By Michael D. Martin, E.C.P.D.
Retired
About the author...Michael Martin (pictured front row, far right in the 1981 photo) is a retired veteran of 25 years on the Eden City Police Department, and has penned a number of anecdotal writings recalling his experiences.
XXVIII. The ECPD "Green Weenie" Award
My best guess was, this was 1986 or close. We had a group of thieves that
had stolen wheels and tires from the lot at Wayne Jones Ford on South Van
Buren, it became an every weekend thing that something was stolen. Eden
Detective Division decided to work a weekend stakeout of the whole place.
Word got out amongst Patrol Division that we were going to set up on
Wayne Jones and capture the thieves. I had several Patrol Officers who
volunteered for the duty. These volunteers relieved overtime for me and I
thought, at the time, this was a good idea.
The plan was, Buddy Moretz and I were to be
the floating car, our two regular detectives, in plain cars were to stay as
close as possible and the crew of four officer volunteers, were to be inside
of Wayne Jones..........so far, so good.
All went well, we got our men inside and the
business closed and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Hours dragged on and
I guess the guys inside got bored and hungry. Normally, when we do a
stakeout, we take food and drink with us, we forgot to explain this to the
patrolmen.....about eleven o'clock, when we saw the Domino's delivery guy go
to Wayne Jones with a huge pizza.....I wondered if we were in trouble. I
managed to clear that and we went back into stakeout mode.....hoping that
the bad guys had not seen that.
What I did not know, was that one of the fellas on
the stakeout team had recently purchased a brand new thunderbird from Wayne
Jones Ford and he had some trouble with the gas feed and he had his T-Bird
in the shop that very night.
As the night wore on, these young patrolmen got
bored and this fella walked into the shop, found his T-Bird and got in and
without noticing the carburetor was sitting on a nearby bench for repair,
pumped the gas pedal three or four times and turned on the
switch............this action pumped raw gasoline onto the top of the
engine, sans carburetor, and by turning on the switch......he provided a
spark of fire.....the results were that the car exploded.
In fifteen minutes flat, I had three Eden
Fire Engines, four marked Eden Patrol Cars, two Sheriff's cars and EMT's on
the scene of my secret stakeout.
At the next meeting of the Fraternal Order of
Police, Officer Donald Dickerson presented this officer the official award
and inducted him into the "Order of the Green Weenie" for which he
was eminently qualified. he was also presented with the burned carburetor
from his T-Bird......that was also burned. The only good thing that came of
this was.....Wayne Jones never filed another theft complaint.
Michael D. Martin