By Lieutenant Phil West, Mono County Sheriff’s Department
Phil and Abby
The mounted unit was a highly visible unit yet had a soft demeanor: “The war horse: resolute in action, gentle in manner.” As Rich Perkins used to say, “No one ever comes up and asks to pet our patrol car.”
Richard Perkins, Bishop Police EOW August 15, 2001
The mounted unit was able to direct large numbers of people that would take five or more officers on foot. The mounted patrol could accomplish this with one or two horses and in a gentle manner. The detail grew into an “Interagency Mounted Detail.” With the neighboring agencies together deployed up to 8-10 mounts at events that drew large numbers of people. At one event, we were asked back each year by the Chamber of Commerce because we (the horses), “had made it a family event again.”
Over the first few years, the unit made several arrests, but that began to taper off as a “particular element” saw the horses and either quietly leave the area or properly maintain themselves. It afforded the opportunity for folks to talk to a ‘cop’ in a more personal manner and not have the metal barrier of the patrol car in the way.
Quite a testament to the proactive nature of working mounted.
Unfortunately, with retirements and officers coming into the business that are not equestrians, the detail has diminished due to attrition. As Perkins would say, “Me and my merry band of men.” ~;o)
Phil put another photo video together.
He says, “Some are the same pictures of Abby, but some additional with Sally and Bigun. It ends with my last mounted radio call to dispatch”:
By Phil West, Lieutenant Mono County Sheriff’s Department
Phil and Abby
Phil, an old friend from my Bishop PD days, recently lost his partner, Abby. He posted a moving video on Facebook a few days ago. I asked if I could re-post but needed a bit more info for the readers. Here are his answers. The video is sentimental, unabashedly patriotic and very touching. If you love animals, you owe it to yourself to watch. It’s only three and a half minutes. It features Phil, his wife Karen and two kids, Sheryl and Phillip as well as Modoc, Abby, friend and and partner Richard Perkins. The link in the first sentence “Abby” will take you to the video on Mono County Sheriff’s Department Facebook page. Bring Kleenex.
We had Abby for 21 years. She was late 22 years old and was sent up on Oct. 19th, 2013 due to the complications of Cushing’s syndrome. She patrolled with me for 17 years, although I was idling her back and using Bigun (Phil’s current mount) periodically from the end of 2006 until completely retiring her in 2010. She showed with both kids (flat classes-showmanship, equitation, gymkhana, etc…), calf-roped, cutting, reining classes, in High School Rodeo.
Now the hard part. Can’t make this any shorter:
In the middle of the slide show, there is a big red horse, Modoc. We got Modoc shortly before Rich (Perkins-friend and partner killed in the line of duty, August 15, 2001) gave Abby to us in the late summer of 1992, “for the kids.” Rich said he didn’t have any desire to train and thought she’d get a good start with us, then be a great horse for Sheryl and Phillip.
Richard Perkins, Bishop PD
When I brought Modoc home, he was originally to be Karen’s (Phil’s wife) “dressage” horse. After he settled in, I discovered the freeze marking under his beautiful mane. Rich and I started the mounted detail and Karen lost her dressage horse. She had been training with a neighbor in dressage and I would watch/listen intently. I applied what I was vicariously learning to Modoc. He had a neck like a serpent and his barrel would roll the opposite direction in which you were riding (if you were riding a counterclockwise circle, his barrel would roll right instead of into the center and vice versa). I put literally hundreds of hours on that horse in the short year-and-a half that we had him. There were some folks in Bishop they found out we were starting a mounted unit said, “That horse will NEVER work the street. They were wrong.
We hit the streets.
Modoc and I worked the park, the fair and red ribbon week with the kids all around him while Abby’s training at home was coming along very nicely. Karen did the majority of the work. On November 5th, 1993 (20 years ago this Tuesday), Modoc suffered a torsional twist of his intestine and we had to send him up. There went our newly formed mounted detail with only having two members. So, Karen and I went on the road to find a replacement, “police horse.”
