Trooper Down! Read online

  “When I was growing up, no one in their right mind would jump on a highway patrolman, because they knew he’d be a good-sized fella,” said a trooper who bemoans the change in standards. “Now it happens all the time. Size may not have anything to do with a person’s ability to do the job, but I think it does have something to do with the patrol’s image.”

  Others disagree and say the concept of the “big, bad patrolman” was due for a change.

  “It used to be that the meanest kid on the block got the job because he could physically handle any situation,” said a ten-year trooper. “So here you had these big, robust men who didn’t have a lot of education, but who could box your jaws in a heartbeat if you stepped out of line.

  “Today, we realize that we need more education and training so we can learn how to deal with people intelligently and avoid confrontations.”

  In an interesting aside, police studies have shown that short and medium-height officers demonstrate a greater propensity for aggression than their taller counterparts, refuting the argument that tall officers make better cops. The studies went on to conclude that despite being more aggressive, smaller officers have learned to hold such tendencies within acceptable bounds so that they don’t reflect negatively on themselves, their department, or the law enforcement profession.

  Men and women under five feet six were not the only ones barred from the highway patrol before the sixties. In 1967, there was only one black man on the force, Charles H. Johnson. Faced with dismissal for growing an unauthorized mustache, Johnson filed state and federal class action suits against the patrol in 1975 on behalf of all blacks, contending that in his seven years on the patrol he had been limited to the rank of trooper and denied promotion “in ways which discriminated against me solely on the basis of race and color.” He also stated that a mustache was “symbolic to black tradition and culture,” and that the highway patrol’s policy on hair should be amended because it was unconstitutional.

  As a result of the lawsuit, North Carolina was placed under a five-year federal consent decree in 1980, which stipulated that the patrol must reach a goal of 50 percent black applicants and 25 percent women in each training-school session. As of 1987, the goal had not been met, and the highway patrol remained under the federal order.

  After the initial screening process, all applicants are scored in three categories. The psychological test counts one-third, as do reading-comprehension and physical-skill tests. The totals are combined to form a “T” score for each applicant. Starting with the highest “T” scores, the highway patrol administration proceeds down the applicant list to fill vacancies, making sure that a percentage of women and blacks are included.

  But there’s still more weeding to do before the fifty to sixty individuals who finally enter cadet school are selected. At this point, about 150 applicants remain of the original 500. Each must go before a five-member review board consisting of field officers from various parts of the state.

  The panel examines each file, grills the applicant with questions pertinent to the highway patrol, and judges him or her on appearance, personality, and demeanor. At the end of the two-hour session, panel members vote “pass” or “fail” in various categories, thereby determining the candidate’s fate. About half of the 150 applicants do not pass this part of the screening procedure.

  The remaining seventy-five are given a thorough physical exam. Since most applicants are young and relatively healthy, few are turned down for medical reasons. When it happens, it can prove devastating to the applicant.

  “Some people are so determined to get on the highway patrol, they’ll pay their family doctor to provide them with a ‘clean exam,’” said Lieutenant Day, “only to learn the patrol has its own physician on contract.”

  Once an applicant passes the physical, he’s placed on the waiting list for school. The entire process—from the time an application is filled out until the physical is completed—takes about three months. If no vacancies occur on the patrol, it can be two years before an applicant enters training. With the exception of retirees and involuntary dismissals, few troopers quit the patrol. Employee turnover rate averages less than 5 percent a year.

  Not only is it difficult to get into the North Carolina Highway Patrol, there’s a tremendous cost involved in turning each cadet into a well-trained officer. Lieutenant Day estimates that the state spends $90,000 per person, including the expense of screening each applicant, paying for five months of room and board at school, covering cadet and instructor salaries, and providing uniforms, patrol car, and equipment.

  “That’s why we tell cadets, ‘Be sure this is what you want to do. We’ve got a lot of money invested in you,’” he said.

  It is a warm Saturday afternoon in midautumn at the North Carolina Highway Patrol Training Center in Garner, five miles south of Raleigh. Outside the brick-red administration building, on 357 acres, are sixty-two adults, including three women, who are arriving for the first day of the Seventy-Ninth Basic Training School. Here they will spend the next five months; and here, through 288 hours of instruction, they’ll learn what it takes to be a North Carolina state trooper. For some, the experience will prove too difficult to endure. For those who stay, the training will provide them with strengths and challenges they have never encountered before.

  Initiation into the patrol’s paramilitary rules and regulations begins immediately.

  “Any of you people want to be troopers?” yells First Sergeant Braxton B. Oliver, basic school commandant. “Then fall in line!”

  He is tall, blonde, and lean, and wears wire-frame glasses that give him an almost boyish look. Accompanying him are four officers, a line sergeant, a first sergeant, a lieutenant, and a major.

  Squinting against the harsh sunlight, the group quickly forms three lines. Dressed in civilian clothes, hair ranging from collar-length shags to crew cuts, they are a motley bunch. One youth is wearing shorts and a bright-colored sport shirt.

  Sergeant Oliver approaches and glares at him, nose to nose.

  “Did you ever see a trooper wear shorts?” he growls.

