I had been on road patrol for four years when, one night, I was at home when the telephone rang. On the other end of the line was Lt. Smiley. “Hey, Terry, there’s going to be an opening for Public Information Officer, and you are going to put in for it”.
The job would be of interest to me because of my college major which was communications. What was nice was that my Bachelor degree got me extra money every month, thanks to Florida police incentives. So, I did what I was told and submitted the paper work. At the end of the filing period, there was only one other person who applied for the position. It was prior to the announcement regarding who got it when, again, a night-time home phone call stated “I can’t officially tell you this, but you are the new PIO.” And sure enough, a few days later, I was brought into the office of Lt. Hardy, who was the administration supervisor. He told me I would be assigned to Sergeant Hill.
Hill had been PIO for quite a while, but was needed in Special Operations. So, I became the first common officer to assume the position. There were a couple of weeks of training which covered everything from press relations, which involved plenty of radio, television and newspaper contacts. There was everything from protocol to information distribution, as well as legal obligations and considerations. Additional duties included Crime Prevention Officer, Drug Prevention Officer and Officer Friendly. There were school visitations, security surveys and community presentations, and the always inclusive “…as directed by the supervisor of administration” policy, which included just about anything. I had my own office which was always busy and phone extension which was constantly ringing, but I knew that once I established a schedule, which Sgt. Hill had helped in forming, that things would be alright. I eventually became a member of FLEPIOA- the Florida Law Enforcement Public Information Association. It’s always nice to have allies for the purposes of support and input.
It was the first weekend prior to my first solo week, as I was relaxing and watching TV, that I got my first call. There was an auction that the city was having. There was something that people had bid on. It was offered for sale from the Police Department but it brought in very low bids. They were so low that the department refused to part with it. So, a reporter just had to know the “how and why” of the bid rejection. I didn’t even know about the auction. I told him I would call back, and then called Lt. Goldbar at his home for input. He laughed, knowing I was upset that I didn’t have an answer for the inquiring party. It was then I realized I wouldn’t always have an answer. The Lieutenant ended my irritation when he advised he would handle the call.
The daily “routine” which had been established, included gathering copies of all the overnight reports, reading them, editing out those things that the press wasn’t entitled to, and leaving them in a neat pile so reporters could thumb through them. There were always questions and/or comments they were searching for to fill their column inch budgets for their editors. There were two local papers. One was a daily and a second, which was bi-weekly. There were three major market dailies serving Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and the Palm Beaches. There were several TV stations and a local radio station that were in contact with me every day. My name started to appear as “spokesman” for the department quite frequently. It was interesting to be doing sound bites and live news broadcasts. So much so that one attorney told me I should run for mayor. I advised her I would never even consider a political run. Too bad, she replied. “You have more name recognition than anyone in this city right now”. Doing security surveys was as much of a social science as it was practical application. I was sent to the University of Louisville in Kentucky, home of the National Crime Prevention Institute, to learn about crime prevention theory, practice and management. This involved applications of techniques, procedures and hardware for security and fortification for homes and industry. It was two weeks of intense bookwork, followed by a field trip to conduct a business security survey. The final day, however, was a great barbeque before heading to the airport for our return flights. At a later date, the same crew of institute instructors came to Palm Beach County to teach the third block of instruction known as Crime Prevention through Environmental Design. This addressed a host of issues based primarily on social habits and behavior.
Callouts happened from time to time. They were usually accident related involving fatalities. One came on a Saturday morning as I was watching cartoons with my son. There had been a private airplane that had crashed into a housing development. I quickly dressed and responded to the scene. As I arrived and was exiting my car, one of the firefighters approached me and said “The crash is in the backyard here. Oh, and do me a favor. Don’t step on any of the yellow pieces of tape on the lawn. They are covering pieces of bone and tissue. And especially don’t disturb the rain coat over there- there’s a human head under it”.
I made my way through the small tape and raincoat field which was between two houses and got to the back yard. There was the plane. The nose was buried in the grass. Amazingly, although the patio and porch areas of the two homes had been damaged, there was no actual structural damage. There were no atheists living there at that moment! There were, however, six fatalities. Most had already been removed. The press began arriving. Phone calls from press helicopters were requesting clearance to air space over the scene, which we granted. I had set up a spot on the street where the press could set up. I advised them that there would be briefings ev