Editor’s Note: In PoliceOne “First Person” essays, our Members and Columnists candidly share their own unique view of the world. This is a platform from which individual officers can share their own personal insights on issues confronting cops today, as well as opinions, observations, and advice on living life behind the thin blue line. This week’s essay comes from PoliceOne Gary Neece, the author of the novel COLD BLUE and an 18-year veteran of the Tulsa (Okla.) Police Department. Do you want to share your own perspective with other P1 Members? Send us an email with your story.
By Gary Neece
Tulsa (Okla.) Police Department
Police1 Member
I am a lawyer, marriage counselor, marksman, psychologist, speaker, professional fighter, childcare provider, and much, much more. I am a police officer. If you are in law enforcement, you too, are all these things.
As a profession, we’re a talented people, a special blend of intelligence, common sense, courage and loyalty – a rare combination to be sure. Out of those four elements, loyalty (to one another) is king. While our courage allows us to knowingly suppress intelligence and common sense, loyalty causes us to dismiss those two traits outright. We willingly die for our fellow brothers and sisters. Outside of the armed services, what other profession can claim that? We are special. You are special.
As talented as we are, each and every day we’re forced to reach into our ever expanding tool-box and discover a new skill set. I bet you didn’t know you were capable of teaching English in three seconds, did you? Not until someone, using a language other than your own, decided to test your “command presence.” I’m confident the subsequent English immersion class was quite effective for the individual(s) in attendance. Adapt, overcome, and all that, hooahh.
So often, we believe our talents are limited to the uniform. We sit outside discount stores and inside banks. We protect other people’s things so that we might be able to buy a few extras for our own families. I don’t know about you, but some of that extra cash has been redirected to my dry cleaners for the removal of drool stains from my uniform pants. Some extra jobs can be reminiscent of time spent in a doctor’s waiting room. I’ve worked a bank job where, from sheer boredom, someone could’ve walked directly up and smacked me in the face before I even realized they were in the building.
One of us probably wouldn’t have survived the ensuing confrontation, but my point is this: Was that blank look on my face worth the few extra dollars? For me the answer was no. I decided I wanted to take whatever talents I had to another arena in my “off time.”
Maybe you feel the same way. Maybe that language immersion lesson has convinced you that you’re a closet English teacher. Maybe you want to try your skills on an audience that doesn’t have the business end of a Glock pointed at them. Maybe you’re an undiscovered artist, singer, or mathematician. Maybe your “extra job” can be an extra career.
“No way,” you say?
“Way,” I say.
It took me nearly eighteen years of police work to discover my hidden talent. No, I said “hidden talent” not “special purpose.” And let me tell you, I took a circuitous route in discovering that talent. I graduated from high school with a not-so-solid C average. My GPA, coupled with my cumulative ACT score of 15, prompted advice from my guidance counselor such as, “Maybe college isn’t for you.”
Following high school, I spent a year in the “real world” and decided life without an education (i.e. working for a living) was not for me. I enrolled in college convinced I was going to fail. I was sure I wasn’t all that bright, as were – I’m certain – many who knew me. Well, I graduated from college summa cum laude 4.0, and my college exit scores were outstanding. I’d applied myself and found a skill set I didn’t know I had. I was a good student. Where had that come from?
In 1992, I joined the Tulsa Police Department. After working on the department a few years, I had three goals...
One: become a sergeant.
Two: work in the department’s Special Investigation’s Division (long-hairs).
Three: never promote to management.
I achieved the first two goals within the first ten years on the department, and I’m still successfully avoiding the third.
Having achieved my departmental goals, I needed something new on which to focus. I didn’t want to spend my days spilling saliva in a bank, and the nuances of golf had always eluded me. (Yes, I’m horrible at golf. Happy?) Anyway, I needed something new. I’d recently bought a laptop computer, so I decided to write a book. Yup, just like that. My decision was aided, in no small part, by my ignorance. Understand that I’d never written anything, NADA — not a letter to the editor, not a love note to a girlfriend, not even a semi-true story to Penthouse Forum. But how hard could it be, right? If I wrote one page a day, in a year I’d have a decent sized novel. No sweat.
And write I did, much more than a page a day. It seems I have a lot to say. I may not have had the credentials or background of most successful authors, but I had something no book-writing lawyer will ever have. Stories. Eighteen years of patrol, specialty units, and undercover work gave me so much from which to draw. You have many of the same stories. That’s why there are so many cop shows, movies, and books. We lead interesting lives. It turns out not only do I have something to say but I’m also a decent writer as well. Reviews for my book, COLD BLUE, have been extremely positive. I’ve found a rewarding “extra job” that one day might prove be my primary career. I’m being paid to do something I love, and I promise you I haven’t drooled on myself once while churning out this article. Hopefully, you’ve reciprocated during your reading.
I’ve turned those four elements of being a police officer into something positive. I was courageous enough to try something new. I was intelligent enough to do it fairly well. And I have enough common sense to write an article which not so subtly promotes my book. Now, I’m dependent upon your loyalty to help out a fellow cop. Okay, okay, you can add the quality of shamelessness to my list of talents.
About the Author
Gary Neece is the author of COLD BLUE, a novel. He is a sergeant and eighteen-year veteran of the Tulsa Police Department in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He has served in several specialty units for violent-crime reduction and drug enforcement. Much of the inspiration for his writing springs from his time in the Special Investigations Division, where he supervised the department’s undercover Vice/Narcotics Unit. He lives near Tulsa with his wife and two daughters.