The owner of every horse we looked at (and you’ll see a lot of the poem in all of this) thought their horse would make an excellent police horse. Go figure… used car salesmen. We looked at many different breeds, levels of training and such, but with each horse I would look at and/or ride, I would tell Karen that something was missing that I couldn’t put my finger on. She began to pick up on it much sooner than I and started telling me to use Abby. She said that Abby isn’t as big or flashy as Modoc, but she has the “mentality” that you are not feeling in these other horses. She was right.
As I began to work with Abby for police work, she went from a moderate dominance to a dominant horse. When putting on the department saddle pad and broken stick, it was as if her demeanor created a horse another hand taller. Resolute in action while gentle in manner, is the best way I can describe her as an, “officer.”
She made the adjective ‘diva’, into a noun, “Diva.” When not performing in the arena, she knew when a camera was focused on her and would look at it as we walked the street, posing from side to side as the cameras came up to focus on, her. She was a mare, though. She loved the strokes and attention only for the first few hundred, then I had to direct folks to stroke her neck and shoulder for she was tired of the face thing and I had to be cognizant of the colt disciplinary nip.
She was like a police dog when hearing the handcuff case unsnap, knowing that was when it may go to crap. We had chased a thief through the parking lot of the fair and pinned him up against a pickup truck. I dropped the reins to go hands on with him and when she heard my handcuff case unsnap, I felt her lean just a little bit more into him to hold him in place as I cuffed him from her back.
Another instance was after I arrested an intoxicated fellow who was seated on the ground in front of a raised planter bed (the Mammoth statue at Mammoth Mountain). The arrestee’s buddy was being mouthy and getting too close to the 10-15 (arrestee). I’d had enough and put Abby up in between the two. The buddy went off yelling about how he was going to sue, have my horse (a bit more colorful language) etc… All the while we were quietly side-passing (a gentle sideways movement by the horse) him back. As the guy was yelling, I noticed with each side pass step, Abby took a bite of flowers and was enjoying the smorgasbord. Very concerned.
This is my favorite involving the fireplug, (Officer, now Sergeant) Danny Nolan (of Bishop PD): We had a fight on the Mule Days parade route in front of the park because someone was blocking someone else’s view. Go figure. We went into the crowd to secure the area for the guys on foot, and here comes Danny with his “take-command” walk as he came upon the scene that we had secured. His approach was aggressive/determined and Abby read it. Without command, she began to side pass him back.
“HEY, I’m a good guy!” Danny told her.
Needless to say, Modoc and Abby were the ones that set the wild horse mentality apart, “for us.”
Lisa Whitney, Ventura Co SO
I’ve only written two poems in my life, Abby’s and, Mounted Patrol. Both encompass what we experienced together and that bond. Mounted patrol I wrote after a friend, Officer Lisa Whitney was killed in the line of duty while in her investigator’s unit (a t/c). She was also a mounted officer with Ventura S.O. and then of course, later also dedicated to Rich. “The ride for now is over, the tack is recounted…” at the end of the poem refers to the death of the officer or the mount. I’ll attach it along with the press release that our PIO did so well with some of the info I gave her.
Between the two poems, you can see what the inspiration was to write both of them.
Like I said, it’s pretty doggone hard to condense!
A friend of mine, Elaine O’Brien recently moved from Orange County, California to Fort Riley, Kansas. I asked her for her ideas about the differences in radio procedure specifically codes. This is her answer. Get your smile on–it’s very funny!
Hi Thonie! Hope you had a great Christmas! I am enjoying all of your writing and so glad things are going well for you in that area!
As for differences in dispatching here, Lots is different. If you remember, I worked at a fire only dispatch Orange County Fire Authority. We used plain talk on the radios, but we did have some 10-4s, 10-22s and 5150’s thrown into the mix. When we used phonetic spelling it was the military alphabet.
