Over coffee this morning, my wife reminded me of an incident that happened just a little over a year ago. Has anyone been cuffed by the police for no real reason except that it was a Friday morning?
This story begins about month prior when I had been let go at work. One of those completely out of the blue, toe numbing events. Had done an OUTSTANDING job for this company too. In fact, it was just two months prior that I received a very nice merit increase along with a ton of praise at two different company functions for my efforts. As well, they had just paid $56,000 for my relocation for our move from Chicago to Edmond, Oklahoma. Out of the blue and I was blue. Given that what I do the average time on the job market is 18 months and that I was in the middle of nowhere, I decided that I needed something to make me happy … I’m going shooting!
Four days prior to being let go, I had celebrated my 50th birthday (a month late) by buying a new M1A Scout. I figured it’s time to break the barrel in. Hadn’t shot my beautiful, Behlert tuned Colt Commander or my late father’s mint condition 32 Colt Auto in years so I grabbed them too. Also grabbed a 9mm and all the ammo and range gear and set it outside my office door (my man cave where I keep my guns and guitars) in the foyer of our home. Right in direct line with the two 8’ plus beveled glass front doors.
Went out to our back patio to tell my wife my plans and I hear the door ring as my Golden Retriever, Chocolate Lab and “Dingo” made a quick break for the door to see who came to play with them. As I am walking to the door, I see a police officer standing there. I unlock and open the door while pushing the dogs back and greet him. In my greeting, I invite him in and ask if this was about the wallets we found after church the previous Sunday. He says “No” and asks me to “please step outside”.
Naturally, I ask what this is about and he just repeats his request to step outside. Hmmm. Warning light is on. My first thought was that someone had killed my ex-boss and they wanted to question me. There was a pool going on at work as to who would kill him … his wife (my bet), an employee, employee’s spouse, random stranger or LE. I say, “May I ask what this is about?” and he says “I just asked you to step outside. Why are you being so A-VA-SIVE (phonetics added)?” I say “What?” and he again asks me why I was being so “A-VA-SIVE”? Well, I replied that given my late father was a police officer, I am naturally curious when asked to “step outside” and secondly, “I was not being E-VA-SIVE”. At this time, two more officers showed themselves from the sides of my house. So much for the grammar lesson, I stepped outside.
As soon as my foot hits the outside, they ask again if I am Ronald M. Johnson and I yet again say “yes” and then they let me know that I have a warrant for my arrest in Payne County. They ask me for my ID (which they took out of my back pocket) and if I have any weapons on me (almost laughed at the thought of the stack of weapons sitting about 18’ in front of this officer). I had a small SOG folder on me and they took that saying that they “didn’t want me to cut them” which did make me laugh. One officer says to the youngest of the three to “cuff him” and with that, I was then ordered to put my hands behind my back. In doing this, the younger officer of the three tried to get control of my thumbs and I wouldn’t let him so he says “do not resist arrest!” I replied, “I am not resisting. I am standing still … but you are not going to play with my thumbs”. The officer that knocked on my door just smiled.
So now I am cuffed and standing out in our front yard. I am finding some humor in this because I live in a really stuffy gated community on a golf course. Full of snotty lawyers, doctors and their ultra bitchy, high-maintenance wives. I ask yet again if they could tell me what the warrant was about and where is Payne County?
They replied that it’s in Stillwater and I tell them that I have never been there. They ask me who I work for and I say I just got let go and am now unemployed. They asked about my phone call with Edmond PD that morning and I told them I hadn’t talked to anyone at Edmond PD since we called about the wallets last Sunday. The officer that knocked on my door with the bad grammar pulls out his phone and steps away to make a call.
I ask if I may tell my wife what is going on and this one officer who was being a complete jerk says, “She will figure it out soon enough when she realizes you’re gone.” I was just about to ask this jerk if he thinks he will make detective before one of the dogs in the K9 unit does when my wife walks out. She says, “Hello officers! Is this about the wallets?” and they didn’t say a word … so I show her my hands behind my back and my new “jewelry”. She freaks.
As the shock wore off and she gained control over what became a staccato stutter, she too asks what this about and they say I have a warrant for my arrest. When she asked what for all they stated was that they will be transporting me to “county”. I then said it would help if we knew what this was about and they said, “You know damn well what this about!” My wife then asks where is “county” was and the officer says, “Look it up in the phone book”. This guy does not have a future in PR either.
Well, I look down and notice that I am still wearing my slippers and ask if my wife may go in and get me some shoes? They say sure and my wife went back in to get my Topsiders. In doing this, she grabs all the gun cases and range gear and moves them out of their line of sight. My first thought, bad move. These idiots will pull their Glocks and shoot their freaking toes if they saw her with those cases. All I need is for my wife, dogs or self to get hit by a slew of 40SW ricochets from Larry, Moe or Curley. However, they were staring at me and paid her no attention. Great tactical move guys! Sure bet the K9 will make detective first!
My wife brings my shoes and is still a wreck with what is going on. I tell her to relax because they have made a mistake and we will get this figured out. Right about then, the officer with bad grammar that knocked on my door comes back and says, “Cut him loose. Wrong Ron Johnson.” In unison, they mumble “sorry” and quickly walk back to the two police cars that were parked up the street. I couldn’t resist, before they reached the sidewalk I thanked them for stopping by.
Not quite over. I called the Edmond PD station commander up and asked him what was going on. He apologized and said that the Johnson that they were looking for had a “civil warrant” out for his arrest. I asked if it was a slow day for the PD to be serving “civil warrants” and he said they were doing a favor to the Sheriff’s office to serve it. With that, he said that they didn’t have a home address for the other “Johnson” and after they called him … and he called them every name in the sailor’s handbook and more, they came to my house. I asked how that deduction was possible and he said they simply looked up the utility bills and found the only Ron Johnson paying utilities in Edmond ...me. Brilliant.
I told the Lieutenant that I was from an LE family and didn’t want anything to go in the officer’s jackets but pulling someone out of their home, cuffing them and being rude is not the best PR. He apologized and I was happy.
After this happened, I was laughing a bit about the incident with one of my beer drinking neighbors and he gave me a little more background information. He said that Edmond PD tends to be a little on the John Wayne side of the law. He personally knew of two other people that something similar had happened to them. One of them actually spent a few hours in jail before they figured things out. He went on to blame the Chief of Police who is Bob Ricks. Ricks background? When he was with the FBI, he was one of the four Special Agents in Charge at Waco.
Time to move to Montana.
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