John Edward Wright joined the Department straight out of the United States Coast Guard. Having spent four years as a ‘Coastie,’ he assumed he was ready to enter the civilian world at his childhood dream of becoming a police officer. He had, after all, military bearing; he could follow orders, and more importantly, he knew his left from his right, which was crucial in any profession but more so in law enforcement. He started the application process with four police Departments, one a City PD, the second a Sheriff’s Office, the third attempt the US Capital Police, and finally, the County Department, which accepted him first.
Unbeknownst to Wright, he was a minority hire even though he was Anglo-Saxon as one gets. The Personnel Department, in a quest to “do what was right,” hired 57 black males and three black females for their new class starting seventeen days after Wright’s release from the Coast Guard. Mrs. Comby, Director of Human Resources, forgot to hire some white and Latino people. The original budget for the new class called for 60 new hires, 87 percent (52.2) male and 13 percent (7.8) female. Someone in the federal government decided one night in 1974, after what can only be assumed involved several single malts, that 13% was the ideal number for female officers in law enforcement agencies, so it was. It was Georgina Thompson, a new hire in the HR Department, straight out of high school, who pointed out the apparent race-hiring error to her nibs, the ever-pleasant Mrs. Comby.
The solution was to hire 25 white officers, 20 males, and five females, to “balance the class out.” So Wright and 24 other whites got hired, and the County Transportation Department lost a considerable chunk of its budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Everyone was happy except the Transportation Department and the Chief of Police, who had to find personnel slots and equipment for the additional personnel, a problem he or any other law enforcement executive had never had before or since. Oh yes, Georgina Thompson, still on probation, was terminated for being two minutes late several days after exposing Mrs. Comby’s abovementioned error.
At the police academy, John Edward Wright was at the top of his academic class. He aced every test and exceeded the standards the Department and the State Training Commission set. The only problem was that the instructors and soon his fellow students liked calling Wright by his full name, John Edward Wright; it had a nice ring. But one can only say John Edward Wright so many times before it becomes tiresome, so his fellow students just took his initials and labeled him with his new alias, JEW. Now Wright was a The Church of Later Days Saints follower, which improved his new nickname. JEW was and would remain until he died or the entire police department passed in mass.
Being good-natured and always wanting to “get along,” JEW reluctantly accepted his nickname; he thought that the nickname would eventually go away. But it didn’t; if anything, it got worse. After the academy, JEW was transferred to District 1, Shit 3. The guys and gals on the Shift 3 loved nicknames. He would have been assigned one if he had yet to be tagged. By the time JEW was broken loose to be on his own, the entire sector, criminals, merchants, firemen, nurses, grandmothers, school kids, and whoever knew the new officer as JEW. Even the girls he wanted to date had heard of the name. Nicknames can be a double-edged sword, good for notoriety but bad for self-esteem. But one can’t have everything.
After over two and half years of being called JEW, JEW decided to do something about the nickname. He could not bear the harassment any longer. Why did he suffer so long? Only JEW could answer. He filed a discrimination complaint against the next fellow officer who called him JEW. After reporting to work for the 3 to 11 shit Officer, Vonnie Jones was the first to call him JEW, and so was the recipient of the complaint. When JEW entered the squad room, Officer Jones was seated at her assigned roll-call room desk and acknowledged JEW with a friendly smile, a half wave, and a very pleasant “Hey, JEW.”
As a result of the complaint, Officer Jones received a written reprimand, which affected her subsequent evaluation and any hope of making rank in an accepted, timely fashion. When word got out, most of his fellow workers, all that mattered, stopped talking to JEW entirely. Life can be a lonely place when one is shut out.
A couple of months went by in total silence. Even JEW’s supervisor only spoke to him when required. The bad guys were the only people who conversed with him while he was at work. There may be ‘peace in silence,’ but after a while, it is worse than being called JEW when you’re not.
When JEW flipped is anybody’s guess, but it is known when it manifested itself. On the first day of day work in March, with the temperature hovering around 40 degrees, JEW reported to work wearing dark blue button-down pajamas, grey leather slippers, his police hat, and a dark blue bathrobe with a badge attached. He wanted to wear his brown slippers, but the grey did go better with his new uniform. He didn’t look bad, but he had forgotten to shave, and his hair was messy. After reviewing his new uniform in the mirror, he placed his service revolver in the left pocket of his bathrobe just in case he needed it. On his way out his front door, the next-door neighbor, picking up her paper in the driveway, just nodded and wondered when the uniform had changed.
