Former sheriff Ed Davies looks back on 33-year career years ago
Staff writer
Whether it be dealing with civil unrest during the 1960s or investigating a mid-1990s burglary associated with the Oklahoma City bombing, Ed Davies' law enforcement career has been anything but dull.
After 33 years in law enforcement, Davies officially retired in 1997 after serving nine years as the Marion County Sheriff.
Previously, he spent approximately 24 years working as a law enforcement officer in Lawrence and with various agencies inside the Johnson County Sheriff's Department.
Born with a naturally inquisitive nature, the Marion native may have been destined for a career in law enforcement. His father, Loyd Davies, was a law enforcement officer and former Marion County Sheriff.
After graduating from Marion High School in 1956, Davies entered the Navy.
"I figured it would take up some time until I figured out what I wanted to do," he said smiling.
After completing his tour of service, he came home to Marion and met Gemma Jirak, a native of the Pilsen area. The two married and moved to Lawrence. Ed attended the University of Kansas, but with two children to feed and clothe, he decided a steady paycheck was more important.
Hearing about an opening with the Lawrence Police Department, Davies applied and was hired. And thus began his training.
"It was different than now," he said. "Back then, they'd put you with another officer for two weeks. Then they gave me a city ordinance book, badge, car, and gun and said 'hit the streets'."
"So, I'm sitting there with a handbook in one hand trying not to run off the road while I'm learning," Davies said.
Training continued with a two-week class at the University of Kansas. It consisted of indoctrination, sitting in class, listening to lectures, and reading handouts.
"Now you get training with firearms and car stops," he said.
Although the training seems unsophisticated compared to what officers receive now, Davies said it made rookies more self-sufficient.
"You researched and read and learned to rely on your own common sense and intuition," he said. "Too many officers now rely on the information coming from the dispatcher via telecommunications."
Although today's officers may rely on modern technology, Davies said law enforcement training academies are doing a number of things right — including screening out inappropriate applicants.
"They do more psychological testing and can screen out more of the badge-, gun-happy people who are more interested in the power than in actually serving," he said.
Davies started work in Lawrence in the traffic division covering "lots of wrecks." Soon, he was promoted to sergeant and took over a patrol division.
Early in his career he learned everything isn't always what it seems.
"There was an area east of Lawrence called The Bottoms. One time a bomb threat was called in at The Bottoms and we responded," he remembered.
"Meanwhile, someone knocked the windows out in a men's clothing store downtown and carried out lots of suits and merchandise," Davies said. "We caught the bad guys, but learned in law enforcement you don't always take everything at face value. There are no 100 percent guarantees."
As it turned out, Davies was working as a law enforcement officer in Lawrence during one of the most turbulent times in the city's history — the Civil Rights era of the mid-1960s.
Throughout the country, generations of abuse and discrimination were resulting in conflict between black and white. Nationwide, tensions often came to a head on college campuses with their varying mix of liberal people combined with discontent over the Vietnam War and the expanding drug culture.
"In a college town, things were a little more open than in other towns. Add to that the LSD, heroin, free love, and things just kept growing," Davies said.
"That was a real learning experience," he said. "The campus (KU) was set on fire several times. We were always having to run to the campus to provide crowd control. Either it was at a KU-Nebraska football game or because the campus was on fire."
Despite all the responsibility, working as a Lawrence police officer in the 1960s was a low-paying job.
"I remember telling Gemma that when I started making $450 a month, we'd be doing good," Davies said with a laugh.
Deciding it was time for a change, he went to work as a detective for the Union Pacific Railroad. Although it paid significantly more, Ed found the job "too political" and stayed only six months.
Based on a recommendation from John Waner, a former Marion resident, who was working as a Johnson County Sheriff's Department detective sergeant, Ed went to work in the jail division with the Johnson County Sheriff's Office, part of the metro Kansas City complex.
"The sheriff's philosophy was 'if you're going to chase crooks you need to know them.' And the best way to learn their characteristics is by watching their behavior," Davies said. You can learn certain key things which give them away."
After that stint, Davies became a detective within the department's property division investigating burglaries, bad checks, property crimes, etc.
"There was a criminal element in each city. You had to develop a rapport with the other agencies. There was always a little competition between the agencies, but it helped a lot getting to know the other officers," Davies said.
Only one agency was really stand-offish, he said — the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation).
"Back then you couldn't ask any FBI guy a question and ever get an answer. You'd always get a question back," Davies recalled.
Undercover work
Moving up the ranks, Davies moved to the drug division in the early 1970s, which involved working undercover, sometimes across the state line into Missouri.
"There was a lot of marijuana, some hashish, cocaine, heroine, LSD," he said. "We nabbed a lot of small guys. The DA (district attorney) needed political points so we were busting users. Every once in a while we'd nab a small dealer, but the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) came into play with the big dealers."
During one nerve-fraying incident, Ed was working undercover when he found himself in a dangerous situation.
"A guy wanted me to come out to this farm, buy some heroin, and meet some other guys. It was a situation I got myself into and didn't get out of quickly enough. I had no backup," he recalled.
"I went and everyone was trying to impress the other about how tough he was. These guys were all puffing around so I gave them a big spiel and took out my gun to show them how tough I was," Davies recalled.
"Well, later in court after we busted them, their attorney (trying to get the case thrown out of court) said I took my gun out and threatened them."
Working as an undercover cop, Ed didn't look like his usual clean-cut self.
"I had long hair and a beard. You didn't want to be clean-shaven because we needed to look like the people we dealt with," he said.
"We'd attend church and he'd look like a bum. He'd go into places and wouldn't get served," Gemma remembered.
Ed recalled one visit to Marion during that time when he helped his brother-in-law, Dr. Eugene Vinduska, pour some cement. After finishing, the two went to a Marion restaurant. There, they saw a woman Ed had known all his life.
