Jack:  I'm not sure how you want to handle this, but some history and rebuttal to some of those articles (especially as pertains to me) seems appropriate.  In my opinion it was definitely politics and a witch hunt.  The Capt. at the time made no bones about his intention to break the station spirit.

Much of this involved a female trainee, who was not doing well on training.  She left her shotgun unlocked in the radio car numerous times and got called on it like any Deputy trainee would.  She, for her own reasons, made a series of allegations and the Dept. got over zealous and came at us from all directions.  One of the allegations was that I had PCP in my locker to plant on suspects.  That is not exactly the odorless substance you would want in your locker.  When they searched my locker they found some new, clean, empty evidence vials we used in the field to put evidence into.  The Department released the info to the press prematurely, and made it look like something big.  No charges of any kind were ever filed re: the PCP thing, but no retraction was ever filed with the press either. 

It took the Department almost 22 months to complete the investigation, on the harassment issue and then tried to fire us.  We were all cleared by Civil Service.  It was the ultimate witch (no pun intended) hunt. 

There was never any merit in any of her claims.  The irony of this was that she never worked with me or the other Deputies she made allegation against; she rarely even spoke with us as she was the trainee of another Deputy.  One thing I will say is the FPK deputies never turned there backs on us.  They took constant pressure from the powers that be, not to attend the hearings.  At one point there was an investigator inside the hearing room writing down the names of all the Deputies who showed up.  When they saw this, they openly walked up and gave there names and spelling.  That harassment stopped.  The Stony Boys showed their true character and strength.  It’s what made the FPK deputies different from all others. 

I spent 20 years on the department.  I worked Fpk, Lennox, West Hollywood, Advanced Training Bureau, Firearms and finally the North Regional Surveillance and Apprehension Team (NORSAT).  The best five (5) years of my career were those at FPK.  I got to know some of the legends of that station, Luther Smith, Waters, etc.  I loved them all like brothers, in fact we were brothers…

Dale Hedges

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