Lt. J. Lee Boyd hanging up gun
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Lieutenant J. Lee Boyd will tell you he was inspired to become a police officer at a very young age because of a friend of the family. It’s a profession he eventually entered and spent more than 32 years in. Now he’s made the decision to go “10-42”, the police 10-Code signal marking the end of a tour of duty.
“I’ve had enough excitement to last a lifetime,” Boyd says with his signature grin. Now, he adds, he’s ready to spend some free time with his wife, children and grandchildren. He also intends to raise a few cattle and look after his stable of mules. “I’m not going to sit down and twiddle my thumbs.”
The police lieutenant was born and raised in Ste. Genevieve County. He grew up on rural property, but his family moved to St. Louis during World War II. It was while living in the city that his family befriended a St. Louis police officer. The family friend would come by the house a couple times a week. Young J. Lee thought the man’s occupation was admirable and upstanding, and he began thinking he might someday want to be in a profession where he could offer that same feeling of safety and security to those around him.
But as with many career paths, J. Lee’s took him in a different direction for a time. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy, going on to eventually spend 17-and-a-half years in the service. Once out of the Navy, he took a couple different jobs before eventually applying to work as a police officer. He says he wanted to be in a position to help his family if they needed him, as well as helping others. It was a chance to follow through on those feelings providing the same safety and security he had seen in his dad’s friend, the St. Louis police officer, many years earlier.
He was eventually offered a position with the Farmington Police Department and began work on Oct. 13, 1975. The police station was located at 12 South Franklin Street. The department had nine officers and three cars. Officers carried chemical mace, nightsticks and 6-shot .38-caliber “police special” revolvers. All “paperwork” was actually done on paper.
In less than two months J. Lee would live through what would eventually become one of his most hair-raising ordeals. It seems a local restaurant had been the scene of repeated burglaries. One night the police chief, Willard Dalton, drove by and noticed the store had apparently been burglarized once again.
Dalton called J. Lee, who was on duty at the time, to respond to the restaurant on Weber Road. Once arrived, the two men entered the building and smelled the odor of heating gas. They opened doors and called for the fire department to be on standby and help search for the source of the gas leak.
A old newspaper article from that week tells how Dalton and Boyd were in the building when a small explosion happened. J. Lee recalls it sounded like what you might hear if you were to drop an aluminum ladder onto a concrete floor. When the officers eventually went into the basement they found a plastic-like, sticky substance splattered all over the walls, floor and ceiling. When they looked even closer they realized just how lucky they were to still be standing there investigating the crime.
The entire burglary was an attempt to cover an internal theft. About $1,200 had been taken from a safe. The removable door to the safe was lying on the floor. A hand dolly, or “truck”, was sitting beside the safe. Across the room an electric timer had been set and attached by a length of wire to a blasting cap. Three sticks of fresh dynamite had been taped together and the blasting cap nestled in between them. The gas line feeding the restaurant’s ovens and heating system had been loosened to allow the flammable gas to permeate the building and ignite with the explosion of the dynamite.
But the problem was, investigators later discovered, was that the criminal in the case stuck the blasting cap into the crevice between the dynamite sticks — instead of seating it into the end of one of the sticks. As it happened, when the timer went off and the cap exploded — while Boyd and Chief Dalton were upstairs — instead of setting off the dynamite and gas cloud the cap merely blew apart the dynamite sticks and splattered them all over the basement.
Federal ATF agents were called in to assist with the follow up investigation. A photo in the newspaper showed Boyd, officer Leslie “Buck” Jones and Dalton looking at the timer, burglary tools, and what remained of the blasting cap and dynamite.
With that case behind him, Boyd would continue working as an officer until being promoted to sergeant in 1982. He would be promoted again, this time to lieutenant, in 1984. He’s remained in that position now for the past two decades.
Looking at his career statistically, Boyd has worked as a police officer in four decades, two centuries, for seven police chiefs, numerous mayors and dozens of council members. He saw or was part of helping implement such department programs as in-service training, a detective bureau, handheld radar, safety cages in the cars, in-car video cameras, 9-1-1 dispatching services, better log book records, school resource officers, KidCare®, and detailed field training for new officers.
Now as he looks to retire at the end of this month the police department has 35 employees, 29 vehicles, and officers carry 16-shot .40-caliber Glock semi-automatic handguns, Tasers®, pepper spray, and wear state-of-the-art body armor. Everything from dispatching records to arrests and booking forms to fingerprinting is done electronically these days. A statewide, and often nationwide, search to match a suspect to possible crimes elsewhere or an unknown suspect to a local crime can be done in a matter of minutes. That level of technology had not even been developed when Boyd put on that first badge in 1975.
As for the most extreme cases he’s worked in his career, Boyd cites some tragic fatal accidents — including a plane crash just off Karsch Boulevard which killed a husband and wife a few years ago, and an accident during a parade which killed a parade participant.
And as for some of the more lighthearted moments he’s seen, he refers back to hilarious things he’s heard mentioned on police radio traffic frequencies. He also says a highlight of the career was the many officers he worked along side — some of which could be real characters themselves.