When I came to Fort Riley Fire and Police dispatch, they also said they were plain talk, but I found that because the police force is a mixture of civilian and military officers, there is a grab bag of codes thrown into the mix. We also have personnel from all over the US so that means that we hear a different mix of radio codes, which is why they are supposed to use plain text. The civilian officers us the police phonetic, (Adam, Boy, Charles), and of course the military uses their phonetics, (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie). It makes for some interesting phonetics today because they get intermingled and sometimes the soldiers can’t remember the correct phonetic so they make one up. Today I got a tag that read something like this: “Riley, I have a Florida Tag that reads, Alpha-boy-123-Sierra…” and the mike stayed keyed up for a moment as he searched for the proper phonetic to finish off his plate, he finally came up with the only thing that popped into his head, “….Penelope!” I was dying with laughter at this point and had to compose myself before I could key up. Of course, he remembered the correct phonetic before I could get ahold of myself and keyed up frantically saying, “Pa Pa, I meant Pa Pa!” I keyed up and told him I liked Penelope better and read him his result!
Dealing with the NCIC [National Crime Informations Center is the go-to federal agency for law enforcement inquiries about criminal records] is also a challenge. Again, we deal with drivers from all over the US and some with foreign licenses as well. Each state has a different data base in the NCIC so the returns are all different. New Jersey just says “dropped” for the status sometimes. ???? Turns out that means they are ok. Louisiana today had one that said, ni donor for status and below that it listed a tag # and said REVOKED. I had to call a police dispatcher for a translation and that meant that he had No Insurance on file, was an organ donor and that the vehicle that was registered to him had its registration revoked. Bottom line, is this a valid drivers license? YES! Wow.
Back to codes, most of the codes I hear are 10 codes, but again each state uses them a bit differently. Many of the soliders and civilian officers mix up 10-27, (drivers license) 10-28, (license plate) and 10-29, (wants and warrants). Many also do not know the difference between a 10-29 and an NCIC III. Again, this is why they are supposed to use plain speak.
There is also a difference in some laws on a military installation versus the “real world”. You can receive a ticket for not having current registration in the real world on the first day after it expires. But, at our installation, and ONLY our installation, if you get caught at the gate, it is a verbal warning and you are sent on your way, HOWEVER, if an officer pulls you over on the installation AFTER you have passed the gate, you get a ticket and have to park your car until you have proper registration. Can you say confusing boys and girls?
The fire departments does not try to use codes at all but the ambulances do. They have “CODE_____” as a triage code for the severity of the patient. Code green, means they are good, Code yellow means they are moderate, and Code red is severe. Code orange is crazy, no one here had heard of 5150 [refers to the Welfare and Institutions Code for 72 hour mental observation] until the country song came out. I had to explain to them that code yellow to me meant I had to pee! [Smaller agencies lack the staffing for potty breaks and rely on officers to come in from the field for relief. That was always a problem for me at Bishop PD. Smart aleck officers used to toy with me on the radio to force me to say that I had to go potty. Brats. I was always at their mercy.]
I could probably go on and on, but I will just send this and let you see if it is the type of stuff you are looking for.
Take care and I will talk to you soon!
Elaine
Elaine has opted to forgo the photo, but here is her bio:
I dispatched for Orange County Fire Authority from 1995 until 2009. OCFA is a large agency that handles fire and medical calls for the greater part of the Orange County area. OCFA also provides emergency medical dispatching to the public as well as acting as a regional coordinator for major brush fires and incidents in the Orange County area. Dispatchers are required to work 24 hour shifts the same as the fire fighters.
In 2009 I was in need of a change of pace and moved to Abilene, Kansas and began working at Fort Riley Police and Fire. My skills from OCFA both helped and hindered my switch from a public agency to a Federal Military Installation. It wasn’t long before I knew, I wasn’t in California any more!
