Hero To Zero 2nd edition

by Fortier, Zach

  Bilko had not been informed that there had been several thefts of gas from the city’s gas pumps, and so detectives had installed hidden cameras to keep track of who was pumping gas in order to catch the thieves. Imagine their surprise when wonder boy Bilko pulled up to the pumps on his day off and filled ‘er up. A very quick and surgical internal investigation was conducted, and Bilko was not only let go from his job and decertified as an officer, but was also criminally charged and publically humiliated. He fell incredibly hard and fast from the top of his public relations throne.

  With no job, no career, and no retirement prospects, his future was looking pretty bleak. You would think that Bilko would be done with the media.

  Nope. Old habits die hard. Once a media whore, always a media whore. Mr. Bilko was contacted by one of his reporter buddies and asked if he would consider giving an interview about his fall from grace.

  The reporter did not expect much. No sane person would jump back into the public spotlight after having so loudly proclaimed that he was the answer to the escalating crime rate in the county, and then, a few months later, becoming a member of the “criminal element” he claimed was so intimidated by his mere physical presence.

  Mr. Bilko, however, surprised the reporter, and proved more than willing to provide an in-depth interview. At the end of the interview, looking deeply and heartbrokenly into the camera, with tears and snot running down his face, Bilko cried and asked for the public he served to please forgive him. His perfect porcelain teeth shone in the light.

  Still not the sharpest knife in the drawer, Mr. Bilko did not understand that the public had seen through his shiny disguise, even if his media groupies had not.

  I ATTENDED POLICE ACADEMY AT a satellite location. It was located at a college that had contracted with the state police academy to provide the same courses as the actual academy, but at a remote location. The coursework and academics were the same, but they were taught by local state-certified cops.

  This was where I met Dan Arnold. Dan was a state-certified arrest-control instructor, and a black belt in aikido. He was one of four local cops hand- picked by the director of the police academy to teach the arrest-control course.

  On the first day of arrest-control class, we lined up in six rows, and the four veteran cops made us do pushups until we could not do them anymore. I noticed right away that none of them did pushups. It was not going to be a lead-by-example class. The motto of the class became, “Do as I say, not as I do.”

  We were “worked out” by the four cops non-stop until we all were covered with sweat and some of us puked. Dan stood with his arms folded and watched. Later, on our hourly breaks, he would take out his martial-arts staff and dance around the room in mock combat with an imaginary opponent. In the brief five-minute break, we watched him break into a profuse sweat while he defeated his imaginary foe. He was that special.

  Several years passed, and I was now at the same department as the four arrest-control instructors who had worked us out years before. Dan was now one of my field training officers. He was as enthusiastic working as an FTO as he had been in the arrest control class. He offered a lot of wind, smoke, and mirrors, but not a lot of action or help.

  Finally, however, Dan found his place in the department. He put in for a transfer and was granted a slot in the department’s traffic division.

  Traffic enforcement fit Dan like a glove. It came naturally to him. In, traffic Dan rose to the occasion like he had never done before as a cop. He applied himself almost from day one. After a brief period of time, he was recognized for his efforts in DUI enforcement, and even received recognition at the state level for the impact he had in identifying and arresting drunk drivers. From there, Dan went on to obtain the department’s first Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) certification. Dan sailed through the certification effortlessly.

  This was a noteworthy accomplishment. Several others had attempted to get the certification and had been unable to do so. The classes are long, and it takes a lot of determination to obtain all of the necessary real-world drug observations in the field required to get the certification. Dan was proud of his certificates, and posted them in his office. I was checking them out one day when I noticed he had a diploma that stated that he had graduated with honors with a bachelor’s degree in genetic engineering. I looked at the certificate and thought, Seriously? Genetic engineering?

  “So, do you have a Bachelor of Science?” I asked

  “NO!” he said. “Rookie, can’t you read? It says ‘genetic engineering.’”

  Rookie could read just fine. Rookie decided to write down the name of the college that had awarded the genetic engineering degree and look it up later on the Internet. Guess what the stupid rookie found out? There was no such college, ever, anywhere, period.

  Bad rookie for challenging the genetic-engineer wannabe. What was I thinking? I kept that little tidbit of knowledge to myself. If others wondered about the curious degree, they would just have to check it out for themselves.

  The department had an aging fleet of motorcycles that desperately needed to be replaced. Dan again stepped up to the plate and was instrumental in the department obtaining a brand-new fleet of Harley Davidson police-package cruisers.

  Dan felt the best he had felt about himself in a long time. He was making a contribution that mattered to the department, and his efforts were noticed and appreciated. Finally, people respected Dan in a way he thought that he deserved. Dan spent several years in traffic and then transferred to the gang unit.

  As a gang-unit detective, Dan was the go-to guy for public speaking. He could not put a case together and see it through the courts to save his life, but he could give a presentation to the public that was head-and-shoulders above those of the other detectives in the unit.

