Rocky Mountain Chapter / Mystery Writers of America Deadlines

Short cuts: RMMWA authors tell you Next meeting: THURSDAY, March 12 how 6:30 PM Location: Colorado Auto The big gap between the six-word novel and the 40,000-word Dealers Association novella is filled by short stories. Do you write short stories? Should 290 East Speer Blvd. you? How? And where do you sell them? Denver, Colorado The March meeting will present a panel of three of our prolific authors to talk about techniques, readers, and markets. March 2020 Catherine Dilts is the author of the Rock Shop Mystery series, while her short stories appear regularly in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. She wrote two novels for the multi-author cozy mystery IN THIS ISSUE series Secrets of the Castleton Manor Library. Working in the world 2 Upcoming Meetings of hazardous substances regulation, Catherine’s stories often have 3 from the Chapter environmental or factory-based themes. Others reflect her love of the President Colorado mountains. 4 A day with Rhys Bowen 4 Member News R.T. Lawton is a retired federal agent with 25 years of 5 Monthly meetings now streaming live! experience working the street, from riding the go-fast boats with 6 Mystery Minute Customs off the midnight Miami coast to hunt smugglers running in 9 Lovesey contest for debut from the Bahama Banks, to running down a fugitive in Jamaica. He’s crime writers shared his experience with surveillance in workshops for writers, 9 MWA anthologies including right here at RMMWA. With more than 140 published 10 Meeting Recap Continued on page 2 WHERE: Colorado Automobile Dealers Association, 290 East Speer Blvd. (corner of Speer and Grant) in Denver. Limited free parking is available and CADA is fully accessible with an elevator. WHEN: Thursday, March 12. 6:30 p.m. conversation and networking; 7:00 dinner, 8:00 program. COST: $20 for members, $25 for guests & everyone at the door. RSVPs are necessary. Please pay via PayPal on the website by Monday, March 9 to ensure your reservation. You may also email our catering director Sue Hinkin at [email protected] if you plan on paying at the door or have special dietary requests. MENU: Mustard-soy marinated salmon with Thai cucumber salad and jasmine rice. Mini bite-sized desserts. Iced tea, water, and coffee. Beer and wine are available for sale.

CARPOOL: Colorado Springs area RMMWA members carpool to the monthly Denver meetings. This is a fairly informal process. We meet at a rendezvous point, decide how many cars we need, who wants to drive, and go from there! Riders pay the driver(s) for gas. If you would like to join the carpool, email Catherine at cadilts@msn. com and she’ll add you to the loop. If anyone is interested in a carpool from the Fort Collins area, please contact Margaret Mizushima at [email protected]. Upcoming Meetings

Continued from page 1 short stories, he has sold (as of last fall) 44 to Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and has six e-books for Kindle and other e-readers.

Manuel Ramos is the author of ten novels and a short story collection. He has received the Colorado Book Award (twice), the Chicano/Latino Literary Award, the Top Hand Award from the Colorado Authors League, and Honorable Mentions from the Latino International Book Awards. His first novel, The Ballad of Rocky Ruiz, was a finalist for the Edgar® award. My Bad: A Mile High Noir was a Shamus finalist. He is a co-founder of and regular contributor to the award-winning Internet magazine La Bloga (www.labloga.blogspot.com), which deals with Latino literature, culture, news and opinion. His latest crime fiction novel is The Golden Havana Night: A Sherlock Homie Mystery.

Moderator Suzanne Proulx wrote four novels featuring a hospital risk manager. Her short story, “If You Say So,” is featured in The Best American Mystery Stories of 2019, which came out last October.

