The Mammoth Book of Hard Bastards (Mammoth Books) (33 page)

Not only did she have to run a business when she’d only really been a barmaid, now she was having to run a pub with her other half going to prison. So she had a nervous breakdown as a result of everything that had happened to her. Her weight plummeted from 140 pounds to below 100 pounds.

I remember the day she came to visit me in prison, and Tommy, my business partner, was also in the visiting hall. Prison visits rules were you’re not supposed to move from your table, so he’d no business doing this, but he walked all the way across the visits room. A couple of prison officers were screaming at him and he came over and he gave Ruth a hug.

He looked at me and he said, “What have you done to this girl?”

And I was feeling guilty enough; I didn’t need him to work it into me. But he was that concerned. And he said to her, “Come on, get yourself together. You’ll be all right.”

She pulled her way out. She kept it together and she ran the Moseley Arms. For the two years I was in prison, she ran and built that pub. She’s got a great strength of character about her and she’s a very private person. She kept the pub going, with my friends giving her a supporting hand, and the business went from strength to strength.

The Moseley Arms pub was beside a police station in Digbeth. The police used to frequent the pub regularly. But they stopped frequenting the pub and said to Ruth, “We won’t come into this pub now any more because you’re a front for a gangster.”

And Ruth told them, she said, “How many gangsters’ molls do you know that clean toilets? How many gangsters’ molls do you know that scrub floors, that clean the windows? I’m not a gangster’s moll, I’m a hard-working woman. And Joe’s no gangster. He was a hard-working man until you caused him all those problems.”

It’s true. If they’d stood by me the first time round I wouldn’t have had them.

I got out of prison in 2003. My parole finished in November 2004. Ruth was running the pub. I have a man’s pride and ego – you know, you want to earn your own money – but my licence has gone now because I’ve got the criminal record.

I’d left school very young: the only thing I’d ever done was box. The only time in my life I’d ever been totally content was when I was boxing. Now suddenly, when I’m outside of boxing,
everything
’s not going right. But every door I knocked on to try and get something for work, there was nothing happening. So I decided to make a comeback in the boxing for the first time in twelve years.

I had now gone from being Joe the boxer to Joe the publican to Joe the convict, and now I was back to Joe the boxer again, and it was nice for people to talk about me because of the boxing once more.

So I was out of prison, and I was training. One day, when me and my training partner, Patrick, had finished training, we went for something to eat in this place on Broad Street that does these
magnificent
chicken breasts. Patrick owns a pub in Digbeth called Cleary’s and there’s a guy called Lee Marshall, who is the veteran World’s Strongest Man, who sometimes does the door for him. Lee’s won over forty strongman titles. So we’re getting these breasts of chicken and Lee, who was on the door of the Rocket Club, spots Patrick and we started chatting away. I was congratulating Lee, who had just won his seventh world veterans title.

Les Cole, the Rocket’s manager, steps out. “Joe Egan!” And he gave me a big hug because I had just got out of prison.

“Come in, come in!”

“Les, I’ve just finished training; I’m just having a bit of chicken.”

He started to pull my arm.

I said, “Les, I’ll come up another time.” I said to Lee, “Lee, I won’t even attempt to wrestle with you, you’ll pull my arm out of its socket! I will come up again. Here’s my number, Les.”

So, the next day, Les rang me. “Joe, we’re having a medal presentation for Lee for winning his seventh world power-lifting title. The newspapers are going to be there. Will you come to the medal
presentation
and be a celebrity in the photograph.”

I said, “I will by all means, no problem.”

So I organized a few boxing friends to come up for the
photograph
. The Rocket is a lap-dancing club and girls were dancing, but there was a free bar and the Irish lads just want to have a drink. I was standing there talking to Les, and the press were there, taking photographs. I was having an orange juice at the bar and I spotted Michael Flatley in the crowd.

“Michael Flatley!”

Security all came running over. “Joe, Joe, it’s not Michael Flatley. It’s only his lookalike.”

I walked over and I swear to God he was the spit of Michael Flatley.

And he also is Michael Flatley, because he’s actually changed his name by deed poll to Michael Flatley! He drives around with his registration on his Mercedes, Flatley. His gold card, Visa card, driving licence – it’s all been changed to Michael Flatley.

On two occasions, he had been down to Flatley’s changing rooms at Flatley’s concerts, and got through all the security! He had also been ushered into venues as Flatley because he really is the double of him.

I hadn’t been aware of this guy.

So now I was in the presence of Michael Flatley’s double, his lookalike. But I was looking at him and still shaking my head – is it Michael Flatley?

So I went over to talk to him.

