My apologies, Chief!

Last week, I wrote a great story about the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office new robot essentially saving a man’s life. The gentleman was in a bit of a mental health crisis and deputies were called because of concerns the man was distraught and possibly armed.

The robot, which can go up stairs, force open doorways, has video so operators can see what the robot “sees” and audio capabilities to allow offices to talk to whomever is in the presence of the robot, was sent in rather than having officers go in. It was safer for both the man in distress and officers, and ended very peacefully.

In the story, I quoted the Chief Deputy of RCSO, with one small problem. I got his last name wrong.

Jason Owens is the chief deputy here in Rowan and I can say with honesty that I’ve had time to get to know him well. I both like and respect him, and I really do know his name.

But I’ve been covering police departments across Connecticut and here in North Carolina for more than 35 years, and even when I was not working as a journalist, I got to know those in the departments where I worked. It has just been second nature to me.

Jason Powell is a retired police chief in Connecticut that I also like and respect, and for some reason, as I was writing that story this week, it was his name that went from my head to my fingers to the story. And my notes simply refer to him as “chief” because for me, that’s who he is, so they were no help in reminding me of the correct name.

It didn’t take long for the RCSO captain to text and let me know I’d goofed. The next morning when I walked in to RCSO for my daily briefing, boy did I catch some heat (and some humor) for that. At the end of the day, I am grateful that it was a positive, upbeat story and I didn’t make an error in the name of someone who had died or any other serious issue.

But I also always want to give credit where credit is due.

So, Chief Owens, I apologize.

I do think that any of us who have done the same job for years upon years must have moments like this. Our memories begin to cross, and names become harder to keep straight as we meet more people along our paths.

I consider myself fortunate indeed to have met and worked with some incredible people, who made a strong and positive enough impression on me to stay at the top of my memory bank. The people I work with on a daily basis in the police and fire departments, in the court house, in the local government offices, are not just sources to me. They become friends, at least in my view. I have a sincere desire to connect, and ask about their families, their lives, their world, and they seem to return that.

In Connecticut, it was a much harder task to break the ice with police officers, and I needed to invest a lot of time in building trust. Being back in my home state, I’m never sure whether it’s the years of experience or just my personality coming through that has brought trust more quickly, but in either case, my investment in building it means I get to know officers. And once I get to know them, I care about them. We don’t always stay in touch if one of us moves on, but I can say that when our paths happen to cross again, the friendship remains. We can pick up just where we left off.

So although I absolutely hate making mistakes, and one so simple but so obvious makes me cringe, I also know it’s a good problem to have. To have built strong enough connections over the years that a name from 20 years ago still comes to the forefront in a positive story is not a bad thing, and it says a lot about Chief Powell’s work that I still have such great memories.

Getting older has its challenges, and if you don’t know that yet, you will. But I take such pleasure in the relationships that have come to me in my career, and I cherish the fact that there have been enough of them that I can have a moment when the wrong name comes.

At the end of the day, though, the story involved a happy ending to a situation that has, for some other departments in the past, gone horribly wrong, and I am so proud of Chief Owens for making the choices he did. He protected his own officers but he also protected the life of a human in distress, who wasn’t able at the time to articulate what was going on.

And I want to be sure he gets credit for that. We can be so quick to judge the choices officers make in the middle of active scenes. On a rare occasion, they may not make ideal choices, but so often we are quick to Monday morning quarterback before we have all the information. And officers often can’t rise to their own defense because the case is open and active and they can’t talk about an ongoing investigation. So they have to absorb criticism without remark. We all know how hard that is.

Which means when a moment comes to report something so positive, I am determined to do so, and I want to be sure to applaud both officers on the ground and leaders who make such good choices.

But time is catching up with me, and I just need to make sure this old memory bank is pulling the right name for the job.

Elisabeth Strillacci covers crime, courts, Spencer, East Spencer and Kannapolis for the Salisbury Post.