A Story About Lt. Ernie Laurin by: Stan Bressler

For all of you that remember Lt. Ernie Laurin, I would like to share a little story.

It took quite a lot to get Ernie mad but one of his things was–he didn’t care what–if he had a prisoner in custody he wanted him shipped to County ASAP.

On a busy Fri. night in July, I was working RD 11. Neil was working 14. At around 2200 hrs., I received the dreaded call–1019 to take a prisoner to County. I mentioned to the dispatcher that we were fairly busy and could we hold off. I was advised that the Lt. wanted a guy taken to County. I was at the end of the Peninsula and a minute after the call I observed a car parked in the middle of the intersection of Balboa and Ocean with the driver side door open and the driver hanging out of the car.

I advised dispatch that I would be checking out a DUI and Ray reminded me I was supposed to 1019. I told him I couldn’t just drive past the car and I would be checking it out. Well the guy was so drunk he couldn’t stand up so I asked for transportation.

As soon as I finished with the guy I headed for the station, don’t know why transportation couldn’t go to County but it didn’t matter. Anyway, over the next hour I received 5 calls of 415 type activity. Every time I cleared a call I was reminded that I was supposed to 1019. After the third call Lt Laurin came on the air and told me to 1019 now! His voice was a little stressed. The station then gave me two more calls and told me to handle them. When I finally made it to the old station I was met at the door by Neil and he said he had never seen the Lt. so mad.

I wasn’t worried, after all dispatch had sent me on the calls.

When I got to the Lt., there was smoke coming out of his ears. He handed me an incident report for insubordination. I didn’t realize how serious he was until he told me to see the Captain the next morning. Well the next morning I went to see Captain Minugh with my log in hand. I told him what happened and showed him the calls the dispatch had sent me to while I was trying to get to the station. He confirmed the calls were sent to me and cancelled the insubordination report.

Ernie never talked to me about the incident again.

How many of you remember the little 25 Auto Ernie carried in his watch pocket? Ernie was a great guy and part of the history of Newport.

If you have a story about someone please send it in.