Thursday, April 9 Former prosecuting Denver D.A. Mitch Morrissey is on the cutting edge of crime solving. A career prosecutor for 33 years, Morrissey was elected District Attorney of Denver, Colorado for three terms from 2004-2017. Morrissey introduced the first DNA evidence used in a criminal trial in Denver, and is internationally recognized for his expertise in DNA technology, applying that technology in criminal prosecutions. He has trained law enforcement officers, prosecutors and judges throughout the United States, in the Middle East, Central America and Canada. Prior to leaving office, Morrissey spearheaded the Denver Cold Case Project, which reviewed more than 4,200 unsolved sexual assaults and murders in an effort to use DNA technologies to solve old cases. In addition, he and the Denver Police Crime Lab introduced the use of DNA to solve burglary cases and other property crimes. During his tenure as Denver District Attorney, Morrissey became the leading proponent in the United States of using Familial DNA Database Searches to solve violent crime. After years of prosecuting criminals, Morrissey turned to solving cold cases using DNA technology. Through genetic analysis, UDC was able to provide investigators with information leading to the identification and arrest of criminals years after the fact. Join us for a fascinating discussion of how DNA is used to ID perpetrators of violent crimes, and how that evidence is used in courtrooms across America to put violent felons in prison or bring closure to families who have spent years wondering if their cases would ever be solved. Mitch had a television show, Dialogue Denver DA, and continues to be interviewed on television, radio and by print media. His support for familial DNA searching was the topic of an episode of 60 Minutes.

Deadlines March 2020 Page 2 Upcoming Meetings (continued)

Thursday May 14th Program: Angie Hodapp and Terrie Wolf, Working with Agents

Thursday June 11th Program: Laura Manuel, A Day in the Life of a Police Officer

Thursday July 9th Program: Mark Songer, Forensic Document Examination and Handwriting Analysis from the Chapter President Stay in the loop

As many of you know, our RMMWA Yahoo communication loop has gone away, and we’ve replaced it with [email protected]. But only about half of our members have signed up, which concerns us since we plan to use this loop more in the future to communicate news, make announcements, and stay in touch. If you haven’t signed up already, send an email to MWA- [email protected] and ask to subscribe. Or go directly to the group and ask to join at: https://groups.io/g/MWA-RM. You’re welcome to use the group to make announcements about new releases, signings, and events, but the hope is that this list can be used for conversations. If you have a question about writing or publishing, many people in our chapter might have the answer. While you’re at it, join the National MWA discussion list, open to all MWA members. Send an email to [email protected]. Signing up will not only allow you to ask questions and join in discussions with your fellow MWA members, but it will also give you access to the databases associated with it, including a list of libraries looking for speakers. If you have questions or need assistance, contact me at [email protected]. I’m happy to help link you in. All best, Margaret Mizushima

MWA discount for Kauai Writers Conference The November 2020 Kauai Writers Conference is now open for registration. With a faculty of some thirty-five prominent authors, literary agents and publishers, it is considered by many to have become the most important writing and publishing conference in the US. We offer a discounted rate to members of Mystery Writers of America, to help make it affordable to the most dedicated writers. To receive this, you may enter WG789 when asked for a code on the check-out page. www.kauaiwritersconference.com We hope to see a number of folks from the Mystery Writers of America on Kauai this fall. Please feel free to let us know if we can help you with any questions.

Deadlines March 2020 Page 3 A day with Rhys Bowen Voices in your head Turn Cardboard Cut-Outs into Authentic Characters

A Croak & Dagger Writers’ Workshop Saturday, April 4, 2020 Unitarian Church Social Hall, Carlisle at Comanche 3701 Carlisle Blvd NE, Albuquerque NM Croak and Dagger, the New Mexico chapter of Sisters in Crime, hosts a writers’ workshop focused on making contemporary, historical and “difficult” characters believable. Featured Speaker: Rhys Bowen Winner, Best-Selling Author Planned speakers/Panelists also Include Joseph Badal & David Morrell Planned Sessions Include: *The challenges of different times and places *Screenwriters and the tech team help actors develop a character *Characters with psychological issues that put voices in their heads *Focused research: character building without going down the rabbit hole Registration 8:00 Workshop 8:30-6:00 Optional Dinner 6:00 to 7:30 $55 (plus $15 extra for optional catered dinner with Rhys) $10 discount for Croak and Dagger members Register at www.Croak-and-Dagger.com

Member News

Mike meets his caricature Bruce Most, Mike McClanahan The Hanging of Mike McClanahan Mike McClanahan, long-time member of the Denver Press Club, achieved lasting fame last month when his caricature was placed on the DPC’s Wall of Fame. Here’s Mike, along with his caricature. A number of MWA members showed up to drink, celebrate, and praise. Among them were past RMMWA president Chris Goff, Don Beckworth, Scott Brendel, Tom Farrell, Christine Jorgenson, Jedeane Macdonald, Bruce Most, and Suzanne Proulx.

