HERE'S YOUR SIGN!!!!!!

     I am sorry folks, I took a break for awhile to catch up on work around the house and just didn't feel like staying up to catch up on my blog, but I am back and have stories to tell!!!    
     This past Friday night my wife and I were able to attend the Bill Engvall concert in Columbus, GA and I have to admit I have not laughed so much in a long time.  Now granted, I had heard alot of the material before but somehow just hearing it in person made a difference.  He is truly one outstanding man and if you ever get the chance I would highly reccomend going to see him.  Of course his signature saying is "HERE'S YOUR SIGN" and god does that fit with working in law enforcement.  There were thousands of times I would have loved to have used that line and I KNOW the dispatchers of the Lee County Sheriff's Office would have loved to be able to say that on several occasions a shift.  Especially for the dozen or so calls that come in everyday:  Dispatcher:  Lee County 911 what is your emergency?  Caller:  Can you tell me the number to 911?"  HERE"S YOUR SIGN!!!  I mean come on!!!
     I know it seems that since I have retired I have become cynical of the human race and that is not true - I got there a LONG time ago!!  It seems that well meaning people can be just plain stupid at times.  Now I admit that I am no better myself at times and as we all do, sometime stupid things come out of our mouths before we can pull them back and you know the second you say it, it was stupid.  However, there are those amongst us that have no idea that what they are saying is stupid and to them we are stupid for not understanding.  Like the time I was asked by a gentleman of good standing and apparent common sense:  "Can you tell me why cops carry guns?"  Now I must admit this statement caught me off guard and I was stunned for a moment, then I looked at him and said " We carry guns to balance the weight on our belts" and I just turned and walked away - HERES YOUR SIGN.
     Now to prove that I am not above getting the sign, here is something that just happened to me the other day.  I was meeting a lady in the parking lot of Krogers the other day to purchase a paintball gun she had posted on Facebook.  She had given me the description of the car she would be driving and we arranged a time to meet.  Well I got there at the appointed time and as luck would have it, the first 10 cars i came across looked just like the one she had described but no one was around and the parking lot was packed!!!  So I drove to the end of the parking lot and pulled up beside the store where I could see the entrance and waited for awhile in hopes that I would see her pulling in.  After a few minutes I sent her a text message that I was in the parking lot next to the store.  She immediately sent me a text saying she was in the parking lot and gave me a general area where she was located.  So I drove in that direction in an attempt to find her.  I drove by a vehicle that was not the color she described and there was a lady standing out beside it but it appeared she was putting groceries in her car so I drove on by.  I parked at that end of the parking lot and decided to call her.  I got her on the phone and asked her where she was and as I was talking to her ON THE PHONE I saw a lady on the next row talking on a phone and before I could think I said " Are you the one on the phone?"  DUH - HERE'S YOUR SIGN!!!
     We just can't help it as human beings, sometimes we are just stupid or we say things before we think.  As a law-enforcement officer an officers mouth can get him or her into or out of trouble in a hurry.  It has long been established that the more an officer talks while on a traffic stop the more apt they are to say something that will either be taken the wrong way or the situation may esculate to something it shouldn't be.  Now having said that, there are of course instances of course where the more talking that is done the better chance of uncovering a crime or criminal may occur.  The reason I bring this up is because of a bad habit I developed early in my career.  When I first started working at the Lee County Sheriff's Office writing tickets was just something that was looked down upon but in the real world there were times that it just had to be done.  So I developed a habit of telling the person I wasn't going to write them a ticket until I learned a valuable lesson.  When you cut someone a break - you get screwed and from that point on things were different.