  The cadet shakes his head.

  “Then put on some pants! Now!”

  The boy races off to change clothes.

  Another cadet, twenty minutes late, comes wheeling into the parking lot, jumps out of his car, and hurries to the line of people who are standing at attention. Despite the day’s warmth, the atmosphere is decidedly cool.

  “Where you been, boy?” Sergeant Oliver says.

  The youth mumbles an excuse and Oliver, much to the boy’s relief, moves on.

  Circling the group, closely eyeing each cadet, are the school’s instructors, four troopers assigned to mold raw recruits into professional officers during the next twenty weeks. It is these men the cadets will come to know, fear, and respect the most.

  But it is Sergeant Oliver who has their attention now. His fingers tapping the clipboard that contains the name and address of each cadet, he launches into a speech. It is one he has given numerous times before.

  “Our program isn’t easy,” he tells the group. “What it takes to get through this school is determination. And along the way you may find that you don’t really want to be a trooper. Well, that’s okay. This world has got to have something in it besides troopers. Just be honest and tell me. If you slip out of here at night like a dog—and I’ve had that happen—you’ll never get a recommendation from me for a job in any state agency. If you stay, that’s great. We need you. But we want you to be the best you can be. We’re not going to put you on the highway if you’re not prepared. I wouldn’t do that to my fellow officers.”

  Next comes a grueling physical assessment that includes push-ups, pull-ups, hand-strength tests, and endurance runs. During the assessment, one cadet faints from the heat and another, deciding that an hour of patrol school is enough, resigns. The remaining recruits are marched to a classroom across campus for orientation. At each desk are seven manuals and three loose-leaf notebo
oks, containing subjects that range from college freshman English to highway patrol policy. The cadets, seated rigidly in green plastic chairs, are not allowed to speak without permission. A few, exhausted from the physical evaluation, appear dazed, like battle-scarred soldiers who accidentally wandered into enemy camp.

  What Trooper Randy Hammonds is about to say is not meant to make them feel better. A handsome, muscular Indian in charge of physical training, he strides purposefully to the front of the room.

  “We only have one race here,” he says bluntly. “And that’s cadet. And only one color, confederate gray.

  “I’m not gonna make you do anything during your training. But I’m not gonna do anything for you, either. I didn’t send those acceptance letters to you—headquarters did. The only way you’re gonna earn my respect, and the respect of your peers, is through a four-letter word. It’s called work. If you’re not familiar with the term, you’ll soon learn it. ’Cause we’re gonna work you from five every morning till ten every night. My suggestion is that you take it one hour at a time. And you just might, by the grace of God, make it.”

  Trooper Tommy Cheek, whose finely chiseled features are now sternly set, goes over the list of do’s and don’ts.

  “I don’t want to see water, hair, shaving cream, or anything else in the dormitory sinks. Keep all towels out of sight. Dry all water spots on the hardware. Don’t use the soap that’s on display. Clothes are to be hung with shirts buttoned, sleeves across the chest. Shoes are to be polished, with laces tied. Dresser drawers are pulled out six inches for display, with all items secured by tape so that nothing rolls around.

  “And woe be unto the first one who squirrels M&Ms in the ceiling or sets his alarm for 3:00 A.M. to sneak across campus for a Coke! If one messes up, you all pay.

  “Line sergeants will be coming on campus for in-service training and they’ll be eyeballing you,” he continues. “Their first questions are gonna be, ‘How are they doing? Who’s the sharpest? How many have you lost?’

  “You are reflecting us, so you better not let us down.

  “Crosby!” Cheek suddenly barks at a sleepy-looking cadet. “If you don’t open those eyes, I’m gonna come back there and open them for you! If you think I’m standing up here just to hear myself talk, you’re mistaken! And get your arm off that prop. There won’t be any propping in here!”

  “We’re gonna get you like you’re supposed to be,” Sergeant Oliver cuts in, “and that means no squared-off, jitterbugged haircuts, no beards, no mustaches. Sideburns will be rectangular in shape, with hair no longer than the top of your collar. That goes for you women too.

  “If you forgot something at home, that’s your problem. We told you what to bring. Phones are off limits till Monday. You’ll be too busy for that. We’ll have daily devotions in class. If anyone is opposed to that, you can sit quietly on the steps at the back door. Sinus headaches, sore muscles, ingrown toenails, stomach cramps are not gonna get you out of physical training. And God help you if we think you’re trying to sandbag us. You’ll get a rude awakening when your butt lands on the floor. We’ll assist you if you have problems. But don’t try to pull any wool over our eyes.”

  Later that day, a cadet is caught smoking and has to run two miles while puffing on a cigarette. Another is found sitting down when he should have been cleaning his room. For punishment, the entire squadron of cadets is sent outside to perform a hundred push-ups.

  By the next morning, two cadets have resigned.

  “Sergeant,” one says mournfully, “I woke up this morning and couldn’t see no mountains. I’ve got to go home.”

  Before the week is out, others will follow. The average dropout rate is five to ten cadets during the first two weeks.

