Up and coming

I will admit that settling into the police beat here at the Messenger-Inquirer has been a little harder than I expected.

When I was on the health beat, if I needed an idea all I had to do was rely on my parents, who are both physicians. But I don’t have anyone in my family who’s in law enforcement. So a good deal of my time is spent wringing my brain like a wet sponge, going for every last drop of a story idea.

Fortunately, the past two weeks have yielded not so many breaking news crime events and quite a few good stories (I hope) about efforts of local law enforcement and emergency agencies.

In the coming weeks, I hope to provide many more stories along those lines.

One of the biggest topics I hope to cover is the volunteer firefighters in Daviess County. In many ways, these heroes are truly unsung. I ran into a crew of them at the Daviess County Lions Fair and as they will tell you, only a crazy person runs into a building for free.

They give up their time for nothing when the tones drop and come to the rescue of citizens. If a paid firefighter is killed in the line of duty, insurance is there to help, said one volunteer, but if a volunteer is killed, there’s no safety net to take care of their family.

I hope to give readers a look at the good our volunteer firefighters do and a better understanding of the hardships they face. They also have limitations, and those will be a part of the story too.

In the next couple weeks, I also hope to bring stories about Kentucky State Police marijuana eradication and a special, live-fire exercise I’ll be riding with the Daviess County Sheriff’s Department on at the Wendell Ford National Guard Training Center in Greenville. I’ll keep you posted and hopefully will come back with as many holes in my head as I went there with.

If you have any story ideas, you are more than welcome to send them my way. Drop me a call at 691-7302 or dshafa(at)messenger(hyphen)inquirer(dot)com. The funny spelling on that address is to confuse the relentless spam-bots that comb the Intergoogle looking for people to bombard.

In the meantime, be safe, be happy.

Part 2: Run and gun

Author’s note: This is part two of a first-hand recounting of some recent experiences while working for the Messenger-Inquirer. Also, this post is a bit longer than the last. Apologies. I had a lot to tell.

It was unmercifully hot, but I didn’t care. I had nine pounds of American-made steel and fury in my hands.

About the time Lt. Ottaway Kirby, a firearms instructor and deputy with the Daviess County Sheriff’s Department, handed me the M-16A1 rifle, quite a bit went careening through my head in deranged cinema style.

I’ve always been particularly proud of my heritage (my father is Iranian and my mother is Puerto Rican). In Kentucky, people can be awfully sensitive about it, usually in a rush to not offend me by making any comments about terrorists.

And I think that’s good. I enjoy making jokes about my heritage. You try telling a room full of National Guardsmen that you’re really a fat guy and that it’s not a dynamite jacket. The joke was a hit and it broke the tension that most people get being around the media.

So when Kirby handed me this rifle, (three settings, safe, single-shot and RAMBO), I considered the irony. A uniformed, badge-carrying officer of the law was encouraging me to fire a fully-automatic weapon.

I didn’t need any encouragement. I flipped it to full auto and started blazing.

Rambo was full of nonsense, by the way. I doubt even Arnold Schwarzenegger in his muscle-bound prime could have held that rifle steady with the trigger held down.

***

The Owensboro Police Department firing range out at the old city landfill isn’t much to look at. It’s just a series of target with a tall hill to function as a backstop. The range has been there for over 10 years, and so there’s probably enough lead in those hillsides to make Chinese manufacturing companies drool with anticipation.

It’s also wide open and totally exposed to the sun. In March or October, it’s probably pretty comfortable. In July, it’s nearly intolerable.

I was there purely by choice. Thoroughly embarrassed by my pistol-shooting skills as recounted here, I had begged asked Lt. Kirby to show me what I was doing wrong. I’ve known Kirby for about a year now, long enough to know him to be an excellent lawman and a kind gentleman to boot. That’s why I asked him to teach me.

Most deputies on the sheriff’s department use Glock .40-caliber pistols. Kirby told me as soon as he retired, he looks forward to giving his pistol to a brand new deputy in need of his own pistol and short on money. If there isn’t one to be found, he plans on making it an anchor for a fishing boat. Kirby likes his guns pretty, and the Glock hit every last rock falling down the Mt. Everest of ugly.