Deadlines March 2020 Page 4 MEMBER NEWS (continued)

Doug Johnson’s most recent book, Catch Me In Lisbon, was published a couple of weeks ago. In the golden age of the movies, Ben and Lina are two talented people who stand ready to achieve their life’s dreams. But there’s a bully whose own ambition stands in the way. And he’ll try to stop them . . . one way or another.

Lisa Sandlin’s The Bird Boys is a nominee for The Reading the West Book Awards and also for the Edgar in the Best Paperback category.

The Burn Patient by Sue Hinkin, the third book in the Middleton and Vega thriller series, debuts on April 1. Now available for pre-order wherever books are sold online. See more at www.suehinkin.com.

Kris Neri’s latest novel, and her first women’s fiction-crime crossover,Hopscotch Life, was published on March 17 by Cherokee McGhee Publishing, a traditional independent publisher.

First Tracks, by Catherine O’Connell, becomes available in paperback March 1. (Black Thorn publishers). It’s the first in an Aspen based series featuring ski patroller Greta Westerlind. Greta wakes up in the hospital after surviving an avalanche that took her friend’s life. With no memory of the incident, she sets out to learn why they were skiing such dangerous terrain in the first place, and finds a darker side of Aspen. Monthly meetings now streaming live! Here’s how to do it RMMWA is now streaming LIVE broadcasts of our meetings for members unable to attend in person. If you would like to attend the program, you can access the broadcast by logging into ZOOM, just prior to the meeting time and logging using the Meeting ID # 738-235-5238. This will put you into a “room” where you can chat with other people using the special Chat feature. All participants will come in to the room with their microphones muted. We ask that you keep them muted so as not to interfere with the speaker or be heard on the recording. To access, you will need to download Zoom to your computer or device (a short download). If you wish to dial in and just listen, you may join by calling 669-900-6833. We encourage you to “talk” with each other via the chat box, and the moderator will be able to see that you are present. If you will type your questions into the Chat Box, he or she will try and ask the questions for you at an appropriate time.

Deadlines March 2020 Page 5

This is a relatively new program (RMMWA began broadcasting in September of 2019) and we are getting better with every meeting. We look forward to your constructive feedback and help. If you have some expertise in this area, raise your hand!. Archives of the meetings are available. We invite you to visit our YouTube Channel and subscribe today! Questions, please feel free to contact Chris Goff at [email protected].

Mystery Minute February Mystery Minute by Z. J. Czupor Tinker, Tailor, Author, Spy

He was a complicated cat and a skilled obfuscator. He was an author, a movie script writer, a suave cigar-smoking spymaster, a defender of the law—and a breaker of the law. Journalist James Rosen called him a “passionate patriot; committed Cold Warrior; a lover of fine food, wine and women; incurable intriguer, wicked wit and superb storyteller.” As an author, he was prolific. He wrote eighty novels, mostly spy thrillers. They were published in paperback with covers that featured women in various stages of dress, or undress. But he didn’t like the covers for he thought they “cheapened the contents.” He was published by such pulp fiction houses as Dell, Signet, Lancer, Gold Medal, Phantom, and later by Knopf, Putnam, and St. Martin’s. He said he followed James M. Cain’s diction of “slapping the reader in the face within the first ten pages.” The writers who most influenced him were Hemingway, Raymond Chandler and John Dos Passos.

