Editor’s Note: We’ve had some requests to republish this even though it remains live on line. Below is a reprinting of the Premier Episode wherein we launched The Oceanside Chronicles and introduced the primary character, Max Breaklin. Enjoy!
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Season 1, Episode 1:
The sun shone brightly on that Friday afternoon in May. New police officer Maximillian Jason Breaklin – “Max” to his family and “Break” to his friends/workmates – stood at attention, in formation with his classmates, listening as the Academy Graduation Ceremony program unfolded. Occasionally allowed to stand at parade rest, Max remembered a few of those who started out in his class but who didn’t make it all the way through for various reasons. Some lasted days; some lasted weeks. Several of them, he thought, wouldn’t have been able to stand in formation for the time it would take the academy leadership to make their speeches before certificates of graduation and badges were handed out.
The Academy Commanding Officer (ACO) took the stage after the National Anthem had been sung by one of Max’s classmates and the Pledge of Allegiance had been said. As the ACO began his typical litany about challenges faced and overcome by the recruits, Max let his mind drift back over the events in his life that he felt had led him to this moment…
Adopted as an infant into a family of financial managers, Max couldn’t remember a time when his father hadn’t voiced the expectation that Max would follow the family footsteps. That meant going to private schools and eventually a good college and entering the family business until the day he would take it over – and then pass it along to his oldest son, as had four generations of Breaklin before him. When Max became a junior volunteer firefighter at the age of 14, his father had expressed surprise by tolerance. After all, it was good for a young man to perform a little community service before living off money made with other people’s money. When Max became an Emergency Medical Technician three years later – still heavily involved in the firehouse activities and responding to calls – Max’s father made it clear that this trivial involvement would have to stop once college started so Max could focus on what was important. Max fondly remembered the times he spent away from “the ancestral home,” as his father referred to it, camping and hunting in the forests nearby. He enjoyed nature and felt challenged when he wasn’t living in the posh family environment.
The ACO’s closing remarks and resulting applause pulled Max back to the present moment. Standing at parade rest he was permitted to clap and did so perfunctorily, as respect for a higher rank required, but not motivated by any true appreciation for what the ACO had said. After all, Max hadn’t really heard any of it this time. He’d heard it all in several practice runs during the last few days of the academy. Truth be told, he’d rather have been someplace else except that he’d worked so hard to be where he was. After the ACO stepped down, the Academy Training Coordinator (ATC) stepped up to the podium to speak about the specific training curriculum, recent challenges in and to law enforcement, and how the academy had tried to address those issues specifically. With a barely discernable movement, Max shrugged his shoulders, flexed his arms out, did the same with his legs and then went back to his near completely relaxed parade rest position. He knew he could stand in this position for hours; he had learned how and done so in the Navy.
On the day after he graduated from high school, near the end of the graduation party his parents had thrown for him, Max announced his enlistment into the United States Navy. To say that this upset his parents, particularly his father, would be a huge understatement. To think that any Breaklin would serve in a military uniform was absurd. To do so as a mere enlisted man… blasphemy! His father all but disowned him that day and his mother wept with her disappointment. Max was happy that the recruiter picked him up early the next morning and swept him away to what would become his life for the next five years. He had turned eighteen just days before graduating and hadn’t finalized the enlistment contract and oath until then. Of course he had hidden it all from his parents – or his home life would have been pure hell. He knew that.
Basic training was followed by Corpsman school. Max had enlisted to become a medic since he’d enjoyed all his activities as an EMT and he liked serving the community. It gave him a sense of accomplishment. After he graduated he was assigned to a Marine Corps MEUSOC (Marine Expeditionary Unit – Special Operations Command) platoon since Marine’s don’t have medics of their own. He spent the following years training and deploying with them, serving several combat tours and earning a handful of ribbons that he was proud of. His father replied only once to one of his letters home and that reply was short and definitely not sweet. It read, “Don’t waste any more paper or ink writing to us. You made it clear that the family and our values mean nothing to you. We wish you well in your adult life but it is one separate from what we consider important.”