In all, it’s been a career of few regrets and a lot of instances when he could go home after work and know he had accomplished what he dreamed of doing as a young boy — being that pillar of stability, safety and respect to those who put their trust in him.
“I’ve had enough excitement to last a lifetime,” Boyd says with his signature grin. Now, he adds, he’s ready to spend some free time with his wife, children and grandchildren. He also intends to raise a few cattle and look after his stable of mules. “I’m not going to sit down and twiddle my thumbs.”
The police lieutenant was born and raised in Ste. Genevieve County. He grew up on rural property, but his family moved to St. Louis during World War II. It was while living in the city that his family befriended a St. Louis police officer. The family friend would come by the house a couple times a week. Young J. Lee thought the man’s occupation was admirable and upstanding, and he began thinking he might someday want to be in a profession where he could offer that same feeling of safety and security to those around him.
But as with many career paths, J. Lee’s took him in a different direction for a time. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy, going on to eventually spend 17-and-a-half years in the service. Once out of the Navy, he took a couple different jobs before eventually applying to work as a police officer. He says he wanted to be in a position to help his family if they needed him, as well as helping others. It was a chance to follow through on those feelings providing the same safety and security he had seen in his dad’s friend, the St. Louis police officer, many years earlier.
He was eventually offered a position with the Farmington Police Department and began work on Oct. 13, 1975. The police station was located at 12 South Franklin Street. The department had nine officers and three cars. Officers carried chemical mace, nightsticks and 6-shot .38-caliber “police special” revolvers. All “paperwork” was actually done on paper.
In less than two months J. Lee would live through what would eventually become one of his most hair-raising ordeals. It seems a local restaurant had been the scene of repeated burglaries. One night the police chief, Willard Dalton, drove by and noticed the store had apparently been burglarized once again.
Dalton called J. Lee, who was on duty at the time, to respond to the restaurant on Weber Road. Once arrived, the two men entered the building and smelled the odor of heating gas. They opened doors and called for the fire department to be on standby and help search for the source of the gas leak.
A old newspaper article from that week tells how Dalton and Boyd were in the building when a small explosion happened. J. Lee recalls it sounded like what you might hear if you were to drop an aluminum ladder onto a concrete floor. When the officers eventually went into the basement they found a plastic-like, sticky substance splattered all over the walls, floor and ceiling. When they looked even closer they realized just how lucky they were to still be standing there investigating the crime.
The entire burglary was an attempt to cover an internal theft. About $1,200 had been taken from a safe. The removable door to the safe was lying on the floor. A hand dolly, or “truck”, was sitting beside the safe. Across the room an electric timer had been set and attached by a length of wire to a blasting cap. Three sticks of fresh dynamite had been taped together and the blasting cap nestled in between them. The gas line feeding the restaurant’s ovens and heating system had been loosened to allow the flammable gas to permeate the building and ignite with the explosion of the dynamite.
But the problem was, investigators later discovered, was that the criminal in the case stuck the blasting cap into the crevice between the dynamite sticks — instead of seating it into the end of one of the sticks. As it happened, when the timer went off and the cap exploded — while Boyd and Chief Dalton were upstairs — instead of setting off the dynamite and gas cloud the cap merely blew apart the dynamite sticks and splattered them all over the basement.
Federal ATF agents were called in to assist with the follow up investigation. A photo in the newspaper showed Boyd, officer Leslie “Buck” Jones and Dalton looking at the timer, burglary tools, and what remained of the blasting cap and dynamite.
With that case behind him, Boyd would continue working as an officer until being promoted to sergeant in 1982. He would be promoted again, this time to lieutenant, in 1984. He’s remained in that position now for the past two decades.
Looking at his career statistically, Boyd has worked as a police officer in four decades, two centuries, for seven police chiefs, numerous mayors and dozens of council members. He saw or was part of helping implement such department programs as in-service training, a detective bureau, handheld radar, safety cages in the cars, in-car video cameras, 9-1-1 dispatching services, better log book records, school resource officers, KidCare®, and detailed field training for new officers.
Now as he looks to retire at the end of this month the police department has 35 employees, 29 vehicles, and officers carry 16-shot .40-caliber Glock semi-automatic handguns, Tasers®, pepper spray, and wear state-of-the-art body armor. Everything from dispatching records to arrests and booking forms to fingerprinting is done electronically these days. A statewide, and often nationwide, search to match a suspect to possible crimes elsewhere or an unknown suspect to a local crime can be done in a matter of minutes. That level of technology had not even been developed when Boyd put on that first badge in 1975.
As for the most extreme cases he’s worked in his career, Boyd cites some tragic fatal accidents — including a plane crash just off Karsch Boulevard which killed a husband and wife a few years ago, and an accident during a parade which killed a parade participant.
And as for some of the more lighthearted moments he’s seen, he refers back to hilarious things he’s heard mentioned on police radio traffic frequencies. He also says a highlight of the career was the many officers he worked along side — some of which could be real characters themselves.
In all, it’s been a career of few regrets and a lot of instances when he could go home after work and know he had accomplished what he dreamed of doing as a young boy — being that pillar of stability, safety and respect to those who put their trust in him.
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