“I could do a book in two to three weeks, working part time, so it was no strain at all, and the rewards were prompt.” The New York Times called his novel East of Farewell, “the best sea story of WWII.” At the age of 28, as a reward for his first two books, he was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Creative Writing (1946) beating out Gore Vidal and Truman Capote. Because he was a CIA employee, he wrote under several pseudonyms including Robert Dietrich, P.S. Donoghue, David St. John, Gordon Davis and John Baxter. Most of his novels were characterized as “predictable concoctions of espionage and sex in exotic settings.” He earned $20,000 a year from his writing. But he also wrote twenty-five novels under his own name, E. Howard Hunt. Born in Hamburg, New York in 1918, Everette Howard Hunt, Jr., better known as E. Howard Hunt, graduated from Brown University proficient in Latin, Greek, and Spanish, and a degree in English. During WWII, he served in the U.S. Navy, The Army Air Force, as a war correspondent for Life magazine; and the Office of Strategic Services, (OSS), in China. The OSS was a cloak and dagger unit—the front runner to the CIA, where he prided himself on being part of the CIA’s upper echelon. He became the station chief in Mexico City and recruited and supervised William F. Buckley, Jr. They became lifelong friends and Buckley became godfather to his first three children. He also served as Chief of Covert Action in Japan and Chief of Station in Uruguay. In the span of thirty years, between 1942–1972, he wrote thirty-six novels, of which twenty-three were published by paperback houses. He said, “I had just married and needed more than my government salary, so I began writing for Gold Medal. Money was the motive, plus my own pleasure in writing for an appreciative mass audience. I could do a book in two to three weeks, working part time, so it was no strain at all, and the rewards were prompt.” After he retired from the CIA in 1970, he worked as a writer for the Robert R. Mullen Company, a

Deadlines March 2020 Page 6 Mystery Minute (continued) public relations firm, and CIA front company. From there he was hired as a $100/day consultant by Chuck Colson to work on Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign, where he joined the White House Special Investigations Unit. Most famously, in the Spring of 1972, he organized the bugging of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate office building in Washington, D.C. where he and his fellow operatives G. Gordon Liddy, and five other burglars were arrested. The night of the burglary, he bought them all a lobster dinner. Three months later, the gang, aka, “The White House Plumbers,”was indicted on federal charges. The break-in led to the greatest scandal in American political history and the downfall of Richard Nixon’s presidency. He then pressured the White House and the Committee to Re-Elect Nixon for $120,000 in cash to cover their legal fees, for family support, and expenses. As a result, large amounts of money were passed to Hunt and his accomplices to ensure their silence, and for them to plead guilty. That December, his wife, Dorothy, was carrying $10,000 in $100 bills but was killed in a United Airline plane crash along with forty- three other passengers. Foul play was suspected but never proved.

The Washington Post and The New York Times investigations broke open the payoff scheme, which resulted in the beginning of the end of the cover-up and what we now know as “The Watergate Scandal.” In 1973, Hunt was convicted of burglary, conspiracy, and wiretapping which got him thirty-three months in thirteen federal prisons, where he was beaten, robbed, suffered a stroke, and worked hard labor on a cattle farm. While in prison, his boys turned to drugs and his daughters became estranged from the sons. His daughter Kevan Hunt Spence, who grew up to be a lawyer, said, “Our life as we knew it came to an explosive end. Our home was lost. Our financial security was lost. Our mother was dead. Our father was in prison.” Among the many novels Hunt wrote, his favorite was The Berlin Ending (Berkeley/Putnam, 1973) for it allowed him the opportunity he said to fictionalize several espionage cases of which he was aware. And the book helped him to externalize his own Watergate plight just before imprisonment. Some books and articles related to the Kennedy assassination, claim that Hunt was in Dallas on November 22, 1963 and implicated him in a conspiracy to kill JFK. In 1978, Hunt denied knowledge of any conspiracy to kill Kennedy and said “no comment” when asked if he was in Dallas on that day. He sued media outlets for libel, prevailed, and was awarded $650,000 in damages. But in 1983, the case was overturned on appeal due to an error in jury instructions. See more on this below. His many adventures inspired the character Ethan Hunt, the protagonist in the Mission Impossible films. In his later years, he lost his left leg to arteriosclerosis and suffered from lupus, cancers of the jaw and prostrate, gangrene and loss of hearing. He died of pneumonia at the North Shore Medical Center in Miami in 2007. He was 88. And that’s your Mystery Minute.