He said, “I’m Richard from Stowport. I’ve changed my name – I’m not the real Michael Flatley. I’ve been trying to get to meet you, but you’ve been in prison. Paddy Finn and Mike Higgins have been trying to get a meeting on with you.”

I hear his Stowport accent so I know. But I’m still in shock because it’s his double.

I say, “You want to do me a favour?”

“Anything.”

“Right, I’m going to walk away now, but do you see that group of lads over there?”

“Yeah.”

“Go over and sit beside them. They’re my friends. I won’t let anything happen to you. As soon as they realize what’s going on, I’ll go over and I’ll stop them before they do anything.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

So I stood back. The Irish lads were all laughing and drinking because it was a free bar and they all wanted the gargle. There were Patrick and Paul, and Patrick’s uncle Peter, and a couple of other lads.

“Flatley” goes over and, brazen, he sat beside Patrick and looked at him. Patrick went, “Aaagghh!” He was looking at him, and all of the other lads were all looking, too. I knew that not a word was being said because no lips were moving.

Anyway, the drink’s gone down. So, next of all, I see Richard “Flatley”, also not saying a word. And I knew the head-butt was coming.

Then I walked over and I put my hand on Patrick’s chest. Richard’s face would have been smashed. I said. “It’s all right, he’s not the real man!”

Richard said, “Joe, you cut that fine!”

O
RIGINALLY OF
I
RISH
decent, Kimberly Wood is the only female featured in this book. Her inclusion is not because she is nasty, violent or a criminal or because she is a world-class martial artist or boxer, but because she does one of the toughest jobs in the US – she is a policewoman.

Wood was born in 1960 on the east side of St Paul, Minnesota. Her father Frank Wood was a military police officer in the army and served in Korea. He then went on to a career in the prison service and was one of the only people in the state at the time to go from being a standard correctional officer to the highest position of commissioner of corrections. Wood’s father was a big influence in her life and career, and from a very early age she wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps in some way and serve her country as he did, either as a cop or as a correctional officer. She ended up doing both.

In 1979 she joined the US Army Reserves and served six years as a reservist. She received a commendation and was honourably discharged after her contract ended. Wood then decided to follow her father and so she worked for the Sheriff’s Department as a police dispatcher while studying for law enforcement qualifications. After completing her training and passing, in 1995 she was hired by her first police department. Wood has since worked for five police departments covering city, rural and suburban areas, and was the first female police officer in two of those departments. In 2003 she became Deputy Chief Police Officer at the City of Milaca  Police Department. After eight years as a policewoman she then decided to enter the prison service as a corrections officer and from 2004 to 2009 worked at the St Cloud Prison with some of the worst
prisoners
in the system. Wood is currently Mayor of Bock, Minnesota, the town in which she now lives and works.

This is her own story of her time as a policewoman on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation, one of the toughest reservations in the US.

I used to drive a patrol car in Cass Lake, which is on the Leech Lake Reservation near Bemidji. The Leech Lake Indian  Reservation contains 864,158 acres, including parts of Beltrami, Cass, Hubbard and Itasca Counties, and is located in north-central Minnesota, USA. As of the 2000 census, the reservation had a population of 10,205, making it the largest Indian reservation in the state by number of residents and the second-largest (to the White Earth Indian Reservation) in terms of land area. The original, much smaller Leech Lake Indian Reservation was established in 1855 and then, under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, the present “Greater” Leech Lake Indian Reservation was formed by the merger with three other smaller neighbouring reservations. Cass Lake itself is a glacially formed lake of approximately 25 square miles and the town of Cass Lake sits near the southwestern side of the lake and is approximately 90 per cent Native American.

I love the Native American culture, and have learned much from Native Americans and their way of life, and indeed continue to do so. To be intimately involved with the Native American community is extremely rare for a white person (and even more so for a white female) yet I have had that privilege, and I was given that
opportunity
by being a police officer. The community has generally been really helpful and I have asked lots of questions along the way. People know that the police officers care and we do make a difference; that’s one of the many reasons for me being a female Irish cop on the reservation, as we really can help people in difficult situations, be there for them when they are in crisis, protect them, get assistance or find the resources to help them.

Our job is like no other. We wear a bullet-proof vest every day to work and, although we don’t talk about it, when we leave for work we know we just might not come home at the end of the day. We work days, nights, weekends and holidays. We go to court on our days off. We work long hours and frequently – if a call has come in late in the shift – long after our shift ends (so much for the dinner, school conference or anything else that was planned after work). We have administrative tasks that have to be completed and we have classes to take, and forty-eight post credits have to be done within three years for our annual licence renewal.

