid off. They told me that when he goes home drunk and causes problems, his mother will hit him over the head with a frying pan and knock him out cold.

Mothers! You got to love them. The ‘refrigerator’ never caused me a problem and I never had to fight him.

Bark like a dog

One day I received a call of a woman at a local Cadillac dealership wanting to go to the State Mental Hospital. The call was made by one of the managers of the dealership. Upon arrival at the dealership, I was met by the manager and a little old lady weighing less that hundred pounds.

My first words to her were “I understand you want to go to the State Hospital.” She said “Yes.” I then said “Not a problem, I will be glad to assist.” With that being said she proceeded to clench her fist and hit me square between the eyes. Taken aback by the shock of a little old lady hitting me, my first instinct was to fight back. It was then that I noticed everyone laughing. Unhurt by the strike, I decided that I should handcuff her. After the embarrassing thought of having a little old lady hit me and catching me completely off guard, I placed her in the back of the cruiser. We then left everyone laughing at the dealership and headed toward the State Hospital.

Upon arrival at the State Mental Hospital, I escorted the now ‘mean little old lady’ into the reception area which was manned by several nurses and doctor. Upon approaching the reception area I was met by one of the nurses. I advised her of the situation which had occurred and started to un-handcuff the now ‘mean old lady’. At this point, I was advised by the nurse “Before you un-handcuff her, please turn her around facing the other direction, as she has done hit every nurse and doctor on the floor.” She had obviously been there before. The nurse then said “Usually when she forgets to take her medication, the police will find her in the parking lot of the local grocery store, crawling around on all fours barking like a dog.’

Death Notice

My only real embarrassing moment as a campus police officer was over 10 years ago. I was hired as a campus police officer at the age of 40. While on patrol I was called into the Campus Police Office. Our dispatcher just received a call to give a death notice to a student.

The person on the phone said she was a neighbor and that we needed to get a hold of a female student and tell her that her boyfriend was dead. The dispatcher got all the information and I went over to the classroom to give the student the terrible news. I called her out of class and mentioned to her that XXXXXX was dead. She was ballistic and started to fall apart. I invited back to the CPO where she could use out telephone.

She called her mother and her mother started to break down on the phone and all could say was that XXXXXX is dead that XXXXXX is dead. Finally she got a hold of XXXXXX’s mother, which made her go hysterical too.

After 30 to 40 minutes of this, it was discovered that XXXXXX was not dead and it was a person that had issues with the family.

That was my first death notice and if I don’t actually see the body it will be my last. Not a good feeling at all.

Contributed by: Wayne Wood

He went that way

I was presenting at a 6th/7th grade class when a student asked me if I had ever been struck on the job, I answered yes, it was by another cop at which point I hear a voice from the back of the class muttering, “what’d you do, steal his donut?” That comment having been made I was forced to tell the story of The Night the Cops Threw me Through a Window and then Hit Me.

It all started around 0230 am or so. I was just getting off shift when the all officers alarm came on due to a rape in progress. I was still dressed so I ran back out and found a car and took off towards the area the call had come from. As I turned the corner into this area of town, I see a line of people waving at me, jumping up, and down, pointing wildly, and yelling “he went that way!” Being the brilliant investigator that I was I deduced that the suspect had gone “that way” and got on the radio with this tidbit of information for everyone else. I tracked the suspect to an apartment complex, the cavalry arrived and we begin checking the apartments. We noticed one apartment where the window was open (abnormal because it was very hot and everyone’s AC was running) so we walked over to take a look and sure enough, there was our suspect laying in the middle of the living room floor pretending to be asleep. I tried to climb in the window but could not make it over the high prickly hedge that was blocking access to the window. To be precise, I was stuck, with thorns digging in to some tender spots when a much larger, less patient officer grabbed me by one thigh and one shoulder and extricated me from the thorns by throwing me through the window. After a graceful recovery I begin to approach the suspect when I suddenly realize that the dog has just been put through the window as well but the dog handler is still outside so my attention is somewhat divided between suspect and dog. Well the dog handler and another officer made it in through the window and with the help of the dog who was politely nibbling on the suspect’s “love handles” (another good reason to lose some weight), the three of us commenced to subduing the suspect. I had control of his right arm but couldn’t roll him over because the dog was now standing on the suspects upper legs and thighs while working his way through a belly fat sandwich which the suspect had presented to him. By that time, another 6 or 8 officers were piled up against the front door trying to get in. So I stretched out with my left hand while still controlling the suspect’s right arm, and unbolted the front door, at which point roughly a ton of police officers hungry for action came busting through the doorway and the first one through the door caught me with an elbow under my left eye which put me on my butt for the rest of the engagement. Down but not out, I found myself on the south facing end of a literal dog pile, looking down the hallway of the apartment, which by our final count was home to at least 16 migrant workers all of whom were now awake and coming to inquire as to the disturbance. So here’s me, left eye swelling shut, holding off 16 people at gun point in a dark hallway while the rest of my beat partners are rolling around on the floor, having great fun taking a resisting alleged rapist into custody. “uh, guys, a little help here…”

