Many, many years ago when I would still be considered a rookie, I was working the night shift in my tiny one-stoplight town. Slightly cold after the rain, there was no traffic and basically, that night turned into a dead shift. I was listening to music on the radio and had pretty much resolved to wait for the shift change.
And as a job in law enforcement is apt to do, it decided since I was nice and comfortable it was time to teach me a lesson or two. I got a call from the Department of Family and Children Services (DFACS pronounced Dee-Faks). The DFACS case worker told me she had a small 2-year-old little girl she had to locate immediately and had an address in my town. The DFACS worker asked if I could escort her to the house. I was bored out of my mind and my reply was probably too enthusiastic for the universe to stand, so when she told me the address, my enthusiasm waned.
Anticipating the Fight
The house (trailer) was a drug house I was familiar with. I had recently fought a man in the front yard over an arrest warrant he didn’t want to ride for. The same guy was a regular and was back out and had been vocal about how much he loved law enforcement, with me being his absolute favorite. In case I haven’t been clear, he was itching for a rematch.
So, when the DFACS officer told me that we were going to speak with Regular about the kid, I knew it was going to be a party. I checked with the Sheriff’s Office, and they were all tied up. Unless circumstances changed it was just me and Miss DFACS going to deal with a regularly unruly customer.
Just before we arrived, I briefed DFACS. These are case workers, not police officers. They aren’t allowed to carry weapons and they have no training in self-defense. It has long since amazed me they would even take such a dangerous job considering it often places them in harm’s way. So, I give DFACS a large rechargeable Maglite, yeah one of THOSE, and tell her to keep on the other side of me from the man we are going to deal with. If anything goes wrong, run to the car, get inside and lock it and call 911.
As we pull up to the house, I am anticipating the fight I’m about to get into. I go ahead and get myself good and pissed off. People who never have had to fight may not understand that. Psychologically and physiologically the body’s reaction to anger is a preparation for physical combat. Think of someone who looks mad. Flared nostrils ( more air into the system), furrowed brow (protects the eyes), clenched jaw( better to take a hit), and all sorts of other things including adrenaline. Knowing the environment I’m walking into, and the likelihood of a fight, I go ahead and warm the engine up a bit.
I turn on business mode and knock on the door. He answers. I explain to him DFACS needs to talk to him, and he invites us in. He takes a seat in the living room, and I let DFACS do her work. I’m waiting for the fight, watching for anyone else while they talk. The house is best described as waiting for a match to burn it down, that is if the match doesn’t land in a pool of piss on the floor. As he tells her the child hasn’t been there, I notice a pile of soiled diapers. Obvious lies. There is no power inside the house except for a TV running on car batteries. He says the power has been off for two days, but I’d already checked, and it had been off for two years. The smell is something you unfortunately get used to tolerating, but it’s more potent than most places—a combination of rotting food, mold, and that cat piss smell of ammonia.
DFACS does her business and catches a lead on where the child is and we get up and leave. As we get back in my patrol car, I feel the relief I didn’t have to fight (and do the paperwork from the fight). We get back to my office where her car is parked, and we DECON. I mean that literally. I was advised by an old friend who was an EMT to keep a spray bottle with water, bleach, and a little lemon-scented floor cleaner in my patrol car. We wash up, then we spray and wipe down our shoes and I spray and wipe down the inside floorboards of my patrol car. Safety means not taking the job home to your family. Sometimes that’s literal.
What Happened Next
DFACS’ new lead has her heading to another county, so I’m done, or so I think. Still no traffic and no calls for service so I’m back to the waiting game. That lasts about two hours and I get a call from DFACS. She has a new address in my tiny little town. The child is supposedly there. She gives me the address and it’s one of a known dope dealer who likes to run and occasionally fight the police.
Again, I check on help, and the S.O. is tied up. Again, when DFACS arrives we brief and head over to the house. She’s got the Maglite and I go ahead and get angry as we walk up. I remember seeing the glass on the door was broken and taped over on both sides as I knocked on the door. I was completely unprepared for what happened next.
A very nice lady opened the door. She invited us into the cleanest house I’d been in in a long time and for a long time afterward. There were dishes in the drain rack by the sink and the house smelled of a wonderful mixture of fresh laundry, home cooking, and the same floor cleaner in my DECON mix. It was obvious they weren’t rich in money, but every surface of that house had seen love and care.
The child is there, she’s safe. We get the story which, again, I was unprepared for. The father, Regular from the other house, had dropped the child off with his ex-girlfriend when the child was DAYS old. The ex-girlfriend had raised the child as her own since then. Mother was a junkie, and Regular never came to pick the child up. This 19-year-old girl and her grandmother had been raising this child who was completely unrelated to them in a home that GLOWED with love and care for two years.
And now here we were, their biggest fear. DFACS and the police were knocking on the door in the middle of the night, and in their minds, we were there to take the child away. DFACS had a LONG conversation with them that night and lots of follow-ups. We spoke with a supervisor, then the supervisor’s supervisor, and even woke up a judge that night and arranged for the child to stay.
I walked out of the door humbled at my own unpreparedness. I was ready for a fight, but I wasn’t ready to see such love and compassion. I was ready for the ugly and not ready for the good. I related the experience to some friends of mine in an online forum and to my local fire
department and we did Christmas for the little girl. Three patrol carloads of gifts and toys and quietly a handful of Wal-Mart gift cards for the family. More good, more caring, more compassion.
If I was a boxer, I’d say that experience rang my bell a bit. I was expecting rights and I got a left hook out of nowhere. It taught me to be prepared not only for the fight and for the bad but to be open to the good from unexpected places.
In the end, the young lady got full custody of the child. It took about two more years, but it was a bit of a Christmas miracle that the child was never separated from her “momma” in the process.
