P1 First Person: Making sacrifice matter

By Officer Jon Tish
Spearfish (S.D.) Police Department

On March 15, 2009, Deputy Chad Mechels was shot and killed while responding to a welfare check on a 19-year-old male. This was the first felonious killing of a law enforcement officer in the State of South Dakota in many years. Any description of how hard this hit our entire state is an understatement. In a state with approximately 3,800 officers in all, you don’t have to play six degrees of separation; it is one and done here.

This was an immediately real and emotional thing, even for those of us who did not personally know Chad. This was the loss of someone in our small community of officers, not just another story in the paper. It wasn’t right. You don’t read stories about officers being killed in South Dakota. That only happens in places where they have real crime problems.

You see, South Dakota is a quiet state. There are thousands of miles of prairie, cows, and crops. It has beautiful scenery. I say that because my idea of scenery is no people. It has lots and lots of really beautiful scenery. Deadwood likes to play up its history of the Wild West, but the reality is more of a Mild West. It is a good place to raise a family. It’s a good place to be in law enforcement because, if there is any place to work in law enforcement and be safe, this is probably it.

This is also one of our biggest problems. There is a mentality among many in our small law enforcement community that Chad was the anomaly — that just doesn’t happen in South Dakota. All 48 line-of-duty deaths recorded in South Dakota history account for approximately 0.0025 percent of the roughly 19,000 names on the National Law Enforcement Memorial wall. Even in my limited knowledge of scientific study, I understand that this is a statistically insignificant number.

The problem is that the families of those fallen officers are dealing with a dramatically different number: 100 percent. That is the percentage of loss with which Chad’s wife Jamie and their children, Avery and Thomas, have to deal. That is the amount of loss I saw in their eyes when I was touched by them a few months after Chad’s death.

My small town has a weekend summer festival. We provide officers at the gates to deal with parking problems, answer questions, and be ready if the need arises. While on duty, I was approached by a nice, young woman who asked if I would talk to her kids. I spent several minutes visiting with them and giving them Jr. Police Officer stickers. But no matter what I did, I could not engage the sad-eyed little boy. As they were leaving, she said she does this because she wants her kids to know police officers and then made the simple statement that her name was Jamie and she was Chad’s wife.

She didn’t need to say more. This is South Dakota. The sad look in Thomas’ eyes was instantly explained and I knew why all my attempts to be nice and make him laugh had failed. I felt so helpless that day.

That helplessness and sadness haunted me for weeks afterward. I wanted so badly to somehow show those kids that their dad was a great man, that he had made a difference, and that we were all better off for Chad having lived. I just had no idea how to go about that. Thankfully, like all heroes, Chad would come and help me when I needed him and show me a way to give that message to his family.

I was looking for help. My agency was in the process of buying the first TASER devices for our department. While setting up the training, I was, of course, looking forward to one of the best parts of being a TASER instructor — putting the hurt on my fellow officers! I say this jokingly, but I truly value my volunteers, because training is so much more effective when you can provide that live, hands-on experience. Several volunteered but, to a person, each wanted something in return: a TASER pin. They had all seen the X26 pin I received at my instructor training. This was a problem. We are a small agency and had spent a lot of time working out a way to spend the extra money to buy the more expensive X3 devices. I contacted TASER International but, alas, no X3 pins.

I recalled my Navy days and the Challenge Coins awarded for special assignments or achievements. Search after search on the internet resulted in several generic law enforcement coins, but nothing seemed to click as suitable or economically feasible. We couldn’t justify the cost of custom-made coins. Then one day, I changed my search criteria and the first result that popped up was the Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. I really liked their Challenge Coins. They were only $10.00 each and the money went to a good cause.

The very next search result specifically mentioned Chad! Reading that second search result was much like a peculiar phenomenon I have often experienced in my lifetime. I am sure many of you can relate. It’s that “aha” moment when the obvious dawns on you and you slap your forehead! Now I just had to figure out how to tie these gifts into the training and make it mean something.

Teaching is not new to me. I am also a paramedic and have taught countless EMS classes. Since becoming a law enforcement officer, I have also taken on the role of a PPCT instructor, as well as TASER instructor. My challenge was not in giving out the information, but in getting my students to invest themselves in the training. Adult learners will teach themselves more in 5 minutes than you can teach them in five hours if you simply make it valuable to them. Once invested, the rest is easy. Remembering this principle is where I started to bring it together. Before handing out the coins, I talked about the sacrifices that Chad and other fallen officers have made. I can say without a doubt it had a positive impact and the gesture was appreciated.

I went home after the training and shortly thereafter received another prompt emotional slap to the forehead! I had had an incredible opportunity to make this into something really great, but had successfully delivered a mediocre product. I had wanted to inspire my officers and make them understand that, even though the small pain of taking a TASER hit is nothing compared to the sacrifice our fallen brothers and sisters have made, it is still an important sacrifice. But instead of the pretty words trying to inspire them on some grand scale, I wish I would have just told them a simple one.

I wish I would have told them this one: In those weeks and months after meeting Chad’s family, I was a better police officer. I knew I did not want to leave my wife and my children the same way that Chad was forced to do. I was more cautious. I studied more, I researched more, and I just plain worked harder to be better at my job, because I wanted to go home to my family. I took Chad to work with me every night. He worked those streets with me and he kept me safe.

The things you hear about “the fallen officers’ watch being done and that we are going to take it from here” are crap. If we are smart, the fallen will go to work with us every day. By remembering them and learning from them, we keep them on the watch. It is then that they man the ramparts, and they keep us safe. To think anything different is to tarnish their honor and their memory. To Jamie and Avery and Thomas: I tell you right now, your dad continues to make a difference. He continues to be a hero. I am better because he lived, and, so help me God, I will work to make sure that all those around me are better because of it as well.

To this end, I have contacted the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and the TASER Foundation. I am asking them to create a challenge coin that will honor the fallen and inspire our volunteers. I am also asking that all of us who take on the challenge of being instructors remember to make the sacrifices matter, no matter the scale.

When I do it again, I will expand things. For those officers who do not want to take exposures, I will ask them to raise funds to sponsor those who will take the ride. I will make this into something more than just a part of the training. I will make this into something that is an event to emphasize that the training we do matters and the sacrifices we make to train also matter. I will give them a clear and solid reminder that, if we do not sacrifice a little to train harder and better, then we risk making a bigger sacrifice than we or our families ever want us to make.

So please remember, whether it is just a little pain or the life in our body, the sacrifices matter. As instructors, we have an incredible opportunity to make sure these sacrifices matter and to accomplish more than anyone could have ever believed possible.