The holiday season is right upon us! Family get-togethers, giving thanks, fresh-baked cookies, holiday shopping, the new year is fast approaching and cups of egg nog lattes abound. 

First responders enjoy all of this, but it is harder with juggling shift work, dealing with the problems and crises of others, probably shopping online during a break between calls and occasionally grabbing bargain-basement coffee to stay warm while working wintery days and nights. We have all heard or endured the rants of defunding or unfunding, along with the occassional social media troll. So even a small break from patrol with that pumpkin spice latte, or a warm patrol car heater while parked writing a police report in a parking lot, or park with the fresh snap of winter air, offers a moment to think of the future.

Tradition dictates that every 365 days, we try to kick bad habits and start our lives anew. This tradition dates back to 153 BC during the time of the Roman Empire, and yet we still have trouble achieving our resolutions.

If you fell off the resolution wagon last year - let us regroup and start the process over fresh.

Fast forward to today. Every first responder will echo that the holiday season means more, not less work. Across the nation, law enforcers are being challenged. It is also a time when the police become an even more important thin blue line of stability in a time of citizens under increased stress and crisis. Parsons has seen a seasonal increase with people in crisis, domestic violence, disturbances and abuse of alcohol and/or drugs - people in crisis. So maybe our collective resolutions are even more important this year.

The annual task of creating your list of resolutions can be a cleansing process. This simple act can be a time to de-stress as well as to look forward to resetting our positive view of life, family and career. A resolution means a change of behavior, which requires willpower. It requires a plan, so let us push forward.

If you fell off the resolution wagon last year, let us regroup and start the process over fresh. Mental health professionals tell us that setting goals can give us direction and boost our mood when we achieve a goal. Even a small goal achieved from your list of resolutions is a success.

Here is my top 10 list of resolutions for family and career. They are bite-sized, and I hope achievable:

Family
Find or create quality family time, even if the job competes.
Be happier, even if you must force it.
Tell your significant other and family you love them often.
Put the cell phone down so you can plug into family.
Walk, live the moment, share a sunset, a sunrise, a moment in a park.
Shed the crime-fighter mask at your door, or better yet, leave it in the locker at the agency.
Connect with the community off duty.
Find a hobby and involve your family.
Drink more ... water (hydrate!).
Lose the gut to live longer.

Career
Be even safer - watch your six - and plan "what if" as an officer safety tactic every day.
Grow your empathy for those in need.
Survive to arrive at every call.
Be early to shift changes and briefings - come prepared.
Find your zen moment to kick off every shift - have your "game face" on and be focused.
Take ownership of your morale - fight the negatives that you cannot control.
Workout, relax and rest up - it truly is about officer safety.
Practice proactive funda-mentals daily: handcuffing, searches, cover/contact and de-escalation.
Invest in your future through training, education and career planning.
Look in the mirror and evaluate if that image is the professional you should be or could be.
Just like Santa, make your list and check it twice. Post it in your locker and read it, commit to it and follow through. According to most experts, 80% of New Year's resolutions fail by mid-February! Be part of the winning 20% and follow through.

Sound too cheesy? Or maybe all of us crime fighters need to decelerate occasionally. In past years, I have committed to working out, spending more quality time with family, helping others, paying it forward and getting organized. So far, the working out has dropped off as the number of meetings in my life has grown. I am working on family time, my debt has dropped and time off is incredibly valuable. In the long run, I am doing better than many of my fellow resolution makers. Join me.

At the end of our shift, assignment and career, we all want our significant other - those Connie's, Mary's, Bill's, Bob's or Jim's to be there for us. Maybe that is the greatest New Year's resolution of all. Happy holidays to all!

During this season of thanksgiving, I'm sharing a blog from a great trainer and professional that our agency uses for our supervisory and management training. Stephen Kent of The Results Group. He's a Veteran, with four decades of expertise consulting and training on Leadership Development, Team Building, Business Consulting, Management Consulting, Change Management, and Executive Coaching, (https://theresultsgroupltd.com/ ). He's allowed me to share his recent blog on Thanksgiving and I hope you'll enjoy as I did.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Chief Robert Spinks

Thanksgiving ... Redux
... and gifts of small fortunes.
Stephen L. Kent
Nov 25, 2024

Thanksgiving has always been and continues to be my favorite among American holidays.

On Thanksgiving I am not obligated to buy anyone gifts nor are they guilted into buying anything for me. There are no requirements that children noisily skulk about in the dark dressed as mythological beings or beasts extorting treats throughout the neighborhood. There are neither cakes to decorate; ceremonial prom outfits; trees to insult with artificial decorations; barbeques; nor boxes of chocolate. There are neither eggs hidden in the yard; rigid nationalistic, lockstep deference to flags, statues, murderous European invaders, or dead presidents; nor are there obligatory religious services during which a haughty, somber pastor reminds me to shape up or be doomed to an eternity in Hell.

For me, Thanksgiving is about family. It is simply about being intentionally thankful ... something we're not particularly good at here in sound-bite-driven, "hey, what's next?" entitlement-oriented America. For me, Thanksgiving is a day to embrace certain, small fortunes - memories - whomever and wherever we might be.

For me, those small fortunes include childhood memories of family gatherings at Thanksgiving.

Until I was thirteen years old my family lived in a series of small communities clustered around Tulsa, Oklahoma. My father worked a variety of jobs as a laborer doing the dirty boots and knuckle-bruising work of vehicle servicing and repair in gas stations and garages that smelled of stale oil stains, brake fluid, and post-World War II dreams. He didn't make a lot of money (actually, no one made a lot of money in those days) but he always had a job - something that I cannot claim to have accomplished.

As a young Okie child of a long-time Okie family, I recall the laughter and unintelligible chatter among my uncles and my Dad¹ filling the living room at the home of one of my Dad's siblings. Not once in my entire childhood did we host Thanksgiving or any other such large family event at our own house. Wherever we lived our houses were simply too small to accommodate such a murmuration of family and extended family members.

Those unpretentious, handsome young men, all in their late twenties to mid-thirties at the time, arranged themselves in a circle, casually sitting on recliners, crowded together on the couch, on the wooden floor, and perched on sturdy wooden kitchen chairs. There was not a television in sight; this was a home on a dirt road with an outhouse.

There in that smoke-filled room dotted with ashtrays brimming with smoldering cigarettes and steaming cups of black coffee, they made their own entertainment. A couple of them cradled battered, acoustic guitars and with the simple three-chords of rural music they earnestly offered their renditions of the plaintive, nasal relationship failures of Hank Williams; the life-woes of young Johnny Cash; the clever lyrics of Tennessee Ernie Ford; spunky Patsy Cline (who was, for reasons I did not then understand, falling to pieces) and the Big Band melodies of a young Tulsan with whom my Mother attended high school named Clara Ann Fowler, known to the world as Patti Page.

The world was a simpler and - for the most part - an acoustic place in those days. Rock & Roll as we know it was half a generation away and its seminal, jostling, brash, sometimes angry melodies were to be fearfully shunned. In those days, one of my cousins acquired an electric guitar, plucked away at a song that perfectly telegraphed the coming music revolution called, "Raunchy" and was quietly branded as a shameful heretic - perhaps even, a budding, godless communist.

In the hours just before dinner, the family men also played dominoes and engaged in good-natured banter with the winners and losers of the ancient game.

Alcohol was not allowed in such gatherings; my tightly wired, quite religious aunts would have been indignantly apoplectic had the topic of such amusement even been whispered about. They professed to have little interest in such fun. Yet, despite the symbolic modesty implied by their mid-calf-length skirts, there were quite an impressive number of babies and small children sleeping or flitting about ... and at least one on the way.

The only illicit beverage that might be consumed on such days was acquired during secretive trips to a car trunk that belonged to one of my uncles who also happened to be a backcountry bootlegger.

The men told stories of hunting birds and rabbits and enthusiastically recounted the tale of a sixty-plus-pound channel catfish with which one of my uncles once battled; ultimately consumed at the very table we are to eat dinner upon; and whose gaping cartilage-ringed, open mouth my uncle mounted over his garage door. It remained thusly prominent for decades and sparked many a re-telling of the grand day my uncle prevailed in battle over such a magnificent behemoth.

In that long-ago living room, some watched; some participated at the center of events; some talked; some listened. Some smiled; some were pensive, staring toward an imaginary horizon. Some sang; some hummed out of tune.

But they were all there. Together.

I saw that world from the vantage point of a three-foot tall pre-adolescent ²... my eyes only as tall as the waist-line of adults ... always looking up to see their faces, to watch their laughter, to seek their approvals, to hear their voices as they spoke of grownup things.

They spoke of hard work and sore muscles and of dealing with life's setbacks as adults and - without fanfare or hubris - they simply declared in how they went about their day-to-day lives that it is what adults are supposed to do.

On Thanksgiving, the beautiful, young family mothers³ teamed in the kitchen variously sharing news from their own neighborhoods; cooking, cleaning dishes and silverware and pots and pans; laying out place settings on the adult table and on the kids' tables scattered throughout the kitchen and dining area. It seemed that my Mother or one or more of my aunts was perpetually holding an infant on her hip while simultaneously checking the oven's progress on the turkey and dressing; gently re-directing an errant toddler's path; setting aside pies to cool; stirring great mounds of mashed potatoes; placing serving spoons in bowls brimming with corn, jello, yams smothered in melted marshmallows and green beans cooked in bacon grease. Their unspoken, precise choreography created a recital filled with unforgettable aromas and tastes and delicious promises of soon-to-be holiday gluttony.

While children were not excluded from those annual living room gatherings or the chaos of kitchen work, we were discouraged from doing children things that might distract the adults - like laughing, talking, moving around, or breathing. Most of us preferred to play outside even in the often bitter cold of autumn Oklahoma.

Cheeks burning - slapped cherry-red by the frigid air - we ran like the wind across the sparse, yellowed winter grass, chasing after one another, playing tag, kicking cans, wiping our dripping noses on flannel sleeves, exhaling frosted fog breaths, and laughing as would frenzied demons until we were chilled to the bone and exhausted and could run no more for the day.

Oh, what a day, Thanksgiving! I looked forward to it and still think of it fondly.

At Thanksgiving dinner family adults seated themselves at the main table next to their respective spouses; children fidgeted at small tables originally used for card games and babies suckled bottles or soundly slept lying in bassinets throughout the house.

Then, suddenly, with little more than a look from the head of the host household, total silence.

The room was cozy and warm and safe and all who were present were still and at peace.

With impatience and awe, I looked up at that gathering of tall people from my tiny table.

Everyone cast their eyes downward to their empty plates hand-in-hand with those sitting on each side of them. The mouth-watering perfume of the imminent feast engulfed the entire room and everyone within it.

Someone solemnly thanked the family God (at extraordinary length in my hungry youngster judgment) for the meal and for all their worldly belongings and asked that all the gathered loved ones be blessed and remain healthy for the coming year.

As the speaker's last syllable fully dissipated, eager hands dived for the greatest of feasts of all time - everyone talking at once, passing around and sharing heaping bowls and plates of Thanksgiving.

For that one day all interpersonal conflicts, grudges, anger, and hurt feelings were set aside. For that one day, all gossip was set aside. Cheerful discussions at that table were confined to the whereabouts and rumored shenanigans of family members who failed to show up or to the amusing antics of offspring, co-workers, and fellow churchgoers. Any problems, disagreements, or rivalries among family members were neither talked about nor acknowledged in the public forum that was Thanksgiving.⁴

On that one day, my family gathered to create small, treasured fortunes that remain with me to this day.

I am thankful for such fortunes. In many small ways, they made me who I am.

Those hardworking, devout people taught me that forgiveness and cooperation are possible when you set your mind to it - even if you must bite your tongue while doing so; that speaking kindly of others when they're not present is what adults are supposed to do; that taking care of one another even when the other person is painfully annoying is not optional; that creating safe places is what civilizations and societies and families and individuals are supposed to do.

They taught me that work might be unpleasant at times but that you need to work with others - even multi-tasking amid behind-the-scenes chaos so other people can be happy with the products of your labor. They taught me that work is not a personal identity - it was what you had to do so you could do what you wanted to do. You were supposed to work so you could afford a place to live and catch big, ugly fish and hunt birds and rabbits and buy the stuff that makes fine Thanksgiving dinners.

