Chronicles of a County Deputy

“CLICK!” I heard as my service weapon ran dry. Hot sweat clouded my field of view as I crawled backwards, keeping my weapon aimed downrange. I was out of time. I had nothing left to do but say a final prayer and shout “PARTNER!” as loud as I could in hopes that my field training officer would grab me by the collar and pull me from this burning apartment building, saving me from my first gunfight and fire.

Just kidding. Contrary to popular belief, being a police officer is not always action-packed calls and heroic moments. In fact, the vast majority are not. I hate to use the word “routine” because routines get you killed in that line of work, but let’s classify these as… Realistic calls. I say this because when little kids such as myself climbed into their first police car and flipped on the lights during career day, their initial thought is that they will be chasing bad guys and throwing criminals wearing black and white striped shirts and ski masks into jail cells. Those moments do happen, but the reality is, most calls will be VIN inspections, digital harassments and theft investigations that you take hours or even days after the actual crime.

The crazy calls do exist, and for most cops those moments provide enough excitement and thrill to get them through another six months of “realistic calls,” but they are the minority. Police work was best described to me by someone wise as 90 % boredom and 10% sheer terror. The film industry will tell you otherwise, but most of law enforcement is being a good note taker, friendly and approachable with the general public, and doing the best you can on every call no matter how crazy or boring it is.

However, every one of these mundane calls has the potential to become deadly. My dad used to tell me “There will always be a gun present at every call you go to; yours. Protect it and use it wisely.”

As a Sheriff’s Deputy who was often 30-40 minutes from his nearest backup, I quickly learned that the best use of my weapon was doing everything I could to keep it in its holster. A smile and the way you treated someone went a long way in the outskirts of the county. Yes, there were times when that wasn’t enough, and that’s when you had other tools and training to fall back on, but I’m starting down a tangent that will only end with me standing firmly on a soap box. My point is, every call has potential to be dangerous, but most of the time you’re dealing with the non-glamorous. Yet sometimes, these monotonous ones can be some of the most memorable. One such instance was a protective order my sergeant and I served.

Anyone can obtain a protective order as long as they drive to the courthouse and fill out the paperwork. After the papers are complete, it goes to a judge’s desk (who often approves it without screening due to the amount of backlog in the system) before it ends up on the patrol Sergeant’s desk at the Sheriff’s Office, who then assigns, or “volun-tells” his youngest and most eager Deputy (me) to go and serve it.

There I was, seated in my patrol car, securely tucked in the back corner of a church parking lot with a bag of still-steaming Taco Bell, much like a squirrel with his prized acorn, about to unwrap the world’s best bean and cheese burrito. Suddenly, my cell phone rang with the caller ID showing “Sarge.” I hadn’t turned in any reports yet that night, and I didn’t remember anyone asking for my badge number recently, so I was genuinely curious as to what my supervisor wanted to talk about.

I finished unwrapping my meal, took a generous bite in case it would be the only one I was afforded and answered the call. “Yes, sir?” I asked while wiping a string of cheese from the corner of my mouth. “Maddox! What’s up man?” said Sergeant Verlander, his informal tone putting me at ease. “I have a PO that needs to be served. Can you take it?” he asked. “Yes, sir” I replied while wrapping my burrito up and delicately placing it back in the bag to join the tacos I would decimate later. “Cool. It’s an eviction so I’ll roll with you. I have the papers with me, I’ll meet you at the house” he advised. “Copy that. En route” I replied. I looped my dispatcher in via the instant messaging app on my laptop and drove to the address my Sergeant texted me.

Serving protective orders was one of those “realistic calls” that always had a higher potential to go south, especially when it was an eviction like this. What this meant was that our task was to knock and announce ourselves at the front door, advise this person we were serving them with a protective order and instruct them to pack a suitcase because we were kicking them out of their house, effective immediately. That, combined with the fact that protective orders were often abused as first resort attacks in rocky relationships rather than the safeguards for victims they were intended to be typically meant the people we served them on were not our biggest fans. This created a greater risk of them escalating from boring paper service calls to confrontations or even front-door ambushes. Which is why we handled these in pairs when feasible.