Max considered it a release of sorts since it meant he had no obligation to communicate with or visit home. He was free to spend time with the men and women he’d come to know and respect as brothers and sisters in arms. He made friends that would last a lifetime, had saved lives, had faced and overcome challenges and firmly believed that he was a better man than his father could ever appreciate. His Honorable Discharge, Purple Heart, Navy Cross and other awards meant more to him than the letter from his father.
Once more the applause interrupted his reverie. The ATC had finished and the last speaker was coming up: a representative from the Chief’s office. The Chief of Police would have been in attendance but had been in a serious car accident just that morning. While some graduating cadets had grumbled about that story likely being BS and that the Chief was enjoying the beautiful day on the golf course, Max knew the truth: it didn’t matter. Whether the Chief was there or not, all of the graduates were attaining their goal today. Whether the Chief’s absence was a choice or the result of an accident only said something about the Chief’s character and leadership ability. As the Chief’s senior aid began his (hopefully) short speech, Max escaped into the recent past one last time.
With his Honorable Discharge and DD214 in hand, Max had applied to the Oceanside police department. It wasn’t the only place he’d applied and tested, but it was the first place to call him in for follow up. Max wasn’t surprised that other applicants were preferred over him. Many agencies focused more on the requirement for a college education than the usually available waiver of it if military service could be substituted. The recruiter for Oceanside was a Marine – albeit not having served on active duty for many years, but “once a Marine, always a Marine,” still applied, so the man was a Marine. That particular recruiter looked at Max’s DD214 with its list of qualifications, deployments and awards and had asked only two questions: “Can you pass the drug test? Do you think you suffer from PTSD?” Max figured those were the two questions he was required to ask for agency liability protection purposes.
A couple weeks later Max started the 24 week long academy. He had helped fellow cadets master the care and presentation of their uniform. He had challenged himself against a Marine veteran who was elected as the class president. Together they drove each other to peak performance. They were two of the three cadets who had scored the maximum allowable on the physical fitness test prior to graduation. Max was proud of his performance in all of the major disciplines measured by the academy. Academically he had ranked number two. On the firing range he had ranked number three. On the driving course he had ranked number two. While had hadn’t ranked number one in any of them, he was the only cadet in the class that had ranked in the top three in all of them. It was enough to make the ACO sit up and take notice. Max’s personnel file got an added note from the ACO that read, “Cadet Maximillian Breaklin has a bright career future ahead of him. While not number one in any given discipline, he was easily the number one cadet overall in the program, and one of the most motivated cadets we’ve graduated.”
When the Chief’s Aid finished his speech the applause sounded and the moment Max had stood patiently waiting for had arrived. With precise movements in response to crisp orders, the graduating cadets filed out of their formation and into line at one side of the stage. In alphabetical order they filed across, first saluting the ACO and the Chief’s Aid, and then shaking with their right hand as they took their certificate with their left hand. Then, stepping across the stage, they stopped so that a selected person could pin on their badge for the first time. Most of the graduates had a spouse pin on their badge. The spouses, after all, had suffered through their time in the academy too. The academy might have been eight to ten hours per day, but that included weekends, evenings and holidays and the spouses had had to pick up any extra burdens at home as a result.
For Max, the person was his older sister. She was the only family member who had responded to the invitation to attend. His parents hadn’t even bothered to respond with a, “No, thank you.” His sister, five years his senior, was the only person who had remained supportive of him, expressing her pride in his accomplishments. She often bragged to friends about her “baby brother,” and the siblings enjoyed a strong bond that was founded in their parents’ narrow minded view of their purpose in the world. Where Max had been expected to take on the family business, his sister had been expected to marry someone in the same field of financial management and then do nothing but keep house and raise grandbabies that grandparents would play with on occasion. She had, instead, chosen to go to college and had earned an MBA from Brown University, shrugging off her father’s half-hearted attempts to help her get a job afterward. Like Max, to some extent, she was determined to do it her own way in her own time and without owing her parents anything.
When the ceremony was over, Max was able to relax his professional demeanor a bit to give her a big hug. Given that he was six feet two inches tall and she was a foot shorter, the hug ended up being one that left her feet dangling and her giggling as his long arms reached all the way around her to tickle her as he hugged her; something he’d done since he had gotten taller than she. It was the little brother way of picking on his big sister – and she loved it even though she gave him a hard time about it every time he did it.
