"I was a Safety Advocate at Northern for a few years and then moved to Huntingtown.
It was a retirement job, something easy to do with no stress. I did it for 14 years.
I did 26 years of PG County police first, then retired from there and went to work for the schools. The kids were great, they were a blast, and they were a lot of fun. And we laughed hard at them every day, and they laughed at us every day too!
I spent four years in PG on patrol; the rest was in investigations. I wouldn't trade my time and my career there for anything. My dad was DC police, my brother was DC police, I went on PG, and my oldest son is on PG now.
Homicide takes a lot out of you, but I flat-out loved the people I work with. Everybody worked their butts off on those cases; you work many hours, and it can be very stressful, but it was the nature of the beast. I wouldn't change my time up there for anything. But to leave that and go to the schools on vacation.
One kid we caught with pills in tenth grade. He ended up graduating. But when we got him with the pills, we wore him out. And he got me when he graduated, and he said, I love you guys, and I wouldn't have graduated without you all. He said I'm telling you right now; I've been clean since that day you caught me.
You would get into a fight, and the school administration would consider it a big deal. And I would say big deal; this is no big deal! We'll handle this thing, no problem!
It's a whole different world 35 miles up the road.
Most of the cases up there are gang members and drug dealers. The worst part was knocking on the door at 3 o'clock in the morning and telling the mother or Grandmother, who's ever raised them, that their 15 or 17-year-old son is not coming back. It was always hard. You've scarred their life forever. And you've crushed them. Because no matter if they're a drug dealer or an armed robber, they're still somebody else's kid.
Do you know, and this is across the country, with all the murders and all the violence going on, you lock up a whole lot of people, but nothing slows down. You would think that if you locked up 100 people for murder, the murders would slow down. But they don't.
It's a whole different world there. Baltimore, DC, Prince George's County. It's an environment that these young people are being raised in. That's their world. There are young people there who told me When they're 16 or 17 years old, they don't expect to live till 21.
And that's pretty bad in this country today if you don't expect to live until 21 years old. I don't know how they solve the problems or the issues. I don't know how they change it.
Some of the cases still stick with you. You can't get rid of those. There are some things that you would see that is upsetting. That's stuck with you.
You can't make things go away. Some people deal with it better than others, but I don't think you can say it doesn't make you hard.
But the schools, sometimes I miss it because the kids were great. We had a great relationship with 95% of them. They were so much fun. They were such a blast.
I would tell them the longer we're in school, the closer our relationship is. I work here, but I care about you.
Now I'm retired. I love going motorcycle riding with a couple of buddies. People think bikers are in biker gangs, but 98% of them ride for causes. It's what they do.
I'm good here. The water is relaxing. I can take a book and a couple of cups of coffee, and I'm content."
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