Not everyone can be legendary, and I'm not claiming to be, but the mythology of the ever-present, all-knowing, nearly omnipotent Game Warden lives on...and we do nothing to discourage it. Some folks think that we have more power than any other police agency--and to a slight degree they're right, at least in New York. Others will lie straight out to other police officers, yet when confronted by a man or woman in a green uniform will crumple and be writing their confession in no time.
Late one night I had a call from the Fulton County Sheriff's Office. They had a car stopped and there might be evidence of an illegally killed deer in it...or, it might have been something far worse. They had an investigator out there, and he was requesting my assistance.
By the time I got there, the investigator had established that the blood and tissue they'd seen in the back of that old SUV had come from a deer. However, even though the man had originally been cuffed up and put in the patrol car as a suspect in a homicide and now was only a suspect in a deer jacking he wasn't talking to them.
While the investigator went about his business, I took my clipboard and went back to the investigator's car. I introduced myself, told him why I was there, and he confessed. I took a written statement from him on the spot and within a few minutes was writing a couple tickets. The investigator shook his head and asked me to stop by his office and interview a couple dozen other suspects he had for other crimes. Since his caseload was dominantly sex crimes, I declined--the green suit probably wouldn't have any effect on those suspects.
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