We received an e-mail this morning advising us that a retired police officer from KPD had passed on. Jim F. was no longer on the street when I hired on but was instead working as the court officer, which is the job a senior officer was granted near the end of his tenure as a policeman. So I never really got to know him before he retired in 1981, but Denny knew him well because Jim was Denny's training officer and Denny liked and respected Jim.
At the viewing later this week there will be lots of "Jim stories", lots of reminiscing about "the old days" when you had no back up officer when you had to wade into a bar fight because the only other officer working nights with you was on the other side of town, when you smacked a drunk up side the head to get his attention and he respected you for it, when there was no such thing as a portable radio to call for assistance when you were out of your cruiser so you had to be prepared to deal with whatever the problem was on your own. There will be lots of laughter from the retired officers, the soon-to-be-retired officers and those who remember "the old days". The younger, newer officers will be there in force, because that's how folks in law enforcement are; they are there for each other. And they will raise their eyebrows and shake their heads in dismay about the way the old guys dealt with people on the street back then, because they can't comprehend what the job was like back then. And that's okay, because times have changed in law enforcement and that's good, for the most part.
What will never change is the way we stick together for each other. Happy Trails, Jim.
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