Bill Imitates Barney Fife ....

OK.  I told the official story of my two days in Ponca City yesterday.  But, as Paul Harvey used to say, here is THE REST OF THE STORY.

Every morning of my life, I take a strong diuretic to help control my blood pressure. Most mornings, it's no big deal. I take the pill, stay close to a bathroom for a couple of hours and there is no problem. Last Thursday morning, I had to get up at 5:00 a.m. and be on the road by 6:00 .... right in the big middle of my prime time so to speak. Within a few minutes of leaving home, I was counting minutes to the next rest stop on the Cimarron Turnpike, a long 60 miles or so.

Having reached the first rest stop without incident, the same problem was painfully presenting itself again by the time I reached my destination in Ponca City.  I quickly parked my car in the heaven sent up front parking spot, hurriedly gathered my briefcase and other things necessary for the morning class. I hurriedly exited the car to head for the nearest bathroom when IT happened. My first humiliation of the day.

There are some things that people who carry weapons just don't do.  Number two on the list right after "don't point that thing at me again or I'll stick it up you *ss" is "never drop your gun."  As I sprang (as best I could anyway) from the car, my mind was totally focused on the blessed porcelain receptacle that would allow me to ease my pain.  But, the moment I put my feet on the ground,  I heard a clatter below me and realized that I had dropped my Glock right there in the parking lot in front of a dozen or more detectives/homicide investigators heading for the same seminar.

I was so embarrassed that I simply pulled off my holster and locked the whole rig in my trunk. That should have been the end of it but it wasn't.  Later in the morning, I looked out and saw several folks ganged up around the rear of my car.   I love my Hyundai.  It is the best car I have ever owned.  It has almost no faults.  But it does have an annoying idiosyncrasy.  Old GM remote door openers will pop the trunk.  I looked around and saw a parking lot sprinkled with junker GM cars, just  as you would expect in a small Oklahoma town VoTech. So, I reluctantly went out and put my weapon back on.  I figured that was a better alternative than leaving a five hundred dollar weapon unprotected in what amounted to a high school parking lot.

I carry my weapon in a high dollar Kydex inside the waistband holster.  I always wear a strong belt. The rig had never failed me before.  But, now that I had it on, I couldn't be comfortable with it.  I kept imagining my weapon falling to the ground again every time I shifted position in my chair or got up. I noticed that I was constantly adjusting it or pushing the weapon back down in my waistband to make sure that it didn't ride up and clatter out as it had in the parking lot.  Unfortunately, I was doing this in a room full of men and women who are trained to notice such things.  Eventually, I just pulled it off and stuck it in my briefcase.  But then, I had to carry my briefcase with me everywhere I went for the rest of the day, even to the bathroom.

Later in the day, our host announced that the school was concerned about all of these armed strangers

wandering around campus without any ID.  He asked the seminar participants to please wear their badges while on campus.  By law, I am allowed to carry a badge but I don't.  I don't need it.  The state issued ID card is fine for those rare instances when somebody actually asks me to show credentials. But, in order to prepare for the rare occasion where I did have to literally wear ID, I had prepared a full color copy of my state license and carried it in a magnetic clasp ID holder which clips over your belt or a strap on your briefcase.  So, when our host asked, I just pulled out the ID holder and clipped it to the strap of my briefcase which was now accompanying me everywhere I went.

Later that afternoon, the class ended and I had gotten several blocks away from the campus before I looked at my briefcase and realized that my ID was missing.  It had been on my briefcase when I left the classroom.  I immediately made a u-turn and headed back to the campus.  I retraced my steps out of the building and didn't find it.  I asked at the front desk and it hadn't been turned in.  Reluctantly, I went back to my car and headed home the last few shreds of my dignity now totally destroyed.

I have learned that putting off embarrassing tasks does not make them any easier.  So, driving down the street in Ponca City, I dialed the number for CLEET (the licensing agency for law enforcement and private security in Oklahoma ).  Sheepishly, I reported that a darn good copy of my PI license was now floating around Ponca City, probably in the hands of a stupid teenager that doesn't realize that trying to use it will buy him more trouble than he could possibly imagine.  And that's before he has to deal with me in civil court. The folks at CLEET couldn't have been more gracious. But, knowing cop culture, I can imagine what was said as soon as I hung up. I could almost hear the guffaws halfway across the state.

While talking to CLEET, I had to control the urge to gush out things like, "This really isn't like me.  I am actually a very competent person, almost anal about things like this actually.  I don't know what happened today but this is just not normal."  But, I had the common sense not to.  If you have to say things like that to strangers, do you really expect to be believed?

I can't do anything about the missing ID but I did remedy the holster problem.  I examined it thoroughly and found that either: (a) the tension screw which regulates the pressure that holds the weapon in place had worked loose a bit, or (b) the rubber compression washer it works against had compressed. At any rate, I tightened it back up to the point where the weapon will remain in place even if you hold it upside down but still draws properly with a firm pull.

I wish my dignity could be fixed so easily.

