By John ‘Butch’ Dale
Guest Columnist

If I wrote a book about the strange incidents that I encountered as a police officer here in Montgomery County, many people would not believe me. But as Joe Friday, from Dragnet TV fame, used to say …”The stories you are about to hear are true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.” Here are just three examples …

John Dale as a sheriff’s deputy.

One year there had been quite a few residential burglaries in the rural areas of the county. I received a tip one evening from an older fellow who lived in Alamo. A young man had told him that he had been with two men when they had burglarized a trailer at Indian Ford. Although the young man had not stolen anything himself, he was concerned that he might be in trouble.

I spoke with this young man and his mother the next day. He was quite nervous, but eventually told me the names of the thieves and the details of the burglary. Several items, including a small safe, had been stolen. He correctly named many of the stolen items. One thief had also stolen an expensive pair of name brand sunglasses, and threw his old pair out the car window as they left.

Both of the named suspects refused to come in for questioning, so I needed to corroborate the informant’s story. On my day off, my wife and I drove to Indian Ford trailer park to search for the sunglasses. We searched everywhere for two hours. No luck. As I started to head back home, I heard a screeching sound from a nearby tree. I looked up, and guess what I saw? A red-tailed hawk … and a pair of sunglasses dangling from a tree limb … Bingo!

That same afternoon I located the safe in a nearby creek. To make a long story short, the two burglars were arrested. The detective and I cleared up nearly 70 burglary and theft cases, and the criminals were sent to prison … thanks to an informant, off-duty work, and a red-tailed hawk.

John ‘Butch’ Dale

One night around 2 a.m. I was driving down Elmore Avenue on the southeast side of town, when I came across a train that had stopped and was blocking the street. This was a common occurrence, and often the street was blocked for an hour or longer. The train blocked the road for a family that had medical problems. The train engineer had been warned many times by the city police.

I parked my patrol car and climbed up into the locomotive engine. I spoke to the engineer, who was half asleep, “I need to see your driver’s license.” Somewhat startled, he replied,”Why?” “Because I am going to issue you a ticket for blocking this roadway past the legal time limit.”

He thought I was joking. I wasn’t. He got a ticket. I told my wife the next morning. “I’ve never heard of an officer pulling over a train!” she laughed.

One night around 3 a.m. I was dispatched to the Shades, where someone had reported that two extremely drunk women were causing problems with other campers. When I asked for a description of these women or their vehicle, the dispatcher advised that I wouldn’t have any problem locating the two women … because they also were both stark naked!

I was west of Ladoga at the time, so not too far away from the Shades, while the only other officer on duty that night was at the jail writing up a report … about twice as far away as I was. I was somewhat wary about dealing with two naked drunk women by myself, but no worry … my partner pulled in the gate just ahead of me! I think he may have broken a speed record from Crawfordsville to the Shades.

Such are the life and times of a county police officer.