Also in attendance at the ceremony was Max’s assigned Field Training Officer. Corporal Edward Presser was also a military service veteran and had been with the Oceanside Police Department (OPD) for just shy of ten years. He’d earned a reputation as a hard charger and had produced some good arrests as the result of tenacious and detail oriented investigations. The surprise was that he had never been a detective but had, often without their help, closed several cases the detectives had deemed unsolvable or “cold.” He just didn’t believe in giving up. The ACO had assigned Max to Cpl. Presser, or “Eddie” as he preferred, so that there’d be a strong and capable hand mentoring Max as he grew into his early career.
When they met, the men eyed each other with a military professional look. The uniform was maintained and worn properly. The man was fit and neatly groomed, from his haircut to his fingernails. The shoes weren’t just shined but were gleaming with a mirror like finish you could shave in. Neither man had a beard or mustache and each noticed that the other’s uniform had been carefully tailored. The overall presentation was one of professionalism to the highest degree.
While most graduating cadets, now called rookies – and happy to no longer be cadets even though they weren’t fond of the term rookie (no rookie ever is) – weren’t scheduled to work for the next four to five days, Max began his duty shift rotation the very next day. He wasn’t sure if he was excited or not about his first tour being a usually slow day shift Saturday, but he knew he wasn’t going to complain. First off, he had nothing planned anyway so he wasn’t missing out on anything by working. Secondly, he’d rather jump into the mix as soon as possible rather than taking a leisurely four to five days of relaxation and then having to get his head “back in the game,” as he thought of it.
Eddie told him when to be ready for pick up the next morning. They shook hands, agreed that they were each looking forward to working with the other and then started to part ways. Max stopped Eddie before he could take a step though. He had something he wanted to say. “Eddie, listen,” Max said in an even voice. “I need a favor from you.”
“A favor, rookie?” Eddie smiled. “We haven’t even started working yet and you’re asking a favor?” He seemed the kind of guy that would give you a hard time only if he liked you, so Max didn’t worry about it much. He just continued on.
“Yes, sir, a favor,” he answered. “I need you to not be easy on me. I’m hard headed; sometimes overly so. I’m strong willed and determined. I’ve got a forceful personality. I’m grateful that the ACO assigned a service veteran as my FTO because it means you already know most of what I would say, so all I’m asking is this: don’t just mentor me as if I’m any other rookie. Mentor me as if I’m the guy you willingly trust to shoot over your shoulder at any moment in any crisis. Mentor me into being the cop you think I’m capable of; not the cop the agency will settle for.”
Eddie absorbed that for a moment and then slowly nodded his head. “You got it, rookie.” He extended his hand and they shook; strong grips moving up and down twice before stopping and holding. “See you in the morning,” Eddie said and then let go.
Max had seen the look in Eddie’s eyes and knew he’d get what he asked for. He wouldn’t complain. He’d delight in every critical comment Eddie made. As good as Max was, there was much he didn’t know – but Eddie did, and probably better than others. When the end of his Field Training came and he was “cut loose,” Max wanted to be viewed as competent and professional without any qualms or hesitations or qualifying remarks afterward. He had made a name for himself through his performance in six months of the academy. He wanted to do the same thing in the six months of his FTO program. He felt that Eddie not only understood that but understood why and would help Max along by being hard on him. So be it.
Max returned to his sister and the celebration, enjoying a couple hours of no worries but lots of congratulations. Tomorrow would be a different day, but for now he could revel in the accomplishment his hard work had earned. It was a feeling he suspected his father had just never known.
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“So, tell me some more about yourself,” Eddie asked, but it sounded like an order. Max was used to that. His time in the service around no-nonsense folks like Eddie had prepared him for a career in a field inhabited by such people.
“What’s to tell?” Max answered, not meaning to be evasive. “School, firehouse, Navy, police academy. We’ve already talked about everything except that I’m not married, live by myself and don’t like cats.” He’d added on the last part only because Eddie’s uniform had displayed a stray hair that morning when Max climbed into the passenger side of the squad car. When Max pointed it out Eddie had commented about how he always still had cat hair on his uniform even after repeated tape rollings. Max had made a face about cats and Eddie had become defensive in a big way. Apparently, Eddie’s wife liked cats and not liking cats was akin to disapproving of his wife. That wasn’t what Max was doing and they both knew it, but they also both knew it was his first day and Eddie was all but required to give him a bit of a hard time back.
