Back in the day when I was getting arrested about every other week, my favorite Barrington police officer Sgt. Larry Benson suggested that I had upset some very influential people in town. It was he who was tasked with arresting me for the third time out of the now defuct Touche's Bar & Restuarant. And he did it all by himself (the first time, there were two plain-clothes officers at the bar with me, and a phone call came to one of the waitresses advising her that there were three squad cars outside and to tell me about this). The bar manager asked me what she could do. I deliberately took off my rings and things, my belt, my shoe laces, lighter and pocket knife and asked if she could hold them until my return, which in fact did come to pass.Police raise minimum age to 25 for new recruits
Department will give preference to military veterans
But on this night with Sgt. Benson, he took the mission for himself. He even asked if there was anything I wanted. "Would it be possible to cuff me in front, please?" And he obliged.
Riding over to the police station, just two blocks away (do you think after the second arrest / detention I might have figured out there were OTHER places to drink? - slow learner; VERY slow learner), Larry went on further, "I have a few beers, I carry a gun. If my wife wanted to, she could have me committed."
Larry was a little older than I was. He had served in Vietnam, had seen combat duty, had been promoted to sergeant and bucked back to private on two occasions, as I recall it (it's my story, I'll make up my own facts, thank you very much). He had observed me enough to know that I was not going to get violent. He explained to me about the three types of drunks (cop's perspective - probably right on all counts): the lover, the sleeper and the fighter. Well, I'd suggest that we drunks, depending upon various circumstances, could fall into any one of those modalities. But that one was primary - my primary modality was lover; sleeper secondary; figher, tertiary.
WELL, YEAH, don't you think a cop should have military training? I do. And I don't want some 22 year old kid out of college who's learned all he knows from books. I want a human being, who's had some experiences, and who understands that people will react to you as you are inclined to react to them.
It's the old gold retold: Do not do unto others that which you would not have done unto yourself.
Needless to say, a cop like Larry was not long for that job, in my little town.