    I had been taught early on by a great man - Captain Danny Gaston - either you write them a ticket or you give them a chewing out but never do both.  Now he was from the old school but he never forgot where he came from and he understood that sometimes a deputy just had to write someone a ticket and more times than not he would stand behind us.  The incident that turned things around for me was one night while on patrol I was dispatched to a fight in progress with weapons involved, so I activated my blue lights and siren and made a U turn on a 4 lane road with no divider, no sooner had I turned around than a car pulled directly into my path and I had to swerve and hit the brakes hard in order to avoid hitting the other car.  Well I must admit this pissed me off and I stopped the car, it was a college student (my first clue that trouble lay ahead).  I approached the car and was immediately hit with an attitude that just pissed me off more but I also knew I had a call I needed to get to so I took the high road and told the young man he needed to watch when pulling into traffic and I let him off with a warning and I proceeded to the call which of course turned out to be nothing.  After I left the call I was told to call the supervisor and when I did I got the shock of my life - the college kid had called and filed a complaint on me for stopping him and not writing him a ticket!!!!  I couldn't believe it, here I had cut the guy a break and then he calls to complain on me, now the complaint wasn't because I was rude or unprofessional, it was because if I wasn't going to write him a ticket I shouldn't have stopped him in the first place.  Now cops are human too and sometimes we just want to warn someone about a traffic infraction and give them a break, maybe in hopes of saving a life and saving them the hassle of court or the cost, but not this guy, he wanted a ticket!!  So the supervisor instructed me to drive to this guys house and write him a ticket, so I did and he was found guilty in court - HERE'S YOUR SIGN and may GOD bless you Captain Gaston - you will forever be remembered.
     I remember once I was dispatched to a suicide call, a man with a knife threatning to kill himself.  I arrived on the scene and sure enough, standing in the parking lot of a local gas station was a young man with a knife to his throat.  Well what to do?  I did the natural thing and pulled my gun and told him to drop the knife or I would shoot, wait a minute, isn't that what he was trying to do was kill himself and here I was offering to do it myself!  HERE'S YOUR SIGN!  Well after a few minutes of me shouting and looking like an idiot (now this guy was more than 30 feet from me so deep inside I knew the knife was no threat) I put my gun down to my side, finger still on the trigger just in case and I just started talking to the guy and after a few minutes he dropped the knife and I was able to get him some help but boy did I feel stupid for a while after that but hey you learn from your mistakes right?  Wellllllll sometimes you do and sometimes you don't, now fortunately for me I did but on another call we weren't so lucky, at least at first.  We got a call of a lady acting eratic and that there were young children in the house.  When we go to the residence we encountered the young woman holding a baby and acting weird.  Now it turns out we had warrants on the young woman so she was going to jail one way or the other.  I was with a partner at the time and we began talking to her.  There were no weapons involved at this time, just talking or screaming on her part.  This went on for several minutes until the mistake occurred.  Of course we were concerned about the baby she was holding and sure enough the baby came into play very shortly.  As we were talking to the young woman she approached my partner and started to hand her the child, good right?  NOPE, instead of giving her the baby she dropped the child to the floor which distracted both of us of course and in that split second she pulled a kitchen knife and stuck it to her throat.  GOD here we go again!!  I of course pulled my weapon but instead of pointing it directly at her I held it in my hand and told her that if she didn't put the knife down I was taking the baby away and she would never see her again.  Holy crap it worked!  She put the knife down right away and as she stepped towards my partner to take the child I took her into custody - the good guys win again! - HERE'S YOUR SIGN!
     Now let me end this with just saying that most people are good caring human beings but that small percentage of idiots out there, like the ones that run this country screw everything up for all of the rest of us.  Wouldn't it be nice if just for one day, you could go up to someone - especially a politician and put HERE'S YOUR SIGN around their neck, they will know what it is for!!