“Watch it, rookie,” Eddie said seriously. “You’ve got six months with me and they can be easy or they can be hard.”
“So, without or with the cats in the car?” Max joked again. It would have been way out of line except that they were three hours into their first tour and had already gotten to know each other fairly well. Eddie knew that Max had what it would take to be a good cop. Max knew that Eddie was a good cop and would help him learn how to be a better one. Both had discussed, albeit briefly, their military service records and, for these men, that revealed much. Thanks to that veteran background, Max got more respect from Eddie than most other rookies would and Max knew he could trust Eddie far more than he would any other brother cop (or sister cop). It was a matter of having “been there and done that” in conditions where lesser men didn’t come back with clean underwear. Truth be told, they’d both seen combat. Both had returned from operations needing clean underwear and neither saw the need to apologize for it. It’s just how it was.
In response to Max’s joking jab, Eddie just shook his head and kept on driving. Max saw the small smile on his face though and knew everything was okay. They’d been on patrol for the largest part of the morning. They both liked their coffee strong and black. They both agreed that patrols needed to be unpredictable and follow no discernable pattern. They stopped here and there to greet people Eddie knew in his patrol sector. Eddie introduced Max to some of them as Break. Others he introduced Max to as Officer Breaklin. Max paid attention and knew what the difference meant. It was the difference between the good and the bad. For those who met him as Break he knew he’d met decent citizens who got one message: there’s another competent yet friendly officer on the beat. For those he met as Officer Breaklin the message was quite different: There’s another competent professional cop on the beat and you’d be better off not to be on the wrong side of the law around him.
As they were discussing potential options for lunch the call came out on the radio for a traffic accident, pedestrian struck in their sector. Eddie reached for the microphone, keyed up and answered the call at the same time he checked his rearview and sideview mirrors, palming the wheel hard left to throw a u-turn. Max began to turn through all the appropriate protocols in his head as they covered the roughly two miles to the scene. What they rolled up on didn’t look good.
A female was down in the roadway, next to a badly damaged bicycle, both of them showing blood. There was also a car stopped that showed damage to its driver’s side front fender and more blood. There was a man… a white male, just under six feet tall with short brush cut brown hair, squatting beside the woman, gently slapping her cheek and trying to get a response from her. When Eddie pulled the cruiser up the squatting man seemed to become aware of his surroundings, looked up, saw the police car and bolted in the opposite direction on foot.
“Take care of her!” yelled Eddie as he jumped from the driver’s side of the cruiser. “Got it!” yelled Max in reply as he got out, got the first aid kit out of the trunk and went to the downed woman. As Max evaluated the woman he kept one ear on the radio, listening as Eddie called out his location in foot pursuit of the suspect.
The woman didn’t have any serious apparent injuries but was unresponsive all the same. As he pulled on a pair of latex gloves, Max scanned the woman and the area to see what he could learn in a precious few seconds. Most of her injuries looked like abrasions but they also seemed to be all over her. She was wearing shorts and a tank top and, as Max looked around, he couldn’t see a helmet anywhere. Gently feeling her scalp as he spoke to her in a soft but confident voice, he felt lumps and swelling along with the stickiness of blood.
Pulling one eyelid back he checked her pupils for dilation and responsiveness to light. He didn’t like what he saw. Eddie was still calling out his location and other units were responding. Max knew an ambulance was on the way but he also knew that he likely needed a medic unit instead. The difference was capability of both the vehicle equipment and those who staffed it. Making a quick decision, he waited for a pause in Eddie’s radio traffic before keying up his own mic: “Unit 1095 on the scene of the hit and run. I need a medic unit here in place of or addition to the ambulance. Female is unresponsive and displays cranial contusions.”