I pulled up to the house, about seven or eight (just kidding, but now the song's stuck in your head isn't it?), and saw Sergeant Verlander standing by his white explorer with the large gold star on it, a thick stack of papers in his hands. I walked over to him and he passed me the novel which described in painstaking detail the downfall of two strangers’ marriage. Most of it was nonconsequential to me and would be figured out later in court. What I cared about was the section with the judge’s initials, which included the box titled “Will vacate the premises immediately upon service.” There they were, two sloppy letters scribbled in so quickly that they weren’t legible and barely made it into the proper box. Sometimes I wondered if judges actually read these or just blindly initialed them to get the stack of papers off their desk until a court hearing months later would force them to hear both sides. It didn’t matter. The initials were there, which meant this man, identified as “Paul Robbins” had to find a hotel for a few weeks.

I flipped the packet open to the paper with the judge’s orders, held it in my right hand so I could keep my gun hand free, and activated my bodycam, feeling its familiar vibration against my chest as I strode towards the house. As I stood on the porch and looked through the living room window, I noticed three very large cats sitting on a couch. My Sergeant walked around the side of the house and reported two more cats. So much for my freshly lint-rolled pants, I thought.

I cleared my throat and firmly knocked on the door as I called out to the hopefully unsuspecting recipient. “Sheriff’s Office!” I shouted before knocking twice more. I heard what sounded like a man crying in the hallway before the scratch of rubber slipper soles on wood floor shuffled towards me. I looked to Sergeant Verlander and nodded to the door, notifying him of the individual on the other side. The door slowly creaked open and standing before me was what based on the driver’s license picture in the packet was Paul Robbins. He was a good six inches shorter than me, and his waistline looked about six inches wider than mine, even as I wore my duty belt. His face was red as if he’d been crying, and he inhaled a long, wet sniffle, clearing his nasal cavity before squinting behind his red wire-framed glasses and asserting “What do you want?”

I gave him my usual greeting, “Hello sir, I’m Deputy Maddox with the Sheriff’s Office, I’m here to serve you with a protective order which states this, this and this, and I need you to vacate the premises.” His dark eyebrows furrowed beneath his wispy blonde hair and he demanded “Let me see that!” as he swiped at the papers in my hand. I avoided his attempt to disarm me and handed him his copy with the slow pace of a parent withholding a cookie until their child said please. I pointed on his paper where the judge ordered him to leave and he sat down on the porch and began sobbing uncontrollably. Odd as it was, it wasn’t an uncommon reaction for people who had just been blindsided with court orders by a once-loving spouse. I had seen it several times before.

I took a step back and observed for a moment before kneeling to his level to try and build a rapport with him. “Mr. Robbins, this is only temporary” I encouraged. “Your court date is in three weeks as you can see here, and then you can tell your side of things to the judge. You just have to refrain from contacting your wife or being near this address before June ninetee--” He stood back up as fast as he sat down and barked at me. “That's fine, I can’t stand that bitch!” He pressed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his index finger and scowled at me like I had just asked him to jump off a cliff. “Who the hell is going to feed my cats?” Unsure of how to answer, I looked to my Sergeant who was failing at concealing his smirk before looking back to Paul and saying “You can take them with you. They’re not mentioned in this order.” Unaware of the great mistake I had just made, I followed Paul inside as he began calling his cats through the house.

He must’ve shouted twelve different names as cats seemed to be crawling out of every crack and crevice of the four-bedroom house. I actually had to raise my voice to be heard over the chorus of meows. “Mr. Robbins, just pack what you need for a couple of days. You can always call dispatch to request a city officer come back with you to gather more belongings.” My Sergeant stood in the hallway while I followed Paul to the master bedroom. “I am only packing what I need for a couple days!” He snapped at me while filling an entire suitcase with cat toys and cans of Friskie’s wet food. The house smelled like it had twelve cats living in it. The only scent in the bedroom that overpowered the full litter box in the corner was fresh cat food. I looked to the bed and almost gagged when on the foot of this man’s bed was a hefty scoop of wet food. It had to be three cans worth. Before I could say anything, a large calico jumped onto the bed and began eating, smearing the wet food into the soft comforter as he enjoyed his meal.

