Memoirs of a State Trooper: True Police Stories

By Retired Corporal Timothy Schell

I was born and raised in the small By: Retired Corporal Timothy Schell
borough of Blandon, located in Berks
County Pennsylvania. There wasnt
much to do there except hang out and
have fun with your friends. We played
football, basketball, home run king
and went swimming in the local dam. I
have two older brothers who I look up
to; Larry and Garry. I looked to them
for guidance and advice. We were close
while growing up, but they got me into
trouble as big brothers often do. I went
to Fleetwood Area High School where
I lifted weights and ran track and fi eld
for four years. I met my wife Kristel in
Fleetwood. I used to ride my bike four
miles one way just to see her. I was an
average normal kid with big dreams of
being a police offi cer and helping others.
I obtained my goal through hard work
and dedication and support from my
family. I have a nice house, a gorgeous
wife and two beautiful daughters;
Aubrey and Morgan. If you work hard,
stay close to your family and to God,
your goals will be fulfilled.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456879778

Book preview

MEMOIRS OF

A STATE TROOPER

True Police Stories

*Retired Corporal Timothy Schell

(*Webster’s dictionary definition of retired is to stop performing one’s work, withdraw from one’s position, or no longer active in your work or profession.)

Copyright © 2011 by *Retired Corporal Timothy Schell.

(*Webster’s dictionary definition of retired is to stop performing one’s work, withdraw from one’s position, or no longer active in your work or profession.)

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011903521

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4568-7976-1

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4568-7975-4

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4568-7977-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

CHAPTER 1 Growing Up

CHAPTER 2 The State Police Academy

CHAPTER 3 Wearing The Big Hat

CHAPTER 4 Out on the Road

CHAPTER 5 Troop K, Limerick

CHAPTER 6 Speeders and Crashes

CHAPTER 7 Fugitives, Drunks and Liars

CHAPTER 8 Deer, Guns and Old People

CHAPTER 9 Unfortunate Incidents

CHAPTER 10 My First Drug Raid

CHAPTER 11 Giving a Little Back

CHAPTER 12 Raccoons and Domestics

CHAPTER 13 Strange People and Fatal Crashes

CHAPTER 14 Guns and Suicides

CHAPTER 15 Special Detail

CHAPTER 16 Assaults and Murder

CHAPTER 17 Lamborghini and School Buses

CHAPTER 18 Funerals and Camp Cadet

CHAPTER 19 Promotion

CHAPTER 20 PSP Reading

CHAPTER 21 More of the Same

CHAPTER 22 Finishing Up

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to my family. Without my family, I wouldn’t be

who I am today. To my parents for the love and guidance they gave to me throughout my life. To my beautiful wife Kristel, who loved me,

believed in me, supported me, and stood by me for well over twenty years. She is my wife, my life, and my best friend. To my girls Aubrey and Morgan. The two people who hold the keys to my heart. I love you girls more than you could ever imagine. Thank you all for being such an important

part of my life. I love all of you very much.

CHAPTER 1

Growing Up

I always wanted to be a police officer. I always wanted to help people. I always considered myself a people person. Television shows like T.J. Hooker, Adam 12, Starsky and Hutch, Hunter, Chips and other shows influenced me to aspire to be a police officer. (Some influences huh?) We used to play Chips on our bikes and ride around pretending to be police officers.

I never had much growing up as a kid. My first swimming pool was an old steel tub. I had an old metal Army pedal car. My two older brothers Larry and Garry and myself shared one bedroom. We did not have running water or a bathroom. We had a black weathered iron pump out on the front porch that would pump up the rain water that was collected. We would pump up three five gallon buckets and keep them inside to use. We would use the water to cook, bathe and wash our clothing. How do you bathe without a bathroom? We would heat up the water and pour it into a basin. Carry the basin upstairs, strip, grab a washcloth and soap and lather up. We would wash then rinse the washcloth out and rinse off the soap. Dry off with a towel and you are semi clean. To wash our hair we would bend over the basin, grab a cup of water and pour it over our head to get our hair wet. Shampoo, rinse, and dry.

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Our toilet was a white porcelain pot with a red stripe at the top of it in the corner of the room.

We always fought as to who had to empty it when it was full. It was bad when you held it, went to the pot and took off the lid and it was filled to the brim. You were in trouble then.

If we REALLY had to go to the bathroom, we had to go outside to the lovely outhouse. It totally sucked during the winter. It was cold outside, dark and you are sitting on the cold wooden bench with a hole cut out of it holding a flashlight, taking a dump. The wood was split and sometimes would pinch your ass cheek. Sometimes you would lose a flashlight down the hole never to be seen again. We didn’t invite any girls over, fearing that they might have to go to the bathroom. We didn’t want them to get splinters in their asses. Not a good turn on.