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MORE ABOUT E. HOWARD HUNT

In addition to his involvement in the Watergate Scandal, E. Howard Hunt’s other infamous espionage activities included the following: • He helped plot the overthrow of Guatemala’s duly elected communist president • He assisted in the subterfuge that helped Bolivians murder Che Guevara • He ran anti-Soviet propaganda campaigns in the Balkans • He broke into the Beverly Hills office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist searching for information on Ellsberg to see if he was a controlled agent of the Soviets. None was detected. Ellsberg was a disaffected Pentagon consultant who delivered the so-called “Pentagon Papers” to The New York Deadlines March 2020 Page 7 Mystery Minute (continued) Times—7,000 pages of top-secret government documents detailing U.S. actions in Vietnam. • He investigated Senator Edward Kennedy’s possible extramarital affairs, and the incident where Mary Jo Kopechne drowned in Sen. Kennedy’s car at Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts in July 1969. Nothing came of the investigation. • He forged two top-secret U.S. State Department cables implicating President Kennedy in the 1963 assassinations of South Vietnam’s president and his brother. The idea was to estrange Catholic voters from the Democratic Party. • It has been reported that Hunt was responsible for Senator Edmund Muskie’s mental breakdown during his presidential campaign in 1972. Muskie openly cried during a speech he gave outside in a snowstorm. Although, Muskie claimed it was the snow that made him appear to cry. His breakdown, however, is rumored to have been caused by Hunt’s spiking Muskie’s drink with LSD. • Disguised in an ill-fitting red wig, Hunt visited an ailing Dita Beard in a Denver hospital. Beard was a former lobbyist for ITT who wrote a memorandum that allegedly tied settlement of a federal antitrust suit against ITT to a $400,000 contribution for the 1972 GOP convention in San Diego. Hunt’s mission was to get Beard to confess that her allegations in the memo were false. Beard belatedly denied writing the memo.

Hunt also wrote three non-fiction works including his memoir, American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate and Beyond (Wiley, 2007), co-authored by Greg Aunapu. The book was panned for numerous factual errors, misspelled names, wrong dates, fake participants in meetings and more, many of which are thought to be problems associated with the co-author. Hunt also wrote Give Us This Day (1973) his first-hand account of the Bay of Pigs debacle; and Undercover: Memoirs of a Secret Agent (1974). On a side, but relevant note: He was CIA station chief in Mexico while Lee Harvey Oswald was there (1963). Oswald is considered to be the lone gunman who assassinated President John F. Kennedy. However, according to the Rockefeller Commission’s June 1975 report on the Kennedy Assassination, “There was no credible evidence of CIA involvement in the assassination and…at no time was he (Hunt) ever the Chief, or Acting Chief, of a CIA Station in Mexico City.” There are many conspiracy theories linking him—erroneously and maliciously—to Kennedy’s assassination. He also worked as Chief of Covert Action for the Domestic Operations Division during the Kennedy Administration. Cuban exiles who were being trained met at Hunt’s safe house in Coconut Grove, Florida. An FBI agent alerted him that a neighbor had reported him to local police saying that men were coming and going at all hours of the night. The neighbor thought he was running a gay brothel. After the failed “Bay of Pigs” (1961) operation in which he assisted Cuban exiles in overthrowing Fidel Castro, his reputation was damaged, and he said he felt “stigmatized by the Bay of Pigs.” As he was dying, he confessed to his two sons that he wasn’t involved in the plot to kill JFK. But he claimed to know who was. He scribbled notes implicating then Vice President Lyndon Johnson and several rogue CIA operatives who were involved in the plot to kill Kennedy. He claimed the plot originated in Miami and was to take place in Miami. But Johnson moved the venue to Dallas where he (Johnson) could control the security scene. Hunt also claimed that a Corsican Mafia assassin fired the fatal shot from the grassy knoll near Dealey Plaza in Dallas. He told his sons he had deleted these references from his memoir, on the advice of his attorney to avoid possible perjury charges. Hunt’s attorney Bill Synder said, “Howard was just speculating. He had no hard evidence.” The Los Angeles Times said it examined the materials offered by the sons to support the story and found them to be “inconclusive.”

