Citizens’ Police Academy Week 2: Criminal Law, Parking, Animal Control, and my Dawg.

Kent Police Lt. Paul Canfield presented a comprehensive overview of criminal law during the second session of the Kent Citizens’ Police Academy. Also in attendance was Portage County Assistant Prosecutor Kim Quinn, in case the legal questions got too deep.

We were shown a slim Ohio Revised Code book from forty years ago and compared it to the recent version, which is much larger with smaller print. Indeed, there are now 4,500 laws on the books in the Buckeye state with about 50 added yearly. The police are familiarized with the code during academy study but, as Officer Canfield puts it, “Police work is an open book test.”

The police, as the most visible component of governmental authority, are caught in the middle and swimming in a flood of new or amended regulations as local, state and national entities promulgate laws, which are then reviewed by the court system. This requires ongoing learning and formal training. Lt. Canfield noted last week that his personal level of continuing coursework is presently at the 3,000 hours level. Of course not all of this extra training is about legal matters, but you get the idea of how complex the field has become.

The subject of the application of violence came up when Canfield talked about a call wherein a furious struggle was interrupted when bitten twice by a police dog as he tried to subdue a guy who had fled to a small bathroom. He frequently mixes humor and sometimes a dose of compassion describing such tasks as breaking up house parties where 100 or more drunken revelers have collapsed a porch or, in one case, 500 or so “new best friends” have invited themselves to your fête and cracked the beam supporting the floor. Realtor and rental property manager Anne Moneypenny is one of our classmates and forced a smile when she acknowledged the mayhem. “We just divide up the total damages among the lawful tenants and make them pay,” she said.

Canfield alluded to some special training, which helps police officers deal with the after-affects of violence. This was not explained, but I imagine some role playing during training and perhaps the use of humor are means of venting the ugly residue of violence. Ridiculous scenes like confiscating drugs from a guy who swears that the pants he is wearing are not his so he must be innocent certainly lighten the potentially grim mood of policing.

Another funny incident came from Jack Rose, a police detective from the 1960s who told Canfield of a safe cracking job in downtown Kent which found the thief had cut though a wall to reach the safe but instead fell into an abandoned dry cleaning tank, where he stayed until he was found the next day.

When I first opened in 1975 my partner had his wallet stolen in the store across the street by a guy named Dwight who terrorized the neighborhood and was suspected of murdering an elderly lady in a burglary. Detectives Paul Petrella and Jack Rose were on the case, so I got to know them a bit. During the investigation Petrella asked if he could hide in the closet at the back of my store in case Dwight came in to victimize us. Sure, I said, although the request seemed weird. Paul waited for a couple of hours and heard some customers come in for their repaired instruments or to buy something. Eventually he popped out of the closet and exclaimed with great relief how happy the customers seemed for the help they got. At that point I realized I unwittingly consented to his investigation of me, a guy who opened a music store in an old building in Kent’s dreaded “South End,” and who might actually be using it as a drug selling front. Paul hung around a while and told me about growing up in this neighborhood and how it was filled with family and friends. His brother ran Eddie’s Stag Bar (I loved the Frank Sinatra homage display behind the bar) on Franklin Avenue and later the Italian Village at the University Plaza.

Another renowned episode in the Kent crime annals, recently heard, involved a daytime theft from Solem’s Jewelry at the corner of Main and Depeyster in the Kent Theater building. Somehow the inept thief was detained by parking meter and traffic cop Bob Wise along with “Wheelchair” George Condos until help arrived. You don’t want to mess with George because his upper torso is very strong. In his younger days, before motorized chairs, George would effortlessly run his chair up the steep Portage Street hill across from the Kove bar on North Water Street. He still gets around town handily and mows lawns for people.

Much of the police work in Kent involves “public disorder” and alcohol. Canfield noted a very unfortunate two-punch fight which resulted in death for the victim when his head struck the curb. Clearly, the guy who threw the punch had no intent to kill the other, but lives were destroyed that night by impulsive behavior.

