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Copyright November 6, 2017 Art Labrousse

Chapter Five

Back Up

One night I was asked to come in early, along with several other officers.  We would be serving search warrants on a number of houses and arrest warrants on several suspects for the sale of narcotics.

When I arrived I met the two officers from Portland PD that had been working undercover in our area for several weeks.

As all but the Chief, Sheriff and the detectives for both agencies I had no idea they had been working in our area.

As we were waiting one of the officers made a comment that he would never want to work as a police officer or deputy in our area – there wasn’t enough back up.

The other officer agreed with him.  They went on to point out that in the Portland area there were a number of officers on duty at all times, not only in Portland but in the cities and counties close by.

If they called out a code Zero they would have officers coming red lights and sirens from all directions.

Code Zero was their code for officer needs immediate assistance.  No matter the danger the officer could pretty well count on a number of officers at the scene within just a few minutes.

They pointed out that in our city the most officers we might have at any given time was 5, and that was very seldom.  But at least we might have assistance within a few minutes from a couple of officers.  They didn’t feel that was a soothing number.

The county deputies were even more vulnerable.  A couple of the buys they did were in the South County area – a good hour away from The Dalles in good weather not to mention bad weather which would take a lot longer.

Nope, they were satisfied with their larger department and the safety of enough officers to cover each other.

They had a good point, particularly on how alone the county deputies were when they were on duty.

Obviously we don’t have the number of serious calls that Portland had, but one serious call can be enough to have an officer injured or killed.

I remember that in one case one of the deputies was by himself trying to stop a bar fight, in Dufur 16 miles from The Dalles, between some lumber jacks and local citizens.  He went in, by himself – there was no other deputy on duty and no Oregon State Police Trooper either – he was dispatched and had no choice.

It was his job and duty as a deputy to protect those that were not involved in the scuffle, and arrest those that were.

He went into the bar and one of the lumberjacks turned and started toward him; he pulled out his gun, shot into the floor in front of the lumberjack and then leveled the gun on him.

The fight was over and the lumberjack that had started the fight and a couple of others let him apply the cuffs and haul them off – it was a bit crowded in that back seat.

I wouldn’t recommend it, but it did get the job done.

We were pretty fortunate in The Dalles.  We at least had one or two other officers on duty to help, usually the county deputy(s) on duty would head our way, even if they were an hour away and OSP, when they had a Trooper in our area would come if called.

Even Klicktat County deputies, from across the river in the State of Washington, could be counted on coming over if they heard of a problem.

That became real obvious one night.

We were aware there was a teenage party going on in a certain home.  However, we had no reason to contact them.  They were far enough from other houses that we didn’t get any noise complaints, which normally trips our response.

That was until almost 2330 hours.  We got an anonymous call of a loud party with a bunch of juveniles who were also drinking.

There were three of us on duty.  I had a new officer riding with me and one other officer.  While the one officer went to the door to check out the report, the new officer and I went to the back of the residence. 

Experience told us that if there was a party we would be having kids coming out the back door and trying to run away.

Sure enough, out they came.  We were corralling them up when one broke away and jumped a neighbor’s fence into his back yard in hopes to get away from us.  He landed in a black berry jungle and it took a few minutes to extricate him from the mess, he had scratches all over him.

We were taking names of the kids and getting the phone number of their parents (we would call and have the parents respond to the scene to pick up their kid – it was an effective tool to at least make sure there wouldn’t be a party there again,) when a kid came running from around the front saying the place was loaded with cops and to run.

He stopped cold when he saw us and decided to stay with us and give us his names.

But, that did intrigue the new officer, so he walked around to the front, a moment later he came back and said the kid was right, there must be a dozen officers out there.

What happened was, somehow our dispatcher thought he heard a call by one of us that there was shots fired and called over to the officers getting ready to go on duty, then notified Wasco County Sheriff’s office and the call was monitored by Klickitat County deputies and then notified the  Oregon State Police.

It was close to shift change in our office so the officers coming on duty grabbed the cars available and headed up, there were a couple or three deputies from Wasco and a couple more from Klickitat County that had immediately responded and as we were finishing up an OSP Trooper came in – he had been called off but was curious about what was happening.

While totally unnecessary, that time, all that back up was appreciated, it just reaffirmed that we could count on others to give us a hand if necessary.

Many people think that in small towns the danger to officers is not as great.  The reality is that it can be far more dangerous, as those two officers from Portland pointed out.

The east side of Oregon (Cascade Mountain range being the divider) has large counties; but, with the exception of Deschutes County with Bend and Redmond in it, the population is small and sparsely located.

