Month: March 2022

I was hired by the Seattle Police Department one month after my twenty-first birthday.  I wasn’t the youngest member of the department.  Tim Moellendorf, a classmate in the academy, was two days younger.

“Come on kid,” I told him.  “I’ll show you the ropes.”

I often ran into old high school friends when I was working.

One time I walked into the jail with a prisoner.  A guy who I’d gone to high school with, (now deceased), was in a holding cell near the entrance.

“Cloyd!” he said.

“How are you doing?” I asked. “Call me when you get out. We’ll do lunch!”

I worked a lot of rock concerts in my early years.  I remember working a Moody Blues concert at the Seattle Center.  Dozens of friends I’d gone to school with shuffled in.  I stood back while they were patted down before entering.

“Dude!” they exclaimed. “You get to work these?”

Not only did I get to work there, but they were also paying me good money to do so.

I also worked all the Seattle Seahawk games.  I’d often run into old friends there, as well as Seattle Mariner and Sonic games.  It sounds better on paper than it was.  I spent most of my time throwing drunks out.  I watched a lot of great first half of ballgames.

When the new stadium for the Seahawks opened, (Century Link and now Lumen Field), a friend approached me.

“Let’s work the games!” he said.  “It will be fun!”

It only took a couple of games before I remembered why I’d stopped working them.

I was on the 300 level of the stadium when I got a report of a disturbance near the top of the stadium.  I stood at the bottom, looking up.  There was an older couple seated near the rail.

“If I have to walk all the way up there,” I told them.  “Somebodies ass is getting thrown out of this game.”

A few minutes later, I was back at the bottom of the stairs, a rowdy fan held by the caller.

“I told you,” I said to the couple, who laughed.

I worked a game when the Seahawks were playing the San Francisco 49ers. A woman was drunk and causing problems.

“I’m Jeff Garcia’s (49er quarterback) girlfriend!” she told me.

“Tell Jeff I said hi!” I said, as I tossed her out of the gate.

I remembered why I stopped working the games.

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During the last couple of years in my patrol career, I worked in the East Precinct, 3^rd Watch, from 8PM to 4AM.   I was assigned to Charlie Sector.

My area was near Harborview Medical Center.  I spent a lot of time in the Emergency Room of Harborview, or as we aptly called it, “The Zoo.”

I was in the Emergency Room one day when medics brought in a stabbing victim.  When they wheeled him in I recognized him immediately.

His name was Glenn Taa.  He had the unfortunate distinction of being the smallest Samoan in Seattle, standing about five feet nine inches and about one hundred seventy pounds, the normal Samoan being well over two-hundred pounds, and often closer to three hundred.

I knew Glenn from my days working in Rainier Valley.

As they wheeled him in he saw me.

“They got me Staggart,” (he always mispronounced my name), “they got me!”

I followed him into the treatment room.

A crowd of medical personnel surrounded him and began trying to save his life. Among them was the guru of Harborview and father of the Medic One program, Dr. Michael Copass.

A nurse was inserting a catheter.  In her rush to insert the tube, she wasn’t as careful as she should have been.  Once the tube is inserted, a bulb is inflated to seal it off.  Unbeknownst to her, the tube was not inserted sufficiently.  She inflated it.  Glenn screamed in pain, and the tube that carries the urine immediately turned red.  She had bust his urethra.

Needless to say, Dr. Copass was apopletic.

I quietly left the room.

Glenn Taa survived the stabbing, as well as the medical misadventure in the ER.

Years later, when I worked in Homicide, Taa was murdered, having been beaten to death in the head.  The case was assigned to me and my partner, Jason Kasner.

After a couple weeks we made an arrest and closed the case.

People and faces often came in and out of my life on the Seattle Police Department.

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