Deadlines March 2020 Page 8 Lovesey contest for debut crime writers Fifty years ago, Peter Lovesey—who would go on to become an MWA Grand Master and a CWA Diamond Dagger Lifetime Achievement Award-winner—published his first mystery novel, Wobble to Death, after winning a first novel contest he stumbled across in an English newspaper. Over 40 novels (and a few television series) later, he has gone on to become one of the most respected mystery writers at work today. ​To celebrate Peter Lovesey’s incredible career and its unusual beginnings, Soho Crime is proud to present the Peter Lovesey First Crime Novel Contest, in which one debut crime/mystery author will be awarded a publication contract with Soho Crime.* WHO IS ELIGIBLE FOR THE CONTEST? Any writer, regardless of nationality, aged 18 or older, who has never been the author of any Published Novel (in any genre), as defined by the contest rules. Employees of Soho Press and members of their immediate families living in the same household (or a parent, subsidiary, or affiliate) are not eligible to enter. WHAT TYPE OF NOVEL IS ELIGIBLE? For the purpose of this Contest, a “Crime Novel” means a work of fiction of at least 30,000 words that features any of the characteristics outlined in detail in the contest rules. WHAT IS THE PRIZE? If a winner is selected, he or she will be offered the opportunity to enter into a publication agreement with Soho Press. After execution of the standard form author’s agreement by both parties, the winner will receive an advance against future royalties of $10,000 (ten thousand US dollars). WHAT IS THE DEADLINE FOR ENTRY? All submissions must be received by 11:59pm EST on April 1, 2020 WHO IS JUDGING THE ENTRIES? The editorial staff of Soho Crime will select a shortlist of two (2) or three (3) Finalists, and the winner will be selected from among the Finalists by Peter Lovesey. HOW DO I ENTER? To enter into this contest, you must first read and agree to the complete contest rules, which contain the complete method of entry. Any entries that do not abide by entry rules are subject to disqualification. MWA anthologies Deadly Anniversaries, edited by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini, a collection on the theme of “anniversaries” by twenty invited authors, all of whom are Edgar winners, Grand Masters, or MWA presidents. On the MWA site (cover art and author list) https://mysterywriters.org/mwa-anthologies/deadly-anniversaries/ Buy links: Indiebound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781335044945 Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/deadly-anniversaries-marcia- muller/1132924326 Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Anniversaries-Collection-Stories-Fictions/ dp/1335044949/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= Contributors: Doug Allyn—Midwest

Deadlines March 2020 Page 9 Lee Child—NY Max Allan Collins—SoCal Jeffery Deaver—South East Allison Gaylin—NY Meg Gardiner—South West SoCal —South West Naomi Hirahara—SoCal Wendy Hornsby—NorCal Laurie R. King—NorCal William Kent Krueger - Midwest – Mid-Atlantic – South East Marcia Muller—NorCal Bill Pronzini—NorCal SJ Rozan—NY Julie Smith – South East

Contest winners, When a Stranger Comes to Town, ed. Michael Koryta (2021) Strangers are walking mysteries, complete unknowns in once-familiar territories, who disrupt our lives and make us feel uneasy. What is it about strangers that is just so unsettling? Sure, a stranger can be harmless: “just a friend you haven’t met yet.” Other times, though… Judging was done by a distinguished panel of these writers’ peers. Rachel Howzell Hall of the MWA Publications Committee supervised judges Cheryl Head, Jennifer Hillier, Kristen Lepionka, and Dave White, who volunteered their time to closely read and thoughtfully weigh their choices in the blind-submission process. Contributors are: Paul Barra, Southeast chapter; Tina deBellegarde, New York chapter; Jacqueline Freimor, New York chapter; Tilia Klebenov Jacobs, New England chapter; Smita Harish Jain, Mid-Atlantic chapter; Emilya Naymark, New York chapter; Bryon Quertermous, Midwest chapter; Jonathan Stone, New York chapter; Elaine Togneri, Florida chapter; Amanda Witt, Southwest chapter.

