A Badge, a Gun, an Attitude by Dean Scoville

Author:Dean Scoville
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2017-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

By February, I got a bit of a bounceback, thanks in part to some of the occasional perks that came with working the Bureau.

In a bid to foster mutual empathy, some of the local news media and the Bureau would allow their employees to visit one another’s camp for the day. This vocational exchange was how I got to spend one day with ABC News.

I met with an executive with ABC News who assigned a couple of news editors the responsibility of keeping me amused for the day. To that end, I ended up spending the morning with reporter Susan Campos and her cameraman, Russ.

We had a so-so morning, arriving late for one news conference, and early for another.

Around noon, we ended up attending an “intimate” news conference attended by Ed Asner, Robert Foxworth, Jackson Browne, Daryl Hannah, Hector Elizondo, and a couple of Nicaraguan artists. I was amused and embarrassed when someone interpreted my presence as a “bodyguard” for the news crew and passed this info onto Robert Foxworth, who seemed genuinely surprised and interested. I downplayed my value as a celebrity centurion.

We eventually made our way back to the station where Campos and I made an implicit and mutual agreement to split company and I was set up to ride with the Channel 7 “Air 7” helicopter thereafter.

The pilot and I were idling on the helipad when the news director got him on the radio.

“Where are you?”

“On the pad,” replied the pilot.

“Well, get up in the air!” the director said. “We just had an earthquake!”

The pilot and I looked at one another in confusion. We hadn’t felt a thing.

It turned out to be a 5.5 shaker centered in the Upland area, and rumors of the Disneyland sign having collapsed found us flying by the Happiest Place on Earth, living up to its still upright name. We then flew towards the epicenter, but didn’t find much more than a few downed chimneys.

Later in the month, Lt. Mark Quincy gave me a badly needed shot in the arm.

“We like you here,” he said. “You belong here. We’d like to see you in Media.”

The Media arm of SIB was something I could see myself doing and enjoying. They coordinated celebrity ride-alongs for actors like Charlie Sheen, who was researching for his role in The Rookie, and did liaison work between the Department and film studios on everything from filming permits in LA County to authorizing and coordinating usage of the Department’s name and image in films like Tequila Sunrise, 8 Million Ways to Die, and No Man’s Land. I was flattered to think that there were those in the Bureau who were already thinking of my next bump up.

But if others had forgotten that I was still on training, training sergeant Bert Ross sure hadn’t.

One Saturday, he sat me down to tell me that I would be on training for no less than two additional months—and possibly more. He tried to make it sound like it was no big deal and

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