Jack (Tommy) Carter
www.livethegoodlife.ws
www.southernbellemarketinginc.com

    
    

People Are so Stupid!!!!!

      PEOPLE ARE SO STUPID!!!  Boy I bet you have never heard that before.  Well after 28 years in Law Enforcement I can tell you it is the truth and after retiring it hasn't gotten any better.  I know that all you law enforcement officers out there are shocked but it is true.  You may not know it but your average person has no sense whatsoever.  Now having said that, there are perfectly normal and brilliant people out there as we all know, even smarter than we are.  I know, I know, it is hard to believe but it is true, they just don't show themselves.
     During my years with the Lee County Sheriffs Office I ran across some pretty stupid people and I must admit some great people also, it is just that the stupid ones way out weighed the good ones by a ton.  You see them every day but you just don't realize it.  Take today for example, I could have written 50 traffic citations easily and I am not talking about headlights out, no tags or anything like that, I am talking about illegal lane changes and I mean crossing three lanes of traffic and then cutting in front of cars to turn into a parking lot to get a hamburger, driving 35 miles an hour over the speed limit inside the city limits, cutting through parking lots and pulling out in front of traffic to avoid a stop sign - and we wonder why people have accidents!!!  Wake up people, get a grip and pay attention!!  Two extra minutes are not going to make that much difference in your life.  I actually had a car pass me today doing at least 70 in town just to get in front of me to turn left, as this person was sitting there waiting to turn, I drove by at the speed limit and this person was still sitting there as I went over the hill.  Slow down!!!  You are not going to get there any faster, this I can attest to, time and time again I have witnessed people just busting ass down the highway just to come up behind them at a stop light.  Think while you are driving, the life you may save could be mine!
     I remember one day being on patrol on the west side of Lee County and responding to a domestic call.  On this particular day I had a partner who happened to be in the passenger seat of the car.  The call was at an apartment complex, all apartments in a row, no second floor.  As we pulled up to the particular apartment there was a gentleman sitting outside of the apartment next door.  As we pulled up and stopped we noticed that he was playing with fireworks.  Now out in the county this was not illegal so we really didn't pay that much attention to him.  It was either summer time or winter because we had the windows up on the patrol car and it was good thing we did because no sooner had we stopped the patrol car than we were hit by a huge bottle rocket right in the passenger side window!  If the window had been down it would have probably taken both of us out.  Now I am not talking about the little bottle rockets you buy 150 in a pack, I am talking about one big enough to have a plastic tip to it.  What the guy had done was stuck it in the ground instead of a bottle or something to let it fly and by sticking it in the ground it had built up a lot of tork by the time it had freed itself and it immediately took an immediate right, right into our patrol car.  Now you talk about being stupid, this idiot couldn't wait to light it until we had gotten out of the car, no he had to do it as we pulled up and it was not like we were hidden, the parking lot was wide open.  Man my partner let him have it, if we could have thought of a charge he would have been in the back seat of the car in two seconds!!  I don't even remember what happened with the call, all I can remember is this idiot ambushing us with a bottle rocket!!
     How many of you out there have ever been called to a house to remove a bat?  Now if you are exterminator it is quite possible that you have but who in their right minds calls the Sheriff Office to remove a bat?  Well people do, believe it or not.  One night we got such a call, just happened to be the same partner as above, maybe I should have learned my lesson and stopped riding with him!  Anyway we get this call about a bat in someones house and they wanted us to get it out.  Now I don't know about you, but I would never call the police to get a bat out of my house - an exterminator MAYBE (NOT) but the police?  Give me a break.  Well we responded to the call and sure enough there was a bat in this person's bedroom.  Funny thing was that the person that called was bigger than the both of us put together!  A grown man calling the police to remove a bat - give me a break!  So the two deputies armed themselves with a blanket and went into the bedroom where the "suspect" was supposed to be.  Well after a few minutes of chasing the bat around the room we finally caught him and got him out of the house and you know how we did it?  We opened a damn window and let him fly out!  Give me a damn break!
    Now I know that all of you have a thousand stories that are just as stupid but it doesn't get any better when you retire - believe me.  Maybe it is just because I spent so long in law enforcement, that I can't say but people still amaze me and the sad thing is, I don't think they no.  Now having said all this I don't want anyone out there to think that I am placing myself above anyone else, I do stupid things all the time but I don't call the police to fix it.  We all make mistakes, that is part of life but think before you call the police or the sheriff's office to fix it, fix it yourself!
     When I got out of law enforcement and started my own Internet company with some pretty amazing people I didn't realize I would still be dealing with stupid people.  Now when you lay everything out in a video, step by step as to what you need to do to get started or to be successful you would think that people would WATCH THE VIDEO, but nooooooooo, they are too smart to do that and then they wonder why their account is messed up or they are not making any money.  Give me a break!  Life is full of missteps and hurdles but we are all suppose to be adults and we should have learned from life's experiences but it seems most people have missed that lesson.  Now we all know that common sense plays a big part in life and people that don't have any common sense are at a disadvantage.  We also know that common sense is NOT something you can teach - you are either born with it or not.  Now I love all my children and you would think that the common sense gene would be passed along but NOT!  I have tried my best to teach them, let them learn from my mistakes but somehow it is just not taking hold and I have done all I can - so you see I am not perfect by any means.
     I hope that this little story has given you some insight into the human mind.  Life would be so much better if we all would just think before we did something stupid - myself included.  Just think how much better the world would be if we could all get along and stop acting stupid, this especially includes the so-called leaders of our country and states.