"We sat down and I'm looking like a hippie. I told Doc to play along with me. I said loud enough for her to hear, 'Thanks for picking me up on the road and giving me a job.'
"And she said, 'Now you know what it's like for the rest of us who have to work,'" Davies remembered with a smile.
"Doc and I laughed and laughed about that for years. I never did tell her who I was. She never even recognized me," he said. "I didn't think I looked that different."
Statistically, law enforcement is one of the highest professions in terms of divorce and suicide.
"A lot of that is related to the job itself and how it affects the officer's family," Davies said.
Ed found relief by venting to his wife, but Gemma found it to be stressful.
"It was a fearful time for me when he worked undercover narcotics in Kansas City," she said. "I had the same nightmare for 10 years. I'd dream that a snitch would follow us home and kill us all.
"I always knew if we were in a public place and he didn't introduce me as his wife then there was something going on which I didn't want to know about. So, I'd disappear," Gemma said.
Leaving undercover work, Davies was promoted to sergeant in charge of the drug unit and persons crimes including homicide, rape, robbery, assaults, and the like.
Short retirement
Having attained the rank of captain with 18 years of service to Johnson County, Davies decided it was time to retire and he and Gemma returned to their roots in Marion County.
"We came back to Marion to retire. But the local sheriff got himself picked up for a DUI and some people asked me to run," Davies said. "I told them I would if I had some support. I ended up getting appointed to serve out his term. Then started running for election right away."
Once elected Marion County Sheriff, one of Davies' goals was to bring standards up-to-date.
"That was a big problem with only four officers," he said. "There was no way to do all the work required. We barely had enough time to handle the daily operation."
One of Davies' biggest headaches was the time spent delivering papers.
"It used to be the sheriff's office was paid to serve papers to help offset the time and cost involved," he said. "It takes a lot of time and expense but now the office can't be reimbursed for it. You're doing it for the lawyers, but they get paid for their time."
By law, the position of sheriff is administrative. The sheriff enforces the laws, runs the county jail, is an officer of the court, hires people, purchases equipment, makes repair arrangements, among other duties.
Rather than piling up equipment, Davies said he preferred putting money into personnel.
"With a small department I'd rather give a guy a better wage than buy a couple widgets," he said. "Officers in small departments really have to like what they're doing because they won't be doing it for the pay."
It was too few personnel which caused former Sheriff Davies to get involved in a crime scene investigation which has continued to influence his life.
"A call came in that the Martin Marietta quarry had been burglarized. I would have sent someone else but I was the only one on duty," Davies said.
Taken from the quarry were blasting caps and Tovex Blastrite.
"It seemed like they were looking for something specific. I was thinking they were looking to blow a safe," Davies said. "We worked it as a regular routine investigation, but nothing was turning up."
That quickly changed following the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred B. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
"The FBI was down here checking out Terry Nichols (a Herington resident) and it all started to tie together," he said.
Davies cannot talk in-depth about the case because he was subpoenaed to testify in the trial of the State of Oklahoma vs. Terry Nichols underway in McAlester, Okla. A gag order remains in effect until the trial's conclusion.
Several years ago he also had to travel to Denver five times to testify in the federal trial against Timothy McVeigh and Nichols.
One of his most interesting experiences as sheriff was helping put some cattle thieves who were running a chop shop out of business.
"A KBI agent came in and said he had received some information about a chop shop being run on a farm over by Burns by some fellows out of Oklahoma. They were changing the look and VIN numbers on stolen cars," Davies said.
The operation was spearheaded by a father and his two sons who also were planning on going into the methamphetamine-making business.
"They were planning on setting up a hog farm to cover up the smell of meth cooking," he said.
"The Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation stopped a truck carrying meth lab equipment before it crossed the state line into Kansas and we found the chop shop," Davies said. "They were stealing cars out of El Dorado and we found four head of stolen cattle."
The father was arrested and Davies' office solved the cattle theft, got rid of a chop shop, and stopped a meth lab setup.
Highlights
While still in Johnson County, Davies had the opportunity to get involved on a committee for Johnson County Mental Health. Later, after retiring to Marion, then-governor Mike Hayden asked him to serve on a state mental health task force as a law enforcement representative.
"I pushed to get into law that a mentally ill person couldn't be held in jail just because he had a mental illness," Davies said. "The person had to be arrested for a crime."
Another issue near to Davies' heart was chaining up mentally incapacitated prisoners.
"Ninety-nine percent — your normal run-of-the-mill person can be subdued by a couple of men," he said. "It takes time, understanding, and patience to deal with the mentally ill."
Davies said police officers deal with many mentally ill people on a regular basis.
"Most of the time they're folks who have gotten off their medication. Today, it's more of a training issue. But mentally ill people can consume a lot of your time," he said.
For his work on behalf of the mentally ill, Davies received a commendation in 1991 from the Kansas Alliance for the Mentally Ill.
Another high point of Davies' career was his involvement in the planning and construction of a new jail facility in Johnson County.
"Most jail construction then was in the pod system with one officer in the middle surrounded by cells," he said.
Spending months working with architects flying across the United States looking at different jail systems, Davies was involved in helping build one of the first prototypes in Kansas. It featured seven stories, 244 beds, and no bars.
"I took a lot of pride in its development. It was designed for prisoner and officer movement," Davies said. "It had a hospital, food service, intake area, psychiatric evaluation area, and an electronic courtroom where lawyers could meet with their clients electronically (on camera)."
Although Davies has been retired for approximately seven years, he concluded his service to Marion County March 30 with his testimony at the Nichols' murder trial.
"Now, I'm officially retired," he said with a smile. "Unless they have a mistrial or something."