  Dan excelled at public speaking. He had a natural talent for putting together PowerPoint slides and charts, and making problems understandable to the groups that contacted the department and requested informative presentations.

  Dan would meet with church groups and business owners, and even gave a brief at the honors forum at the university. Day-walkers all! All totally unaware of what went on in the streets of their city at night. Dan spoke to them on a regular basis, and made problems seem less frightening, telling them we in the police department had the problems under control and well in hand. It was far from the truth of course, but it comforted them, and that was what they needed.

  Dan spent a few years in the gang unit, and then was hand-picked to head up the department’s newly organized intelligence unit. The unit was supposed to gather information on criminals and their activities, matching specific crimes committed to a list of criminals who specialized in that type of crime, matching MO and past history to the people. The idea was to speed up the process of identifying who had committed the crime and making an arrest.

  I have no idea how Dan did at that specialty. The chief and his administration chose him specifically. Dan was selected because they thought that he could work alone and master the task at hand. The unit was quietly managed, and no one knew what really went on—probably not even the chief.

  Dan, like most cops, had a few issues he kept on the down low. One day, however, he got himself into a real shit storm. Dan had been seeing a woman who was a convicted felon. This was a major faux pas for a cop, especially a veteran cop in charge of gathering intelligence on the criminal elements of the city. Dan met with her on occasions when her boyfriend was gone and “gathered Intelligence” on a pretty regular basis.

  The boyfriend became suspicious that something was going on while he was away. Maybe neighbors said something, or maybe he just had a hunch. Either way, he came home early one day and caught Dan in the act of “gathering intelligence” from his girlfriend.

  Dan hopped off the woman and grabbed his gun, holding the man at gunpoint. He then handcuffed him and stuffed him in a closet while he thought about what to do next. Yep, this scene went to shit in the blink of an eye. Dan was in
a convicted felon’s apartment “gathering intelligence,” which was totally against the rules, and now he had her boyfriend at gunpoint and in a closet in handcuffs. Amazing how fast that happened.

  The old cops had a saying that they repeated over and over to the new guys when I was first starting. It was pretty crude, and at the time I thought it was bullshit. But as the years went by I watched more and more of my fellow cops fall by the wayside because they failed to listen to the saying and take it to heart: “The badge will get you pussy, but the pussy will get your badge.” Dan was about to find this out in a big way.

  There was no way to make this little intelligence-gathering episode disappear. Next thing Dan knew, he was up on aggravated kidnapping charges and he had lost his job. He was decertified as a cop and would never work again in the field of law enforcement. The incident made the local news and then the national news. I was in another state and actually saw the incident mentioned on TV.

  Somehow Dan was able to reach a deal with the prosecutors, and charges were dropped. He had reached the required time limit in the state retirement system and he was allowed to retire quietly after this very public humiliation.

  He went from being handpicked to run a specialized unit within the department to being charged with a felony himself. Dan dropped from grace as quickly as his convicted-felon girlfriend could drop her panties for some “intelligence gathering.”

  CHRIS COPE IS AN AMAZING story to me, and maybe that’s because I was a part of the beginning of his incredible flame-out as he came crashing down to earth. Before I tell you about the crash and burn, though, you need to know his background.

  Cope joined the state patrol as an enthusiastic young rookie fresh from the state police academy. He had wanted to be a trooper his entire childhood. Some kids want to be firemen or rock stars; some dream of being professional athletes. Cope dreamed of being a state trooper.

  One of the proudest moments in his life was not, in fact, graduating from high school, where he was an outstanding athlete, or from college, with his four-year degree firmly in hand. It was graduating from the state police academy, at which he distinguished himself with honors and obtained the class award for the highest academic achievement. Cope had dreamed of this moment, and now it was about to be real. In a few short days he would be assigned to a county to start patrolling its freeways. He could hardly wait to begin his field training with a seasoned trooper.

  Cope was a bright and shiny new guy with a bright and shiny future ahead of him. He successfully completed his training, and was set free to patrol on his own. He was highly successful in learning the ins and outs of the interstate, and the political roadmap of the state patrol organization.

  Not only was Cope academically gifted, he looked the part as well. Broad shoulders, square jaw, perfect teeth, and steely blue eyes. He stood at 6’1” and weighed about 195 lbs. He was very physically fit, and had a swagger about him when he entered any room. He was a poster-boy state trooper.

  Cope decided to try to specialize and distinguish himself further by becoming an SME (Subject Matter Expert). He asked for and was eventually granted a position on the state’s DUI (driving under the influence) enforcement squad.

  The squad was a small unit of highly trained and motivated troopers that would be tasked with saturating an area and stopping any driver who could be DUI. The squad would swoop into the area and saturate the streets, stopping everything that moved. Every car, no matter what the occupants were doing, was a target. The tactic was questionably legal, to say the least, but it was very successful, and netted the squad an impressive record of arrest statistics.

