I spent the last day of the year sitting in my patrol car thinking about 2017. As the final hours melted away, I made a list of some of the moments that made a year patrolling the streets of Metro Atlanta worth writing about. Keep this in mind: If I’ve got stories from my sleepy little neck of the woods, just imagine what a cop on the front lines in NYPD, Chicago, or Baltimore could tell you.
I spent the first few weeks of 2017 at home recovering from a broken orbital and frontal sinus cavity. I’ve been told by an ER doctor and friend of mine that the type of injury I sustained is usually only seen in bad car accidents. You might guess that I was in some high-speed pursuit on the job, but you’d be wrong. I tried to be a handyman after being awake for over 24 hours — and the giant spring on my garage door reminded me of why sleep was invented. There’s no good story there, but I’m happy to be alive with both eyes intact.
Two weeks later, I was back to work where I was dubbed temporary nicknames like “Scarface” and “Spring-Loaded” by the savages around the precinct. Of course, I’ve been called worse by the public this year. “B***ass white boy,” “short and mean little man,” “KKK cop,” “pig with a combover,” “little muscle guy” and even worse come to mind. There are some real charmers out there.
Despite the conflicts, verbal barbs, quips, zingers, and venom spewed, I’m lucky to have a job and even luckier to have a job that I enjoy — most days. For every foul name called this year, I’ve received a smile, word of encouragement, expression of gratitude, or other small gesture to keep me going from decent people with their own problems who took the time out of their day to reach out.
Besides, I gave as good as I got this year. Usually it was during “taxicab confessions” on the way to the jail or to the destination of their choice when folks were lucky enough to get a courtesy ride after being a pain.
The year of 2017 brought animal stories. Sorry, PETA, but I had to tase a dog and shoot a deer. Well, I missed the dog — but it scared Cujo back far enough to keep him from sinking his teeth into my body. We’ll call that a win. The deer, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. Old girl impaled herself on a fence, so I had to put her out of her misery. It was a mercy killing. No one wins there. RIP, Bambi.
Then there was the time I met the nicest squirrel in the world. It started as a “person down” call at an apartment complex. After following the scent of Schlitz to the subject’s precise location, I was amazed at what I saw next. The woman was laid out in front of someone’s apartment door with a furry little squirrel hanging out on her back like she was its own personal couch. Unwilling to pass on the opportunity, I went over radio with, “Radio … subject is a middle-aged female — not alert, not conscious, breathing … cuddling with a live squirrel.”
“My closest friends and I went home alive — and that’s what it’s all about.”
I came to learn that this little rodent was not her pet, but it wouldn’t leave her side, either. We named it “Cuddles” and I gave the drunken woman and her newly domesticated friend a ride home to her apartment in the back of my patrol car. She asked me what she should feed it. I replied, “Hamburger meat. They need lots of protein.” The next question she asked me was if I was single. I don’t go out that way anymore.
After going most of my career without having old sparky on my tool belt, I know a dog wasn’t the only thing I tased this year. We finally caught a track star wanted in question for a few armed robberies and open warrants galore that had burnt us in the foot chase on several prior occasions. With his hands hidden from where I could see them when I finally closed in, the barbs flew.
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Buddy was wearing several layers and I stepped back, thinking “He’s one of those freaks” — when the taser deployment seemed to have no effect. To my relief, he fell like a tree as soon as turning his body caused the barbs to sink in. My beat partner caught up to us and let out a “Woo!” in celebration like The Nature Boy Rick Flare. You might burn us 100 times, but eventually we’re going to catch up with you. Happy New Year.
On one particularly hot and humid day, I watched in horror as a crazy lady who lives under the bridge ran across the highway and threw her smelly socks in the face of my lieutenant when we caught up with her. When I asked him to remind me of some of the funny calls we’d been on together this year, he neglected to remind me of that one. I wonder why that is. Good times.
I sustained no major work-related injuries this year, thank God. My buddy J-Mac and I chased a stalker though a swampy creek that left me with a nasty poison ivy reaction all over my right eye, but it was nothing a shot of prednisone couldn’t fix.
An officer of ours recovered from a bout with cancer, a few had babies, and some received promotions while others left the department. None of us made the news for involvement in a scandal or a shooting — but I did witness a fellow officer run out of things to say when questioning an entering auto suspect and astonishingly utter the words, “Let me smell your fingers.” Don’t ask for an explanation. I’m still looking for one, and doubt I’ll find it in 2018 either.
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I rocked the boat a little this year when I publicly challenged a local Antifa member and CrossFit gym owner to a charity boxing match in response to the publicity he was receiving for advertising his facility as a place proudly hostile and unwelcoming to cops.
The decision to do it took me on an unexpected whirlwind of media appearances from our local NBC affiliate making a house call to appearances on Fox News and some local talk-radio shows.
The challenge was never accepted, but I still fought at the 2017 Atlanta Police Athletic League Guns N Hoses boxing event earlier this month. We raised a lot of money, and I can’t wait to do it again next year.
The biggest positive to come from the EAV Barbell Club saga was that Six Pack Fitness, a California-based fitness apparel company, donated $20,000 in merchandise to the Atlanta Police Athletic League. It felt good to walk through the doors of the A.D. Williams boxing gym and see all those boxes stacked to the ceiling. The second was that the EAV shuttered its doors for good a few months after its owner petered out of stepping in the ring with a cop to raise money for kids.
The year 2017 brought SWAT callouts, but I didn’t have the opportunity to do any real negotiating. One suspect decided to forego peaceful surrender and get turned into a human chew toy on the roof of a Guitar Center by a K-9 officer instead. Sometimes you just can’t negotiate with stupid.
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We did fall victim to a swatting incident this year in which a false hostage situation was made to our dispatch center. It put an otherwise quiet neighborhood on lockdown and caused a startled geriatric a few doors down to fire a shotgun round into his own bed.
Coincidentally, it ended up being that guy’s dog that rushed me many months later. I didn’t have my flagship year as hostage negotiator in ’17, but it’ll be my job in ’18 and beyond to always be training and prepared for the day my number is called.
Shootings, stabbings, rapes — most of the big cases take a year before you ever go to court on them. Then you get to relive them in front of an audience. I hashed up the past once again in 2017, and next year will be no different. I’m still wondering what the fate of the guy who dragged me 200 yards in his Oldsmobile back in late ’16 will be. I hope I’ll get some closure on this and a few other cases in ’18.
All in all, 2017 was a great year for this cop. My closest friends and I went home alive — and that’s what it’s all about.
I want to wish everyone reading this a Happy New Year full of prosperity, good fortune, and safety.
T.B. Lefever is a police officer in the Atlanta, Georgia, area and an OpsLens contributor. Throughout his career, he has served as a SWAT hostage negotiator, a member of the Crime Suppression Unit, a school resource officer, and a uniformed patrol officer. He has a BA in criminal justice and sociology from Rutgers University in New Jersey. This OpsLens article is used by permission.
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