“Fiction” is defined as “literature in the form of prose, especially short stories and novels, which describes imaginary events and people; invention or manufacture as opposed to fact”.
However, according to members of a panel discussion that took place on Monday evening, September 26 at the Marian Auditorium on the Mount Marty University campus, there are often facts interspersed with pages and words of fiction.
The program, “A Discussion of Cops and Criminals: Facts in Fiction,” was moderated by Dr. Jim Reese, associate professor of English at MMU and director of the Great Plains Writers’ Tour. The evening’s panel featured New York Times bestselling author Marc Cameron. Also on the panel:
• Javy Murguia, who has worked in law enforcement since 2008 as a former Yankton PD Sergeant and SRT Commander and is currently a South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigations Special Agent assigned to the major crimes and crimes on the Internet;
• Josh Klimek, former unit director at Mike Durfee State Prison, recipient of South Dakota State’s highest honor in corrections — the Santan Canary Award, now director at Kopetsky’s Ace Hardware;
• Dr. Stephen Bell, who has spent more than 20 years with the Los Angeles PD, from patrol to surveillance to undercover operations, holds a Master of Science in Public Administration of Criminal Justice, a doctorate in criminal justice leadership and is the new president of criminal justice. at Mount Marty; and
• Jerod W. Ibarolle, financial advisor at Edward Jones in Yankton, and has read all of Cameron’s books.
Cameron has written two sets of novels. One series features Jericho Quinn as the protagonist, while its final series features a new protagonist, Arliss Cutter, an Alaska-based deputy U.S. Marshal. He is also the author of five Tom Clancy/Jack Ryan novels, written for the Clancy estate. He was hired by the estate to produce the sequel to The Clancy Stories featuring protagonists Jack Ryan and Jack Ryan, Jr.
Before becoming one of the best crime thriller novelists, Cameron spent nearly 30 years as Deputy Chief U.S. Marshal in various locations including Texas, Idaho and Alaska. The biography on his web page stated that his duties included fugitive operations, dignitary protection and, while in Alaska, his last stop before retirement, as a member of the Rural Tactical Tracking Unit, regularly searching hikers, hunters and fugitives lost in the vast Alaskan bush.
Cameron now resides in Alaska with his wife.
The author explained how, after his years in law enforcement, he has a myriad of experiences to draw from when designing his crime novels. He pointed out a few specific scenarios in his books in which they are almost exactly taken from situations he faced while he was a U.S. Marshal.
“Most of my stories contain things that I experienced in legal work,” Cameron said. He said that while he has a large amount of real-life situations that he uses or will use in his writing, he also gleans situations that work well from his stories, which he got from visiting or listening to other law enforcement officers.
“I draw inspiration from the stories of my friends in law enforcement,” Cameron added. “Heck, I even listened to these guys (pointing to the others on the panel) at dinner. And I took notes!
“It’s important for writers to incorporate ‘reality’ into their writing,” said Klimek, who noted that he’s a fan of crime novels and thrillers. “Those who have worked in law enforcement know that you can’t say, ‘I’ve seen it all.’ In law enforcement, instead, you say, “I’ve never seen it all.”
Bell said that during his early years with the LAPD, “Every time I called home and spoke to my dad, as soon as he answered, I was like, ‘You’re not going to believe this. that I saw today. “”
“I never thought I would see everything I’ve seen in my law career,” Bell added.
Another point that many panelists agreed on was that details – and noticing and compiling those details – matter.
Murguia said that when a case goes to trial, defense attorneys review its crime scene reports. “They will attack the integrity of an officer,” he said
“Smells. Feeling of the people involved. Mannerisms of the people. What you see. stumble over your words on the stand, the defense will jump on it and even use a little thing to tear your integrity apart.
Cameron told a story about one of his investigations when he was a relatively new young investigator as a small town police officer. He detailed how a young woman went missing and he ended up being the sole investigator of the case from their department. After a few days of searching, the woman’s body was found; she had been murdered. The Texas Rangers, a state form of U.S. Marshals, were called up. When the Rangers investigator, an elderly and experienced lawman, arrived, he joined Cameron, who was still near the body. The two were alone, so Cameron asked the Ranger for some advice on “working a crime scene.” They both knelt by the body and the Ranger knocked him down. As the lady had been missing for three days, the body showed signs of early decay, including insects and flies around it.
“He knocked the body over, causing flies and bugs to move,” Cameron explained. “He said, ‘Save everything. Details are important,” and around that time, a fly flew into his open mouth. He took the toothpick out, looked at me, reached out and took the fly out of his mouth, and said, “Even blow flies are details.”
Bell, who for part of his LAPD career was an undercover operator, said, “Details are super important. And they are really important when an undercover operator is creating their backstory. He said the most successful undercover operators were those who incorporated their own lives when creating their backstory.
Panelists agreed that there is a humanitarian element that comes into play in law enforcement, on both sides of the law.
“(Legal officers) need to understand that every crime we investigate, we need to look at things from the humanitarian side,” Murguia said. “As a cop, I worked hard to see things from the criminal side – to see them as a human being and not just a bad guy – while conducting my investigation.”
Murguia told the story of an incident in which he was involved. He arrested a man and fined him for driving under the influence (DUI). The whole time Murguia was stopping him, the man was swearing at him. “He was venting his anger at me,” he noted.
About a year later, Murguia was called to a home for a medical emergency. He arrived several minutes before the ambulance, and when he got in there was the man who had cursed him a year earlier, even though he was guilty of drunk driving, standing in the house, crying and begging Murguia to save her son’s life.
Murguia performed CPR until paramedics arrived. The boy lived. A few weeks after this incident, the man came to the LAPD building and approached Murguia. The man said he recognized Murguia at his home, and he apologized and thanked him for saving his son.
“You know, when I got to this house and saw this man, I could have said, ‘Yeah, let’s just wait for the ambulance,’ as he was crying and asking me to do something,” Murguia said. “But when I saw this man in a humanitarian way, I wasn’t mad; her son needed help and it didn’t matter what he told me a year ago.
“There are a lot of bad messages about ‘bad’ police,” Ibarolle noted. “And yes, there are bad cops. But we must remember that not all officers of the law are evil. Most of them are good people who are just trying to do their job, just like us.
Cameron explained that most “bad guys” don’t think of themselves as bad. “In fact, almost every ‘bad guy’ I’ve encountered or come across in my legal career has seen themselves as the protagonist of their life story.”
“From my experience as a correctional officer, I’ve found that most people in prison don’t see themselves as ‘bad guys’ at all,” Klimek said. “They know they made a bad decision or did something that got them in trouble. But they don’t feel like they’re bad people.
“People are a product of their circumstances,” observed Murguia after Reeves posed a final question, “Does evil exist in the world and are there people who are truly evil?” Murguia noted that there were a few people he crossed paths with who “I felt a really evil presence. There was an evil aspect to them.
Klimek added that many of the inmates he met during his correctional career, “they made choices that were bad,” but those people weren’t inherently bad.
“But there were also inmates that I had interactions with, where I found myself feeling like they were bad,” Klimek said. “I can’t say why they were like that, but I just knew they were bad.”