We had fun, but we got into a lot of trouble too. I remember that we had this one game that we loved. Super Jock Football. It was a plastic football player about 12" tall. You had a plastic field goal post and hard plastic footballs. It came with plastic sidelines. You had to make the football player kick a field goal from different distances. You would set the ball at his right foot. You would then pound his head which would make his leg kick the ball, hopefully through the field goal post.

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It was fun until my brother Larry kicked the ball through the window and blamed me for it. My punishment along with getting the belt was sitting and watching western movies with my dad. Pure torture. We had other toys that got us into trouble. Socker Boppers.

You would blow up these two vinyl air filled boxing gloves and beat the crap out of each other. Bloody noses and busted lips would soon follow. All of us would end up watching western movies together with my dad.

Other toys that we played with and ended up fighting over: Evel Knievel, Rockem’ Sockem’ Robots, Jaws, Nerf basketball, Wiffleball, Stretch Arm Strong, Electronic football. What a lame game electronic football was. You would cheer for a bunch of tiny plastic football players vibrating to the other end of the football field.

Some of the best games didn’t need much at all. Tabletop coin hockey. Three coins, and a table and you have a hockey game. Take a triangular folded up piece of paper and you now have a tabletop football game. Kicking the field goal was always the best. If you kicked it right, you would smack the other person in the face with the football. We had taken dominos and taped names of race car drivers on them. Kenny Brightbill, Toby Tobias, Billy Pauch and other famous Fairgrounds dirt race car drivers.

We then took a piece of cardboard and drew on a race track with four lanes wide. We would line up the cars, about ten at a time and roll one dice and then move the car the spaces that were on the dice. It was fun.

Best of all, was wrestling. We grew up watching wrestling and going to the Hamburg field house to watch Bruno Sammartino, Bob Backlund, Ivan Putski, Tito Santana, and George The Animal Steele, Iron Sheik, Superstar Billy Graham, Chief Jay Strongbow and many others. This led to many wrestling matches between the three of us. We even made a championship belt out of cardboard. The ring varied, but we mostly used my parents’ bed to body slam and suplex each other. The trick was not to make loud noises and not get caught. Like always, if my dad heard anything he would yell, What’s going on up there? My brothers would yell in unison; Timmy did it! I heard that phrase a lot. Sometimes I wouldn’t even be in the room and I would still get into trouble.

I went to Fleetwood Area High School in rural Berks County Pennsylvania. I was in 10th grade and was in business law class. They had a police officer come in and talk to the class. It was the Fleetwood Borough Police Chief. We also had taken a field trip to the courthouse and met the Judge. I asked a lot of questions and I then really knew what I wanted to do with my life. Best of all, at that time they did not require any college degree.

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That has since changed. I had moved out when I was 19 because of my dad. He was an alcoholic at the time and was abusive to me, my brothers and my mom. The alcohol had a big part of that. It wasn’t helpful that a bar was directly across the street from our place. My dad used to have a belt hanging on the wall above his bed. That was our belt. Whenever my brothers and I got into trouble, we were punished by the belt. I forget what we did to get into trouble, but my brothers talked me into taking the belt from the wall and hiding it. It wasn’t a very smart thing to do. There were plenty of other belts in the house and we all got our asses whooped! He is now clean and sober and has found the Lord. I am very proud of my father for becoming sober.

Since I knew that I would never go to college, I thought that going into the Marines and coming out, I would have a much better chance to become a police officer. I signed up for the Marine Reserves. I passed all the tests to enter boot camp. Unfortunately while working at Redner’s, I was pulling a skid using a pallet jack through a cooler and my left foot got stuck in a drainage hole that was not covered. I tore apart some ligaments, tendons and muscle. I had to get my ankle surgically reconstructed. I was in a cast for 6 months and in that time I missed my shipping to go to boot camp. I was concerned for my ankle healing properly. I asked my surgeon if my ankle was strong enough for boot camp. He related that he would be wary of it at this time.

I asked him about going to a police academy. He said that my ankle should be fine for that. I guess this was a blessing in disguise. I probably wouldn’t have married my girlfriend if I went into the Marines. Who knows what would have happened? So, I put my ambitions to become a Marine aside and I focused on becoming a police officer.

I obtained a part time job as a security officer for I.S.S. Security. I was a part time security officer at places such as the Fairgrounds Square Mall, Reading High School, jewelry shows and various abandoned warehouses. I really liked my position. I met a lot of new people and liked the little bit of authority and respect I had. I was in charge of closing and securing the Fairgrounds Square Mall, which I thought was a big responsibility. My boss liked the work that I did so much that he offered me a full time position. I really had to think about this, it was a tough decision to make.

I didn’t want to leave the grocery store now that I had been promoted to Assistant Produce Manager. I had job security and I had been employed there for approximately four years. I was offered the same pay which was six dollars an hour and I would be with another person driving in an armored truck. My girlfriend at the time made up my mind for me. She said that if I don’t take any chances, I wouldn’t get anywhere in life and she was right.

