ROBERT GARDNER -- The Verdict

I have always wanted to be a hero. I guess it is based on envy for my

father. Long before I came into this world, he had been a cowboy riding

herd on stampeding cattle; a lumberjack chopping big trees and riding

them down the river; a barroom fighter who went from town to town to

fight the local champion.

Somewhat belatedly, I had my chance to be a hero. But I blew it.

It happened when I was a police officer in Newport Beach. One night I

was the acting desk sergeant at the old Newport Beach jail located near

the foot of the Newport Pier. A man came rushing in and told me someone

was trying to commit suicide on the pier.

I pushed the button which activated a red light on top of a long pole.

This was our rather primitive way of calling a patrolling officer into

the station. Then I ran out on the pier, looking into the water for the

suicide. No body.

A man tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a note. It read, “I am

going to commit suicide.”

I gathered that he was a deaf mute. I wrote him a note which read,

“You cannot.”

He read my note then handed me another, which read, “Why not?”

I wrote, “Because it’s against the law.”

Not to be outdone, he wrote back, “What law?”

At first, that stumped me. Then I rose to the occasion. I made up a

penal code section. “Section 734 of the penal code,” I wrote. “That

section says it’s against the law to commit suicide.”

The man was unimpressed. “Show me the section,” he wrote.

By this time, a small crowd had gathered. I had to uphold the dignity

of the law. I arrested him and took him to jail.

I put him in a cell. Immediately, he sent me a note through the slit

in the door by which we communicated with the prisoners. “Give me a copy

of the penal code,” he wrote.

I wrote back, “We don’t have a copy of the penal code.”

He wrote, “What kind of a crummy police department is this? Not even a

penal code.”

I wrote, “It’s the only one in town.”

We passed notes back and forth all night. When the chief of police

arrived the next morning, he surveyed the pile of paper, asked a couple

of embarrassing questions, opened the door to the cell and wrote a note

which I have always considered a masterpiece of written communication.

It read, “Get the hell out of my jail.”

End of thrilling story of a fearless police officer who rose to great

heights, only to crash in flames when his suspect demanded a look at the

penal code to ascertain the legality of his arrest.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge. His

column runs Tuesdays.