Many of us generally work a rotating shift, never having the same days off. Our schedule is normally twelve-hour shifts, working
day-shifts
half of the month and night-shifts the other half. Many of us have pagers and cell phones, and being paged or called at home on our day off is not uncommon. Our profession is about as far from a nine-to-five, Monday through Friday job as you could possible get. Needless to say, our time off is precious and because of all of
this – and
more – cops need the support, love and understanding of our friends and family; most of us get that most of the time; some, well, not much at all.

I work hand-in-hand with Leech Lake Tribal Police, based on 115 Sixth Street  NW, Cass Lake, which currently has a patrol division consisting of fifteen patrol officers and four patrol sergeants, and Cass County Sheriff’s Department based in Walker, Minnesota. We back each other up on calls and we frequently interact with each other, passing along valuable information – sometimes while sharing a cup of coffee – and I am grateful to have worked with some of the finest officers in the state. As police officers we work closely with other departments and people, too; fire department and ambulance personnel, doctors and nurses, security guards, social workers, judges, lawyers, city council members, the mayor, business owners and many others.

Admittedly, Leech Lake Reservation does have a high crime rate for assault and domestic disturbances, as well as having stabbings, shootings, vehicle pursuits, burglary and the rest, and at the time of writing this there are eighty-four inmates currently being held in the Cass County Sheriff’s Office for crimes ranging from parole 
violation
and speeding to first-degree murder. However, I should say that even though my community has a high crime rate, readers shouldn’t jump to an immediate conclusion about the typical kind of citizen living on the reservation – most residents are just like me, trying to make a living and trying to enjoy a decent life. As police officers, what we don’t like to see is newspapers and the media depicting the Native American community in a purely negative light. There are, of course, negative elements in any community but there is also so much good going on in this community in which I am so proud to serve. The public needs to hear about this, too, but sadly rarely ever does.

In most cases my fellow city officers and I work alone, but we do on occasion work in pairs when we have extra officers on duty and, of course, we back each other up whenever we are called out to a situation, of which there are many …

Late one night my partner and I responded to an alleged domestic situation. The lights were out at the home where the abuse was allegedly taking place and so we walked around the back to see if any lights were on there. From out of the darkness an intoxicated Native American man from a nearby home came running out of his back door and opened fire with a .22.

“Police, put down the gun,” my partner and I yelled. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and in that split second I thought what in the hell am I doing this job for? And then, as he hesitated slightly, I thought to myself that I was going to have to kill this man. The man then quickly raised the gun up in the air and I began commands to him, instructing him to put the weapon down on the picnic table while getting closer, aiming my gun at his centre mass. The man placed the gun on a picnic table next to him then we converged on him, handcuffed him and took him into custody. And then to our surprise his wife came out and was visibly very upset and completely unable to understand why we were taking her husband to jail!

On another occasion, with my partners and possessing warrants, I was searching a home for a suspect. We had not found him yet and I went down to search the basement area of the home. The basement was very bare, with no furniture and, as I looked around, I saw an unlit furnace with a little cast iron door. The door was only about eleven inches by fourteen so I thought, “Oh, what the heck,” and whipped open the little door to take a look. The first thing I saw was a section of human arm; the suspect was contorted inside the furnace. “I’m getting out, I’m getting out,” he yelped after I opened the door. The jail workers got their share of laughs that day as the guy was literally completely covered from head to foot in soot. I believe one of the jailers has yet to get the stained soot off his shirt patch.

Our job is bitter-sweet. One minute you can be taking an assault report; the next minute you’re going to a fight in progress, shots fired. You can go from something inconsequential to something intense in seconds. And that’s how our shifts usually go. We have moments of joy, laughter, sadness, hope and despair as well as high intensity and danger almost every single day we work the streets. Sometimes we see people at their best but usually when we are called out we see people at their worst: angry, violent, depressed, lonely, drunk or high, and at times defenceless and often at their most vulnerable. Being a cop is a mixed bag filled with the good, the bad and the ugly. You see things that other people don’t see on a daily basis and some things that others will never see in their lifetime. However, not everyone can go to work where 99 per cent of the time they love their job and I am grateful for that. I am grateful that we are all different because I know there are some things I just wouldn’t want to do for a living, just as there are some people that could never imagine being a cop, and I love being a cop.

One evening we were working a busy shift when the hospital reported a call from a man who had large gaping wounds to his leg, apparently from a pit bull dog. A little later, the same dog also viciously attacked a woman who ended up receiving more than 300 stitches. We got the identity of the owner as a “Mr Jones” and went to his home to speak to him and to arrest him on warrants. As we drew up outside his residence we saw he was standing on the top of the front steps, with two dogs chained around the steps. As my partner reached out to place “Mr Jones” under arrest, Jones shouted “Get ’em, Oscar”, and from around the corner came another big black pit bull baring its teeth and looking for flesh;our flesh. As he charged towards us, my partner and I both managed to get control of the dog with mace spray and then arrested the man. The dogs were later removed from the residence by specialist dog handlers.

