Ep. 155: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - 32 Years and 7 Months

two years and seven months. Thirty two years and seven months is how long I've been in law enforcement. At the end of this month, I'm going to retire. It's been quite a rewarding and costly journey, and as I reached the end of my career behind the badge, I'm going to share a little bit about what that's meant. So this one's gonna be a little different than my

regular episodes. It's such a significant milestone in my life and one that I felt I should address, even if briefly, just a lessen or two that I learned along the way. But first, I'm going to tell you a story. I feel it necessary to give a warning on this episode This first story may be a little intense for the young folks that normally listen, so mom and dad, y'all

check it out first before the little ones do. It's very important to me and I take a lot of pride in hearing from y'all that listen with your kids, so I would never do anything that might upset them or you. With that said, here we go back in the mid nineties. I was working uniform patrol late one week and got a call from the dispatcher that a lady was being held against her will inside a gated compound. Now this was a rural area and there were only three of us on duty that night, and I was

the supervisor. I called the other deputies from their assigned patrol areas and we met in the small community in the south part of the county where the nine to one to one address was listed. Dispatcher was on the phone with a caller and she said she was hiding behind the living room couch while her kidnapper was in the other end of the home. She said he was

armed with a shotgun. He said that he was going to kill anyone that came inside, and he was going to kill her if she tried to call for help. These are the kind of situations you trained for. You don't ever want them to happen, but when they do, and you're the guy that's responsible for making the immediate decisions that are going to affect everyone involved forever, he can get a little teen. Now, we've got someone calling

for help that's scared. We've got someone who's saying that they're going to hurt us and her if we come in and help her, or if he catches her calling nine one one. So what do you do. You have to make the decision right then and there, and that decision you have to make in the blink of an eye will be judged forever at everyone else's convenience. If you're the guy with the badge that took the oath,

you don't have that luxury. Also, I had the responsibility of ordering the two other officers to follow me in that house, and if they got hurt, that was going to all be on me. Now, in the time it's taken me to go this far in the story, I briefed those officers on what was going on and that we were going in to get this lady out, and they never hesitated. We parked just down the street from the reported eye dress, and we could see that the residents had an eight foot chain link fence around it

with three strands of barbed wire on the top. There was a double gate that was locked with a big chain and a padlock that would have had been cut off with a torch. Even if we could have used a set of boat cutters, the night light had that part of the yard illuminated, and we would have been in easy range of the front door with no cover or protection. We also didn't have any boat cutters in our patrol cars and didn't have time to go get any.

We had to go right now for her safety. I told the dispatcher to tell the lady that we were coming in and to stay hidden. The dispatcher said that the lady told her that she'd unlocked the back door. Well.

I told her we were going radio silent, and we turned off all our radios so the bad guy couldn't hear them, and two of us walked beside one of the troll cars as the officer pulled up to the edge of the yard furtherest away from the house, right beside the fence, which it was about twenty five yards. We took a blanket out of the trunk of the car and laid it across the barbed wire, and one by one we crawled on top of the patrol car on top of the bar lights, climbed the fence, over

the barb wire, and dropped into the yard. I went first while they covered the house. I let go of the wire, and before my feet hit the ground inside, I realized I'd forgotten to ask if they had a dog. Now this was about to get really loud if they did. But the only sound I heard was the other two sets of boots hitting the ground behind me, almost at the same time. As I held cover on the window at the end of the house. The lady said the kidnapper was in no dog. That was a plus, but

we still had a hostage situation to deal with. The house laid north and south, and she said she'd unlock the back door, which was on the west side of the house, opposite from where we were. From what she told the dispatcher, the man armed with a shotgun was in the south end of the house, so the back door was on the back third of the house, and if we'd breached that door, we could have been walking right into his lap. As bad as I hate to say it, if you want to hurt a police officer,

you don't even have to leave your house. All you have to do is call them. They'll drive right up in your yard. Things like that have happened before. And all of these things, along with what was reported, was going through my mind. Was this an elaborately playing damn bush or a legitimate hostage situation? I didn't know, but I didn't know. I wasn't going through the back door.

None of us knew either one of the people involved in this call, so we were dealing only with the nine one one operators out version of what was happening. I could do a whole year of podcasts about dispatchers. They've kept me alive more than once, and this dispatcher, she was one of the best. We slipped up to the porch and eased up the steps, everyone covering a different window that could have seen us in the glow

of the nightlight. I told the other two officers that I would take point, and when we made entry, we weren't stopping until we secured everyone in the house, regardless of what that entailed. I placed my hand on the doorknob and slowly turned it, and surprisingly it opened. As I slowly opened the door, I could see the top of a woman's blond hair in a bun behind the couch, and I could hear her whispering on the phone to

our dispatcher. The room was lit by dim light over the stove in the kitchen, and for whatever reason, that lady poked her head up, and when she did, she saw me standing in the door, pointing my pistol down the hallway toward where she'd said her kidnapper was. She dropped a phone and ran straight for me, with her arms outstretched to hug me. And I grabbed her with one hand and passed her back to the officer behind me,

who did the same. And the third officer grabbed her and ran her across the yard and took cover with her at the other end of the house. Hostage safe check that box. Now we got to go get the bad guy. The officer behind me that handed her off to the last officer asked her, as she was going by, where the suspect was. She said, in the back, and pointed in the direction where we'd expected him to be. He also confirmed from her that there was only one

weapon in the house. He walked up behind me and whispered, only one weapon. He squeezed my shoulder to let me know he was with me, and we went in the house. We moved through the small living room and I stopped at the edge of the kitchen where the hall began,

taking cover against the wall. While looking down the short hallway into the darkness that was the bedroom and where the suspect was supposed to be, I could see the barrel of a shotgun lying on the floor at the foot of the bed, and a man's bare right foot on top of the bed, as if he was laying on his back. The light that came into the room from the kitchen was cut off beyond that, and I whispered to my partner to turn his flashlight on and secure the weapon when we entered the room, and I

deal with the suspect from that moment. When we squeezed my shoulder and we entered that room, it was slow motion. I crossed the threshold and was holding cover on the bed in the darkness. Time stood still, and it seemed like it took forever for him to turn on that flashlight. In reality, I hadn't stopped moving when my partner was standing on that shotgun and blinding the man that was sleeping in the bed with his flashlight. That man bolted upright in the bed and his arms went straight out

in front of him. His hands were empty, but it was like he was reaching for something. I quickly hosted my weapon and using his momentum my monkey, flipped him out of that bed and onto the floor, with me right on top of him. When I did that, I was immediately tangled up in a mass of wires and tubes, and a man was screaming, what's going on, What's going on? Where's my wife? Is she okay? I handcuffed him and

I untangled myself from all the wires. I turned my radio on reported that the hostage and suspect were secure and all the officers were okay. I started reading The Man who Writes, and after I finished, he kept asking me, is my wife okay? What's going on? And I told to me he was under arrest for kidnapping. He asked who he kidnapped. I told him the blond lady that was in the house. He said, that's my wife. Is she okay? I said she's fine, But it doesn't matter

who she is. When you hold someone forcibly against their will, that's kidnapping. And I asked him what all these wires and hoses were for they were hooked up to him. He said, I'm taking dialysis dialysis. Well, this is weird. I said, what about this shotgun. He said that it was supposed to be locked in a closet and that he didn't get it out. It was his father's and there weren't even any shells on that property for it.

My partner checked it and it was unloaded. He was starting to make sense, but this whole situation was far from making sense. I set him up on the bed and he said, my wife is off her medication. All you have to do is talk to her and you'll see. Just go talk to her. I told him, buddy, we've been talking to her for almost an hour on nine one one. She's the reason we're here. He was calm and collected. He said, just go talk to her and ask her who her parents are. So that's what I did.

I had the other officer bring her inside to the other end of the house, and I told her we needed to get some information for the report. So I asked her her name, and she told me. I asked her her day to birth and her address, and without missing a beat, she said it. I didn't expect her to look at me sideways when I asked her this question, but I did it anyway. What are your parents' names and their address? Well? She told me that they were both deceased, and she looked sad when she said it.

I didn't know where this was going, but I said, well, tell me their names and where they used to live. She looked up at me and with the most sincerest expression, she said, my dad's name is Elvis, and I said Presley. She said, yes, sir, and my mother was Grace Kelly. She was killed in a car wreck. Now some may find some humor in this, but it's really not funny.

According to her husband, this lady had done irreparable damage to her brain while abusing drugs, but it finally beat the addiction, but the effects had lasted forever and would last forever, apparently, and he was struggling to keep her on her medications at times and also take care of himself. That big chain link fence around their house was to keep her from wandering off and being in the shape he was in. It was the only way he could

keep her safe. He had an emergency contact for a clinic that she was a patient of, and we contacted them and provided her transportation to that facility that night. There were a lot of things that could have gone wrong that night, and I thought about them a million times. What if we'd arrested him, took him to jail, ignored him about what he was saying that his wife had mentally issues. What if we left her there alone, thinking we'd saved her, only to have her harm herself because

her husband wasn't there to help her. Or what if she'd laid that shotgun across his lap instead of in the floor. When that she finally admitted to and he sat up with that when I entered the room, What if this happened? Or what if that happened? But I told her the lesson away from there that night, the lesson that you can't take everything at face value, and giving people the benefit of the doubt can lead you

to what's really going on. Sometimes I wish I could tell you how that story ended, but I don't know. That was the last time I saw either one of them. And in this job, you run across people in situations that are fleeting. Most are sad, and when the report is done, you may never see that person again ever, but you always wonder. I do anyway, and that's just how that happened. I got into this job to help people,

one hundred percent. That was my goal. So a couple of weeks into the police academy, when an instructor posed a question to the hundred or so cadets in the class, why did you choose this profession? He followed it up with before any of you say because you want to help people, you need to save it, because that's a lie. You want to do it for the power and the authority, He said, you get called to preach, you don't get called to enforce the law. I just looked at him

and thought, this guy's an idiot. I was telling Clay Newcombe about that the other day. He said, maybe he was making you evaluate the real reason that you were there. Well, maybe he was, but I still think he was an idiot. I absolutely wanted to help folks. It's all I ever wanted to do. And it had nothing to do with kicking in a door, or driving a car fast or putting someone in jail, and there were people in this world that needed help and protection and I was going