Arriving at work, he parked in front of the station in the Captain’s assigned slot, bringing Kahn’s wrath on the violator on a good day, but today would be a little different. Captain Fellows only wanted one thing when he finally got promoted and assigned to District 1 as Assistant Station Commander: his accessible parking space. He was not handicapped, but he got an extra couple of feet on both sides of the parking space. On Captain Fellows’ first day, he had maintenance repaint his parking space blue and the Detective Lieutenant’s area, next to his blue, the same color as the handicapped spaces all over the State. Under the theory that seniority has its privileges, when the Detective Lieutenant lost his space, he took over the Senior Sergeant’s until the station NCO, a corporal, was back to parking in the back lot next to the gas pumps. The station commander didn’t care much about parking spaces as long as the assistant didn’t infringe on his.
Anyway, the Captain pulled into his parking spot at speed, not noticing a bright yellow Ford Fiesta parked within. The Captain’s Dodge totaled the friendly little cost-saving Ford and caused his vehicle’s front end to implode.
After parking, JEW walked directly into the station, didn’t turn left towards the locker rooms as he usually did, but went to the squad room for roll call, down the main hall to the desk sergeant’s office, seated himself behind the Sergeant’s desk in an oversized “leather” chair, placed the alarm clock which he brought with him on the desk setting it for it to go off in 7 minutes and waited for the shit to hit the fan, which it did in record time.
JEW was ordered four times to get out of the chair. Not complying, he was removed by two larger-then-shit fellow officers and told to go home and get into uniform, or he would be written up. JEW refused and stood his ground, just outside the Sergeant’s office, singing all the lyrics to “Bye, ByeMiss American Pie,” which he had memorized several years before trying to impress a prospective mate. Still, it did not materialize when the girl’s father, a strict Latter Day Saints follower, found out his nickname.”
The troops in the roll call room and the secretary’s office that had come running towards the commotion were all laughing at JEW singing away in his new non-issued uniform. The laughter quickly subsided after a couple of minutes and turned to what-the-fuck looks and comments, but JEW kept signing away. It is surprising how long that damn song is and how many verses there are.
While Captain Fellows was still outside assessing the damage to his vehicle, Major Meekins, the District Commander, did not find JEW’s dress and singing amusing. JEW had reported to day work at his usual 6:45. By 8:15 a.m.; he was officially suspended for:
Failure to okay an official order (“take that shit off”).
Various uniform violations, too many to list.
Insubordination, again too many to list.
Not carrying his issued service revolver in a Department-issued holster.
Parking in an official police-designated parking space.
Causing a motor vehicle accident.
Demeaning the inherent dignity of the Department (which no one has ever heard of before or since).
There were two other charges that no one could remember.
The only thing he wasn’t charged with was performing a loud, off-key ‘a cappella’ of Don McLean’s American Pie.
Before JEW was taken to the hospital for a psych evaluation, his police hat, badge, and gun were removed, but not before several officers snapped pictures of JEW in his full new uniform standing attention in a ‘Holding Cell’ signing away. The images eventually found their way to the Washington STAR. Then, the editor, Jim Bellows, found the pictures so funny that he almost published them, but he decided the police department didn’t need them or couldn’t stand the embarrassment. When he passed, many years later, his kids found the pictures in a Banker’s Box full of old pictures he kept in the attack. The box was marked Classic Funnies.
By the end of the day, the entire Department and half the general population had heard of JEW’s dress and singing abilities. Within forty-five days, JEW, now John Edward Wright again, was officially no longer a police officer, being retired on a medical. For the rest of his life, he received seventy-five percent of his then-annual salary to stay away and not sing, as Major Meekins put it, “that fucking song.”
The Department’s last official contact with John Edward Wright was a postcard advising the Personnel Office of his new address: Beth Shean, Gorey, Bailiwick of Jersey.
If you are ever in Jersey, John Wright will be sitting at the third table inside the front door of The Black Dog Bar.’ Introduce yourself and mention the Department; he will buy you a beer. Just don’t call him JEW.
