Trooper Down! Read online

  Arthur (“Artie”) Branch, a former firefighter from Lumberton, was thirty-two when he switched careers to become a state trooper.

  “I was at an age when I knew I had to make a decision. My wife told rne about six years ago she’d never be married to a highway patrolman, but we got divorced after that anyway, so I went ahead and joined.

  “I had grown up around the patrol because my father was head of communications at Troop B in Lumberton. I was always impressed by troopers’ professionalism and their sense of public service. And I thought the pay was pretty good.

  “The worst part of school were the first few days—the academic work load, the physical training, and no time to do it all. I had been out of school a long while and it was a strain to keep up with the ones who had a degree or prior law enforcement experience. Like everyone else, I thought about quitting.

  “School is rough, there’s no doubt about it. Some cadets said if their wives had told them on weekend leave not to go back, they wouldn’t have. I experienced that too. But now I feel I’m in the best physical shape I’ve ever been in, and I’m ready to go out on the road. I know I have a lot to learn and I’ll be nervous until I get it down pat, but they’ve prepared us well. I’m ready for whatever happens.

  “I guess what I liked best were the firearms training and the pursuit driving. Putting on the uniform for the first time felt good too. You put on your ‘Smokey Bear’ hat and look at yourself in the mirror and it’s just a real proud feeling.”

  Uniforms are issued the last week of school. Each cadet receives six gray, long-sleeved shirts, three pairs of black shoes, six pairs of gray pants, a yellow raincoat, a foul-weather fur-collared jacket, an “Ike” coat (named after President Eisenhower, who made waist-length jackets popular during World War II), one summer and one winter hat, plus accessories—nameplate, tie tack, whistle chain, neckties, belt, badge, handcuffs, holster, and firearm—all at a cost to state taxpayers of more than $900 per cadet,

  Troopers are allowed a yearly clothing allowance to replace lost or damaged items, but the total must not exceed $300. Each officer is responsible for keeping his uniforms clean and sharply pressed.

  Through the years, the patrol has learned that troopers who exhibit a good appearance help bolster the organization’s professional image. That’s why even in summer, long-sleeved uniform shirts are required. Shoes, belts, and holsters have a “clarino” finish designed to resist scuffs and keep a permanent shine. Pants are made of a wrinkle-resistant wool and polyester blend, while the campaign-style hats lend an air of authority.

  Though cadets enjoy donning the uniform for the first time, it is getting the patrol car that really enthralls them.

  Two days before graduation, the Seventy-Ninth Basic School cadets are scheduled to ride a bus across town and drive their patrol cars back to school. But it has snowed the night before—an almost unheard-of sixteen inches in Raleigh—and instead, they are shoveling snow and ice from the walkways outside the training center.

  As a measure of how far the class has come in terms of discipline, no one complains about the delay. By late afternoon, Major Robert Barefoot, administrative director of training, and his staff decide the patrol vehicles can be brought to the school after all.

  They arrive in procession, a steady stream of black-and-silver cruisers, Ford Crown Victorias marked “State Trooper,” each sporting the distinctive blue-and-gold state seal on the front door panels. Behind the wheels of the forty-two cars are forty-two excited cadets, some of whom can hardly contain their enthusiasm.

  “This is a good ole car. I’m tickled to death with it,” says one soon-to-be rookie. “Can I sleep in it tonight, Sarge?”

  Despite the inclement weather, the cadets vigorously wash and wax the vehicles, fiddle with the radios, the blue lights and sirens, and check and double-check to see that everything’s in working order.

  In the early days, North Carolina troopers rode motorcycles. An officer who stopped someone had to find a safe place to park, drive the arrested person to jail in the individual’s car, then hitch a ride back to his machine. At wreck investigations, all he could do to help victims was locate a phone to call an ambulance, or flag down a motorist and ask him to take the injured party to the hospital.

  By 1939, the patrol realized motorcycles were impractical and dangerous (several troopers were killed in motorcycle accidents while on duty) and replaced them with Ford sedans. One-way radio receivers were installed so a patrolman could receive messages from the dispatcher. But he had no way to acknowledge, nor could he communicate with other troopers.

  Things improved only slightly during the next decade.