to do both. Now, don't get me wrong, I did all that stuff. It was fun driving cars fast, it was fun putting bad guys in jail, and it was fun kicking in doors, except for one time that comes to mind. I was selected to be the breacher on a drug house warning we were running, and it was my first search one. I was a little pumped into briefing. The order was reeves breeches the door and everyone enters the house, detains anyone inside, and we searched for drugs

in a contraband Brent, I want to take the ram. No, I'm good. I'm finna go through that door, like y'r Simony Sam. By the time y'all get in there, I'll be sitting on the couch watching TV with the dope dealers. Well they all laughed. We loaded up and drove to the address, piled out of the cars like I stepped on fire in bed, and stacked up at the door.

I got to nod to breach it. I looked at the door and I could see it was a metal so instead of kicking it in, I backed up about five steps and hit it with my shoulder, going as hard and fast as I could go. To my surprise and to those around me, I went through that door like it wasn't there. For a split second, that seemed like an eternity. I was the only guy in that house full of drug addicts and dope dealers that wasn't

one of either. I shouted, search Warrn. I took a running step toward a table where several bags of narcotics were piled up and the people were sitting around it, and I tripped over a ten speed bicycle that was laying in the floor that I didn't see. I was watching them watch me as I nose dived into that bicycle.

It was like a scene out of a comedy. Time was frozen, and they were looking at this clown that had just knocked the door off their hinges, hollering search Warrn that was now getting his butt kicked by a bicycle. They didn't move, they were just staring at me. Now, the rest of the troops came in and secured the house and the folks in it, and helped me get out of that ten speed booby trap. Someone to sit in the kitchen I took the ram on the next one.

There's so many stories that I could tell. Unfortunately a lot of them are sad. But for the better part of my life, my job was seeing even the best people on their worst day, and it's been a pretty heavy burden at times. Memories of things I wish I could forget and not knowing how things turned out for people that still haunt me to a degree even today, especially the children. I've seen so many little folks that didn't deserve the hands that they were dealt, and it

was for them that I dedicated my life's work. It was ingrained in me and early age that you take care of the folks that can't take care of themselves

and children before anything else. At the height of the methamphetamine epidemic, it wasn't uncommon for us to arrest parents with malnursed children that had no stable family members to look after them, so they became wards of the state and temporary homes where vetted volunteer families took these children in and cared for them until their parents could get squared away, which rarely happened. There were a few, but we had a lot of return clients. After Social Services

were called. We never knew what happened to the children. It was for their protection, and while I understood the need for secrecy, it was still hard not knowing how they ended up. I don't know how many I dealt with, but at one time I was told I held the record for removing the most children from meth labs and drug homes in the state. I did the parents eventually get them back. You just never know. I'd ask the caseworkers and they couldn't tell me, so I just wondered.

One of the last cases I worked that involved removing a child from a drug house would keep me up at night for years. I remembered how scared she looked and how quiet she was while I tried to comfort her, waiting on the social worker to come get her. She looked at me for help, and I wanted to take her home forever. So she sat in my lap at the Sheriff's office while we waited for the social worker

to get there. A couple hours went by. I entertained her as best I could, telling her stories and drawing pictures, and finally the caseworker came and picked her up, and I never saw her again. I'd call the social worker and asked her, you know, how she was doing, and all she would say was she's doing fine. And that's how it went. For years. I relied on what she'd told me, She's doing fine. I thought about her often, and anything and everything would make me think about her.

I realized that I'd really never know her fate. I didn't live anywhere near where that happened anymore, and didn't work remotely in law in a law enforcement job that would allow me access to even ask anyone about her. And then one day, far away from the city where it happened, my wife Alexis, met a lady and a young girl in a most obscure way, and they started talking. Alexis was supposed to have left work for the day, but she and this lady and young girl having such

a good visit that she stayed late. She even called me, said she'd be a little late leaving working getting home because she was helping some folks with some information. Now, one thing led to another, and they started talking about where they were from. I told Alexis about this little girl many times and how I wish that I could

see her and how she was doing. In about five minutes, into their conversation of talking about where they were from and what they'd been doing and how they became a family. Alexis told me she knew she was looking at the little girl I had been telling her about all this time. We connected on social media and for the last eleven years,

I've gotten to watch her grow up. I've worked a lot of cases, some of them covered in the national media, some records setting, drugs, seizures and arrests, apprehended some high profile criminals. But that little girl is the pinnacle of my career. There's never been a doubt in my mind that all I had to go through all those years was only preparing me for the day that I got to take her out of where she was and help her get to where she is, and she's in a

good place. I think about thirty two years and seven months and what that means, and it brings to mind an old Jimmy Buffett's song that has a line in it that says, some of its magic, some of its tragic. But I had a good life all the way and I did. I told you this one was gonna be a little different. I hope it gives you a little insight the cat and overalls. It's telling you all these tales every week and until next week. I thank you so much for this. This is Brent Reeves signing off.

Y'all be careful the