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Linden Publishing - Mark Johnson

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249 pages

English

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What makes a fifty-year-old man quit a highly successful career in charity work to take on the low-paid, dangerous job of being a police officer? When Mark Johnson left the United Way to become the oldest rookie in the Mobile, Alabama, police department, he didn’t just have to adjust to a new career—he had to adjust to an entirely new life of danger, violence, and stark moral choices. “Apprehensions and Convictions” is Johnson’s explosive memoir of his second career as a cop. Going from fund-raising with socialites to confronting armed suspects in the streets, Johnson found that poverty and crime were no longer social issues but matters of life and death. A civilized man whose first instinct is to help people in trouble, Johnson learned that some men can only be subdued with brute force and some chronic criminals refuse to be redeemed. Defying the skepticism of his wife, the derision of the younger cops who called him “Pawpaw,” and his own self-doubts, Johnson rose to become a detective and a highly decorated officer. “Apprehensions and Convictions” also tells a personal story of how Johnson overcame his own demons to find a new sense of purpose and identity in midlife. From a troubled drink- and drug-fueled youth, to dealing with both his birth and adoptive parents, to struggling to find a steady career path, Johnson’s story is of a man who found his courage and changed himself. An intense, sweeping narrative that explores the frustrations of an overprivileged youth, delves deeply into the dysfunction of the Mobile ghetto, and ends with an armed standoff between Johnson and an escaped cop-killer, “Apprehensions and Convictions” is a compelling new memoir of a remarkable life.