Animal control and parking tickets are the purview of compliance officer Dana Frazier, whose patient tenure has now reached 16 years on the force. For some reason people take umbrage over parking tickets more than anything else and, yes, Frazier is aware of the many colorful names people have reserved for him. He has learned, however, that different neighborhoods, as distinct from downtown, might have specific needs which can be accommodated by legislation to modify local parking regulations. One example is student parking on neighborhood streets, which can be limited as needed.

The Air Force taught him police work and then attack dog training to protect air bases. Frazier proudly notes that Kent’s dangerous animal ordinance, adopted years ago, is now copied almost verbatim by the new state law, which instead of proscribing a certain breed of dog, like the pit bull, offers the flexibility of a case-by-case basis. Rottweilers, often working as a pair, for instance, killed 13 people last year whereas the pit bull may maul someone but will almost never kill.

Through Frazier's efforts Kent now has an up-to-date small kennel for stray dogs so they can be adopted or returned to the owner. The first year on the job he picked-up 216 uncontrolled dogs and then 186 the next. This past year only 88 were secured. Of those, 62 were returned to the owner, 10 went to the county and were adopted; five were adopted out by the city and 11 had to be euthanized by the county because of age or infirmity.

Because of Frazier’s steady, fair enforcement work people are taking better care of their animals. People call in a problem and often help by revealing the dog’s owner. Kent pays a small $40 monthly fee to the county but is limited to just a few placements per week, so the improved citizen-initiated animal management has been very positive. It is especially helpful if your pet bears identification.

Cat feeding by non-residents who dump food by a store parking lot, cemetery or park has been a puzzling problem. In one instance the “do-gooders”, all outsiders, were capturing neighborhood pet cats which showed up for the feeding frenzy thinking they were strays.

A few years ago there was a stray cat problem in Kent’s South End that has largely disappeared, Frazier says, thanks to coyotes that come in at night along the river and railroad tracks. There is definitely a den near the and the rangers at the Rockwell Reservoir have been trapping coyotes for the past 20 years. There are no instances of coyote attacks on people and he observes that we are living “in the woods” surrounded by wildlife in balance. He has floated by canoe down the Cuyahoga River at night to watch the many raccoon forming lines to enter the storm sewer system. In the early morning he has seen coyote movement along the railroad tracks near S.R. 261. The deer are numerous and there are relatively few car strikes. Another tip of Frazier's: never chase deer because when frightened they can run into traffic.

And now, on to my Dawg.

Kent has had an animal compliance officer for 26 years, prior to which dogs ran free. I had a pit bull fox terrier mix, named “Major,” that went everywhere when I was a kid. We’d be playing football somewhere, usually on one of the large open fields by Kent State, and the kids would say “’bout time for your dog to show up.” Sure enough there he’d come, a white dog with his straight-up ears masked symmetrically in black, including the eyes. He found me one time on the third floor at Davey Junior High in Tom Crawford’s history class. There was tittering and then laughter as his head poked in the door and his tail thumped on the floor in sheer “look-at-me” ecstasy.

Major loved to chase cars — any car. In one of his more restrained moments he chased our 1954 Ford Station Wagon driving on North Willow (when it was brick). We crossed Crain and began to lose him going over the hill toward Main Street. A neighbor was coming the other way in his MGA sports car and turned into his drive behind us as our car passed by. Major was in full stride on the sidewalk high above the street just as the MGA blocked the walk. Looking back, I heard the whump and saw Major roll down the steep tree lawn in birdie-land slow motion toward the curb. He was still for a moment but soon got up and shook it off.  

Major, who had some fights with another neighbor’s German Shepherd named Rex, dragged himself home once and laid curled by the heat register for about a week, too sore to move. Another time kids told me they saw him go under a dump truck on Lake Street and get bounced around between the wheels. He hated postal uniforms and eventually went after a cleaning maid dressed in white as she arrived at McDonald’s across the street. He nipped her ankle and scared her to death so we had to put him down. He was about six years old.

I know it’s wrong to let your dog run, but that’s what it was like when Kent was more simple and innocent.

Next week, Kent Police Lt. Ed Wheeler will discuss traffic law, traffic crashes, and speed measuring devices, while Canfield is away judging a statewide police sniper competition in southern Ohio.