Wasco County is 2395 square miles with a little over 25000 residents; however, the majority of those residents live in or within about three miles of The Dalles city limits.

And we are only 13^th in size compared to the other 36 counties, some of which are larger than some states.  Their backup could be half a day away.  The encouraging part of it though is that the ranchers and other citizens in those counties are quite aware of how alone the deputy could be and would respond in a moment to any need.

While the deputies spend a lot of their time in those areas just out of The Dalles because of the higher population numbers than the rest of the county, they serve the entire county.

That means that if they have a paper to serve in the farthest reaches of the county, or a crime has occurred and must be investigated, or a traffic accident or any other law enforcement responsibility they have to go there and handle the call or situation.

Because there are fewer people in the county outside the city, there are fewer deputies and many times there are alone, and even if not alone could be over an hour away from back up in the best of weather.

The differences between a city officer and a county deputy doesn’t seem all that much, but while they both handle criminal and other law enforcement related complaints, there are other differences besides the color of their uniform, the deputy has far more other duties to perform.

One of the things I learned, even before I became Sheriff, is that a deputy has to be far more ‘diplomatic’ than a city officer.

They both get the job done, but have to handle the situation a little differently.  Chances are the city officer will handle far more calls than a deputy and therefore cannot take a lot of time to complete the call.   

Now, there are cities that employ only one or just a few officers and they pretty much work alone, they usually do have the benefit of county deputies close by, sort of.

Added to the lack of adequate back up is the fact that in many areas of the county(s) there is no radio reception.  If a deputy responds to those locations he can’t call for help.

I can’t say how all Sheriffs hirer their deputies, even before I became Sheriff, WCSO deputies were older and while they might not have more law enforcement experience than their counterparts in the city, they had more life experience and used their experiences to help calm down situations and keep things halfway quiet until their back up arrived – and then it was usually only one deputy.

So, while there might not be as many incidents of violence in a smaller community, when it occurs the officer/deputy many have to handle it all by themselves.

Oh, one other thing.  Because these communities are smaller their tax base is also smaller, officers and deputies in these areas make less money than their counterparts in larger departments, sometimes hundreds and even thousands of dollars per MONTH, less depending on the rank of the officer.

So why do officers join smaller departments and why would anyone want to be a deputy where the nearest back up could be hours away? 

Lots of reasons and many of those are as varied as the officers in those communities.

Sometimes we don’t want to live in larger communities, I have never wanted to live in Portland, Eugene, or Salem, no desire at all to be around that many people.

I preferred working in the smaller department because I enjoyed the community.  I wanted to make a difference that I could see and I had more freedom to do that in a smaller department.

I enjoyed seeing people at the store or restaurant (most people anyway) and through the years many of those that I had arrested or had ‘adverse’ contacts with would come up to me and thank me for helping them, introducing their wives and children.

In larger departments much of the work is compartmentalized.  The officers basically do one part of the law enforcement while other officers do another part.

We had a detective sergeant that handled a lot of the follow-up and the more serious crimes, but in many incidents we were able to follow through on cases and develop the case to present to the City or District Attorney for prosecution.

When we went on patrol we didn’t respond to a crime and then turn it over to a detective, we investigated.  We didn’t respond to an accident and then turn it over to accident investigators, we did the investigation.

Many of our officers were far more capable of handling situations that our counterparts in larger departments because we had more experience in dealing with a wider variety of calls.

There are pluses and minuses in both communities, just as there are pluses and minuses of being a city officer, county deputy, state police officer, or one of the many federal agencies.

But, as for me, I preferred to stay here and do the best I could for my neighbors and friends to, along with my partners, make this a better and safer community.

There are differences, but each officer, no matter the size of his department has the responsibility to do the best he is capable of doing for his community. 

And while we may have different roles in our communities, together we make up a profession and a safety net that our citizens can rely on.

Copyright November 6, 2017 Art Labrousse

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1 Corinthians 12:11-13  KJV  “  But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.

¹² For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.

¹³ For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.”

As a Christian we have a responsibility to other Christians to perform those duties God gives us.  And not to just other Christians, but to all those He lays on our hearts, or puts us in touch with.

There is a hierarchy in law enforcement, there are different members of law enforcement having different duties, but they are one in their mission – they are there to serve the citizens and to protect them to the best of their abilities.

As Christians we are here to serve God and His people, and while we may not have all the answers, all the abilities, whether we are in a small community or large, a small church or large, the responsibility of service never goes away; BUT, we are only responsible for what He has us do, He has others doing other things and together we are one body working for Him.

Later, Art (-: