My Friend Donny

This is a true story, and as in many true stories, there is the good with the bad and the funny with the sad. Most of all, this is a story of survival… Survival of an incredibly kind soul that was given a hard way to go in life, but made the best of what he had and went on day by day. Donny was a unique person, unlike any I had ever met. Believe me when I say that, for I have known some “different” (as my mother would say) people in 32 years of law enforcement. Still, Donny was one of a kind.

Donald or as everyone called him, Donny has a last name, but it’s not as important as his story, so no need to mention it here. We will be looking back into Donny’s life. You will see his differences, his thoughts and how he dealt with a world that he didn’t completely understand. You might think at times this is a sordid tale, showing his bad side and making fun of him, but in fact, it is to honor him and the way he made it through life in the cruel world and still had a good heart and could show kindness to others.

My name is Scott, or Sanford Champlin as the front of the book says, but I go by Scott or Scotty. I was a police officer in the town where Donny lived for 22 years, so I dealt with him a lot. I tell this story only from what I have witnessed or know as fact. Some of the names in this story will be changed, either due to my bad memory or to protect the innocent and/or guilty.

I first met Donny sometime in my first couple weeks as a rookie police officer in a small town in Southern Indiana. At that time, I had not even attended the Police Academy, so I was really green. The year was 1984. I was 27, and Donny was 36 years old. I had heard about him and some of his exploits, but as of yet never had seen him.

I was working the evening shift and riding with a sergeant. At about 6:30 pm, we received a call about a fight at a local tavern. We drove to the location, and as we got out of our patrol car, several people were running out of the bar. As we entered the front door, we were met with two men fighting. I grabbed one, the sergeant got a hold of the other, and we dragged them outside.

The man I had was Donny, and he was as mad as a wet cat. He was spiting, swinging, flinging his arms about trying to get by me to get to the other guy. I was just trying to get a hold of some part of him to get him under control. Finally, getting an arm and the back of his shirt, we headed for the door. Once I got him outside, and he realized I was a cop, he yanked his arm away, backing up almost knocking the sergeant down. I started forward to get a hand on Donny again, and I suddenly saw a large corn knife in his hand.

For those of you who do not know what we Hoosiers call a corn knife, it is about 18 inches long with a thick, 12-inch blade used to cut ears of corn off of plant or cut the stalks themselves, a menacing weapon.

I had just caught a flash from the blade of the knife and knew it was coming towards me. Instinctively, I sidestepped quick enough, and the blade went between my arm and ribs missing my body entirely. With no other option, because Donny was right in front of me, I clamped down on his arm and did a wrestling roll to the ground.

Wrestling for four years in high school has saved my ass more times than I can count in 32 years working the street. It made getting a suspect to the ground and getting on top of them instinctive and quick. Saved me from being gutted like a fish that day!

When I executed this “great” defensive maneuver, I didn’t realize that the sergeant had grabbed Donny from the rear, so as we flipped to the ground, the sergeant came with us. The pile ended up; the sergeant on the bottom, Donny in the middle and me on top. The force of all of us hitting the ground knocked the knife out of Donny’s hand and luckily, it landed alone on the sidewalk.

At this point the sergeant was screaming for me to get Donny off of him, Donny yelling something that sounds like a foreign language to me and me trying to get Donny’s arms so I could handcuff him. I finally pulled Donny off of the sergeant onto the sidewalk, and after a small battle, we got him cuffed.

I got a hold of the knife and threw it in the front seat of the cruiser so no one else could get to it, foolishly thinking the fight was over. As the sergeant was getting up, looking at the damage to his uniform, Donny kicked him in the knee, then spun around and tried to kick me. Donny was wearing big work boots that could have done some damage if he made contact.

The sergeant and I each grabbed one of Donny’s arms and lifted him up. He was kicking, screaming and trying to get away. We tried to get him into the back seat of the police car, but he was kicking the door and wiggling so much it was almost impossible. The sergeant told me to get a hold of Donny’s legs and keep them together, and I did, almost getting kicked in the face. Donny’s feet were moving up and down so fast, you would have thought he was running a race, and I was the road. I finally just dove down on his legs and wrapped my arms around them, pinning them down,

The sergeant went to the other side of the car, got Donny’s head in the back seat of the patrol car and we just kind of slid him in the rest of the way by his legs. We quickly shut the door; however, Donny wasn’t done, he started kicking the side windows of the car and spun around in the seat and even tried to kick the back window out. With me being the rookie, the sergeant told me to get in the back and hold Donny down until we could get him to the jail.

