Confessions of a Republican journalist: Crimefighter, Part 1

Nancy Drew is the coolest. Seriously. She was smart, had a cool car, and even busting criminals her hair always looked good. Her friends were cool, too, and almost as good at snooping as she was; her boyfriend was totally supportive when she wanted to prowl through abandoned castles in search of the bad guys. She was unmatched until “Alias” came on the air and CIA diva Sydney Bristow became the modern butt-kicking version of Nancy Drew.

So growing up, I wanted to be Nancy Drew. I had my sights set on the FBI, and soaked up TV shows such as “Magnum P.I.” and “Simon & Simon.” I dreamed of wearing one of those blue windbreakers with “FBI” emblazoned in yellow on the back and kicking some bad guy’s door down -- all the while having good-looking hair, of course. So when I graduated from high school there wasn’t any question what I’d study in college: criminology. (Of course, I did have a few of the fad major changes that lasted about a week each: the not exceptionally useful philosophy major, the marginally useful and rather hippie peace-and-conflict studies major, and the really useless vocal studies music major that could have led to a rousing cabaret career.)

I never really liked going to most of my other classes -- evidenced by my attendance record -- but loved my criminology classes. Most of the professors would begin the semester by warning students that if you follow this career, you’ll have a miserable life -- later indicating they were just trying to weed out the wimps. I quickly learned the program’s motto: there’s a fine line between criminal and criminologist. I joined the criminology fraternity (professional frats being coed), which had a monthlong assassination game they’d play on campus with water guns -- if you saw another crim frat member between classes, try to shoot them. Last person standing at the end of the month won. Curiously enough, the favored song of the fraternity was Ice T’s “Cop Killer.” One semester I dated another crim major whose walls were covered with stolen street signs. He was apparently really good at it.

In my second semester, I joined the campus police department as a parking officer. Also known as, one of the very hated people who tickets cars without proper on-campus permits. I also worked some evenings as a community service officer, providing security for campus hip-hop fests and the like. One evening I showed up at the station in my uniform, hair up in a ponytail, equipped with a pink Eveready flashlight. “What the hell is that, your Barbie flashlight?” the sergeant barked. The Barbie nickname henceforth stuck with the supervisor, maybe because in the tradition of Nancy Drew I made sure my hair always looked good.

The other students who worked at the police department, mostly criminology majors, were great to get in trouble with. One of the students taught me how to shoot. The first gun I ever shot was an automatic AR-15 with laser sights (jealous, Barbara Boxer?), blasting cans off stumps on a farm. The next was a 12-gauge shotgun, which nearly knocked me off my feet. And finally, I got used to a plain ol’ 9mm. I don’t remember if Nancy Drew ever packed heat, but I’m sure she knew how to lock ’n’ load -- in full compliance with the NRA safety manual, of course.

I couldn’t wait to immerse myself in law enforcement, so I took every internship, tour, ride-along I could get. The first winter break in college I interned (read: student slave) in the criminal section of the county clerk’s office. The work was so boring that I sat in the corner of the file room and read the big, juicy files. One day they sent me over to the jail for a tour. If any woman ever needs a shot of self-esteem, visit a lockup. These guys spend all day grooming and preening in front of mirrors -- hours, the guards told me -- just for that special occasion of a woman walking through the halls. Not much to be said for being an object of their affection, though. (Yet for a while nearly everyone who read my columns was incarcerated -- all of my fan mail at my then-newspaper would have the prisoner ID number on the return address.)

I also unfortunately dated some cops: No offense to blog readers in the law enforcement profession, but there are two kinds of cops -- ones who do it because they really care about humanity and busting bad guys, and ones who get high from carrying a gun and hope the badge helps them score chicks. My best friend from high school objected to the idea of dating cops. Until one day she got pulled over, and the cop happened to be one with whom I’d had one lunch date months before. “Don’t I know you?” he asked her after asking for her license and registration. “You went out with my friend Bridget,” she replied. She got off with a warning even though she’d been going 20 mph over the speed limit. I also had one date with a supervisor at Corcoran state prison, whose idea of wooing was trying to regale me with first-person tales of Charles Manson. (“Yeah, some days Charlie will be perfectly normal and chats with me... then some days he’s totally nuts...”) One deputy sheriff I dated took me on a ride-along where I got to duck behind his cruiser as a pipe bomb detonated in a parking lot.

But the criminology major boyfriend with the stolen street signs invited me to go play paintball with his fraternity one weekend. This was like Nancy Drew meets Rambo! I went down to the Army supply store and found fatigues and boots; I even rifled through a box of name tags until I found one that said “JOHNSON,” and sewed it onto the jacket. When I showed up that morning in perfect paintball fashion -- hair looking great and pulled back in a coordinating camouflage ponytail holder -- the guys all laughed. But I would not let them disparage my combat skills.

We went down to a wooded area near the foot of a local dam. I strapped on my face protection, grabbed a gun filled with orange and yellow spherical ammo, and dove into the brush for the first round of combat. It’s rather difficult to see who you’re taking down when you’re face-first in the dirt, but I know I made some hits. And I lasted rather long for a novice. But then a paintball flew through my face and head guards and smacked me in the head. After that round, my boyfriend was picking pieces of paintball out my once-good-looking hair. And I challenged him to a round of one-on-one paintball, ducking around trees and brush with occasional pops of fire unlike the full-scale assault of earlier. He won, I’m ashamed to say, shooting me in the upper arm and leaving a big bruise. There’s a reason they advise wearing multiple layers of clothing when playing paintball; it just didn’t really go with my perfect camo outfit.

But between these experiences and adventures covering the cops and courts beat as a journalist, I held a job in which I was a true crimefighter, where I was undercover and nabbed about 200 criminals in nearly two years. Those juicy stories in the next segments...

Comments

[Chris]

I liked Trixie Belden better :)

[RFTR]

Actually, THIS is the new, modern Nancy Drew:
http://www.ridingsun.com/posts/1125050456.shtml

[NerdMom]

I loved Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden, there is room for 2 great women! I was always intimidated by them looking great, though. Let me just be on the record as someone who warned you away from dating cops too;). As the child of a criminologist and a cop it is not a coincidence that I married a software engineer;).