Jack (Tommy) Carter
www.livethegoodlife.ws
www.southernbellemarketinginc.com



A Salute to All Law Enforcement K-9's and Their Partners

    Today's blog will be a little different from others that I have done over the past few days, today I would personally like to say thank you to all K-9's and their partners across the United States.  I was saddened to learn that one of my former Sgt.'s lost his K-9 partner over the weekend due to disease and I want to send out my prayers to Sergeant Jimmy Sanders and his family and also to Rico, his partner, who I know is in a better place now.  Most civilians don't realize what it truly means to be a K-9 officer these days, they are used to seeing the old photo's and video's of the 60's and early 70's and that is what they base their memory or thoughts on.
     Well times have changed and for the better, today K-9's are used for a variety of reasons, drug detection, bomb or explosives detection, human searching and tracking and patrol work.  The K-9 becomes part of the officers family and his or her best friend.  They spend most of their days together, whether working or not.  Rico was that kind of partner and he will be truly missed.  Rico was an explosive detection K-9, donated to the Lee County Sheriff's Office by the Opelika City School System.  If I know Sheriff Jones he is already working on a way to obtain another K-9, using the word replace would be inappropriate in this type of situation.
     I know exactly how Sgt. Sanders feels, early last year I lost my best friend in the world, my beloved pug Eli.  Eli died of cancer and was a fighter to the end but in the end I had to let him go, treatment was an option but not the kind of life he deserved and so the decision was made to put him to rest and to relieve his pain.  The last picture I have of Eli, is him laying on a sofa at the Auburn University Vet School, IV tubes running out of both front legs, obviously out of it on drugs but also very much in pain.  He opened his eyes for a brief moment as if to say goodbye and to ask me to help ease the pain.  He looked at me with those big brown eyes and I knew right then what had to be done.  I looked at the doctor and told them to go ahead and when I turned around to look at Eli he gave me a kiss and then he was gone.  I knew in my heart that the right decision had been made but god it still hurt so bad.  Here I was a grown man in uniform crying like a little baby because of a dog - but he was more than that, he was my friend and I miss him every day of my life.

 

     For those of you that don't believe in GOD or just believe in him when you need him, let me share this last story with you and then you decide for yourself.  Several weeks after Eli passed away, I called his vet to tell her the news, she had been out of the loop, since we had taken him to the Vet School and did not know he had passed away.  Eli had been first diagnosed with back problems and then we found out later what was really wrong with him, no fault of any ones at all.  Anyway, I called his vet and let her know what had happened.  She of course told me how sorry she was and then she said the most amazing thing.  She said " You know I was just thinking of you and your family yesterday and about Eli and how he was doing and I was going to give you a call to ask you a question."   I asked her what she was talking about and this was her reply, " my sister just got a divorce and she has a male pug dog that she can't take with her and her ex-husband doesn't want the dog and I was going to call you to see if you knew anyone that might want a pug because I know how much you and your wife love them."  This honestly made the hair on my neck (not head) stand on end and I immediately told her I would take him - site unseen!  I could not believe this was happening, first loosing my best friend in the world and then GOD sending me a new friend but I also knew I had one hurdle to over come and it did cause me some concern but I told the doctor I would take him!
     My hurdle was my wife, now don't get me wrong, she loved Eli just as much as I did and she grieved just as much as I did if not more.  The hurdle was going to be convincing her to take on another dog so soon.  We still had a house full, including Eli's sister who was not taking his passing any better than we were.  But you know what?  I had no reason to worry one bit, the minute I told her about our new friend she broke down and told me that she had, had a dream just that night about us getting a new friend and we both knew that GOD had sent him our way and so Max was welcomed into our home a few weeks later.  Now he is not a replacement for Eli and never will be ( I do have to admit I call him Eli sometimes) but he came to us needing a family that cared about him and a family that was suffering from a great loss - it was a perfect match.  A match made in HEAVEN!!!



     So the next time you see a K-9 officer please shake his hand and tell him or her how much you appreciate the job that they do and think about their friend (partner) that is in the back seat or by their side.  Knowing that one day they may also loose that friend and may need a shoulder to lean on.
     Thank you for letting me share this story with you, maybe some of you will find comfort in it.