I Met The Real "Bones" This Week

I am going to break one of my own rules and talk about something work related in this post.  I'm breaking the rule because my experience was a minor adventure of sorts.

For the past couple of days, I have been attending a law enforcement seminar on cold homicide cases. Just like law enforcement, private investigators have to complete a set number of hours of continuing education per licensing period.  This seminar had three great things going for it.  First, it involved training on a relatively new DOJ database that might help me resolve the occasional missing person case where the subject appears to have just dropped off the face of the earth.  Second, it was taught by people who are actually qualified to teach the subject matter. And third, it was free.

PI's are kind of out of place at law enforcement seminars and I was even more careful about admitting that I am an attorney.  Cop culture is very much a closed society.  And on a practical level, law enforcement has access to all sorts of information and techniques that are out of bounds to PI's. But on the other hand, PI's can do (or at least get away with) things law enforcement cannot, especially when there is no requirement for the information to be used in court which is increasingly the case in business related matters these days.  The client often just wants to know what happened and how to stop it. 

Contrary to what you see on television and read in cheap novels, private investigators are not normally involved in homicides.  My little practice usually involves skills more like those of a good print reporter.  I am tasked with telling a client the who, what, when, where and why of a situation. I may do interviews, take some pictures, etc.  Rarely, I might do an actual surveillance.  I'm sometimes tasked with verifying who a living person (usually an employee or a job candidate) actually is and occasionally with looking for a person who just isn't where they are supposed to be any more.  But most of the time, it's just computer and telephone work.

The first day of the seminar was taught by legendary former Tulsa PD homicide detective Mike Nance.  Nance now works for a national organization that helps find missing and abducted children.  Aside from teaching us how to access the database in question, Mike gave the crew a lot of blow by blow instruction on the practical side of handling a homicide, complete with color slides of crime scenes and body parts.  While that part of his presentation didn't have much practical application for a geriatric attorney/PI with a very, very low key civil practice, it was fascinating.

The morning session of the second day of the seminar was taught by Angela Berg. Angela is THE forensic anthropologist for the Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.  Yes, she is Oklahoma's own "Bones." The spooky Tulsa World's photo of her posted here does not do her justice.  In person, Angela is an attractive, petite blonde with an engaging personality and a razor sharp wit.  She approaches her work with the wry, dark humor that most homicide cops and related professionals adopt as a coping mechanism to deal with one of society's most horrible and heartbreaking jobs.  She described her job for us in great detail including color slides.  All that was missing was the unforgettable smell of a human body left unattended too long.  The material Angela taught has very little practical application for me but it was fascinating.

The last speaker of the seminar was yet another legend in homicide investigations.  Harvey Pratt is a Cheyenne Chief complete with ponytail.  He is a nationally recognized forensic artist and re-constructionist.  He is also a talented Native American artist.  For many years, he was a legendary investigator with the OSBI. He assisted in major cases around the nation, some involving well known serial killers.

Good homicide investigators often have engaging personalities. It is a tool of the trade that unlocks information from witnesses and even confessions from suspects. Pratt is no exception.  He is very personable and funny.  But underneath the dark cop humor is deep intensity and a mind that routinely collects a level of detail that most of us can't imagine.

While I don't want to take anything away from the other speakers, Pratt's presentation justified the whole two day adventure for me.  I walked away from it with two priceless nuggets of information.  The first involves interviewing skills.  I have always considered myself a very good information collector.  After the military, I was professionally trained to gather information in the business world by the big name computer companies I worked for.  They taught us to read people and situations the same way most people read a newspaper.  I did a stint as a print reporter and have practiced law now for nearly fifteen years. In short, I have spent most of a lifetime in the information business.  But, Pratt taught me that I need to kick my standard, kind of laid back, interview routine up several notches in collecting details.

The second nugget is more esoteric and I had to think twice before writing about it.  One of my "projects" these days is teaching pastors and other church officials how to spot child predators attempting to access children through their organization.  I've put a lot of time and study into it but frankly didn't trust myself in one area that was always lingering in the back of my mind, the perception of an evil presence.  Science calls these people sociopaths or psychopaths but in fact they are just plain evil.  Pratt openly acknowledged that fact and the fact it can be recognized in another person.  He described sensing it despite the outwardly normal and charming personality of serial killer Ted Bundy. Pratt taught me that I can acknowledge that perception openly instead of just quietly acting on it.

At the end of the second day, I had accomplished my goals.  I had logged sixteen hours of continuing education, learned how access a high powered DOJ database that can help clear a missing persons case and been challenged to kick my game up a couple of notches in a key area of the trade.  It was time well spent.  

The Adventures of Bill and Sheila Down Under

Every once in a while, I Google up the term "Bill and Sheila" just to see what other Bill and Sheila's around the world are up to.  This time I found a doozy.  There is an Australian artist named Michael Jones who has done a series of paintings called "Bill and Sheila On Holiday."  If you are our age, they are funny, poignant and expressive.  Each one tells a little story.  I am going to share a few below.  The rest of the portfolio can be viewed here:  LINK

PMS In Paradise

Boys Will Be Boys

It Doesn't Get Any Better