Editor’s Note: This story, although written by a police officer, is of special interest to correctional staff and personnel, who often feel that they work tirelessly with too few returns. It’s an important reminder of the positive change you can and do effect — changes that sometimes take hold years after the fact.
By Duane Wolfe, Special to Corrections1
To celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary my wife and I took a trip to South Africa. Our itinerary included sightseeing around the St. Lucia Estuary, a vast protected area bound by delicate ecosystems and filled with wildlife like crocodiles, hippos and pelicans.
One evening we took a boat ride that ended with a sunset view of the river as we floated back to the dock.
Our guide, part comedian and part philosopher, told us about a crab that lived in the water. The crab lived off the material that covered the exposed roots of the mangrove trees that lined the bank. The crabs, he said, helped the trees by cleaning the roots in order for the trees to absorb more nutrition from the water.
Duane Wolfe and his wife, Lynn, at the St. Lucia Estuary in South Africa. |
He explained that the loss of the crab could result in the loss of the mangrove tree, which would ultimately result in the destruction of the habitat and all of the animals who lived there.
He offered a reminder that no matter how small we may feel in life, and no matter how insignificant we may feel in the overall scheme of the world, our true impact is much larger than we realize.
The call
One day after returning home from vacation, my wife and I got a dinnertime phone call. I assumed it was either one of our relatives calling to check on us, or a telemarketer.
I answered.
“May I speak to Mrs. Lynn Wolfe?” the voice said. This struck me as odd, because no one we know would refer to my wife like that, plus the voice had a foreign accent to it. Definitely a telemarketer, I thought.
So I told him no, and hung up the phone.
I told my wife what had happened. Though was something in the voice that I thought for a fleeting moment I recognized, I quickly let it go.
A few hours later, the phone rang again. This time, my wife answered. She talked for a long time.
When she got off the phone she said, “You’ll never guess who that was.”
By way of a hint she told me that it was one of her former students. I guessed the first name that came to mind and she wondered how I had guessed.
It was V.
As a rookie officer 20 years earlier, I had gotten to know V very well. In fact, the last time I had seen V he was being lead away in handcuffs to a juvenile detention center after being found guilty in a series of burglaries in my old jurisdiction.
In the last burglary, he and several accomplices had broken into a gun shop and stolen a quantity of handguns. Moments before his arrest, he’d thrown a loaded .44 revolver into a garbage dumpster — right as another officer came around the corner doing business checks at 0300.
At the time, I had no doubt that V would have shot the officer if he had arrived one minute sooner.
In school
My wife was a teacher of emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children at the local elementary school. We used to joke that all her students were my future suspects. V was one of her toughest cases.
His parents were Laotian refugees who had survived a trek into Thailand, the hardships of refugee camps and a trip to the United States that eventually brought them to a small town factory town in northern Minnesota. His parents worked at the factory while raising their three daughters and one very troubled son.
With an IQ of 145, V was extremely intelligent, but he was prone to violent outburst, to which my wife fell victim on more than one occasion.
Twice he tried to stab her with a protractor — not smart. On another occasion, he’d given her a concussion by head-butting her into a concrete wall as she attempted to physically restrain him. Another time, she had grabbed him and pulled him out of the way of an oncoming truck that he’d darted in front of in an apparent suicide attempt.
Despite all his problems, violence and anger, she always saw some good in him, and tried her best to bring that out.
Repeat offender
After he moved on to junior high, my wife’s only contact with him was through my frequent reports of his activities as a juvenile delinquent, which included theft, burglary, and assaults with and without weapons.
Following one investigation, he and his cohorts to confess to 33 burglaries. The case was dismissed when the judge determined that he had not understood his rights under Miranda – V had pretended not to understand English, and a less-than-motivated attorney hadn’t bothered to let us know what objections were going to be raised at the pre-trial hearing.
The next contact after that was a series of business burglaries that resulted in six different search warrants being served on his parent’s home. Each time we found evidence linking him to the burglary but because he was a juvenile and these were property crimes the judge couldn’t place him on a juvenile hold.
V would just laugh at us as he walked out the door.
The burglary of the gun store ended his laughter. He had now made the big time. Not only was he in possession of a loaded weapon, but he also threatened the officers on scene. He had a look of complete surprise when we took him to the squad car in handcuffs and explained that he would not being going home but instead was going to juvenile detention. I took special delight in giving him the news.
I left that job about a year later, but kept tabs on V. He apparently didn’t change his ways.
He reached 18, served time in jail and finally was sent to prison for a statutory rape charge. After that we lost track of him but often wondered what happen to him.
The call came 15 years after we had last seen him. He was 31, married with two kids and living in California. He’d found our phone number online.
He called to say thank you. He thanked my wife for all her hard work in trying to straighten him out. He had a lot of time to think in jail, he said, and most of all, he was thankful that she’d never given up on him. He thanked me for being tough on him and for being a “good human being.”
It seems on one of those search warrants I found a large quantity of fish in the fridge — an obvious fish and game violation. I didn’t charge his parents for the violation or take the fish. He said his parents appreciated not being charged and the fish not being confiscated, because it was all they had to eat.
V said he called to let us know that he wasn’t “worthless.” His criminal record made it hard for him to find a job, but his wife, who knew about his past and loved him in spite of it, was able to work while he stayed at home and took care of the kids.
V said he had changed his ways after getting out of prison and was staying on the right side of the law. Of course my wife had several job ideas for him and he said he would look into them. He also said he wanted to say how sorry he was: Sorry for the times he hurt or tried to hurt my wife and others; sorry for being a thief and burglar; sorry for taking so long to get his life together.
My wife gets phone calls and letters of thanks every so often from former students telling her how much she meant to them and how much she helped them. As a cop I get these calls and letters much less often, but that is what makes them special.
As we sat there talking about the phone call, the river guide’s words came back to me: “No matter how small we may feel in life, no matter how insignificant we may feel in the overall scheme of the world, we each had a much larger impact, whether we realize it or not.”
About Duane Wolfe
Mr. Wolfe is currently employed by the Parkers Prairie Police Department, full time instructor Law Enforcement Program, Alexandria Technical College, Alexandria, Minnesota since 1994. Mr. Wolfe received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Criminal Justice at Bemidji State University;Masters Degree in Education, Southwest State University. Previous articles by Mr. Wolfe have been published by Calibre Press and IALEFI. Served on the Advisory Board for Lt. Col. Dave Grossmans book, On Combat. Relevant experience: License Minnesota Peace Officer since 1988, served as patrolman, sergeant, S.R.T., Use of Force and Firearms Instructor.
Copyright 2008 North American Rights