But it’s dependable. Sturdy. And when properly sighted in… let’s just say NOBODY wants to be on the wrong end of it, even if the person holding it has shaky hands and bad eyesight. Keep that bit in mind. We’ll come back to it later.

***

Two in the body. One in the head.

Always leaves the target dead, I hummed to myself. Kirby didn’t say it, but I’d heard it said before.

It’s not Hollywood. If your target is still a threat, keep shooting at him. Don’t shoot for his hand. Shoot for the center of his body, the biggest part of the target. This is a deadly game of odds.

David “Oz” Osborne, a retired sheriff’s deputy turned Daviess County Clerk, once told me that for the first five to 10 seconds, the odds show an officer is at a disadvantage when things go bad, because an officer’s role at that point is entirely reactionary. If they survive that five to 10 seconds, the odds shift in their favor because of their training. I took that as gospel. In 1979, Osborne was shot four times by a man he was serving a restraining order to. The man then took Osborne’s service pistol and put it to Osborne’s head.

Click.

When the gun jammed and wouldn’t fire, the man clubbed Osborne in the head with it several times, giving Osborne a skull fracture. But Osborne said that his training told him to not give up. Even after the man left, Osborne kept trying to stay alive. His hat, which had a bullet hole in it from a near-miss, was all he had at hand and he tossed it toward the road. An elderly couple driving by saw the hat.

Osborne lived through the first 10 seconds. He kept fighting, because his training told him that shot does not mean dead. He’s still with us today, telling that story that will give me chills no matter how many times I hear it.

That little story seems like a digression. It’s not. Officers of the law are creatures of experience. If they don’t have the experience themselves, they’ll gladly learn it from someone else. And so they train to deal with the target until the danger is gone.

Two in the body. One in the head. If your target is wearing body armor, the head shot is the insurance policy. It’s not pleasant, but it’s reality, because there are plenty of people out there who would be pleased as punch to end the life of an officer of the law.

***

Eight feet away from the target, and holding Kirby’s Glock, I extended an arm. We had four second to draw, aim and fire all three shots.

“FIRE!” I drew, aimed and fired. I hit the target in the body, but my head shot was off. Kirby noted this and moved in to watch my hand for the next one.

Again, two in the body okay. My head shot this time parted the target’s hair straight down the middle.

“Just use the pad of your finger,” Kirby said, gesturing to the flat space between fingertip and first knuckle.

This time I got the head shot. Kirby took this as a sign I was ready for bigger and better things.

Once a year, sheriff’s deputies requalify on a pistol course. They also use this as an opportunity to fire their old duty ammunition and receive fresh rounds. Remington Golden Saber hollow-point rounds. When fired, they’re smaller than the diameter of a dime. When they go through something, they become almost the diameter of a nickel.

The course had six targets, which were taken from right to left. Firing spots are marked with an X in the diagram.

The first two targets are fired on from behind a single barrel, two shots to each target, near target first.

The second obstacle is a small block of wood on the ground and you’re supposed to lie flat on the ground on your belly (they call this the “prone” position) and fire two into the third target.

The third position is a point blank firing at about eight feet. Two more shots.

The final obstacle is two barrels stacked on each other like a barricade. Fire two rounds around the right of the barricade to the right of the two targets and two more to the left target around the left off the barricade.

Reload. Do it in reverse. And do it all in three minutes.

Kirby will tell you it’s actually too much time and they’re going to revise it downward. I did it in 1 minute, 45 seconds.

Then it was time for truth. If I was terrible, I knew I could live with it. Considering my performance in the shooter training at the school, it wouldn’t have been a news flash.

Kirby found a round on the paper and but off target on the first and second targets. The rest he found were all “in the blue,” meaning I hit the bad guy.

I passed with a 90 percent target hit rate.

Not content to let me be pleased with myself, Kirby had me run it again, except this time doing everything one-handed. When I raised the pistol to start, my hand was shaking so badly from the adrenaline from the first run I didn’t think I’d hit the target. But I did. That’s how solid the Glock’s sighting is. I lined it up and knocked them down. I missed four shots one-handed, and those all came around the reload.