My grandparents, my parents, and most of my aunts and uncles have long ago passed to their well-deserved places elsewhere in the Universe. I have only one uncle and one aunt remaining - both now in their nineties. The few remaining dear cousins with whom I enjoyed those long-ago Thanksgiving days are now, as am I, in their seventies, and a couple of them are in their eighth decades.

Periodically my brother, my cousins, and I gather using social media messages, phone calls, and nationwide video visits. I especially enjoy the video visits because I can see their beautiful faces and catch up on the triumphs and hardships of their current lives. I get to see them again as the 1950s children they still are - in their eyes, in their hearts, and in the small fortunes they continue to pass along to me.

During such visits, we speak kindly of those not present. We also recount memories of our long-ago childhoods and remember with mixtures of amusement, joy, fondness, and sorrow those beloved family members who are no longer with us.

"Oh her?! I remember her! Remember when she ...?" someone will say.

"Him? Oh, you know he was a ... " another responds.

And we all smile.

Together.

I am thankful for them, for their own memories, and for the unique perspectives of their stories. I hope to see many of them in person in 2024 - perhaps we'll sit around in a family circle, play dominoes, and tell the stories that old people tell about the days when we were young and innocent and had to look up to see what adults were saying and doing so we might learn who we were to become. Perhaps someone will strum an acoustic guitar.

Oh, and I am thankful that I am now tall.

You see, I have earned the honor of and the obligations that come with sitting at the adult table, and, thanks to all those people - and thousands of others who knowingly or unknowingly endowed me with small fortunes - I look the world square in the eye.

And for that, I am intentionally thankful.

Don't forget to pick-up The SUN Newspaper on Friday, November 21st so you can get your copy of the Parsons Police Department 4th Qtr Community Report. This 4-page full color report will highligh the results of a community survey, the Christmas Concert to raise funds for Shop-With-A-Cop, domestic violence, the list of the TOP 50 Repeat Offenders for 2021 thru 2023 and much more.

Mark your calendar to attend the 2024 Main Street Christmas Concert featuring the Duke Mason Band. The Parsons Police Department is teaming up with Duke to raise donations to support the Parsons Police Department Shop With a Cop Program. Help bring joy to children and families in our community who need your help in bringing Christmas Cheer to kids in need. The concert is set to kick off at 7 pm on Saturday, December 7th at the Parsons Municipal Auditorium at 112 South Main Street. Don't miss this fun filled Parsons tradition. For more information call 620-421-7032.

Copy of the October report

Domestic Violence: Parsons Dirty Secret

Chief Robert Spinks

(Reprinted from the August 16, 2024 Parsons Police Community Report to the Community insert in The SUN Newspaper)

The crime rate in Parsons, especially violent crime is driven by Domestic Violence cases. With 168 reported domestic violence cases reported in 2023, this is simply an unacceptable rate of occurrence. Half of the homicides investigated and solved by Parsons PD in the past decade involved domestic violence.

Parsons had an uptick in our crime rate in 2023, yet still below crime occurrence reported from 2003 through 2017 (except in 2020).

Every community has varying factors that contribute toward criminal activity. Parsons has a unique socio-economic mix, and we are seeing a decrease in population, (yet an increase in employment, retail sales and schools), we see the negative impact of drugs with employers who struggle to have job applicants who can pass a drug test.

There will be those who will complain that violent crime is the fault of policing. That is pure ignorance. With 1,137 arrests being made in 2023, a 29% increase over 2022. You cannot arrest a community out of crime when there is a revolving door. Over 57% of all arrestees were arrested more than once in 2023. We had repeat arrests that included individuals who were arrested 8, 9, 10, even 11 times in one year.

As a state we do not want to invest in new prisons, so we merely add more opportunities for probation in the sentencing guidelines. As a society we want helping services, but fail to fund the safety nets for at-risk individuals and families. We want mental health services, but then fail to provide adequate in-patient care thus turning county jails into the largest mental health facilities in the nation.

But I want to focus on our community's number one crime problem . . . domestic violence.

We have all heard there is no place like home. Home is where the heart is. Home is where we want to kick up our heels or let our hair down. Home is where families gather to share the joys of children, of parents, of good food and friends. Home is where we most of all dream of sharing life and love, dreams and hopes, with those most dear to us.

Unfortunately, though, in all too many homes in Parsons, the reality is not so peaceful. In all too many homes, there is not peace but violence. In all too many homes, there is not friendship but fear. In all too many homes love has been replaced by abuse.

