[Editor’s Note: Here is a remarkable letter of redemption our essayist Greg Smith received after his most recent contribution.]
I loved your article, and it's so true.
I've been able to assess police officers from both sides of the fence.
Born in Watts, my first memory In life was of the police coming to my house in the middle of the night, shooting my dog, and dragging my father off into the night.
I didn't see him again until I was 15 years old.
By that time I had started to follow in his footsteps. He got out of the joint just in time to come pick me up from Camp Oak Grove Juvenile Camp.
I was a precocious young man.
I started my walk outside the law at 12 years of age.
I won't bore you with the details. But I was plucked out of school one day when I was in the 7th grade by a Sgt. Foster. This guy could have been cast by a Hollywood producer, a no-nonsense, cigar chomping, middle-aged white man.
But this guy rode me like Sea Biscuit throughout my teenage years. I hated him. I was convinced that he was the world's most confirmed racist. If he suspected me of something, this guy wouldn't even do me the courtesy of coming out and arresting me.
He'd just put word out on the street for me to report to Newton Street. The following morning, which wasn't good for my rep at all (“Hey E, Foster said if he had to burn one more drop of gas lookin' for you, he's gonna pull it out you”). And it seemed that regardless of what division I'd get busted in, he'd show up at Juvenile Hall to humiliate me and tell me how stupid I was.
This went on until finally I got arrested for possession of dangerous drugs when I was 19 years old.
Foster was right.
I was stupid.
I got busted on Manchester and Vermont at 3 in the morning with a briefcase full of drugs, as though every cop in the city didn't know me, and knew damn well I wasn't a businessman.
As soon as I was handcuffed, I knew that as an adult, with my prolific juvenile activities, nothing was gonna beat me to the pen but the headlights on the bus.
But when I went to trial in Torrance, there he was sitting up in court — way out of his jurisdiction.
So I assumed that he had come to gloat and to tell me “I told you so.”
But to my surprise, when my case came up, the judge called me to his chambers. Foster went back with me. And of course, even as he walked through the door, he was telling me how incredibly stupid I was.
Then Foster looked at the judge, and he said, “But not irretrievably so.”
We worked out a deal. I would plead guilty and be placed on summary probation pending a stint in the military. If I managed to get out with an honorable discharge, all charges would be dropped. Of course, I jumped at the deal.
But Foster had the last laugh.
I assumed they meant the army. When they called my name to fall in with the Marines, I thought they had made a mistake. I made an even worse mistake by telling them so.
Thereafter, some very big, and very ugly, Drill Instructor informed me in no uncertain terms that if I valued my safety, “Every time I say (expletive), You come a slidin'. Got that?”
At that moment, my life changed. From that point on, I was handed from one sadist to the next, until I became one myself.
The Marine Corps made me finish high school. They sent me to college, and by the time I got out, I was a paralegal and professional writer.
My adult conviction was thrown out. As a paralegal, I petitioned the court to expunge my juvenile record . By that time, Sgt. Foster was a captain.
I raised my son telling him that story.
When he graduated from college, like you, he went into the Air Force, and he became a Raven.
He went to 42 countries with President Clinton, and now he's a Special Agent with the DEA.
All because of one good cop.
Eric L. Wattree, a writer, musician and poet, may be contacted at wattree@verizon.net.
You may learn more about him at wattree.blogspot.com
