Shades of Grey

One-Two-Three Hut!

One-Two-Three Hut!

One-Two-Three Hut!

This is what I heard as I marched to the Louisiana State Police Denn Hall of the police academy. I was in my first week of the academy as an official Louisiana State Policeman. As I marched I immediately heard the comidante say  “stop marching trooper” he looked at me and said, “what is your future uniform colors”, I said “dark blue pants and light blue shirt” however I also had on light green socks. This pretty well sums up how my state police career went. He told me that I had to run five times around the compound, which came to about five miles. After running a couple laps he told me I could stop.

My entire police career was a whole three and a half years and also a beginning period of high expectations and truthfulness and ended with me in a total state of disillusionment. My beginning police career started, I guess, when I was in college in Monroe, Louisiana. I was a member of the first class that graduated at Northeast College with a degree in Law Enforcement in 1973.

No other school had this degree but Northeast at this time. The intention of this college program for police officers was an attempt to professionalize police officers.

After graduating college, I had a choice of going into the Louisiana State Police in Monroe, Louisiana or to become a lieutenant helicopter pilot in San Antonio, Texas. This was my first bad choice in life. In hindsight, I should have joined the military. However, I did join the Louisiana State Police and going through immediate academy in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. What I mean by immediate is that they had to shorten the academy length to graduate and they needed troopers on the road, as they were short handed. They had not hired any new troopers in a while.

After going through State Police Academy with no problem, I committed an infraction, which I did not report. I was coming home from the academy for the weekend and I had all my uniforms in the back seat to get cleaned. While driving home in my personal car another car passed me at a high rate of speed crossing a double yellow line, nearly causing an accident. After seeing this I grabbed a shirt from the back seat and put it on. I proceeded to chase the car with my flashers on. I finally stopped him ten miles down the road close to a town named Bunkie, Louisiana. The driver pulled over and I got out my car and approached their car and asked them what were they trying to do, kill someone? They immediately smiled at me and showed me their badges, as they were both city policemen from Shreveport, Louisiana. Not knowing what to do I told them that they, of all people, should know how to drive. They politely said that they were sorry but I could not write them a ticket because they were fellow police officers. Later on in my police career, I learned what they meant. What it meant was police officers or their immediate family was not to get a ticket from another police officer. This also meant tickets for speeding only. After police academy, I was sent to Troop F in Monroe, Louisiana. This incident taught me the meaning of the blue code. Whenever you see a fellow officer do something that was not a life or death situation it was “see no evil, say no evil”.