  “There’s a tremendous adjustment required in the beginning,” explained Sergeant Oliver, whose harsh manner is artificially induced. Away from his charges, he is a pleasant, easy-going man.

  “For some of these young people, cadet school is almost like culture shock. They’ve never been exposed to anything like it. About the second week, they become acclimated and the rules and regulations begin to make sense to them. For instance, when they undergo physical training each morning, I make them look at the instructor because when they’re out on patrol and stop a car, they better not be looking at the ground. They need to focus on the person who’s talking to them and stay alert to their surroundings.

  “They begin to realize the importance of the physical workouts when we explain there will be people depending on them to provide help. Or that they may be on their own, with no help except their own ability to handle the problem.

  “We teach punctuality because if they’re assigned to a traffic block on patrol and they don’t show up on time, there’ll be a major problem.

  “But the main thing we stress is self-discipline. Once a trooper’s training is complete, there’s no supervisor with him on the road, so he must be self-motivated enough to do the job alone.”

  Initiative and “pluck”—elusive qualities that are more inbred than learned—are what the patrol looks for in a good trooper, says Oliver.

  “When you’re tired and disgusted and have no more breath in you, are you the type that will get back up?” said a former instructor at the school. “Those are the kind of people we want. Because if I call you to the scene of an accident to assist me, I’ve got to know I can count on you to back me up.”

  The hours from eight to five each day at school are filled with classes, introducing students to patrol history (the organization was established in 1929 with ten members), structure (the patrol falls under the state’s Crime Control and Public Safety Department), and geographic makeup (there are eight troops statewide, divided into forty-two districts throughout one hundred counties). Other courses include law enforcement philosophy, English, the “10”-signal numeric communication codes used by the patrol, laws of arrest, search and seizure, and constitutional basics.

  Juvenile laws, drug enforcement, crisis management, techniques of traffic enforcement, transportation of hazardous materials, criminal investigations, use and care of firearms, pursuit driving, accident investigations, motor vehicle laws, civil disorders, self-defense techniques, courtroom practice, and a tour of the highway patrol headquarters comprise the last half of the course.

  Physical training continues daily, along with periodic white-glove inspections.

  About halfway through the twenty-week course, says Sergeant Oliver, group psychology takes over and the individual cadets begin to think, feel, and act as a single unit.

  “When it happens, you can see it. On the morning runs, they’ll all end up together, patting each other on the back, proud of what they’ve accomplished. They are working together as a team, so that when someone slips up, the others will step in as a group and tell him to shape up. It’s peer pressure and peer support, and it’s more effective than anything I can do or say.”

  W. F. (“Butch”) Whitley, Jr., twenty-eight, has a degree in business administration. He was a purchasing manager for a distribution company when he decided to join the highway patrol.

  “My father was a fire chief, so I was brought up around law enforcement,” he said. “I got tired of being a paper shuffler and wanted to do something where I could help people and be my own boss. I chose the highway patrol because they were considered the ‘elite’ in my area and I had a lot of respect for the organization.

  “I thought I had a little advantage when I first entered school, because my best friend graduated two years ago and he told me what to expect. But it was nothing like that. You try to prepare yourself, but it’s something you have to experience to understand. The biggest surprise was the environment—having someone standing over you all the time. You knew they wouldn’t abuse you physically, but there’s a mental pressure to ‘make it.’ At the same time, I looked forward to seeing if I could get through, seeing what I was made of.

  “At first, everyone was extremely intimidated by the instructors. L
ater, the intimidation didn’t ease up, but the attitude on our part turned to respect as we began to see that the instructors were trying to help us—not only as people but as law enforcement officers. I have a great deal of respect for them now. They had to suffer through this the same as we did—leaving their families behind in order to be here, getting up each morning before we did, working long after we went to bed.

  “In the beginning, everyone helps everyone else. The first week, someone was caught sitting on a desk top and we were all called out. We had to run laps and everybody wondered why we had to pay for one person’s mistake. Then we realized that not all of us are good at everything and we’d have to learn to pull together as a team. It helped us develop a sense of camaraderie. I know that no matter where I am in the state, I can count on another trooper to come by and look out for my family or whatever needs to be done. There’s a lot of pride in ‘looking after our own.’

  “Some weeks were boring, with all the classwork. But I enjoyed the defensive tactics. Boxing was no fun at all. But this is where the group really began to jell. You’re standing toe-to-toe with your roommate or friend and you have to fight him, physically hurt him. It makes you closer to that person. When it was over, there were hugs and tears.

  “What I disliked most was getting up at 5:00 A.M. and starting the day all over again. That’s when you hear the moans and groans.

  “If we had a theme through school, I guess it was to carry the same discipline we’ve learned onto the road. We have a responsibility to live up to certain standards so we don’t tarnish the image of the patrol. I think it’s that kind of integrity that makes a good trooper. Being fair to people, doing what’s right. I like to think that’s the kind of trooper I’ll be. I get along well with people and try to be understanding. I’m not hard-nosed, but I have enough self-confidence to know I can handle myself if someone turns on me. The main thing I worry about is remembering the basic skills I’ve learned and not slipping up, making stupid mistakes.”