Informations

Publié par	Linden Publishing
Date de parution	01 février 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781610352741
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0025€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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ADVANCE PRAISE FOR A PPREHENSIONS C ONVICTIONS
Part police procedural, part contemplative memoir, Mark Johnson s Apprehensions Convictions is all true, and a revelation. His story is by turns hair-raising, hilarious, and heartfelt. It should take its rightful place in the colorful Southern tradition of storytelling.
- Winston Groom , author of Forrest Gump, Kearny s March , and The Aviators
This unique and entertaining memoir by a former national charity executive, who finds himself policing dangerous inner-city streets as a 50-year-old rookie cop, is exciting, absorbing and unflinchingly honest.
- Joseph Wambaugh , author of The New Centurions, The Blue Knight , the Hollywood Station series, and numerous other crime novels
Gritty, thoughtful, and authentic. Johnson gives you unvarnished insight into a world in which few dare to tread. He s the real deal and so is this book.
- Adam Plantinga , author of 400 Things Cops Know
F. Scott Fitzgerald claimed there were no second acts in America. He was wrong. Mark Johnson proves it. He s into his third act now, from social worker to cop, and now to writer, and in Apprehensions Convictions he leaves little doubt that he s mastered that third incarnation. You ll be grabbed by the seat of your pants on the first page and he won t let go till the very last word.
- Charles Salzberg , Shamus-nominated author of Devil in the Hole and Swann s Lake of Despair
Apprehensions Convictions is a thoroughly enjoyable and compelling read, chock-full of authenticity and soul. Mark Johnson s book is not only motivational, but, in a way, an excellent anthropological study of police culture and human behavior. Definitely essential reading.
- David Swinson , author of The Second Girl
A PPREHENSIONS C ONVICTIONS
Adventures of a 50-Year-Old Rookie Cop
Mark Johnson
Apprehensions Convictions: Adventures of a 50-Year-Old Rookie Cop Copyright 2016 by Mark Johnson. All rights reserved.
Published by Quill Driver Books An imprint of Linden Publishing 2006 South Mary Street, Fresno, California 93721 (559) 233-6633 / (800) 345-4447 QuillDriverBooks.com
Quill Driver Books and colophon are trademarks of Linden Publishing, Inc.
ISBN 978-1-61035-264-2
135798642
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file
Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: What Are You?
Chapter 2: The Turd in the Punch Bowl
Chapter 3: Psychic Payne
Chapter 4: The Christmas Gift
Chapter 5: Cops n Corpses
Chapter 6: Baby-Mamas and Bastards
Chapter 7: My Parents Never Did That!
Chapter 8: Runnin Code
Chapter 9: A Pot to Piss In
Chapter 10: Love and Anger Management
Chapter 11: Mudbug
Chapter 12: Stranger in a Strange Land
Chapter 13: Plainclothes and Provenance
Chapter 14: Missing Persons
Chapter 15: Deception for Detection
Chapter 16: The New Squad
Chapter 17: Oedipus Wrecks
Chapter 18: The Chicken Comes Home to Pensacola
Chapter 19: Thievin Hoes, Prehensile Toes
Chapter 20: Bad Bluffs, Slipped Cuffs
Chapter 21: Solo Stakeout
Chapter 22: Slocumb s Theorem
Chapter 23: Fool Me Once
Chapter 24: Bad Day on the Bayou
Chapter 25: Colt s Capture and the Metro Amends
Chapter 26: Folly Chases Death (around the Broken Pillar of Life)
Chapter 27: Shit Gets Real
Chapter 28: Face of Fury, Search for Sense
Chapter 29: (Can t Get No) Satisfaction
Epilogue
Additional Reading
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Index
For Nancy, and Pete and Kate. And in memory of Margaret and Stan.
Preface
I m not a career cop, nor a natural warrior. But cops have always been among my heroes. Looking at the downside of fifty, it seemed time was running out. More than two decades of social service philanthropy (the majority as CEO) in three distinct cities had left me feeling restless and out of touch. Instead of trying to effect community-wide change, I thought maybe I could be more effective-more useful -to a few neighborhoods, even to just a few families or individuals at a time. I wanted to make a more tangible difference, in a more hands-on way. Not many jobs are more hands-on than policing. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It still does.
The names, nicknames, and aliases of all those portrayed in this book-police, suspects, arrestees, witnesses, informants, victims, public defenders, prosecutors, magistrates, and judges-have been changed, with the exceptions of Officer Steven Green and Lawrence Wallace, Jr. (both deceased, and a matter of public record), my immediate family, me, and good ol Ernie.
All events herein are from my own first-hand experience. My memory of them is supported by my dispatch notes, case files, official reports and narratives, conversations with others at the scene, and, in a few cases, news accounts.
Spoken words are necessarily recreated as closely as memory allows. In the absence of recorded transcripts, every effort has been made to convey the essential truth-the intention, inflection, and meaning-of the speaker and the words spoken. This includes colloquialisms, slang, and dialect, sometimes requiring improper grammar, profanity, and phonetic spellings. Some of the slang is racially unique, some is just southern. Mobile s population is roughly half African American, half Caucasian, but my police beats were in primarily African American neighborhoods. I wrote the way the people in those neighborhoods talk. It s not exaggerated or distorted. It s different from the way people talk in Denver, Milwaukee, or St. Louis. In fact, understanding the local black dialect was a significant challenge in my early days as a cop. I had to ask people to repeat themselves multiple times, sometimes needing them to spell out what they were saying. I even had to do this on the air with police radio dispatchers-and this after having lived in Mobile for seven years. It s a thick accent, a dense and colorful jargon, and it takes a while to fully comprehend.
At several points in my story, I use strong terms to refer to people encountered on the job. Some may take offense at words like feral or savages. I make no apology. Words mean things, and the people I refer to match the meanings of the words, and it has nothing to do with race or class and I don t speak for all cops, anyway.
I have met cops from all over the U.S. and from a dozen foreign countries, and have found an uncommon commonality between us, stemming from the unique perspective and shared experience that the work bestows upon us. It s scary, disturbing, dangerous work, mostly a plodding grind, occasionally thrilling, usually for scandalously low pay, but offering unsurpassed rewards. It s the best job I ever had.
1
What Are You?
Men sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf .
-attributed to George Orwell
I m just a few days out of Mobile s Police Academy, my third night in the Third Precinct riding with my FTO, Porter. Sarge had just dismissed us from roll call, and we were in the precinct parking lot loading and fueling up Porter s squad car. It was 1815 hours on a sweltering mid-September evening.
Porter had told me the first night, Get this straight, up front: I don t know you and don t wanna know you. Don t give a damn about you, your life s story, your wife and kids, what you did before this, and why you wanted to work in this fucked-up department, especially at your age, Grampa. You re not my buddy, and you won t be after this month is up. He had punctuated this declaration by slamming the squad car trunk, where I d just stowed my shotgun.
I never volunteered to be a field training officer and don t get paid any extra for all the goddamn paperwork. I hate rookies. Even though you re old enough to be my pawpaw and you look like Clint fucking Eastwood-in Blood Work , not Dirty Harry , have you seen that yet? Then you know what I m talkin about: he s so old, he has a heart attack in the first scene-you re just another goddamn rookie to me. All I ask is that you don t bug me, don t try to talk to me, or ask a million stupid-ass rookie questions. Just stay the fuck outta my way and don t do anything to embarrass me.
Yes sir, I d said that first night, an academy reflex. I d been told before of my resemblance to Clint but without Porter s specificity. This time it kinda stung. I had just seen Blood Work . After the opening-scene foot chase ends with Clint s heart attack, for the rest of the movie everybody tells him how bad, how sick he looks. Wasn t Eastwood like seventy-five? I had just turned fifty.
Jeee-zus, Porter had said, blowing smoke and shaking his head in disgust. He d then thrust his plump round face into mine, his sneer exposing teeth crying out for orthodonture. He barely has whiskers, I d noticed, and a sparse, utterly pathetic mustache darkened his upper lip. I d gotten a pungent whiff of coffee and nicotine from his breath but resisted pulling my head back.
You see any fucking stripes on my sleeve, Pawpaw? He d raised a thick bicep, pulling at the sleeve. First rule: Don t call me sir !
I d felt my mouth forming the y of yessir but aborted it, leaving my chin slightly jutting, in what I d hoped might be taken as defiance, or determination. It was taken as neither. Porter wasn t even looking at me as we d pulled out of the precinct and into the night. He was on a roll.
Second rule, he had announced. Forget all that crap they taught you in the academy. It s useless. Horseshit. Has nothing to do with how it really is out here on the streets. Just watch what I do,