On another occasion on routine patrol, I stopped a vehicle with no front or back licence plates or no temporary licence sticker. When I stopped the vehicle one of the passengers bailed out and ran inside a nearby grocery store. Inside the vehicle I found a
fourteen-year-old
driving and his dad, who was in the back seat. The vehicle smelled of marijuana. While I was running the information with Dispatch, I could see a lot of movement inside the vehicle and could see the man in the back bending down and also reaching in the front seat. The man’s license was cancelled and he was on probation. I had the boy come back to my vehicle, where I asked him, “Is there a gun in the car?”

“No,” he stated.

Then I asked, “Any other weapons in the car?”

“Yes,” he stated. “An axe under the front seat, a pipe next to the front seat.”

I searched the vehicle and found the axe and the other weapon and asked the dad why he had the axe in the vehicle. He said, “You can’t trust anyone; a man’s gotta be able to defend himself.”

My partner then showed up to assist me and he quickly told me that he had previously revoked the plates on this vehicle. In the end, I arrested the dad for violating his probation.

On another occasion, my partner was transporting a man to detox. Just prior to searching him, the man pulled an axe out of the sleeve of his trench coat, commenting, “Well, I don’t think they will let me have this at detox, so you better take it.” It seems to me that the weapon of choice lately on the reservation must be an axe! Perhaps people are comparing axes: I have this kind of axe, what kind do you have? My axe is shiny, and I sharpen mine more often than you!

On still another occasion, before sipping my coffee at the start of the day shift, I received a call about an intoxicated man assaulting people on the street with a baseball bat. When I arrived at the scene I saw three female victims, one with an apparent broken arm. My partners and I looked around for the man, who had fled the scene, and located him running on the other side of the freeway, still with the baseball bat in his hand. When the suspect saw us he dropped the bat and continued to run. My partner got hold of him and we both brought him to the ground and handcuffed him.

As cops, we put our lives on the line each and every day.

It is not all pulse-racing stuff though and we do have some really funny times on the beat, too. I remember a lady called Suzie, a very large woman at about 350 plus pounds, who would regularly get drunk and lonely and then find some reason to call the cops. I was working with a rookie cop at the time and, knowing Suzie as I did, decided to let the rookie handle it. In he went, with me following close behind, to find Suzie naked with just a sheet wrapped around her and holding a litre bottle of cheap vodka that was almost empty. Holding up the sheet around her naked body, she looked at this young new rookie officer, dropped the sheet and said, “Bet you never seen a princess before.”

The rookie’s jaw dropped to the floor while I was trying not to laugh too much. She told the rookie how cute he was and begged him to stay. Suzie was just lonely and decided to call the boys in blue for a bit of company.

I am the first and only full-time licensed female police officer within my department and have also been the very first female police officer in another department too. When we, as female police officers, put on our uniform and gear-up to patrol our cities, town and local communities, we often face more than the challenges of just our daily patrol. We face obstacles that our male counterparts do not; discrimination and sexual harassment. You would like to think that we live in a progressive and open society yet still there are many female police officers in many areas in the US who have to take verbal and in some cases physical abuse each and every day. It could be from the person you are arresting who spits on you, or slaps, punches or kicks you, or fellow police officers making sexist remarks. Although we pride ourselves in not taking it personally and being professional, it happens and even some of the people on the reservation and in the community we serve can be extremely prejudiced or sexist towards me as a female police officer; some just will not accept me as a competent police officer because their
generation
never had female police officers.

Research consistently demonstrates that the negative attitude of male officers is the most significant problem reported by female officers and in multi-departmental studies it has been shown that as many as 68 per cent of the female officers report having experienced sexual harassment, discrimination, alienation or mistreatment. Departments under-utilize female officers by not promoting them, or putting them in what is historically known as a “women’s job” such as working with juveniles and in communications. A poll in
Law and Order
magazine once showed that only 9 per cent of male officers accepted females openly. I have to say, however, that there are some departments that do treat women police officers fairly and many of the people I work with are great partners who respect my professionalism and recognize that I do my job just like them. I have had many partners who are also friends and have never judged me by my gender, only by my capabilities. One of the best partners I had was when I did my field training prior to me being released on my own. He was a typical “Andy Sipowicz” type from “NYPD Blue”; a cigar-chomping Vietnam veteran who had been a cop for many years. Initially, he made it very clear he was not happy having to work with a female, but once he could see that I could do my job we actually became good working friends, and later I was invited to his wedding. That’s the way it should be for everyone, but
unfortunately
in many cases it’s not and this not only applies to female police officers, but also minority officers.