End of the shift

Greg Risling

Come Saturday, when his fellow colleagues say farewell at a retirement

party in his honor, Sgt. Tom Boylan promises to keep his speech short.

The 53-year-old Costa Mesa police officer, who has a tough-guy exterior

that covers a softer inside, concedes he may get a little choked up if he

attempts a rambling diatribe.

Instead, he will let his co-workers take verbal shots at him as he

graciously steps away from a job that has kept him busy for nearly 30

years.

“I’m definitely going to miss this place, especially the people,” said

Boylan as he neatly organized papers on his near-barren desk. “I’m easing

out of my job more than anything, but to leave the daily grind is tough.”

Boylan plans to move to Reno with his wife but will return twice a month

to work on the department’s unsolved murder cases.

Boylan is part of the detective bureau, specifically handling the crimes

against persons unit. He considers his current job the most rewarding

because he works vigorously to find justice for victims.

If anyone was bred to be a police officer, it was probably Boylan. He

didn’t come from law enforcement lineage but his supervisors said he

showed exemplary qualities that made him a good officer.

“He’s got boundless energy and is a team player,” said Boylan’s immediate

supervisor, Lt. Ron Smith. “He’s not a Lone Ranger type who wants all the

credit if a case is solved. He includes everyone in the process and

shares the success.”

Boylan has been entrenched for most of his career with work typically

glamorized by cop-oriented television shows. He’s felt nauseating fear

when breaking into a suspected drug dealer’s home, uncertain about the

next moment. And he’s experienced the joy of solving a murder case traced

almost exclusively through DNA evidence the size of a pinhead.

Fate was probably a factor on the start of his career.

Working as a cadet at the West Covina Police Department, Boylan was

waiting to see which department would recruit him in 1964, shortly after

the Watts riots. He was waiting eagerly for a call from the Los Angeles

Police Department, but it came several days after West Covina offered him

a job.

He accepted the West Covina position and considers himself fortunate,

considering all of the problems Los Angeles has had with its police

department.

Three years later Boylan came to Costa Mesa, where he jumped from one

division to the next. Boylan said the time he felt most like a cop was

while working on the narcotics bureau, where he encountered some of the

most dangerous criminals around.

“I felt like a little kid in a candy store,” he said. “I couldn’t believe

the city was paying me to track drug dealers and kicking down doors.”

The job wasn’t always amusing. Promoted in 1979 to sergeant, Boylan

remembers one drug sting that quickly could have turned ugly.

Officers arranged to buy 15 kilograms of cocaine from a reputed drug

dealer and agreed to meet at a motel. Officers tracking the suspect

alerted Boylan and his crew, who were waiting at the hotel, that the man

wasn’t coming alone as previously expected. He was accompanied by some

friends.

The purchase was made and the suspects were arrested, but the possibility

of a shootout was lingering in Boylan’s mind. That kind of uncertainty is

nerve-racking, he added.

“Even though you have your gun pointed at someone, you still are scared,”

he said. “The fear mostly is making sure none of your officers get hurt.

That’s why good judgment is an important quality for a police officer.”

There were lighter moments during Boylan’s career he won’t soon forget.

One time, when Boylan was driving back to the station during a graveyard

shift, he caught an officer napping in his squad car behind a store.

Boylan grabbed his flares from his trunk and circled the officer’s car

with the lighted sticks. The officer had no clue what happened, but word

got out in the department that Boylan was the culprit.

“You can’t keep a secret in a police department,” he cracked.

Those who have met Boylan know he has one distinguishable characteristic:

He’s bald.

While baldness isn’t the most becoming trait among men, most of his

counterparts were glad to see what was left of his hair go.

“There wasn’t much there when he opted for the new look,” Smith said. “He

was one short step from baldness.”

Boylan shaved his head on a trip to England several years back. He had

promised his wife he would wait a couple days before the making the final

decision. But while she was in the shower, he and his son took the

scissors and went to work.

“My wife came out and she had murder in her eyes,” he said. “I thought I

would come back to a lot of laughs, but people liked it.”

So does Boylan have any advice for those guys who are thinking about

going for that clean-cut look?

“You have to have the right melon to shave it completely,” he said. “One

that is round without too many divots. Complete baldness only works for a

few people.”