It was only a couple miles to the jail, but seemed like it took forever to get there, with Donny kicking, screaming and cursing all the way. I could not believe the strength that he had and the fact that he felt no pain. It was like riding a skinny bucking bronco, as I basically had to sit on him for the entire trip. The wrestling tips I knew to hold someone down, and to manipulate joints to cause pain compliance were worthless; nothing seemed worked on Donny.

When we got to the jail and pulled into the secure garage, the jailers came out to help. The first thing out of the jailer’s mouth was, “Aw shit, it’s Donny.”

Donny, by this time in his life had been in and out of jail numerous times, and they knew what to expect when he came in. One of the jailers had a pair of leg shackles to restrict his feet. After they secured his ankles, they then hobbled his feet to his hands so he could not kick. All of this helped, but Donny was still acting like a wild man.

Usually, when a prisoner is brought into the jail, they are taken into the booking room, and the suspect sits and answers questions as the officer fill out the booking card. This was not going to be an option this time. Donny was beside himself, like a madman. Donny was yelling “I’ll kill you muddersuckers, suck all of you!” The jailer said he had others in the drunk tanks, so he thought the best option was the padded cell, where Donny could not hurt himself or anyone else, although he did end up tearing covering off of the padding with his teeth.

The sergeant went to clean himself up and told me to do the booking card. I wasn’t sure how I was going to fill it out with Donny in the padded cell, but one of the jailers brought me a manila envelope with Donny’s previous arrests. The jailer told me, “All the information you need will be in there.”

I just looked at the inch-thick packet and said, “Wow.”

The jailer replied, “That’s nothing, he has another one just as thick in the file cabinet.”

I grabbed a new card and copied the information off of one of the older ones. Name, Address, Date of Birth, SS #, Height, Weight: nothing had really changed, except the date and time of arrest. Most of Donny’s charges were public intoxication and disorderly conduct, which is the one we were charging him with that night. The sergeant thought about charging Donny with Attempted Murder for the stab with the knife. However, we decided it probably wouldn’t fly at the prosecutors’ office, so we went with the lesser charge of battery.

So, that was my introduction to Donny- not pleasant, but a learning experience. The sergeant found out later from one of his snitches that someone had put a hit of PCP in Donny’s beer, just to see what he would do. Well, we found out what it could do, and it could have been lethal. Unfortunately, over the next several years this would be too common. I tried many times to explain to Donny that people would put things in his drink to make him do bad things, but he would say, “Naw, jut bad hooch water.”

I guess before I go any further I should try to explain, “speaking Donny.” Donny had a language of his own, and it was said on our police department that you were a rookie until you could speak fluent Donny. Several things made understanding Donny tough. First, he spoke in very basic English with incomplete sentence structure. Next, Donny talked very fast, more so when he got excited or mad. Donny also had his own words and names for things. Lastly, Donny had a speech impediment and could not pronounce several letters, F’s and T’s seemed to be the worst, but this didn’t slow him down trying to get his message out. I don’t know if it was a birth defect, or just not being trained to speak correctly, either way, it never seemed to get in his way of letting you know how he felt, especially if he was mad. On the other side, when Donny was calm, his speech pattern made him seem more gentle, childlike. Oh, I almost forgot, he was not shy in using profanity. He didn’t always get it right, but he liked it.

As Donny speaks, I am “Tot,” and sometimes known as that “ston-a-bitih Tot,” depending on his mood. A chicken is a “tsickin,” and a dog is always a “boy.” For some reason that no one has ever explained to me Donny has always called every sheriff, “Daddy,” and the jail matron “Mama,” as in Daddy John or Mama Jean; it’s just the way he did it.

“Hooch water,” was any kind of alcohol. I guess he called it all the same thing because he didn’t care what he drank. Anything was fine with him. I have heard him talk about “Bueer,” before, but only when he was drinking it.

Donny lived with his sister Dorothy, but he always called her Doodle Bug or just Doodle. Actually, it came out more as Dowdle Bwug. Donny would call most people by both of their names if he knew them, I was “Tot Tampwin,” John Dike was “Don Dwike,” and so on. Then, there were his names for other things. There is, “his Donson” (His penis) and “get some Puddy tat,” but I think you see where I am going here. It’s as difficult to write Donny, as it is to read it, but hang with me, his language makes the story so much more interesting, you “muddertukers!”