The Day I Was Kidnapped

Okay, now that I have your attention, I will tell you the title should read, "The Day They Thought I was kidnapped".

This is an old story that goes back to my days when I was a deputy sheriff for San Bernardino county and was working the night shift at the county jail in San Bernardino.

Whenever I worked the night shift I was prone to sleeplessness. Usually I would work in the garden a few hours and then try to get some shut-eye before going in to work. I have never been a day sleeper. There is something about the sun being above the horizon that won't let my brain shut down for sleep.

We had two little ones in the house at the time and my wife was having a hard time keeping them quiet. I got up out of bed and decided I would go for a ride on my motorcycle.

After I hit the road, I thought I would take a ride to Ontario via Highland Avenue to visit my grandpa Baguley. It was a beautiful day, and I rolled the throttle in my right hand and sped into the noon day breeze as I headed west on Highland, with my brown coat flying in the slipstream like a flag whipping the sky.

I arrived in Ontario shortly, and had a nice visit with my grandfather. After a short visit, I decided it was time to head back home again.

My house was on north "D" st, in San Bernardino. As I turned the corner onto D st, I saw in front of my home two sheriff patrol cars, with Captain Pounders from Central division. Being inside the city limits I wondered why sheriff's vehicles were there and why were they at my house? I saw my friend and neighbor, Renato Giannini, also a deputy sheriff who worked with me at the jail, in front of my house.

They heard my motorcycle as I approached, and Renato looked like he was about to cry. I saw Capt. Pounders get on the radio and told the Central Division dispatcher to call off Forty-King (Our helicopter).

As I coasted to a stop in front of my house, I asked Renato what the heck is going on? He said, "Dude, where is your wallet?" Still not catching on to what the hubbub was all about, I reached into my coat pocket to pull out my I.D. wallet with my sheriff's badger. It was gone. That is when Renato handed it to me.

"Someone found it on Highland Ave. and called the sheriff's office. We thought you had been kidnapped by someone from the Venceremos, a radical group that morphed into the Simbianese Liberation Army (famous for the soon-to-occur shoot out they had in L.A with the police and FBI, (and, who had also kidnapped Patty Hearst).

We had some of their founding members in our jail at the time, and had convicted them for murder and escape from Chino Prison. It seems they had made a threat to get even, and kill some of our officers. They were sure I was the first to go down.

Stunned, I apologized, and to my chagrin, the officers involved all wiped away tears of joy and relief, and left happy.

I few moments later I found out from my wife the terror she went through when the officers came to the door.

She related to me she heard a knock at the door and when she opened it, a deputy forced his way into the house. It seems her frizzy hair, dark skin, and Spanish accent made them suspicious. The officer sternly demanded her to show her identification, which she did while holding our baby daughter, Cynthia, in her arms.

They checked all through our house to make sure no one else was hiding about. It was then my wife started to get scared, not knowing what was going on and why.

Apparently it all cooled off just as I showed up. Needless to say I never rode my motorcycle again without securing my wallet in a safer pocket.