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COPS: then and now
Police adjusting to new lives without their badges
Friday, Sept. 26, 2008
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by Gary Smith
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Whenever Bruce Elliott goes out to eat at a restaurant, he makes sure to pick a seat next to the wall with a view of the door, and his wife knows why.
"She knows I'm looking — looking at where people are coming in," Elliott said.
The 60-year-old Chesapeake Beach resident retired from the Prince George's County Police Department about 16 years ago, but he said his law enforcement instincts haven't left him yet. On top of keeping his back to the wall in restaurants for maximum viewing ability, Elliott said he also still sizes up his surroundings to anticipate problems and pulls over if a police officer seems to need help.
It's no wonder Elliott carries his old habits with him. Being a police officer is a tough job, and according to retirees across Southern Maryland, it's a life-shaping occupation. So how does it feel to retire, and to keep thinking like a police officer but not have a badge?
It's strange at times, said former Charles County sheriff's officer Gerard Torres.
"You have to remember you're a civilian, especially when you're on the Beltway and you want to stop people," he said. Torres also said he has a recurring dream he is at a police station where other officers keep reminding him he's retired and doesn't belong there anymore.
Torres, 54, now works for a government agency as an investigations program manager after serving in the sheriff's office for about 20 years. He declined to specify the exact agency where he is now employed for what he said are security reasons.
Torres said ever since his childhood in New York, he wanted to be a police officer. After a few years in the military, he decided it was time to give law enforcement a try.
He worked as a patrol officer, a child abuse detective and crime prevention supervisor, and also spent time in the internal affairs office. And now that his time in the sheriff's office is through, he said being a policeman was worth it.
"If I could turn the clock back, I would do it again," he said. "Overall, it was my dream come true. I was getting paid to do what I enjoyed doing."
But it wasn't all pleasant or easy. Torres said his experience as a child abuse detective was like being "in a different world" and was the most challenging part of his career in law enforcement. "You're entering an area not everyone can enter. … You're entering the world of evil," he said.
In one case, Torres tracked down a man who was calling girls on the phone to make lewd comments. The man knew their names and kept them on the phone by saying he would hurt their mothers if they hung up, Torres said.
Through investigation, Torres said he discovered the man was on pre-release after serving about 20 years of a life sentence for the murder of a little girl in Prince George's County. He was making the phone calls from a restaurant where he was working as a cook.
Torres said he believes he saved a girl's life by catching the man, who is now serving a life sentence. "That's the [case] I feel was unique, and one I really feel I prevented a murder from happening," he said.
Charles Kerr, who left the St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office after 20 years as a policeman, said he finds satisfaction when reflecting on his career, and he's gratified when he looks at the police officers who work the streets now.
"Everyone is still doing a hell of a job," he said, mentioning that he served alongside many of the people now in the sheriff's office. "It's nice to know you had something to do with it."
Kerr, 77, of Lexington Park worked many years in the patrol division and was the county's first SWAT team leader. He also said he spent time as a firearms instructor. He entered the sheriff's office after 20 years in the U.S. Navy, and he compared the bond among police officers to that of soldiers.
"There's a kinship you will carry on till the end of your life. … There's no real way to explain," he said. "You won't hear from someone for years, then bingo, you get a phone call or you get something on the computer."
Although he loved police work, Kerr said after 20 years at the sheriff's office, he was ready to retire. "It was time to say, ‘To heck with it,'" he said. Now that he's retired, Kerr said he's traveling all over America to see the country.
But Kerr said he took away his friendships and a deeper understanding of people. He said working at the sheriff's office taught him that "everybody has a problem" and that most people are good. He added that while he was on a SWAT team, though he became more suspicious of people.
Elliott, of Chesapeake Beach, also served a couple years on a SWAT team, and he said it was one of the most stressful experiences of his career. But he didn't encounter danger just on the SWAT team.
Elliott said he can remember once after he had made an arrest in a homicide investigation, 30 or 40 people surrounded him and tried to take the person back. "I said, ‘The first person to come, I'm gonna shoot,'" Elliott said. Eventually, the group dispersed.
Elliott said another time, he responded to a holdup at a grocery store, and a boy at the scene told him the suspect was hiding in a car nearby. When he neared the car with his gun drawn, Elliott saw the man lying inside on his stomach. Elliott said he knew the man was armed and thought he might have been concealing the gun with his body.
"I said, ‘Freeze, you're under arrest,' and he rolled over real fast. I almost shot him," said Elliott, who then arrested the man.
After the arrest, Elliott's hands were shaking, and the robber asked him, "Were you as scared as I was? I could tell by your face you almost shot me."
Most of the time, Elliott wasn't scared until the dust settled. "It happens so quickly," he said.
Now, Elliott said he misses the excitement.
"The adrenaline rush was just overwhelming. ... But I'm 60, and I don't know if I could do it now," he said.
Charles County Commissioner Samuel N. Graves Jr. (D) said he remembers dealing with tense situations as a sheriff's officer, but was comfortable much of the time. "If you do what you're trained to do, it eliminates a lot of the danger," he said.
Graves, who said he either wanted to be a police officer or a cowboy when he was growing up, joined the Charles County Sheriff's Office in 1974. He worked as the commander of the patrol division, commander of the criminal investigations unit and operated the breathalyzer.
One of his favorite memories was of a man who approached him in a restaurant one night and gave him a tap him on the shoulder. Graves, 56, of Dentsville said he had previously arrested the man for driving under the influence and had talked to him about turning his life around.
To Graves' surprise, the man listened.
"He said, ‘I changed my life.' That's the most gratifying thing that happened to me," Graves said.
Since he retired, Graves said he spent time as a school bus driver until he became a county commissioner, but people can still tell what his old job was. "I get told I walk or act like a police officer," he said.
Former Prince George's County police officer George Swope said law enforcement runs in his family. "My dad was a D.C. police officer. Now my son's in P.G. police," said Swope, 56, of Chesapeake Beach.
He said he was bound to be either a firefighter or police officer, and chose the latter. He served in the police department for 26 years on patrol and in the homicide and sexual assault units. Swope, who now works as a safety advocate at Huntingtown High School, said he is proud of his son for carrying on the family tradition. "It's all he's ever wanted to do," Swope said. "Now he's made it."
According to Swope, sometimes the hours he had to put in as a policeman were hard on his family, but he said fellow officers helped make it work. Even if there was a lot to do, Swope said "we made the guys and girls go to a child's event and then come back. We weren't gonna make people's lives suffer."
Swope and the people he worked with passed the sense of community on to their children. "We did golf trips, cookouts and family trips together. My son is friends with their kids. They're in their 20s, and they still get together," Swope said.
On the other hand, Tom Haynie, who worked for more than 17 years as a St. Mary's County sheriff's officer, decided it was best to keep his work and private lives separate. "I never carried it with me 24 hours a day. It gets burdensome," he said.
Haynie, 66, who lives near Lexington Park, said he was allowed to take his police cruiser home, but rarely drove it when he was off duty. "When I was off, I was off," he said.
But he said when he was on the job, he loved it and enjoyed closing cases no one expected him to resolve. "I liked going back with the news," he said.
Now that his career is over, Haynie said he's staying busy and enjoying his property, but he doesn't regularly see people from the sheriff's office.
"When they send you home, they give you a ride home and set you down in the yard," he said.
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