  “My first patrol car was a ’49 Ford with 95,000 miles on it,” recalls a retired trooper. “It was in pretty good mechanical shape, but the inside was raw. It had a small heater in it on the passenger side, so if you rode with another officer, you took turns getting your feet warmed. We had no blue lights so we bought these big spotlights and flashed them out the window at people we wanted to stop. There was no extra equipment available—nothing to fix a flat, just a tow chain, a shovel, and an axe. If there was anything else we needed, we had to pay for it ourselves.”

  Today, North Carolina patrol cars each have an electronic siren and public address system. Speakers are mounted under the blue light. Standard equipment includes shotgun and ammunition, axe, riot baton, booster cables, broom, clipboard, crowbar, dosimeter for measuring radioactivity during nuclear spills, first-aid kit, flares, fire extinguisher, gas mask, rain leggings, steel tape, tire chains, tire-tread depth indicator, shovel, wrench, and other assorted tools.

  All of North Carolina’s patrol cars feature high performance 351 engines with a speed capacity of 110 mph. Supporting the electrical equipment is a 100-amp alternator, which runs the siren, radio, and blue light, and allows the vehicle to idle safely for up to two hours. The cars are mounted with standard radial tires and are serviced every 6,000 miles. After 70,000 miles, they are turned in and sold to other state or local agencies.

  The patrol also has a fleet of unmarked cars, including Ford Mustangs and modified LTD Crown Victorias.

  But the Seventy-Ninth School cadets are more than happy with their cars marked “Trooper.” Each has already been assigned a permanent call number and a duty station. Within forty-eight hours, they’ll shed their cadet status and be sworn in as North Carolina highway patrolmen.

  It is a goal they have worked towards for five months and an occasion that none of them will ever forget.

  Friday, February 21, 1987, dawns clear and bright. It is still cold, but much of the ice and snow has melted, allowing families and friends to arrive at the school safely. Some have traveled to Raleigh from the farthest reaches of the state.

  By eight-thirty that morning, people are milling around the auditorium on the training school campus, though the ceremony doesn’t begin for another hour and a half. There will be standing room only, for the occasion draws not only relatives and friends of the cadets, but the commander of the highway patrol and other high-ranking officers, as well as troopers who’ve come to meet the rookies they are assigned to train.

  “Dressing for graduation was like getting ready for a high school prom,” recalled a former cadet. “There’s a lot of primping and making sure the uniform and the shoes and hat are just right. Everything has to be perfect. You feel good, and there’s a lot of pride involved. But you’re also a little sad at leaving your friends. These are people you’ve lived with and shared a bond with for the past few months.”

  Shortly before 10:00 A.M. the cadets file in and take a seat, a solemn, polished-looking group of young rookies, far different in appearance from when they arrived on campus five months earlier.

  “Your job won’t be easy,” says Joseph Dean, Secretary of North Carolina Crime Control and Public Safety, addressing the forty-two graduates.

  “You’ll get cold, wet, tired, and frustrated. There will be drunks who’ll want to fight you and people
who want to give you lip. But your responsibility is to justice. Be just in the way you enforce the law. Do it fairly, to rich and poor alike, black and white, residents and nonresidents. Testify fairly in court. I’ve been a lawyer and the best testimony I’ve seen comes from highway patrolmen. Their cases are the hardest to break, their reports the most concise and factual. That’s not an accident. It reflects the training you’ve gotten here. Do justice to it, to your fellow officers, and to the highway patrol. It is the family to which you now belong.”

  Other speakers follow, whereupon the cadets stand for the oath of office. By noon, the ceremony and a welcoming tea sponsored by patrol auxiliary wives are over. The cadets, now official members of the North Carolina Highway Patrol, are free to leave. All are scheduled to report for duty within a week at various stations throughout the state.

  Like hundreds of graduates before them, they are eager, earnest, intent on applying the 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

  “The 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 time and I wasn’t even working in the area. I had transferred reports from one county to another and heard about this bank robbery and kidnapping on the scanner. They gave out a description of the vehicle—a light blue Chevrolet Chevette.

  This boy had robbed the bank, come out, jumped in his car, and instead of putting it in forward, threw it in reverse and went down an embankment. Then he got stuck. Just as one of the bank tellers was about to go to work, he came up behind her, put a gun in her ear, took her hostage, and got her car. He put her out down the road, but when we picked her up, she was so shook up she couldn’t even give us a description of her own vehicle. She said it was light blue, and it turned out to be black.

  I met a line of cars and saw a black Chevy Chevette. Just on a hunch, I decided to turn around and follow it. I had already made the remark back at the station that I was gonna go out and catch this bank robber. The first sergeant had laughed and said, “If you do, be sure to give me a call.”

  After I turned around, the Chevette cut down a tobacco path and I thought, “No, it can’t be him.” But I went down there anyway—it was just a little narrow, dead-end road where two cars couldn’t pass. I had to get off on the shoulder. He had gone on up the road and turned around. In a minute he drove right by me, threw up his hand, and waved. I threw up my hand and waved.

  When he got past me, I saw the tag and knew it was him. So I wheeled around and turned the blue light on. He jumped out of the car and started to run. Then he stopped, put his hands up, and said, “I dun figured you got me. The money’s on the seat.”

  I never even had time to call in and tell anyone where I was. After I got him handcuffed, I looked in the car and there was money all over the place. I got him back to my vehicle and thought, “Now, before I call in, I’ve got to calm down. If I get on the radio right now, they’ll think something bad has happened.” I just waited a couple of minutes until I settled down. When I called in, I didn’t say anything except, “Is the first sergeant still in the office?”

  They said yes and I said, “Well, tell him that bank robber he was talking about—I’ve got him right here.”

  In a few minutes I heard a siren and here comes the sergeant just as fast as he could come. I called the Jacksonville police department and told them to bring a crime lab down. They interrogated the boy and told me to take him back up to the magistrate’s office in Jacksonville.

  This kid was only about nineteen, black, his father in the Marine Corps, a career marine. We still don’t know why the boy robbed the bank.

  On the way to the magistrate’s office, he said, “Would you do me a favor? Before I go to jail, I want to eat one last good meal.”

  I said, “Okay, what have you got in mind?”

  “Pull in here to McDonald’s and I’ll buy us all a hamburger.” (We had a detective with us.)

  “With your money or the bank’s money?”

  “My money!” he said. So we pulled into McDonald’s and bought three Big Macs and Cokes, and ate them on the way to the Jacksonville jail.

  *

  Loggers and marines can be especially hard to handle. They’ve usually got arms on them the size of your leg. It took a while to learn about the marines. They’d come out of Camp Lejeune four or five at a time, all drunk. Most of the time they wouldn’t say a word. But once in a while you�
��d get a mouthy one. So what you did was just grab the biggest, mouthiest one first. And when the others saw him go down they didn’t say anything.

  Authority—that’s what they understood best.

  *

  I was driving an unmarked car one night and met a gray Volkswagen with a male driver. His vehicle had no headlights, so I turned around to stop him and he took off. I chased him in my patrol car to an apartment complex where he stopped and got out and ran.

  As I jumped out of the car, I undid my seat belt, not realizing I had accidentally unsnapped my holster at the same time. I started running after the guy, but fell, and my gun slipped out onto the ground. Even then I still didn’t realize what had happened.

  This guy was big—six feet six, 240 pounds. As he ran into one of the apartments I tackled him. We both went through the screen door, then a wooden door, just busted them all to pieces. He started cussing me and telling me I wasn’t gonna take him to jail. So it became a knock-down drag-out fight. At one point I threw him into a wall. About that time, a woman tapped me on the shoulder and said, “What the hell are you doin’ in my house?”

  I said, “Get on the phone and call for some help!” And she says, “That’s my man. You leave him alone!” Then she proceeds to tackle me. Her boyfriend, The Hulk, rises up to get me too, so I reach for my gun. But it’s not there. I had my flashlight and my blackjack and I used them on both him and her. I had to literally knock the woman out to get her to leave me alone. I got the man handcuffed and arrested and was trying to get him out the door when he starts going crazy again. He was grabbing hold of the carpet and everything else he could get his hands on to keep me from moving him. Then I looked up and there stood my sergeant in the doorway.