DEC 2022. Blues Vol 38 No. 12

BY LT. BOB EVANS The

BY LT. BOB EVANS The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t The following story is true. No names were changed because no innocent people were involved. My story takes place on Christmas Eve many years ago. I had been a cop for more than 30 years and was a Lieutenant assigned to nights. With all the time I had in I could have been on days with weekends off and pushing paper all day, but I’d spent my entire life on the street. It was where I felt more comfortable. It was my home, I guess. My kids were all grown, and I had 4 failed marriages behind me. Yeah, I could retire but I had absolutely nothing to retire to. The streets were my home, and I couldn’t see myself anywhere else….working or otherwise. Hell, if I weren’t a cop, I’d probably be homeless living on the streets. But despite my acceptance of being here forever, the weeks leading up to the night of this story were what seemed like the beginning of the end for me. Sounds confusing, I know, but let me start from the beginning. It was early December in the late 80’s. Like I said I was the lieutenant assigned to nights and in our department the nightshift lieutenant was pretty much the night sheriff. I oversaw everybody and everything. But I had been doing it so long that it really didn’t seem like that big of a deal anymore. But more of all the ole heads were retiring and every day I had more and more youngsters showing up at roll call. The sheriff decided that to fill vacancies he would accept lateral transfers from other departments. Since we paid more than the surrounding departments these kids (actually young men and women in their late 20’s) came over in droves. Everyday there was someone new and of course they all came to nights. The latest transfer was this young man from a PD up north. A real go getter. Reminded me of me at that age. His name was Randy Jones. Jones was married and had just had a brand-new baby girl. Wasn’t even 3 weeks old. The boy posted pictures of that girl all over the station. He was the proud papa for sure. But he was from a PD, and this was the sheriff’s department. We did things differently and Jones had his own idea about how it ‘should’ be done. I had to sit that boy down several times during those first few weeks and just say look, ‘If you want to stay here and be successful you must follow the book. Otherwise, I’m going to have to talk to the sheriff and send you back to the PD.” Broke my heart because he was really a good kid just stubborn. Reminded me when I started. The dayshift sergeant moved him to days for a week, just to teach him OUR ways. Now here it was Christmas Eve and Jones was back working the nightshift with me again. Anyway, it was about 3am when a silent alarm dropped in a warehouse on the northside of the district. I was only a couple blocks away and Jones must have been sitting in the parking lot because he advised he was about to go out on it. I advised dispatch I was backing him up and was a couple minutes out. Jones arrived and advised he had an open rear door, as I was pulling up to the rear. We agreed we would clear across the bare concrete. Unit 204 I have shots fired and two suspects down. I need EMS and backup. Where is Jones? “Jones?” “Unit 204 to Jones, where are you? “Jones where the fuck are you? I began running all over the warehouse to see where he was and as soon as I turned a corner, there he was. Laying in a pool of blood. “Officer down, officer down, Unit 204 I have an officer down.” Jones? As soon as I knelt down, I could see that a round had hit him in the neck and struck an artery. He had bled out in seconds. The first round those assholes fired went right through the thin partition wall and hit him. He was down within seconds of us enter- the building starting towards the right and work our way to the front. This was one of those flex space warehouses with storage on the back and offices in the front and they weren’t really that large. As soon as we stepped inside, we heard movement near the front. Other than our flashlights, it was pitch black in the damn place. Suddenly a bright piercing light following by a deafening boom appeared in front of us…. we were taking fire from multiple locations. I was literally firing into the dark. I just kept firing in the direction of the muzzle blast until there weren’t anymore. I stood there in the dark, shining my flashlight to see what or who was there and 20 feet away I saw two bodies on the ground, blood now running 94 The BLUES The BLUES 95 94 The BLUES The BLUES 95