All told, I was with them for three hours in the sun. I walked away with more than just an improvement on my tan.

But the word from on high is that the sheriff’s department has one last training event for me to go through with them, and this one will be in a building made entirely of ballistic steel at a National Guard Training Center. And unlike the first one, with those nasty little marking bullets, this one is live fire.

To be continued…

Part 1: Like Hunter S. Thompson, but without the drugs

Author’s note: This is not fiction. This is first-hand recounting.

It’s definitely not the first time in this job where I’ve wondered if what I was doing was a good idea.

The pistol didn’t seem to fit in my hand properly. And I knew I wasn’t really that good with it anyway. Next to me, my hostage fidgeted. We could hear the officers searching the other rooms and it would only be a matter of time before they got to this one. And then… well, I knew what was going to happen.

My heart seemed about two sizes too large, thumping against my windpipe and demanding to be let out. I adjusted my hand on the pistol and made sure I had a round in the chamber. They were getting closer.

A shadow crossed in front of the classroom door, but I couldn’t see the officers outside. They would pause and then three would enter the room, spreading out so that I would have to swing back and forth for my shot.

One, two officers, both with pistols charged in, shouting at me, demanding that I drop my pistol RIGHT NOW.

Then in came the third officer. He was carrying an assault rifle that would spit its few dozen rounds at me before I had a chance to spit. And I recognized him by what he was wearing. Deputy Jared Spurrier. Out for revenge for that little zinger of a comment I’d gotten him with before this all started. Game over, man. Game over.

I decided it was time to go out with a bang and at that moment, I felt kind of bad Beth Barnes, one of my journalism professors, wasn’t there to see it… She’d always reckoned the day would come that I got arrested in the line of journalism. I wondered what she would have said to seeing me being shot for the same reason.

Pop. Pop. My pistol barked two shots at the first officer and then was drowned out in the hail of gunfire that the officers returned upon me.

I felt five or so shots hit me and fell to the floor.

It was a death Cecille B. Demille would have been proud of.

When the instructor strapped the padded vest on me, he reminded me that your average bad guy starts falling down after he gets shot a couple times. I was too keyed up to remember this. I was also too keyed up to feel most of the shots that hit me. After I felt those first five or so, I remembered that I should be dead, and so I fell down.

The officers picked me up and counted the marks on my vest. And my arm. And my helmet, pink blotches left by those evil little training rounds that would leave bruises the size of half-dollars wherever they hit unprotected skin.

They shot me 35 times.

Five shots hit my left arm and one hit my side through a gap in my vest. Later that night I would discover blood on my shirt from where those rounds broke skin.

Every cop in the room was grinning, except the instructor, who was the only one I actually hit while shooting. It’s not every day that a cop gets to shoot a reporter.

Barely a half hour before, I was one of the good guys. The instructor gave me a 10-minute crash course in how officers conduct a room by room search in a hazardous building and then said, “Go. Do.”

And of course, when we got to the room where the bad guy had to be (all the other rooms had been empty), they sent me in first.

I did everything right. Well, almost everything.

I charged in, cleared the door and moved left, making myself a moving target. I wasn’t wearing my glasses because the helmet made them fog. I could see a bad guy. And I could see him pointing a gun at me.

I forgot I was the police. I forgot almost everything.

My blood roared in my ears like the ocean in the shell and I raised my pistol and fired. I was 15 feet away and fired all 10 rounds in three seconds flat.

The other officers with me fired also and the suspect fell down. I secured his weapon and mimed handcuffing him. He landed two shots on me, both non-fatal and in the vest. The hostage was safe. Then we examined the marks on the “bad guy.” Then we investigated the marks on the wall behind where he’d been standing. It became rapidly clear to the amusement of all, except me that I had missed the bad guy every time. EVERY TIME.

The instructor patted me on the shoulder and commended me, especially for my movements as one of the good guys. Despite my poor shooting, I hadn’t done all that bad. I tried to tell myself that I did okay over and over, and that it was just practice, nothing about it real.

My hands still shook for the next 20 minutes.

As the instructor led us out, I realized the truth. And I told him. I could never do the job they do. A scant 30 minutes of this and I was mentally drained.

I thanked the officers for what I had learned and told Spurrier that I would never tease him in front of other officers again, lest the bullets be real next time.

That was almost a month ago. The bruises still haven’t fully healed.

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat.

To be continued…

Editor’s note: Hunter S. Thompson is noted as the father of “gonzo” journalism, a style in which the writer himself, normally never injected into the story, tells the events from their own perspective. These pieces are meant to complement the more traditional stories that have appeared in the Messenger-Inquirer.

Real men cry if tear gas is involved

I walked in the opening in the tarp that covered the front of a shed behind the Daviess County Detention Center and willed myself to stay cool.

This isn’t so bad, I thought to myself. I can handle this.

That lasted all of three seconds. Then it became a constant stream of mentally shouting OW! and blinking rapidly. My right eye fully refused to stay open and my left eye stopped at barely cracked, granting me partial but teary-eyed and blurry vision. The gas also made my face burn and sting because it was getting into my pores because the humidity had made me sweat.

CS tear gas. Made to confound riots, subdue the resisting and make foolhardy journalists cry like small children.

A deputy grabbed me by the arm and led me out of the building into mercifully fresh air. A few breaths and the effects noticeably subsided. A minute later, all was normal, if a little bit snotty, one of the leftover effects of the gas.

Then came the CN gas, known better by it’s trade name of Mace.

I quickly figured out why they named it after this bludgeoning, blunt medieval weapon: Because it feels like getting hit in the face with one. The CN gas was far worse then the CS gas, aggressively burning any unprotected skin and making me cry even more than the CS gas. I cried like I had just watched Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows and any other movie that involves the death of a dog (admit it guys, you cried for those too).

Another respite in fresh air and then it was back into the tent. Sgt. Ken Ehlschide, the trainer and a team leader for the Daviess County Detention Center’s Special Response Team, had saved the best for last: OC pepper spray grenades.

This was easily the worst of the bunch. Not only did it burn skin and eyes, but it burned when breathed in where CS and CN gas only barely irritated. After 10 eternal seconds of that, I was about ready to pitch myself into the nearby Ohio River for relief.

Then came the non-lethal projectiles. I didn’t let them shoot me with the beanbag projectiles. The deputies that did let themselves be shot, taking shots to the leg through 2-3 layers of protective gear, limped like someone had just clubbed them. I did let them shoot me with a pepper-ball round from a shotgun.

That wasn’t so bad until I got some of the pepper powder on my hand without noticing. Then I wiped my hand on my forehead and the noticing came soon after. Rubbing my face only made it worse and it took a good wash from a nearby garden hose and letting my face air dry to make the burning stop. It was like that sensation when you eat hot peppers, except it was everywhere on my face but in my mouth.

As I stood amongst the deputies, watching, I reflected on what it was like to go through the training. The deputies around me, they all volunteered to be part of this outfit. They didn’t have to be here. This was their version of the extra mile. Capt. Bill Billings, also with the SRT, called the SRT deputies the elite of those working at the jail. After the training they went through today, I believed it.

I will admit honestly that I did some of the parts of their training largely because I wanted to say I had done it. My predecessors on this beat have been Tasered, pepper-sprayed and many other things. I didn’t want to be the one to say no. A part of me also looked at it from the standpoint that these men and women being trained today are out there protecting me and all without asking me for thanks. The least I could do was understand a little bit about just how hard it is to do their job.

I only got a taste of their training, all of which they never had to do in the first place. They put themselves in harm’s way to begin with, but then to add on a generous and liberal dose of pain and suffering on top of that, all in the name of making themselves better prepared for the job. It made me appreciate them a little more, and appreciate the toughness that such a job demands of them.

Nozzle-tov

It was a bright Friday afternoon when I turned out to see nine firefighter recruits for the Owensboro Fire Department getting their hands dirty.

Pikes, axes and halligan tools were brandished and driven into walls, drywall and sections of roof were torn open, faces were sweaty and dust-covered. They talked a lot quieter or not at all when I was around.

One recruit caught my eye fairly early. He had a young face, thin and lean. His probationary firefighting coat hung on him a little bit. He was doing a good job of pretending I wasn’t there.

I turned to one of the senior firefighters with me, Battalion Chief Steve Leonard. Steve has been one of my best contacts with OFD and I have gotten pretty comfortable around him, comfortable enough to joke. I almost made a joke about that fresh-faced firefighter’s age to Steve, but something told me to keep my mouth shut. My next glance at the firefighter’s helmet told me that not making such a joke would probably be a good idea, because the nameplate on that recruit’s helmet said “Leonard.”

“One of yours?” I asked Steve.

The man absolutely beamed. “My son.”

Close call.

Steve invited me to spend more time with the recruits, so I showed up on Tuesday afternoon. Another of the battalion chiefs, David McCrady, was there. He and Chris Belcher, veteran OFD firefighters for a total of more years than I’ve been alive, were getting ready to teach the recruits a few new things.

McCrady is also a firefighter I’ve gotten to know in the year or so I’ve been with the M-I, another I’ve gotten to know pretty well. He gathered the recruits, piled them all into their classroom at the training center at 14th and J.R. Miller and let me have at it.

I got a good look at their faces this time and knew this was not going to be an easy story. Leonard and another recruit firefighter, Brian Roberts, were the youngest of the group at 21. The oldest was Joey Wright, a 40-year-old former construction foreman. Wright was also the shortest, which is where he got all his teasing from. Eric Conder was the tallest, 6′5″ of “Dear God, I hope he doesn’t hit his head.”

There were so many differences in them and yet so much to bring them together.

I spent that Tuesday night and part of Wednesday night with them, learning, listening. Matt Owen said a lot of things I can’t write, as everyone had predicted, but he also said some of the most poignant things I got out  any of them. Matt Evans was quick with jokes from comedians, quick to help me feel at ease among them.

Some of them, like Steven Reddish and Roberts, didn’t do very much talking. I had to badger them for quotes at first. They opened up to me as time went on.

Part of me came into this story with a great deal of fear. I would be getting to know these firefighters and have to cover them for however long our paths would collide between my coverage and their work. I would see them in the worst of times, in danger, in sadness.

Shawn Ross, the seven-year Army veteran, put it into perspective in such a strange way for me. He was in Iraq for 13 months right at the beginning of the war. This job, he said, was comparatively safe and stress-free when compared to his last profession.

They knew this job would not be easy when they signed onto it. They knew it would not always be safe. Brad Leonard surprised me when he told me he had two children (I can’t imagine having children even at 25). I’m sure he and the other fathers of the group go home and kiss their children good night with a great deal of appreciation. Leonard said he fears the day that will come when he has to see a child in need of their help, because he will always be reminded of his own.

That kind of fear would be enough to keep me out of that job. I realized about an hour and a half after that first mass-interview at the classroom that I could never do what these nine will be doing.

Sunday’s story made me smile as I wrote it, and I was proud of it as I forwarded it on to be read by my editor. I was even prouder when I got invited to join the firefighters celebrate their upcoming completion of the training. In a week and a half, they’ll wear the badge, take the oath and join the ranks.

There are a few in the ranks of the firefighters in Owensboro and Daviess County that I would consider to be friends. Many more I consider to be good people, always deserving of my respect because they are out there, day and night, keeping you and I safe. These nine have already earned that from me, and something more.

I count myself as very fortunate to have been here with them right from the start, and even more privileged to be able to tell people something about them. A part of me will always worry for them when I hear of firefighters putting themselves in danger for others. All of me will always be grateful to them for the job that they do. When they do become firefighters, my sleep will be that much easier because I know they will be watching over our city.

As I watched them trained, one of them related to me that they call themselves “Team Nozzle-tov,” punning on the Hebrew phrase “Mazel tov” or “good fortune,” which is traditionally shouted at Jewish weddings near the end of the ceremony in hopes of a long, lasting and happy marriage. I liked it, and not just because it was a good pun. It fit.

So here’s to the OFD recruits of 2009 and to all firefighters, far and wide. May they always make it home each and every night, safe and sound. Nozzle-tov.

April Fools

A couple of local residents got a stern talking to from an Owensboro Police Department after an April Fool’s Day prank went slightly awry.

A  resident made a 911 call on Wedneday from a home in the 2000 block of Tamarack Road and said that someone was trying to break into her home.

It was later discovered that the “burglar” was two people, the woman’s brother-in-law and her sister. The OPD officer who responded to the call had a talk with them, enlightening them to the kind of things that can go wrong when police really think that something bad is going on.

Not an ordinary traffic stop

Two people arrested in Daviess County in the past 24 hours were pulled over for minor traffic infractions, but police found things a lot more interesting inside the vehicles.

The first arrest came Thursday when Aaron Whitmer, 23, of Bowling Green, was pulled over by Kentucky State Police for speeding, according to a KSP press release.

A canine unit got a sniff of the car and indicated to officers that something else might be in the car. When officers searched the vehicle, they found four-and-a-half pounds of marijuana.

Whitmer is being held at the Daviess County Detention Center and is charged with trafficking in marijuana.

The second arrest came after Owensboro Police Department officers pulled over a man who wasn’t wearing his seat belt, according to an OPD press release.

Shawn J. Reed, 36, of the 4700 block of Towne Square Court was pulled over and officers found a quantity of methamphetamine in his vehicle, the release said.

Officers got a search warrant for his apartment and found more meth, $2,000 in cash and items used to make meth in the apartment.

Reed has been charged with first-degree trafficking a controlled substance, methamphetamine, manufacturing methamphetamine and first-degree possession of a controlled substance, methamphetamine. He’s currently being held in the Daviess County Detention Center.

We still do want people to read our paper…

An Owensboro man was cited Sunday in connection with a theft. He didn’t steal something particularly expensive, but it was enough to get him some attention from the law.

Robert E. Alvey Jr., 50, of the 2000 block of East 20th Street was cited by Owensboro Police Department officers after someone spotted him take something, according to an OPD offense report. His loot? Between seven and 10 Sunday Messenger-Inquirers.

According to the offense report, Alvey said he took them from a newspaper box in front of the 8-Ball Restaurant and Bar on Triplett Street because he wanted to use them in his mother’s flower bed. He was not arrested because the value of the newspapers did not exceed the $300 limit to make it a felony.

Indiana State Police seek non-compliant sex offender in Kentucky

Indiana State Police are searching for a non-compliant sex offender who they believe may be in the Owensboro area.

Michael Wayne Henderson, 37, failed to register as a sex offender after he was released from the Indiana Department of Corrections in Sept. 2008, according to an ISP press release.

According to that release, Henderson is classified as a sexual predator because of his prior convictions and because he has violated his parole, an active warrant has been issued seeking his arrest. The release also said he is to be considered extremely dangerous.

He is described as a white male 5’08” tall and weighing approximately 150 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. He also has numerous tattoos, described as follows: A cross on his nose and chest, a spider web on his chest; a heart with wing on left bicep, a panther on his left bicep, a sun on his inner left forearm, a devil face on his left forearm, a flaming box on his upper right back, a skull with spider web on his right bicep, a bomb smiley face on his right bicep, “Time Kills” on his right bicep, forks on his right forearm, a lady on his right forearm, an eyeball on his inner right forearm and a naked angel on his right forearm.

Anyone with information to Henderson’s whereabouts is encouraged to call the Indiana Department of Corrections Fugitive Apprehension Office at 317-503-9328 or the ISP Jasper Post at or 812-482-1441. Tips may be made anonymously.

Here are other photos of identifying tattoos:

Suspected drunk driver picks wrong car to rear-end

On Wednesday night, an Owensboro man was charged with driving under the influence after he rear-ended another vehicle at the intersection of New Hartford Road and Burlew Boulevard, according to an OPD press release.

Bradley W. Hendrix, 34, of the 3100 block of Burlew Boulevard, rear-ended an Owensboro Police Department cruiser, doing major damage to both his vehicle and the cruiser.

Neither Hendrix, right, nor the officer suffered anything more than minor injuries and Hendrix was arrested by the Kentucky State Police. Hendrix was also driving without a valid license, the release said, as his was supposed to be in the possession of the state.