GREENFIELD — Hancock County Sheriff Brad Burkhart walked into Jim Dandy Restaurant Saturday morning, arrest warrant in hand.
The name on the paper? Greenfield Police Chief Jeff Rasche.
His accused crime? Thinking he could mess with former Greenfield Police Chief Clarke Mercer.
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It wasn’t a real warrant, of course, just a bit of playful revenge after Rasche arranged for a “ticket” to be placed on Mercer’s vehicle.
“We got a couple judges,” Burkhart told the men at the slew of tables pushed together at the back of the restaurant, referring to Hancock County Superior Court 2 Judge Dan Marshall and former Superior Court 1 Judge Terry Snow. “We could establish a bond.”
Burkhart handed the document to Hancock County Prosecutor Brent Eaton, who appeared to study it carefully.
The warrant service and the rebuttal from Rasche that followed drew just some of the morning’s laughs from the group of retired and active law enforcement professionals and judges.
They come from fields that strive for justice and truth. But one Saturday morning a month, they all get together and lie.
Mercer, a retired Indiana State Police trooper and the de facto leader of “Old Troopers and Friends,” said the bulk of the group is made up of active and retired state troopers, Greenfield police officers and county sheriff’s deputies. They get together on the first Saturday of the month at Jim Dandy and have been meeting for about 10 years.
On Saturday, March 7, the group of about 40 traded handshakes and shoulder claps while talking about their retirements and engaging in some good-natured ribbing over steaming plates and mugs.
“I like the camaraderie,” Mercer said. “That’s what keeps everybody coming back… It’s making stories and exaggerating them and guys pulling other guys’ legs.”
Mike Smith attended the breakfast as well. He joined the state police with Mercer in 1964.
“We’re pretty much like brothers,” Smith said.
He then referred to the gifts and document explaining the history of the law enforcement symbol of the thin blue line that Tom Davidson, another state police retiree, handed out.
“It doesn’t make any difference whether you’re a city policeman, state policeman or a sheriff, that line is intertwined with all of us, because we all have the same purpose,” Smith said.
He asked Davidson where he got the thin blue line pin glinting on his lapel. Shortly after explaining he was all out of pins, Davidson took it off and gave it to Smith.
“I owe him,” Davidson said.
Smith investigated Davidson when he applied to serve on the state police.
“He snowed me completely,” Smith jested. “It was unbelievable.”
Davidson, now an attorney who lives in Pittsboro, travels the state for meals like the one the Old Troopers and Friends group holds. It was his first time attending the breakfast in Greenfield. He didn’t work with all of the retired troopers who attended the meal, but he’d run into many of them on occasion.
“Most of these guys I recognize from their wanted pictures,” Davidson said, later adding he went to law school while on the force and became a lawyer for the state police “because Clarke Mercer’s always getting in trouble.”
Not every remark of the morning was a pull of the leg, however.
“It’s funny,” Davidson said, “while you’re on the department, it’s easy to be critical of the department and other people and all that kind of stuff. But then, after you leave, you realize how important and how valuable that experience was. And these people all contributed to it. I’ve done so many things that I would’ve never been able to do had I not went on the state police.”
Craig Ralstin started with the state police by working the road and later on he worked the air. In aviation for the ISP, he took on assignments like transporting the governor and searching for marijuana fields and lost people.
Ralstin said he enjoys coming to Old Troopers and Friends breakfasts to catch up, trade stories and be around those to whom he can relate.
“Nobody can really identify with it well, unless you’ve been out there doing it,” he said. “Nobody’s seen what you’ve seen, nobody’s done the stuff you’ve done. These guys have, so at least there’s a common understanding of how goofy life can be sometimes.”
Dave Phelps, also a retired state trooper, agreed.
“You really appreciate what they’ve done, because you’ve done it too and you know they’ve done it too,” he said. “They’ve seen ugly things, they’ve seen brutal things, they’ve seen sad things, and they’ve seen happy things.”
Ralstin said despite spending more of his career in flying than in law enforcement, law enforcement made him who he is.
Police work isn’t the most predictable of career fields, Ralstin also said.
“It’s hours and hours and hours of boredom punctuated by a few moments of sheer terror,” he said.
Phelps seconded that.
“But, I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” he added.
Ralstin too.
“Oh, absolutely,” he said.
