Those were days which I will always remember because they helped make me the person I am. I had many personal experiences and I observed many things which happened to the people I worked with which taught me much. I have seen humankind at its worst and best. I still dream at night, on occasion, about some of the things I have seen. I became kind of famous as a school teacher for my many “police stories”. I will still tell one once in a while even yet to get across a point or teach someone a concept of value. I had a level of success in this profession. In 1967 I was nominated as “Policeman of the Year” in Boise. I also held the highest arrest record in our department for quite a while. I worked hard at being a good, effective police officer.
I left the profession in August, 1969 to become a school teacher in Salmon, Idaho. I have never regretted that decision because I feel like I have made a difference over the years in education. I have taught and been a school administrator for thirty-nine years. I am retiring in just three more months on June 30, 2008.
One summer evening I was patroling along Hill Road.. This is a roadway which runs east/west along the foot of the hills on the north side of the valley. It was about 5:00 pm and the sun was low in the west. The sun was in my eyes and there was a car in front of me. The sun had to be in his eyes too.
Along the north side of the road there were houses with driveways which ran down pretty steeply onto Hill Road. Suddenly, a small boy on a scooter came speeding out of a driveway and into the path of the car in front of me. The guy did not see the child and simply ran over him with his car. I am not sure the sun was a factor since the kid was so close to the front of the car the driver could not have stopped anyway. I saw this tragedy since I was about 100 feet behind the car and we were traveling about 30 miles per hour.
The driver realized he had run over something and he immediately stopped. I pulled up and stopped too and flipped my emergency lights on. It was obvious that an ambulance was needed as the child was flipping around on the ground, clearly injured. I called on the radio for an ambulance and then jumped from the car and ran to the little boy on the road.
What I saw was a heart wenching sight. The little boy had severe injuries. His chest was crushed and it appeared a tire had gone over him. His face was torn nearly away from his head. Apparently something under the car had hooked him and done this. He was making gurgling noises and flipping like a fish. I took him in my arms and tried to calm him. His jugular vein was cut and blood was pumping out of his throat with each heartbeat. I applied direct pressure to this wound and stopped the bleeding as well as I could. I was able to keep this little fellow from bleeding to death until the ambulance arrived. However, he died of massive injuries in the hospital later. Now for the rest of the story.
All during this drama the little boy’s mother was running around screaming that she had “been telling him all day to stop riding his scooter down the driveway because this may happen.” I did not say much to her except to get the name and other information. It was no use to add to her pain by asking why she didn’t make him stop. There is a huge lesson in this story. If you see your kid doing something which may get him hurt or killed, MAKE HIM STOP! Kids sometimes do dumb things because they don’t think about the consequence. Parents should know enough to control things like this.
The little boy was named Kelly Mencer. He was eight years old at the time this happened. My son Mike was eight then too. Mike is soon going to be 46. Kelly would be 46 now too. How tragic!
The driver of the car was very distraught. He didn’t see it coming at all and had no way to control what happened. I had seen the whole thing. He couldn’t ask for a better witness to what took place. As I talked with him I smelled alcohol on his breath and he told me he had a glass of wine with his supper. I could easily see he was not under the influence of this and I told him so. I also made him take a breathalizer test and do several tests which you give for drunk drivers. He was not under the influence of alcohol. I told the guy that the reason I was doing this was so I could testify in the coming lawsuit that he was not drunk. He said he doubted he would get sued, it was so obvious that it was a horrible accident. I told him wait and see. Sure enough, in about a year here came two attorneys to see me. They had been hired by the parents of the little boy and they were planning to file a lawsuit. I made it very clear that I would be testifying in favor of the driver and showed them my evidence to prove the guy was not at fault. The suit never did materialize so I guess they decided they had no case.
This is one incident in my life as a policeman. There are many more. Maybe I will tell them all someday, who knows?
Written by Mike Hicks
