Free Trooper Down! by Marie Bartlett Page A

skills they learned, anxious to begin their careers as state troopers.
    For some, it will be years before the fever wears off. Others will quickly come to see the highway patrol as just another job. A few will rise through the ranks to lead and teach their fellow officers. And a handful will never make it past the first few stages in a trooper’s career.
    But they are ready, as one cadet said, “for whatever happens on the road.”

3. War Stories
    â€œThe scary times are when you chase someone for twenty minutes and you get to their house and everybody comes out cussin’ and raisin’ Cain and wanting to kill you. You’ve walked right into a hornet’s nest. There were times when I wouldn’t have given a plug nickel for my life.” —
A thirteen-year veteran of the patrol, now disabled from injuries sustained on the job
    It doesn’t take long for rookies to learn that patrolling the highways can be hazardous to their health. Working late at night, sometimes alone in counties where help is an hour or more away, a state patrolman is an easy target for people running from the law, drunken crazies, and others who use the road to escape their problems or vent their anger. As a result, nearly every officer is confronted by danger at one time or another during his years on patrol.
    Few troopers welcome a fight, even when the odds are in their favor. But fewer still back off when a physical confrontation occurs. Most are prepared to take whatever action is necessary for self-protection.
    The following true experiences are told in troopers’ own words. In each incident involving violence or verbal abuse, the trooper maintains he was simply doing his job and the perpetrator was— well, you be the judge:
    I was on duty in Murphy one night and a man’s wife came up to the jail. He had beat her like a drum, so she took out a warrant for assault. Out there, the highway patrol was everything. We served more warrants out of our patrol car than any other law enforcement agency because the county officers had to buy their own vehicles. A lot of times, the deputies would just ride with us. It helped us, and it helped them too.
    We set off to serve a warrant on this husband, just me and a deputy. When we got there, the guy wouldn’t come to the door.
    He wanted to be belligerent about it, calling us names and saying “Come on in and get me, chickenshit,” stuff like that
    I told him to come outside and we’d talk. Then I went back to the patrol car to call for help. A few minutes later, I walked up to the kitchen window, raised up to look in, and saw him get a gun. I hollered back and told the deputy, “Larry, he’s got a shotgun. He’s going back through the house. Watch him! He just jacked the shell in the chamber.”
    The guy was roaming from room to room—hunting us, I guess. I went back to another kitchen window, chinned up, and looked in—and there he stood with the gun pointed right between my eyes, less than ten feet away.
    I dropped down and headed back to the car, crawling on my belly. I figured he’d kill me for sure. When I got to the car, I radioed for the sheriff to come up and bring several officers. I told them to bring some tear gas too. Nine times out of ten, that stuff sets a house on fire—when it hits the curtains and carpets and all—but we kept shooting canisters into the house anyway. We filled the whole damn valley with tear gas, till we were just sitting there crying and gasping for breath. We even had to evacuate neighboring houses—and here it was three o’clock in the morning!
    Finally, he came out the back door, vomiting. He still had his weapon, but only for a minute. He was staggering around cursing, drunk. We wallowed around for a few minutes until I fell into the creek fighting with him. It was just a nasty scene.
    The guy got seven years in prison for that little trick.
    *
    I caught a bank robber one