She also stated that it would look good on my resume if I did really want to be a police officer. I quit and started on the armor truck route.

I liked the armor truck. I wasn’t the driver, I was riding shotgun and that is exactly what I had, a shotgun. I was given a black pistol grip shotgun. My partner’s name was Kenny. He was a little guy about 5'4, red hair, glasses and a mustache. He had a .357 magnum on his side which was almost as big as he was. We had a lot fun together. Our given route started from I.S.S. Security based in Reading and we picked up money from different establishments such as banks and grocery stores. We also were in charge of filling various MAC machines in the Lancaster County area. One of our stops was Franklin and Marshall College. We drove so much, that we had to have an extra gas can in the back of the armored truck so that we could finish our route and come home. Our run ended where we deposited the money we acquired and we unloaded at the Fulton Money Center in center city Lancaster. I would get out with the shotgun (I thought I was so cool) and Kenny would open up the doors and start unloading the money. One time Kenny was inside and I had a gentleman approach me and ask if the shotgun that I was holding was real and I responded by racking a round into the chamber, he replied I guess so!"

Like I said, we had a lot of fun. The truck that we were assigned to did not have air conditioning, so during the dead of summer we were sweating our balls off and to alleviate the problem, I would hold the door open to let some air inside to cool us off. It was a sight to see us driving down route 30 with the door of an armored truck open. It was the only air that we could get to keep us semi-cool.

One time we were a few blocks away from the Fulton Money Center with a truck full of 1.3 million dollars in cash and our truck died. That was fun. Sitting in a scorching hot armored truck waiting for another truck to come and unload the money.

I was still assigned to the Fairgrounds Square Mall once in a while. I was with a new partner at the mall, his name was Jody. He was about 6'5 tall and built like brick shithouse. It was really funny seeing us walk around together, him being so tall and me being average height of 5'7. It looked like David and Goliath walking down the mall. Jody was a great guy and we had a lot of fun together and we got ourselves into trouble too.

During this time I was waiting for the opportunity to apply to become a State Trooper. I had to wait until I was 20 years old since the background and the application process took 1 year to go through and by that time I would be 21 years old.

But before I applied to become a State Trooper, I also applied and took several tests to become a local police officer. I did really well on the test for Muhlenberg Township. I took the test, ranked in the top 5 and they were hiring approximately 8 police officers, and I wasn’t chosen. I learned real quickly about police and politics. Even though I did really well on the test, since I didn’t know anyone in the political arena, I didn’t get the job.

At this time, I.S.S. Security was not doing so well and rumors of its demise was surfacing. Vince the owner was selling off property, trucks and equipment for no apparent reason.

I was still one of his favorites though. I had just gotten my four wisdom teeth cut out and also two other teeth pulled and I wasn’t feeling too well but, Vince insisted on me coming to his wedding reception and working there for security at the Stokesay Castle. I never knew of anyone else who had a security guard at a wedding reception before, but I wasn’t going to ask. It did look like a scene out of the movie The Godfather with all the people around.

I met a lot of people and received a lot of compliments, even though my cheeks were puffed out like a chipmunk.

It was that night that Vince let me know about the security firm closing. It was nice to let me know so I could look for a new job. I left I.S.S. Security and it closed about one month later.

Everybody else told me to apply at Deka Battery. I knew it was hard to get into Deka Battery because the pay was so good. You really had to know someone who worked there to vouch for you for them to consider hiring you. Fortunately, I knew a couple people who worked there. Bill, who went to my church, was the reference that I put on my application. Soon thereafter, I was working at Deka Battery.

I was in the Smelter building the worst, hottest, smelliest building. I first worked in the casting building where I made casts of lead battery parts. It really was not fun at all. You did the same thing all day, pour liquid lead into a mold, wait for it to cool, throw it into a finished bin and start all over again.

I wanted any other job but this one, so I put in my card to transfer to the smelter building. It was better, but it was also worse. The job that I was assigned was called the pigging machine. I worked on the pigging machine and this is where they made liquid lead and poured them into casts which made big 75 pound lead bars which had to be stacked and moved by a forklift to the other end of the building.

There were three people on my crew for the three jobs that needed to be done. There was a stacker, a driver for the forklift and also a skimmer. The job of the skimmer was also very boring. When the liquid lead was poured into its cast, the impurities in the lead would rise to the top and the skimmers job was to skim off this layer of impurities and dispose of it. We all took turns, but it was not that fun. The only fun part was driving the forklift. However, it wasn’t fun when you went around the corner a little too fast and the ton of lead falls on the ground and you have to restack the lead by hand. So, I let my supervisor know that I would like another job within the building. He reassigned me to the