Meeting Recap: February Police Sergeant Talks Cop Reality Life on the beat can be exciting, rewarding, and adventurous. It can also be dangerous, frustrating, and soul crushing. That’s the message Loveland PD Sergeant Amy Wheeler delivered at the February meeting of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America. Amy Wheeler is a 19-year veteran of law enforcement. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology in 1999 from Mercer University and began work as a patrol officer in the Macon, Georgia Police Department. There she also worked as a field training officer, general instructor, domestic violence investigator, property crime investigator, patrol sergeant, administrative sergeant, and crime scene investigator before retiring as a patrol lieutenant. She moved to Colorado in 2014 after earning a Master of Science in Public Safety Leadership and joined the Loveland Police Department in 2015, going back to patrol, which she loves. In 2017, she was promoted to sergeant and currently serves as the Professional Standards Unit Sergeant. Deadlines March 2020 Page 10 Meeting Recap: Cop realities (continued) She is a graduate of the 2001 Georgia Police Corps program, the 2014 International Association of Chiefs of Police Women’s Leadership Institute and attended the IACP’s Leadership in Police Organizations courses in 2017. She is also a certified Advanced Force Science Specialist with the Force Science Institute. Authority and Responsibility Law enforcement officers have the legal authority to deprive a person of their freedom through arrest and incarceration. Along with that authority comes a host of responsibilities for its proper use and cops need to take it seriously. Both are subjects emphasized in training and subsequent employment. Their authority comes from whatever government employs them and officers swear to uphold the Constitution, the laws of the state, the county, and any local ordinances that may apply. At the county level law enforcement is under the authority of a sheriff. Sheriffs are constitutional officers and are usually elected. They don’t necessarily need a law enforcement background although at least some is typical. Police chiefs are municipal officials appointed by mayors, city managers, or councils and generally have extensive law enforcement experience. Their authority is granted by the municipal government and they serve at the pleasure of that government. Sheriff’s deputies have authority throughout the county but usually leave municipal work to local police. Municipal police may have the authority to cross jurisdictions depending on interagency agreements. Inter-jurisdictional cooperation is common, especially on area-wide issues like pursuit, drug enforcement and fugitive apprehension. Specialized units like SWAT may include multiple departments including EMS and fire for support duties. How Does a Patrol Arrest Evolve? First, a perceived crime is observed or reported. At the scene, the officer assesses the situation using witnesses and evidence to determine if a crime has been committed and if there’s probable cause to make an arrest if a suspect is present. Witnesses are interviewed; suspects are questioned. Interviews are non-confrontational and are used to gather evidence. An officer may speak with a suspect but can’t question them without arresting them and advising them of their Miranda rights. In many cases, an officer will make the arrest and then turn the suspect and witnesses over to detectives for questioning. Interrogation of suspects can be hostile and takes special skills to do properly. Detectives try to convince suspects that it’s in their best interests to confess, or failing that, may try to gather enough information to establish probable cause for prosecution. Speaking of Miranda, the law only gives suspects the right to remain silent, it doesn’t require them to do so. Self-incriminating statements may be used in court if given voluntarily, and such statements are also admissible without a Miranda warning if made voluntarily before the warning is given. Most on-scene arrests are made by patrol officers on their own initiative. Support such as backup, search dogs, superiors, and detectives are called as needed. CSI and medical examiners are usually called by detectives, although procedures can vary by jurisdiction, especially in smaller departments where multi-tasking can be more common. Escalation can be a matter of agency protocol. Sergeants are usually responsible for