Cats continued to appear around me and rub against my pant leg, covering it in hair. My black 5.11 pants now looked like a furry designer pair of white Bottegas. I checked my watch as 30 minutes had passed and checked back in with Paul. “Mr. Robbins, try to wrap it up please. Just take what is absolutely essential.” His head quickly snapped over his left shoulder and he glared at me like Gollum sizing up Bilbo Baggins. “I already told you, I AM taking what is absolutely essential.” He held up a miniature scratching post and jabbed it at me “What if Mittens gets bored while we’re in the hotel!” I looked to my Sergeant in the hallway who was now audibly laughing, and all he could do was offer a small shrug before walking out of sight so that Paul wouldn’t hear his amusement.

Finally, Paul filled his suitcases and said he had to pack one last thing before he left. I followed him through the hallway, past his living room and into the kitchen. He shoveled fresh kitty litter into an empty backpack, turning it into a mobile outhouse for his cats, or "children" as he called them, and I heard something scratch the glass patio door in the living room behind me.

Sitting outside in the 110 degree June heat was a large Huskie, its tongue out, panting in order to keep cool. He clearly wanted to get out of the heat. “Do you want me to let your dog in?” I asked Paul. He raised an eye brow before waving his hand dismissively. “That’s my wife’s dog. He stays outside.” As he said this, I heard a splashing noise and looked to the corner of the living room where two cats were lapping water out of a rubber kiddy pool from Walmart, filled with ice and cucumbers.

I looked to Sergeant Verlander again, motioning to the kiddy pool with my head and pointing to the dog outside in the heat. He shook his head, indicating we couldn’t make this crazy cat man put his dog in the house. Paul zipped up his Jansport sandbox and told me he was ready to leave. Thank God, I thought, as I notified dispatch. “10-4, we’re just wrapping up, should clear soon” I said as I followed Paul down another hallway towards a side exit.

As we walked down the hallway, I noticed the pictures hanging on the walls. In two small frames were pictures of his two children, Brady and Sara as the protective order indicated, and above those frames were eleven much larger and ornate frames, each containing a picture of a different cat. It was clear who this man prioritized in his life, and I found myself quietly cheering on his wife for removing herself from the situation. You may have noticed I said Paul had around twelve cats, but there were only eleven frames. That is because behind the other frames was a full on painted mural, encompassing the entire wall the pictures hung on. It was a fat, white Persian cat, which sat with an unamused and humiliated look on its face, with a red birthday hat resting on its head.

Curious as anyone would be, Sergeant Verlander pointed to the mural and asked “Hey Paul, is this one of your cats?” That was a mistake. Paul scooted his slippered feet up to the mural, set his luggage down and tenderly caressed the cat’s right cheek as he wimpered “Yes. This is Himey.” My sergeant glanced at me, clearly as weirded out by both the name and this man’s behavior as I was, and dug himself a deeper hole. “Where is he? I didn’t see him here.” Paul looked at him as his bottom lip quivered and squeaked “That’s because he died. Exactly one year ago, actually. Today...Today is his birthday.” Paul got down to both knees and convulsed with the fury of a Shakespearian actor in the final act of MacBeth, looking to the mural and shouting “Why! Why! Why!” My Sergeant and I attempted to end the awkward moment by picking up Paul’s luggage and moving it outside.

After about five minutes of Paul’s theatrics, he stood up, looked back at the mural and longingly said “Oh, Himey. Daddy’s so proud of you” before scratching the painting's neck and walking outside. He loaded up his PT Cruiser, which had a sticker reading "Babies on board" above twelve pawprint stickers covering the back window and left. My Sergeant and I stood in the driveway, speechless, both still processing what we had just experienced. “So! That happened.” He blurted out. I nodded, we both went back to our cars and continued our shift. What a profession we chose.