“Roger that, 1095,” came the dispatchers terse reply. He knew that, at her console, she was typing a message to the emergency medical dispatchers to get the medic unit started. The ambulance pulled up just a few seconds later and then another squad car. It was about then that Eddie began calling for assistance a couple blocks south. His voice didn’t sound as controlled as Max thought it should have been. It sounded stressed – not with anger but with concern.
Turning to the officers from the second squad car Max asked, “You guys got this? I need to go get my partner.”
“Go!” was the only response he got. Jumping into the squad car as he took off his bloodied gloves, turning them inside out on each other as he had been repeatedly trained to do, he got seat-belted and slid it into gear. It was a matter of less than two minutes to get to where Eddie was but he didn’t like what he saw when he got there. There was the suspect on the ground, face down and handcuffed, but there stood Eddie with blood dripping from his left hand and a pained look on his face.
Max jumped out, grabbing the first aid kit he had thrown into the passenger seat and pulled on another pair of gloves. “What happened?” he asked as he approached.
“Caught my ring on that last fence,” answered Eddie curtly. He held up his left hand and Max could see where Eddie’s wedding ring had dug into his finger, tearing the skin and pulling back almost all the way to the first knuckle. Max could see the bone through the blood and he knew Eddie would need some stitches. Positioning himself so he could look past Eddie and easily see the suspect, Max started to pull out the first aid supplies he felt he would need.
“You already search him?” Max asked, pointing at the suspect with his chin.
“Yeah,” replied Eddie. Holding up a small glassine package in his right hand he continued, “He ran because of this little rock.” He stopped and shook his head, thinking about the criminal charges, processing, court and other time he’d spend on the case. “He’ll probably get more time for the hit and run than for the crack possession charge.”
Max shrugged his response. He was busy trying to not hurt Eddie has he gave a quick clean and bandage to the finger. Then he realized he wasn’t working around a ring. “Where’s your wedding ring, Eddie?”
“Probably back there on the fence,” Eddie replied. “I didn’t stop to look for it but Ann’s going to be pissed if I’ve lost it. Told her I shouldn’t wear it on duty but she wouldn’t hear of it.”
About then another squad car pulled up and two officers got out. At Eddie’s request they took the suspect for transport and one of them began searching him again. Eddie wasn’t offended. It wasn’t an insult or a suggestion that he hadn’t done it properly. It was simple good police policy. Every time you take possession of a prisoner, YOU search him to make sure YOU are safe. It didn’t matter how many times he’d been searched before.
With the prisoner secured, Max and Eddie walked back along the route that the chase had followed. About fifty yards away was the fence line where Eddie had injured his hand and there, along with the blood smear, was his gold wedding ring, hanging on one link of the chain-link fence. The fence was just about four feet tall and Max idly thought Eddie was lucky that he hadn’t ripped all the skin off his hand. While Eddie watched, Max got the ring, cleaned it off and then handed it to him with a question.
“Have you ever heard of QALO rings?” Max asked.
“I’ve seen ads,” Eddie replied, “But I’ve never seen one in person.”
“Lots of the guys I worked with over in the sand wore them,” Max explained. “Basically a rubber ring, it breaks before there’s enough pressure on it to do you harm. Not very expensive… less than twenty bucks a piece I think. And some of the guys actually had ring replacement ceremonies before deploying so their wives felt comfortable with the temporary replacement.” Max looked at Eddie’s bloody hand and then looked back up at Eddie. “You think Ann might be okay with that?”
Eddie smiled as only a twisted Marine would do after being injured and held up his bandaged hand. “More than she would be with a nine-fingered husband.”
After Eddie’s visit to the hospital, they went back to the station house and took over the processing and charging of the suspect. He was what Eddie called a “typical fish.” He had a criminal record that reached back almost a decade and had several drug related charges; all “chump change” personal use type charges that judges normally didn’t give any time for. This time might be different, Eddie thought. The hit and run – which was what he effectively did and was charged with – carried a year in jail possible time if he was convicted.
Paperwork, the appearance before the magistrate to have bail set, etc. took the remainder of the afternoon and then Max was driving Eddie home. As Max drove, Eddie talked. “Normally, rookie,” he said, “I’d take you out for a cold one after a clean successful first day on the job.” Then he held up his bandaged left hand – the gauze concealing six stitches around the base of his ring finger – and said, “But I don’t think I can justify calling this a successful day.”
“It’s all good,” Max said casually. “I don’t drink anyway so I won’t miss the cold beer. Talk to your wife about those QALO rings I mentioned. Next time you might do more than tear skin and get stitches. Next time you might lose the finger. Convince her to be proactive.”
“Hey,” said Eddie with a grin. “Who’s the FTO here? Me or you?”
Max just chuckled in reply. He dropped Eddie off and drove the cruiser home. Eddie had gotten the sergeant’s permission for that since rookies in the FTO program weren’t supposed to be alone in the cruiser. Given Max’s performance in the academy and his demeanor throughout the incident, Eddie convinced “The Sarge” to let it slide.
Tomorrow they’d find out about Eddie’s status for full, light or admin duty but the evening lay ahead and Max felt good about his first day on the job being complete. He already had an arrest under his belt and a war story to tell, not to mention good comments from the paramedics and EMTs at the scene about how he’d handled it all. He was hoping Eddie’d still somehow be able to work the street because he didn’t want to lose his FTO after just one day.
Who knew what tomorrow might bring? He was looking forward to finding out.
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Editor’s Notes: In every episode of The Oceanside Chronicles we’re going to try to call attention to some learning point, whether it’s a potential duty hazard, a policy or protocol change that impacts us, or whatever. In this episode we see the sometimes-not-thought-about dangers of a hard metal wedding ring and the potential it has to be caught on a hard object resulting in a potentially crippling injury to the officer. The solution we cite is the silicone rubber rings manufactured by QALO. With a snapping point of 40 pounds of pressure, they’ll break before injuring your hand. If it’s not a solution you’ve already explored, we invite you to search “QALO” on our site to get more information about the product as well as how some officers are actually holding small blessing ceremonies so that the rings hold similar, if not the same, sentimental and symbolic value as the original wedding rings.
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Editor’s Notes & Officer Survival Concerns
Officer Survival & other comments on Episode 5:7:
We see the comments from the first episode above. For this episode we need to thank Elbeco Uniforms for their sponsorship and support. Stay safe!
Officer Survival & other comments on Episode 5:6:
Police Week is an important part of the law enforcement family experience. If you’ve never gone to the National Law Enforcement Memorial, you should make the time to go visit. It’s an energy filled place and, especially this week while you can visit with tens of thousands of your Thin Blue Line family members, it can truly move you.
Thank you to Elbeco Uniforms for sponsoring this episode.
Officer Survival & other comments on Episode 5:5:
We often don’t pay attention but uniform comfort can play a big role in how efficiently we do our jobs. Elbeco makes a wide variety of uniform designs to fit every need.
Officer Survival & other comments on Episode 5:4:
We’d like to thank our sponsor, Elbeco, for supporting this on-going fiction crime-drama. Check out their full line of uniforms and apparel on their website.
Officer Survival & other comments on Episode 5:3:
With the end of spring and launch of summer there are usually a lot of bar openings, special events on beaches, etc. They all bring with them particular risks and threats that we can only avoid or minimize so much. Temptation grows to play hero, lone gunman, whatever. Remember the Ten Deadly Errors and stay on your guard. The imperative is going home whole and healthy at the end of your shift.
Officer Survival & other comments on Episode 5:2:
No officer survival comments on this one except this: We ALL have emotional turmoil that enters our life. It IS very distracting. We can’t safely work distracted like that. Talk to someone if that’s where you are in your head. Get it sorted out. DO NOT go to work that distracted and unfocused. It can get you killed.
Officer Survival & other comments on Episode 5:1:
Few outside our profession can relate to the fears and complications associated with any shooting situation. They’re not usually aware of how politics can impact police work in all the wrong ways. As we can see in this story, the significant other (JP) of an injured officer (Max) is having her doubts about the relationship due to her own fears of lost stability. We also get to listen in on the conversation between the Mayor and the Chief and see how their concerns are different. Be that as it may, the Mayor’s concerns WILL impact how the Chief acts or reacts because ultimately he answers to the Mayor. Please remember to visit our supporter for this episode: Elbeco Uniforms. Great products to cover you in all your uniform needs.