Domestic violence can be triggered by socio-economic stressors, unequal power relations in a relationship, illegal drugs, a lack of job skills, unavailable and costly daycare, and much more.

We must not forget about these crimes that disrupt homes and destroys families. It is estimated that over 2 million acts of domestic violence take place each year in the United States.

Domestic violence is an issue that affects all aspects of our society and is not bound by race, economics, or age. It can be blamed for increased medical care costs, decreased productivity, and increased absences from work. Domestic violence also promotes a culture of depression, hopelessness, and fear. One incidence of domestic violence can create a cycle of despair that is difficult for not only the victim, but also entire families to overcome.

Family violence has a devastating impact on all of us....

And it is an effect that has touched my family . . . 

In 1982, my wife's sister Kathy was murdered by her ex-husband, here is an excerpt from a letter to the Indiana Parole Board written by my wife - this was an annual process in our house until the killer's release back in 2012:

Dear Parole Board Members:

Well, this is another year, and yet another opportunity for Tom HEMPEL to attempt to somehow justify, sell or mystify the Parole Board to believe that he has changed, atoned, or evolved from that sad sorrowful day in 1982 when he brutally murdered my sister Kathy WILLEM. 

Time unfortunately tends to bury the dead. Time tends to bury the bright souls of victims who have been cheated from live. Time tends to allow the memory of victims and the violence of past crimes against them to also fade. It is for this very reason that the only voices that can speak for the buried, to ensure that the life that was taken from them is remembered and brought forth for the Parole Board to remember are family members like myself. HEMPEL tossed his value as a human being away when he acted with brutal savagery, has continued to spit in the face of society's expectations and has fallen far short of the due he owes for his actions. Rehabilitation aside, how do you rehabilitate a violent prisoner who has failed in every way? 

My sister, Kathy endured years of physical violence at the hands of HEMPEL during their marriage of nearly a decade. She like so many victims of domestic violence were trapped in a dysfunctional relationship, HEMPEL did everything possible to keep our family and my brothers away from Kathy, and HEMPEL held Kathy as a prisoner who was forced to endure repeated browbeating, restricted movement and he kept Kathy cut off from telephone contact with family and friends - a typical route for a violent abuser to take.  Even in the 1970's Kathy tried to seek the help of the criminal justice system and repeatedly made reports of being assaulted by HEMPEL with resulting arrests being made and the result being merely more and more beatings at the brutal and uncaring hands of HEMPEL.

The psychopathy of a convicted murderer is no greater evidenced by his continued and misdirected attempts to shift responsibility and blame for his horrendous acts to my sister who endured years of physical and psychological abuse and ultimately was murdered at the hands of HEMPEL. Kathy spent her last minutes of existence alone in a barn as HEMPEL strangled her to death. An irrational crime, an act of passion? No, this ultimate act of brutal control was very cold and calculated; it was a horrific and deliberate act with its premeditation evidenced by his stalking of Kathy prior to his final violent attack and of his attempt to conceal his crime by then burying Kathy under dark, damp bales of hay in this lonely and isolated barn.

As Martin Luther King, Jr., so eloquently said, "Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heatless." So has been the case in successfully changing the attitudes and conduct of a generation through citizen support which Parsons must now engage in.

       While the realities of domestic violence are grim, we have hope. Our hope stems from the belief that with education, resources, and support, victims of domestic violence can overcome their circumstances. That hope also lies here with each of you - by taking a stand today to address domestic violence in Parsons.

September 1st the Parsons Domestic Violence Unit (DVU) is born through a 2-year grant. Sergeant Tony Adamson will lead the Unit and Cyprus Jones has been hired as a Victim Advocate. Our local Victim Advocate from Safehouse will be co-located in the unit. This is not just about enhanced prosecutions, though there will be a closer look at domestic violence prosecutions.

A new High Risk Team (HRT) made up of helping, education, mental health, the Department for Children and Families (DCF),  faith based groups, and other helping agencies will partner to provide services, opportunities and guidance to domestic violence victims and survivors to help to provide what has been missing in Parsons.

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You'll be seeing and reading more about domestic violence in the coming days and weeks as we hit this community scourge head on.