Sunday, November 13, 2011

My Dad the Sheriff!

I have to start out by telling you that I have great difficulty picturing my dad as a cop. Of course I remember moments of childhood punishment when the word sheriff might come to mind, but basically my dad is a very gentle kind sort of fellow, and guns were never a part of our life even though we lived on a farm, and a 22 might have come in handy for woodchucks?

I have of course seen a couple of pictures of dad in the uniform of a
Pinal County Deputy Sheriff ,
but that part of his life was in Arizona, and the one time I visited him there, he was working in a gas station. That's dad (in uniform - sans hat) and my mom, the day they got married the second time 39 years ago. There is another classic pose with the hat, with his foot up on a log, leaning on his knee - I think there is even cactus in the background. But I still didn't entirely believe.

Until dad showed me a story in the Casa Grande (Ariz.) DISPATCH Wednesday, June 13,1973. I had heard this story before of course, along with lots of other classic dad stories about various incidents in his life as a deputy sheriff, but here it was in the newspaper! Dad had googled himself after hearing about doing that on a TV news show, and was amazed to find this 38 year old newspaper article. I've posted the copy below because the PDF file at the link above is not perfectly clear.
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San Manuel Man Faces Three Felony Charges

A San Manuel resident was to be arraigned in Mammoth
Justice of the Peace court today on three felony counts stemming
from a disturbance at his home Tuesday night.

A tear gas grenade was needed to force Jesus C.
Borquez. 42. from inside the house after six Pinal County
sheriff's deputies and two officers from the Mammoth
Police Department were summoned to quell a family
fight, deputies said Borquez was in custody in lieu
of $20,000 bond pending his arrignment on charges of obstructing
justice and two counts of assault with intent to commit murder:

Investigators said they were called to the home after
receiving a report about 10:05 p.m. that the suspect was
fighting with a son, Chuie. They said the family members
had left the house and Borquez locked himself, inside
when the officers arrived Borquez appeared from a
window with a 30.06 rifle and 12 gauge shotgun and fired two
shots, deputies said. That fire was returned by Deputy A.T.
Richards, who fired one- shot to knock out a porch light. Later a
second deputy lobbed the tear gas inside and Borque appeared
outside about 10 minutes later, deputies added.

Deputy Mel Olney received a slight eye injury when he was
struck while attempting to apprehend Borquez, investigators
said. He was treated and released at Magma
Hospital in Mammoth. There were no other injuries.
Borquez was placed in custody about 40 minutes after
officers were called, authorities said.
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My dad!
Injured in a gun fight!
Not quite, but shots were fired!

1 comment:

Maeve said...

Great story! I can't picture Grandpa as a cop either. But I think my favorite part of all of this is if you look at the newspaper archive link and notice the story immediately to the right of the story about Grandpa, it's about a 4th Amendment issue (which was, of course, my dad's area of legal expertise!).