Working the front desk at a police station on a Saturday night is one of the most harrowing and maddening jobs imaginable. An officer can easily get behind in his duties when the phone is constantly ringing, prisoners are going in and out of the jail, paperwork is piling up, traumatized victims and witnesses are being herded through the hallways, and the miscellaneous weird people are wandering in. Bob Ferguson, an Indiana cop now retired, was working the desk on just such a night.
“A guy comes in around two o’clock in the morning and says, ‘I’m wanted for robbery in Illinois, and I wanted to turn myself in,’” Ferguson says. “It just so happened that the desk I was working was located in Indiana. It was a crazy night, and there were a lot more pressing problems at hand than this guy. We were booking a rather violent guy on narcotics, and I had drunk teenagers throwing up in the lobby. Not to mention a prostitution sting that was processing about three hookers and five johns every ten minutes.”
In the confusion, the officer blurted out, “That’s all well and good, but I’m kind of busy. Either go to Illinois or come back at six.” And at six o’clock on the dot, the man came back and turned himself in.
Bob Ferguson told the man how much he appreciated his punctuality “ . . . then I politely booked him.”