Deadlines March 2020 Page 11 Meeting Recap: Cop realities (continued) deployment and supervision of officers in their area of responsibility but can respond when situations escalate. Lieutenants oversee operations and assign duties based on field reports or administrative decisions but can respond to high profile situations. Captains are administrators who implement and enforce policy, but like chiefs, the position can have political consequences that extend to lower levels. Some departments, Boulder for one, don’t follow the typical military model of authority, so writers need to know the specifics of the agencies they’re writing about. Warrant vs Warrantless Searches and Arrests Beat cops usually do warrantless searches and arrests. They may be made on scene if immediate evidence and probable cause exist. Pertinent evidence in plain sight may also be seized without a warrant, but further search of a property may only be done with permission or a search warrant. If there is probable cause to suspect additional evidence is present, officers may request a search warrant and secure the property for a reasonable time until one is obtained. Search and arrest warrants are usually handled by detectives as part of ongoing investigations. They must also be based on probable cause, must be specific, and typically must be executed within ten days, although most are acted upon quickly to prevent flight or destruction of evidence. Follow- up warrants can be requested if needed. Resisting a warrant can result in arrest and forcible entry. No-knock warrants are usually used for drug busts or extreme situations like violent offenders, hostages or kidnappings. Slow Wheels Keep on Turning Justice can be a slow and frustrating process. Delays and deferments occur and can cause an officer’s testimony to be delayed for months or years. That’s why cops must be very good at report writing so they can go over details and testify accurately. Routine stops can result in information that’s valuable to detectives and prosecutors in the future. Even traffic cops have to be meticulous because they will have handled dozens of calls between the stop and the trial. Sometimes they have to admit they don’t remember some detail, but they can’t lie or the defense will tear them apart and they’ll be known as “proven liars” in future trials. While cops aren’t lawyers, there’s a lot of “lawyer talk” in their work. To reinforce the point, Amy handed out a 10- page glossary of the legal terms cops routinely deal with. From “accused” and “acquittal” to “warrant” and “witness” these are all words police need to understand to do their jobs properly. After arrest DAs must show probable cause at an arraignment hearing within a set time frame. Bail may be set or denied then and protective orders may be issued. Violation of an order can result in rearrest and additional charges. Criminal convictions require proof “beyond a reasonable doubt,” and while that doesn’t mean absolute certainty, juries can see it that way. Jurors aren’t cops or lawyers; they bring their own experiences into the process and cops have to be aware that what they see as clear proof may not seem that way to jurors. Working in the Community All sworn law enforcement officers undergo training based on national standards. They are Deadlines March 2020 Page 12 Meeting Recap: Digital Evidence (continued) established at the state level but local jurisdictions have to tailor training to their situations as well. Individual departments are reflective of their community expectations through their leadership, hiring, and training, and those expectations can differ, especially in urban vs rural departments or in high-crime vs low-crime areas. Differences in expectations between agencies and the community they serve are what can lead to issues. Other than traffic stops, most people interact with police rarely so cops only deal with a small fraction of the area’s population, both for good and bad. To bridge that gap many departments are emphasizing community policing that encourages interaction and is tailored to local needs. But a segment of the population are frequent offenders and dealing with them can lead cops to become jaded after seeing the same people or groups again and again. The Reality of Being a Cop Writers show the part of police work people want to see: the excitement, the drama, the cool detective work. The cops see everything: death, abuse, mangled bodies. They hear the screams, see the blood and tears. They see their work dismissed by a judge or jury over technicalities, false testimony, or anti-cop Deadlines is published 10 times a year by prejudice. It has an impact and writers need to know their the Rocky Mountain chapter of subjects to get it right. Mystery Writers of America. Rookie cops are full of enthusiasm. They want to help Send member news to people, solve crimes, and arrest offenders. But over time that [email protected] can change. They are verbally abused, physically assaulted, Ch a p t e r o f f i c e r s : and can begin to think that everybody hates them and that President: Margaret Mizushima their work doesn’t make a difference. [email protected] If use of force is involved, especially deadly force, Vice President: Z.J. Czupor the cop may be subject to intense investigation and may [email protected] Secretary: Mike McClanahan be plagued by self-doubt, recrimination, and crippling [email protected] psychological issues that persist undetected, untreated, and Treasurer: Bruce Most unresolved for years. The alcoholic cop who’s been married [email protected] three or four times isn’t a cliché, it’s a reality. After a while Membership: Laurie Sanderson-Walcott they can become people you don’t want to be around. [email protected] Newsletter editor: Suzanne Proulx But there are also plenty of people who have done the [email protected] job for years and have adjusted to it. They have coping Webmaster: Matthew Porter mechanisms that let them concentrate on the good around [email protected] them and put the ugliness aside, at least long enough to be a Caterer Director: Sue Hinkin good spouse, parent, or friend. [email protected] Bottom line: cops are complicated individuals and Social Media: Pat Stoltey [email protected] exploring them can be as fascinating as tracking down a Program Chairman: Lori Lacefield serial killer. [email protected] Amy began her presentation by saying that she was Montana: Lise McClendon condensing a 3½-hour presentation into one, so if you want [email protected] to learn more about the details of being a patrol cop, be New Mexico: Ann Zeigler sure to join us for our June meeting when Laura Manuel, a [email protected] Utah: Craig Kingsman recently retired police officer and writer, will speak on A Day [email protected] in the Life of a Police Officer and the training that goes into Wyoming: Jeff Lockwood it. [email protected] —Mike McClanahan Past President: Chris Goff [email protected]

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