Jack (Tommy) Carter
www.livethegoodlife.ws
www.southernbellemarketinginc.com

Barney Fife Comes to Life

     As with most small agencies during the 1980's - law enforcement training was at best - non existent.  You were put in a car with a "seasoned" veteran for a few days and then let loose.  Now the obvious problem with this theory is this, you give a man or woman who knows nothing about law enforcement and you give them a gun, a ticket book and a car and go tell to go to work.  Well such as was the case with me.  Basically it was on the job training and I was training myself, it is a wonder I am still alive!!.  Back in those days, all agencies in Alabama had up to six months to send a person to academy before the agency got into trouble and like most agencies mine was the same.  No fault of their own because they needed people on the street and the fastest way to do that was to teach them the BASICS and let them loose.  Well watch out world because I was set loose with 3 days of training, I had a gun ( with more than 1 bullet ) and not a clue as to what I was doing.
     Now the guys that trained me did the best they could but they knew the drill, get the new guys out as fast as possible and still get their own work done.  I remember the training quite well - in fact like it was yesterday.  Most of the guys that trained me are still around as a matter of fact, some with other agencies but some still with the Lee County Sheriff's Office.  Now I did have one advantage that most people coming in did not have and that was I had been a reserve with the Sheriff's Office for almost a year so I had a little knowledge of what was going on but being out on your own and having someone tell you what to do are TWO ENTIRELY different things.
     Back in those days, the major function of the Sheriff's Office was the service of Civil Papers and outstanding warrants.  That was basically it, we hardly did any law enforcement at all and god forbid you write a ticket!!  If you did you could expect a call from a supervisor in a hurry but we still managed to do some "policing".  As most of you may know all Sheriff's Offices are very political because the Sheriff is an elected official and depending on whether or not you had a proactive sheriff or one that just wanted to be elected determined what kind of office you worked for and when I first started - it was strictly a political office, you didn't do ANYTHING to piss off the voters.  Of course being new, at that point in my career it didn't matter much to me, I just knew I was a DEPUTY SHERIFF and that is all that mattered.
     Well back to my first few months on the road, god I was an idiot.  Everything I knew was from TV, and at that time it was shows like Andy Griffith, Dragnet and TJ Hooker.  God what a learning experience that was!  Barney Fife had come to life in Lee County - god help us all.  I don't know how far this was into my first few months but I do know it was before I went to the academy.  Now not being able to do alot of law enforcement we tended to work more on warrants than anything else because you got to at least use your hand cuffs!  I remember one particular incident that has stayed with me all these years because it showed me that what I had seen on TV was not true and to be honest I was completely blown away by the results.

 

CLICK ON PICTURE TO SEE THE REAL BARNEY FIFE

     We had a particular trailer park in town where students lived and of course at that time, students were our biggest customers as far as bad checks were concerned.  I mean they would write a bad check for $1.30 and then wind up paying over $50 bucks for that damn cheeseburger!!.  Well we had this one guy that we just could not catch, he would run every time we got close, so he became my project, I was going to catch him somehow, someway.  I knew what kind of car he drove, where he parked it, so I knew when he was home.  Well one day and it was early in the morning, I found him at home and I just knew this was going to be my day!  I parked several trailers down from his and walked up to his trailer.  I knocked and announced myself -"Sheriff's Office!" - very official sounding I thought.  Well I could hear running inside the trailer and BOOM out the back door he went.  I had him!!  I simply pulled my gun and told him to stop or I would shoot - wait!!  He didn't stop, he kept running, but how could he do that?  I mean I told him to stop and I had my gun out - pointed right at him and yet he didn't stop!  This wasn't how it worked on TV!  God I was stunned, I had done everything just like they did on TV and it didn't work, what had I done wrong.  I was so shocked I couldn't even run after him, I just stood there and watched him run.  Man I was so dejected that I just went back to my car and sat there, going over it in my head, step by step and what I had done and yet my suspect got away!  I just couldn't figure it out.
     I called one of my fellow deputies and meet him down the road and told him everything that had happened and I thought the guy was going to to piss on himself from laughing so hard.  I still didn't understand and I asked him what was so damn funny?  His simple answer was:  What were you going to do - shoot him in the back for having a bad check?  I said no of course not but he was suppose to stop when I said stop, well that just set him off again.  After he quit laughing at me he quietly explained that just because it happened like that on TV didn't mean it was going to happen out here in the real world.
    Man I was devastated!!  Everything I had seen and learned over the years was a hoax!!  Man did I learn a lesson that day, I realized I was going to need to re-think my outlook or I would never make it.  I couldn't believe what was happening.  I had been lied to all these years, boy was I naive, and I had a gun!  God help us all.  I was going to have to do some growing up and fast or I would be dead or have killed someone all because of some TV shows.
     Well needless to say, I did survive and I learned in a hurry and became a pretty good deputy along the way, at least in my mind - some would disagree but that is for another story.   OH - one last thing, I did finally catch the guy!  It took several more tries but I never pulled my gun again, I caught him by using a partner - another lesson learned.  I got the other deputy to go to the door this time, you see I had learned that the guy always ran the same way each time.  So I just lay and waited for my partner to knock on the door and I just waited for him to come to me, and sure enough here he came, I stepped out behind from behind a tree and gave him my best football tackle, flipped him in the air and had him in cuffs!!!  Man if I had only known that months ago!!  Oh well another bad guy off the street, until the next time he wrote another bad check!!  Be safe out there my friends and until next time......

Jack (Tommy) Carter
www.livethegoodlife.ws
www.southernbellemarketinginc.com