I was at my local coffee shop the other morning. The day shift manager was running the register. We had a short conversation while she took my order. Then Arthur came out. I’ve talked to Arthur before. Never long. But he has always been pleasant. He asks if Johnson was still around. I worked with Johnson when I first came to the area, so I knew exactly who he was talking about. I let him know that Johnson left my agency to go work for a smaller, local agency. That was well over a year ago, so it was evident they had not kept in touch, on top of the obvious, because he asked if Johnson still worked for us.
Then came the kicker. “My ex-wife works for the FBI.” Now, I did not see this conversation going well. I wrongly assumed that he was going to try and relate to some level of being a cop because he had someone in his family in law enforcement. I was wrong.
Arthur told me that she calls the coffee shop 12 times a day, every day, asking to speak with him. He said that she lives out on the east coast and works out there. He told me he may need to call that local agency that Johnson now works for because of the stalking issue. I did not dive into the jurisdiction of the area, but that would not be the right agency to call – I think he was just trying to be relatable here. He said that “It is the purest case of abusing the badge.”
Arthur continued to say how he knows she is stalking him because he has had deposits made into his bank accounts. He knew that no one would have access to his banking information. He concluded that the only people who could find out his financial information would be federal agents. I was not going to challenge him on this one, but it seemed to me that if an ex-wife was depositing money into his account, that would not be the end of the world….
He went on to say how last week, when his ex called (we’ll call her Tammy, as a nod to the TV show Parks and Rec), his boss answered the phone and told Tammy that Arthur was fired, because she kept calling. Arthur went on to say how, “Apparently that is illegal.” I am not exactly sure how he got that idea. I know it is said that you cannot lie to a federal agent, but I do not know how that one is written.
Arthur told me how he asked his boss, at least a half dozen times, if he told Tammy he was fired. Arthur seemed to get hung up on that and wondered why his boss would say such a thing. Arthur seemed to be offended by it. I shrugged it off and said, “Maybe he was just looking out for you.” It seemed to click in his head that maybe, just maybe, his boss was looking out for him.
The conversation seemed to be winding down, I was about to leave since I had gotten my order by this point. Arthur says, “So can I report that to you?” Now we are getting to the jurisdictional part of the conversation. Basically, in my state, nothing is simple and different law enforcement agencies have different functions. As I have mentioned before, I am a DOT cop. I help on other calls, but investigating stalking and unlawful use of telephone (yes, that is a real thing) are not my main job duties. I explained this to Arthur and he looked confused and said, “So I can call Johnson’s agency then?” Nope, wrong again. I explained how they would pass the report to the city that we were in, and that city PD would be the ones to take the report and start from there.
Once it seemed that his questions had been answered, and before we were too deep in the woods, I let him know I was going to head out. The point being, people tell cops weird stories.