Contributed by: Joel Butz

Wild West

The police department that I retired from used to have officers assigned to private duty jobs at some bars in our town. At the time, the drinking age was 18 in Connecticut, while in adjoining Massachusetts it was 21. So, as you can imagine a lot of people drove down from Massachusetts to drink in our bars. It was pretty much like the “wild west” on Friday and Saturday nights.

One night, myself and another officer were working at one of these bars. One of the bouncers came up to us and told us that there was a female inside who was inside causing a disturbance, and that she was “blitzed.” So, Bob and I went inside and when we approached her, she took a swing at us, whereby she was placed under arrest. She resisted a bit, but was taken into custody and brought to the police station.

A couple of hours later, when we were done with our job we went to the police station to finish up the paperwork. As we got out of our car, we heard someone yelling at us from a van parked in the lot. “Hey you mother-f****** pigs, come here and I’ll kick your ass.” “You arrested my woman you b*******…..I’m gonna kick your ass!” Since it was 3 in the morning, we just yelled over to the guy and told him to be quiet and mind his business. We started to walk into the building, and he continued, beeping his horn and shouting expletives at us. Since in the State of Connecticut, a police officer “can’t have his peace breached” we were going to just ignore him. But, he kept threatening us, so we started to walk over to the van. He kept yelling at us, saying he was going to “sue your ass” for false arrest, swearing and so on. Bob had enough of it and said, “Go ahead and sue us; you don’t have a leg to stand on!” At this time, this guy kept swearing and threatening us. Having had enough, we opened the door to the van to take him into custody. Bob was right; he didn’t have a “leg to stand on.” He was a double amputee!

Contributed by: Patrick Droney

Officer Down

In 1972 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania I lost a good friend and fellow Trooper Bob Lapp to a Nation of Islam splinter group leader who ascended out of Newark, New Jersey in the early to mid sixties. His name was Alfred Ravenell.

On Monday, October 16, 1972, we in Troop “J” HQ had information that Alfred Casanova Ravenell, an escapee from the Yardville Corrections Center, New Jersey, was held up at a boarding house on the east side of Lancaster. We had received a teletype from the police in Newark. It indicated that Ravenell had shot a detective named Anthony Spera, and that he had been on the run since June 14th. He was initially doing time for a triple murder, and now he was armed and dangerous hiding out on East King Street. A group of police officers were assembled, numbering about 30, including Troopers and Lancaster City Police. 30 year old Trooper, Robert D. Lapp (CIS-I), was added to this collection of officers. He happened to live on Parkside Avenue, which was a short distance from the escapee’s hideout. Lapp was off duty, because he had just worked a double shift the day before. He volunteered to help serve the fugitive warrant, and he would go in first.

Bob and I worked together in the late sixties and early seventies as fellow criminal investigators in the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) at Lancaster Troop “J”, after my road days as a uniformed trooper and prior becoming the primary Troop Youth Aid Officer for Lancaster and Chester counties in Community Relations. My colleagues in the unit were the late Sgt. Joe Monville, lead Trooper and primary Community Relations Officer for Troop “J”, and Cpl. Theodore “Ted” Downs, primary Criminal Intelligence Specialist.

Bob Lapp treated everyone with respect and as a friend. He was a rare individual who became mentor, friend, confidant, eventually a roll model for more than one person he had to arrest. Many under investigation would confess their crimes to Bob just because they knew they had a listening ear and eventual advocate in the criminal justice system. He could not be anymore fair to anyone and everybody with whom he came into contact.

Late in the afternoon of the October 16, 1972, the Troop “J” command received a teletype from the police in Newark, New Jersey that told of one of their officers being shot and injured by the hiding Ravenell as they went in after him. Ravenell got away. The police in north Jersey developed intelligence that Ravenell had left the area and was now holed up in a boarding house on the east end of Lancaster, ironically on the next block from where Bob Lapp and his family resided. They cautioned our command to consider him armed and extremely dangerous.

Since the knock-and-announce-before-entering rule had been recently re-enforced by court rulings we knew someone of us was going to be hurt going in after this fugitive. Bob volunteered to be the first into Ravenell’s boarding room.

