Resident mountain deputies patrol vast area

By Stephen Clearheart Johnson
North Forty News

An area nearly as large as the state of Delaware containing only two paved roads, District 7 of the Larimer County Sheriff's Department stretches from Stove Prairie in Rist Canyon north to Wyoming and from Highway 287 west to the Continental Divide. This includes the Buckhorn and Crystal Mountain areas, the Poudre Canyon, Livermore and Red Feather Lakes areas and on to the Laramie River Valley.

Law enforcement in this vast area is served by three resident mountain deputies who live and work among the mountain communities. Sometimes they serve literally--a subpoena here, a summons there--as in, "You've been served."

The resident deputy program stems from the community-policing philosophy that puts officers in close contact with a local community. It's the same philosophy that has city policemen walking their beats. The result is more familiarity and trust between officers and citizens.

In Larimer County, this program was tried, then dropped, but adopted again after Sheriff Jim Alderden's election in 1998. To explore the lives and work of these deputies, this writer spent two days under the Civilian Ride-Along program with Deputies Robert Harris and Earl Fawcett.

These deputies extol the merits of community policing. They are far more familiar with the community than would be possible if they were patrolling from a town base. They are well plugged in to the community grapevines, helping them work at keeping the peace in social ways as well as performing their police role.

Harris explained they must be careful and alert in conversation. "Ethically, we walk a fine line," he said.

Fawcett stressed the importance of treating people with respect. "Ninety-nine percent of the time when I take someone to jail, they shake my hand and say 'Thanks, Earl,'" he claimed. On the other hand, he has also delivered prisoners with their mouths duct-taped shut.

Last winter the deputies investigated a series of cabin break-ins in which the burglar would consume the owners' food and drink, steal small items, then move on to another cabin. The crook made two major mistakes. First, he left behind an empty prescription bottle in his own name, leading them to focus on a recent prison parolee. Then, the burglar stole a distinctive neon-pink Volkswagen, a vehicle well-known to the deputies. Spotting the car at a North College Avenue motel in Fort Collins, the deputies quickly made their arrest.

Fawcett has lived in the area since 1983, and has been with the Larimer County Sheriff's Department for 24 years with the previous 12 years as a Nebraska state trooper.

Harris has worked 10 years for the sheriff's department and was previously with the Denver sheriff for five years; he also spent time with the National Park Service.

These two deputies were once the only resident mountain deputies. Now a third deputy, James Westerfield, works with them. A Fort Collins-based sergeant provides some supervision and patrolling. Despite the large area, the actual officer-to-citizen ratio is higher than the other sheriff districts.

The deputies are widely known and trusted. "It's not like downtown," said Deputy Harris. "Up here people will wave at you with all five fingers."

Deputies work a 10-hour shift four days per week, but are on call for emergencies at all other times. Harris loves the work. "It is a police officer's dream to cover 1,400 square miles of God's Country," he said. And, quipped Deputy Fawcett, "with somebody else paying the gas."

Like veterans of military combat, the conversations of these men are frosted with a continual light coating of humor used to mask some of the more gritty realities that underlie their work.

To cruise down Poudre Canyon with a deputy is to hear a tour-guide litany of the more recent events from the canyon's darker side.

"Here's where the hazmat truck ran into the river and killed all the fish downstream. Here's where last year that old gal missed the curve and drowned in her car."

"Here...and here...and here, motorcycles run off. That pool is where the kayaker was trapped for a week. Here's where that suicide's body washed up."

"That ridge is where we took out the injured Boy Scout. That meadow is where the naked lady sought Jesus."

"That's where the mountain lion took the little boy. That's where Lacy's body was buried."

These mountain deputies are trained and equipped to deal with a range of emergency or law enforcement situations, from burglary to domestic abuse, river rescue to wildfire control, from fire ban enforcement to emergency medical evacuations. Their vehicles are equipped with V-10 engines, four-wheel-drive, and enough gear to mount any expedition that might call them out of bed on a winter night.

Preparation is key. Looking around the cab, one sees the usual police gear: handgun, cuffs, shotgun and assault rifle, even an ashtray full of spare bullets. Communications gear includes 42-channel VHF radio, GPS locator, pager, cell phone, satellite phone, radar on the move and a video camera hooked to a belt microphone.

Other gear on the truck includes winch, avalanche and white-water rescue gear, ropes, backpacks, fire-fighting gear, first-aid kit, an ax and saw, snowshoes, snowmobile suit, and personal survival gear with extra rations and cooking gear. The officers often supply their own supplemental survival gear.

Recently Fawcett and Harris used the snowmobile gear for a six-mile post-midnight ride four miles across drifts in below-freezing temperatures to pull out a domestic abuse victim and the perpetrator from a remote site.

Not long ago they supplied their own horse tack to ride eight miles to a remote lake to apprehend three men menacing other hikers with guns. After confiscating their rifles and removing all ammo, the deputies made the three miscreants pack out their own weapons.

Physical fitness is a must for this job. In his early 60s, Fawcett may be the oldest deputy still patrolling, but that didn't stop him last summer from making an overnight hike of 18 miles to deliver an emergency message to a family camping in the Rawah Wilderness.

Winter can be a quiet time of patrolling for these deputies as they check on the more remote residents, visit with businesses or make security checks. In summer the department provides patrol and enforcement services to Forest Service campgrounds, a contract that provides revenue used for additional equipment.

The deputies hope to soon be equipped with defibrillators, and they are currently experimenting with laptop computers, which can access a few wi-fi spots at fire districts and the Red Feather Lakes library. These computers will allow them to file many reports electronically, run their own license plate searches and have some access to certain databases.

Not all the change is welcome. "I'm technology intolerant," said Fawcett, but one thing he would like to see is improved communications. Like other Red Feather residents whose patios look out on Middle Bald Mountain, he does not wish to look at a tower on the mountain. Yet, if that project is completed, it means the conversion from VHF radios to a more standard 800 megahertz system.

Fawcett explained that if a deputy becomes incident commander for, say, a wildfire threatening a subdivision, communication is key. He may have to coordinate up to eight different agencies such as firefighters, Forest Service, volunteer search and rescue and others on different frequencies. Add to this the need for a cell phone to arrange evacuation notices and the wicked terrain that often puts him in radio "dead spots."

Fawcett said he believes an improved radio system "would save many lives." Possibly, it might save his life.

Harris compared being a mountain deputy to that of an Alaska state trooper. They often must work alone, with no backup and no communications. But this writer was reminded of the old motto of Coast Guard rescue boats: Despite the weather you are required to go out, but you are not required to return.