  Cope excelled in the unit, and was in the top five percent of the performers. He was living his dream, making a difference in lowering the number of drunks on the road, making his home state safe. I know that it sounds a bit corny, but this is what he had dreamed of, and now it was coming true. Cope had aspirations to move up the food chain, to sergeant, maybe, and then lieutenant; if he played his cards right, the sky was the limit.

  The beginning of the end for Chris Cope was one night while the DUI squad was patrolling our city. They had arrived and begun the usual saturation of our streets, looking for DUI’s and stopping every vehicle.

  They were not entirely welcome in the city. They had no idea who they were stopping and what kind of danger they might have stepped into with this slash-and-burn mentality. One minute you were stopping an elderly couple on their way home from a movie, the next a carload of gang members armed and looking for a fight. That was the reality in our streets. Anyone you stopped could be your next gun battle.

  We took it seriously. State troopers did not always recognize the danger of the people they stopped until they were knee-deep in shit. Cope was the exception, however. He was as sharp as any trooper I have ever met.

  This particular night, Cope had a ride-along, a college student who had taken a class at the local university and elected to ride with a state trooper for the practical experience, actually seeing the job that they did from the front seat of the car.

  Cope had been out on patrol about four hours with the ride-along. They had stopped and assisted two other troopers who had found DUIs, and were looking for their own when they decided to stop a car full of juveniles. The driver was a young woman who had failed to signal as she changed lanes in front of Cope and his decked-out state cruiser.

  Cope called out on the radio that he was stopping the car, and gave his location. He was outnumbered, as there were at least four or five occupants, so he decided to call for backup. Cope walked up to the driver and spoke to her, asking her for license and registration. He looked around the interior of the car and later said that he got a bad feeling about the occupants. Cope obtained the documents from the driver and walked back to his car, checking over his shoulder to make sure he was not about to be ambushed.

  While he ran the information, another state trooper pulled up; the two troopers talked and watched the occupants fidget inside the car. They decided that they wanted to pull the occupants out one by one from the back seat forward. Once they had most of the occupants removed, they went up to remove the front passenger. He was a Hispanic male and a gang member recently released from prison. In a short ten seconds, Cope’s whole world would begin to change. The gang member had a gun and tried to shoot Cope. He failed.

  Cope was highly proficient with his firearm. He was not the average trooper. He saw the weapon, immediately yelled “GUN,” and pulled his own weapon. All of this was done in an instant; Cope’s handgun cleared his holster less than one second after the gang member pulled and pointed his own gun. That is incredibly fast. But like I said before, Cope was no ordinary trooper. He shot several rounds into the gang member, and was able to survive the shooting with no injuries.

  To make a long story short, Cope had survived an ambush. His decked-out state patrol cruiser was equipped with a dash camera, and the entire stop was recorded. Cope’s tactics were by-the-numbers perfect. Soon he was well-known to the entire state patrol as one of their own who had survived street combat and done it in an exemplary fashion. Again the sky appeared to be the limit for Trooper Cope.

  What no one tells you about shootings is the effect that they have on you down the road. Cop training is about surviving the moment, surviving the battle, doing it by the numbers, and if you live through the actual experience, you become one of a very small group of law enforcement officers in this country. A lot of cops are involved in shootings, and a lot die.

  Unfortunately some do something in the heat of the battle that the laws of their state frown on, and that lead them to be looked at as criminals themselves. They lose everything in the brief, furious struggle to survive.

  Cope survived physically, and appeared to have come out of the event emotionally stable as well. He was recognized by the governor of the state for his heroism, and given a medal at the state capital. The awards ceremony was publicized and on the evening news as well. Cope was as a recognized hero.
The gang member, on the other hand, was found to be criminally responsible for the shooting and sent back to prison, still carrying one of the bullets from Cope’s weapon in his chest.

  Things appeared to be rolling along smoothly for Cope. He became the treasurer for the local troopers’ benefit association. It was largely a political position, which was one of the many boxes to check on your way up the food chain, necessary to gain promotion in the agency.

  But I think something had changed in Cope that night that he himself was barely aware of. Looking back, I’m not sure where it all started to unravel for him, but the position he took in the benefit association would be his downfall.

  Cope was required to manage a pretty sizable sum of money, considering his was a volunteer position. The temptation became too much for him, and he started to skim small amounts from the bank account he managed. When he was finally caught, Cope was found to have taken over $27,000.

  There would be no rescuing him from this event. He was publicly humiliated, criminally charged for the theft, and decertified as a state trooper. He could never again be a cop, anywhere, ever. His story was an amazing example of what I saw over and over again in the field. He fell in a very public manner.

  I have no proof for what I believe happened to Cope, but I saw it over and over again. After a cop has been in a shooting, he or she changes mentally.

  Some take more risks, feeling invincible or perhaps seeking thrills, trying to relive the adrenaline rush they experienced in the life-or-death battle. Maybe it’s different for each person; I don’t know. I do know that the change almost always occurs, and almost always ends their careers.

  Cope’s story was not over yet. Here’s another example of the change that Cope experienced.