On that unusually balmy autumn evening Bob volunteered to be on the three man entry team, along with fellow Investigators Marty Wenzler and Joe Wescott, who also volunteered to go into the boarding house room of a wanted interstate fugitive, one Alfred Ravenell. I was on the perimeter with the late Lt. Richard “Dick” Weimer, Ted Downs, many other troopers and Lancaster city police officers. Ted and I had been scheduled for a dinner meeting with Franklin & Marshall Public Information, Business and Finance and Security officials along with our counter-parts from Community Relations, Lancaster City Bureau of Police. We never got to go. Rather we were hastily recruited for the perimeter stake-out team accompanying the aforementioned entry team. We all were outfitted with cumbersomely large flack vests. Bob Lapp was the first man in. The barricaded Alfred Ravenell shot Bob in the left temple. Joe was grazed in the head by another bullet. Joe and Marty crawled out of the building while others shot tear gas into the room. They told us that Bob had been hit. Two days later, during Bob’s funeral the skies cried with a cold mixture of rain and snow.

While going down on the floor, before crawling out of Ravenell’s room, Marty had returned fire. Either Marty or a Lancaster city officer outside with a shot gun (double OO Buckshot) got Ravenell. Ravenell eventually bled to death before we went back in, after we continued to load the building with tear gas and Bob’s body was extracted.

Immediately, through the fog of tear gas laid down by my colleagues, Trooper Charlie Brown, our lead crime scene process (BCI) specialist, crawled into the room on his belly and grabbed Bob, not knowing whether Ravenell, who was armed with an assortment hand and long guns and much ammunition, was dead or alive. Other troopers grabbed Charlie’s legs and pulled him and Bob out. Ravenell had been hit but was apparently still alive.

Alfred C. Ravenell was an escaped three-time convicted murderer from northern New Jersey. He was thought to have killed up to thirteen people in his life, some suspected of being his own associates and followers. He was the leader of a splinter cell from the Nation of Islam. One thing he did to enforce obedience among his followers was to kill anyone who he had felt was not sufficiently obedient, decapitate them, then carry the recently deceased’s head around in a bowling bag to show the membership what happened to those who “crossed” him. Sound familiar? Decapitation seems to be the method of choice designed to strike terror in the hearts of those to be controlled if one wished to remain a radical Muslim leader.

Background: After being sentenced to death and being sent to a maximum prison in New Jersey, Ravenell caused so much trouble in organizing Nation of Islam groups within the walls of the facility, that the authorities sent Ravenell to a medium security prison near Bordentown, NJ. There he was placed in the maximum security wing. He escaped execution due to the fact that the then contemporary Supreme Court ruled the various states’ death penalties around the country to be unconstitutional.

From there Ravenell escaped and went back to northern New Jersey, Newark, to be exact, and resumed his leadership of his revolutionary and radical Islamist group. He was very charismatic having unquestioning and devoted followers, some being from Lancaster who had traveled to Newark. Ravenell organized them into bank robbery gangs to finance the associated cells’ activities. In early fall 1972 one group went to Lancaster with Ravenell and settled in. They started robbing banks. They hit one suburban branch bank the week before Bob was killed. Bob and I worked that case along with the FBI and other troopers. Bob did the Identikit art from descriptions given by tellers and other witnesses.

The bottom line is that a liberal Supreme Court unforgivably allowed condemned murderers to live; to live and kill again.

Bob Lapp and Alfred Ravenell

Contributed by: Alan MacNutt

Anybody hurt?

Working the traffic division I often worked a lot of bad accidents, especially around the interstate.  A big problem at accident scenes usually involved the news media (television) trying to get video of the accident scenes to their stations as soon as they could, which often meant they had it on TV before we could even notify the relatives of victims.

One particular day a large crane that was moving concrete highway barriers fell over near a high and large bridge stretching over the local river.  The crane’s boom fell across two lanes of traffic onto the top of several cars.  Luckily the boom only hit the front end of the vehicles.   Just as we suspected the media poured out and we were ready for them.

The first question asked was as usual, “anybody hurt?”   My reply was “I don’t know, we haven’t got him out from underneath the crane yet”, pointing to a pair of boots sticking out from underneath the crane.  Like flies on honey, the media practically ran to the crane with video rolling to tape the booted figure under the crane.  After letting them video tape for a few minutes, the officer calmly walked over to the crane, picked up his boots and put them in the trunk of his cruiser.  Enough said, lesson learned, as the video crews never pushed us again to video a scene until we were ready.

No one was hurt in the incident.