When I went to work for Prineville Police Department amazing things happened that would never happen there today. It was October 1971. I was hired and given a badge, handcuffs, leather gear and a uniform. I was not given any instruction about arrests or handcuffing. Heck I was afraid to use the handcuffs because I didn’t have a key for them.

This pursuit occurred the third night I was working as a police officer. I think the sergeant was mad at me for arresting a man for driving under the influence the night before when I was suppose to be driving around and learning the city streets. The sergeant gave me a hand held radio, about the size of a small suit case, and put me in an unmarked 1969 Chevrolet patrol car. The car had a Montgomery Ward light that you plugged into the cigarette lighter to activate. Then the rotating blue light was placed on the dash, not secured either. The unit had a siren. To operate the siren you had to push a button on the dash and hold it down. The emergency light and radio were sitting in the seat next to me. The last thing the sergeant told me was to stay out of trouble for my10 hour shift and to drive around town and learn the streets. Now how much trouble can a recruit get into if he can’t even write a citation and I didn’t have any citations, heck I didn’t even know how to fill them out. I did have a gun, but I had not received instructions on that, and I had never fired a round. The car was similar to my personal car, but I had to learn where the siren button was and how to work the emergency light and siren. Did I mention that I knew zip about law enforcement and procedures?

About four hours into the shift I was down town and headed west on 5^th street. A block away another car was west bound on fourth street. The driver drew my attention by doing something like yelling and flipping me off. Then he burned rubber across the intersection. Well, I decided I should parallel him on 5^th street and see where he went. The next cross street was Deer Street, about three city blocks away. I turned left and he turned right onto Deer Street. We were now driving at each other. Not being too smart I decided to meet him head on, to stop him.

I plugged in the rotating Montgomery Ward Light, which flashed blue all over the world, including into my eyes. The other driver saw the light and turned back east down the alley between 4^th and 5^th street. Down the alley we went at oh too fast speeds. The car ahead of me sort of bounced and continued on. Some fool had dug a trench across the alley, about 2 foot wide and 3 foot deep. Since I couldn’t stop, my car jumped the ditch too.

As we came out of the alley we turned right onto Belknap Street. I was having a little trouble at this time. I think we must have been traveling about 60 mph down the alley. I was trying to hold the light on the dash and push the siren button, and drive. I also tried to use the radio, but it had fallen off the seat and was for my purposes, gone. So I would push the button and grab the light and try to steer, not always in that order.

At the end of the alley things got real interesting. The light came off the dash and went someplace. I was too busy driving to use the siren. The guy I was chasing lost control and his car’s wheels sort of locked and took him in a circle. He jumped a curb and took the front porch off a house, yes the owner was home enjoying a peaceful evening. He was also the town’s fire chief. The car continued turning and went back onto the street and jumped the opposite curb and came to a halt in a lawn.

The driver bailed out of his car and ran. I left the unmarked car in the middle of the street and a foot chase was on. The blue light was on the floor and still working. and the engine was running. Who knows where the suit case radio went. Over a picket fence we went, and under a clothes line, which removed my hat from my head. I tackled the driver and wrestled him to the ground. He promised to be good, and I, since I didn’t know how to use my handcuffs, I didn’t apply them.

He said he would walk back to my car with me. Can you believe it, he lied to me. I let him up and off he went like an express jack rabbit. So the chase was back on. This time I tackled him as he reached a fence. The poor man’s face slid down a rose hedge making some nasty scratches.

This time I sat on him and got my handcuffs out. I held him down as he thrashed about as I figured out how to make them work. This dude was not helping my figuring out how to handcuff him. I’ve ridden horses that bucked less. Once I figured the handcuffs out I pried his hands behind his back and applied the cuffs. He said they were too tight, but I didn’t know how to loosen them, heck I didn’t even have a key. They may have been too tight because I applied them until they were tight on his wrist, I didn’t want them to come off. I pulled him to his feet and walked him back to my car.

When I got back to my car I saw two other city police cars, but no one was around. I couldn’t find the portable radio and the rabbit still wanted to run. I put him in my car and drove to the police station and placed him in the holding room. Did I mention the patrol car did not have locking back doors or a protective cage? I tied the guy into the car with the seat belts. At the station, a state trooper came in and looked at me in surprise. He asked if I had seen my sergeant and the other patrol officer. I told him I hadn’t seen them, but I had seen their cars. He asked if I was alright and then started laughing. He got on the city radio and told the sergeant I was at the station. I don’t know what was said but the sergeant and the patrolman didn’t come to the station to assist me.

The trooper put our guns in the lock box and then called my chief. He told the chief I was alright and he would help me out since my fellow officers were not going to do that. The trooper removed the handcuffs, and the end result was I still didn’t have a key. The trooper told me I was on the sergeant’s shit list. I had been told not to get in trouble, and I had. Since the house that lost the porch was owned by the city fire chief that made things even worse.. He had called in that someone had ripped the porch off his house, and the car was still there.

The sergeant and patrolman arrived on the scene. They not only saw the wrecked car, but in the middle of the street was the unmarked patrol car with the blue light working from the floor. The rookie was missing, the engine was running and he would not answer his radio. In an adjacent yard they found my patrol hat and assumed I had been kidnapped. They put out a panic call for assistance and the trooper had come from his home. While they were searching for me, they thought someone had stolen my patrol car, and now the world as they knew it was turning to shit. Then to have me at the station with one in custody did not help their opinion of me.

The trooper listened to what had happened and then helped me fill out the appropriate citations and booking charges and lodged the suspect in the city jail. To make things better for me in the future, the suspect had been a state champion wrestler at about my weight and had bragged that no one could ever take him to jail. He never did run from me or give me any grief after that. I did know the guy, but had never wrestled him in high school. My wrestling match with him wasn’t a fair match because I was sober and he was drunk.

The poor guy had an interesting life. I helped investigate a stabbing, where he was the victim of a mad woman. Years later he got drunk and wrecked a car and was killed in the accident.

The state trooper was right, my sergeant was very unhappy with me.

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