Jim Carson

Jim was born in Norway MI. The town his parents lived in, Niagara WI., was so small it didn’t have a medical facility so most everyone in town was born in a 9 bed hospital in Michigan. Jim’s great grandfather had come from Germany to Niagara in the late 1800’s to work at a local paper mill.

When Jim was in the third grade his family moved to Placerville. Many years later they moved to Lakewood where he attended Lakewood High School, the same school as Mike McEveny and Myles Elsing. He said they were a few grades ahead of him and he didn’t know them at the time. He pretty much majored in Auto Shop and worked nights at a Shell station.

Jim’s dad was a mechanic and was in demand for his mechanical skills and that caused him to move to better jobs. Jim said his dad gave him a love for cars which he still has. Unfortunately, Jim became a street racer in High School and received many citations. When he overheard his dad telling someone on the phone that “ Jim might be fast on the street but he couldn’t cut it on the track” he immediately began racing at Lion’s drag strip to show the old man he was wrong. About 20 years later he discovered there wasn’t really anyone on the phone.

Jim attended Long Beach City College 1 1/2 years and then volunteered for the draft and entered the Army when he was 19. Jim was part of a Hawk Missile unit and was

stationed in Germany. His unit was scheduled to be deployed to Vietnam but they never got the order to go and after 2 years he returned to civilian life in Long Beach and went back to school.

Jim decided to go into law enforcement and tested and was hired at LAPD. He went to the academy in May of 1970. He had several class mates that were or became NBPD officers: Ron Rogers LAPD, Lee Roberts, Don Cots, Mike Sullivan and Kent Stoddard, NBPD. Jim said most of his class was ex-military so they didn’t have a problem with discipline but the academy physical training was harder than the military training. Jim came out number 3 in his class and Ron Rogers was # 1. Jim said they didn’t have any female recruits in those days and he always thought that was a mistake. The bar arm choke hold was the most common method for controlling suspects. He worked at the Newton and Harbor Divisions.

After two years in LA, Jim decided to apply to Newport and was hired. He remembers Ernie Lauren, Wayne Connolly and Jon Schorle being on his oral board. Jim worked Patrol, F-unit, and Narcotics.

In 1976 Jim was number 1 on a Sgt’s list that was about to expire and he got a call from Lt. Campbell to come in and see the Chief. When he got there Chief Glavas told him he was going to promote him but he had to get his shoulder length hair cut. He went and got it cut and DiSanto went along and watched and was very amused.

Jim was working Patrol as a Sgt when the Personnel and Training job opened up. Captains Connolly and Hamilton told him he should apply for the job if he wanted to go anywhere in his career. Jim thanks them for getting him to do that. He worked in there 1 1⁄2 years and then went back to Detectives as Burglary Sgt.

Jim took the Lt. test in ‘82 and was #1 on the list. Chief Gross promoted him and he worked Patrol and Chief’s adjutant and traffic and then back to Det. in ‘98 until he retired in 2002.

Jim said one of the most memorable things he remembers occurred when he was in the F-Unit when he got a call to “10-19 Chief’s Office”. That was even scarier than the dreaded “10-19 W.C.” When he got there he was met by Sgt. Simon and Lt. Cibbarelli, and was told that they were conducting a personnel investigation involving illegal activity on the part of local Judges, politicians, and Police, and that some of the people involved had recently been in illicit activity at a party on Lido Island. It all turned out to be unfounded, but he never forgot the way Cibbarelli handled it. “He looked me right in the eye and said “I’m going to ask you some questions. If you lie to me I will fire you”. “I said, Lieutenant, I understand.”

“I never forgot that and I used it many times in my career to keep a guy from getting in more trouble than he was already in. One of the great things about Newport was that, just tell the truth,” Jim says.

Jim met Mary while Mary was working for the PD, at an after work party on the 4th of July 1982. Jim said they had never talked to each other before that night but they were the only old people there, both being in their early 30’s and they hit it off. They started dating and were married in 1987.

Since retiring, they moved to Arroyo Grande, CA and have been there seven years. Some time ago, Jim and a friend, both car buffs, thought they should start an informal gathering of other car buffs at a local doughnut shop on Saturday mornings. That first Saturday five show quality cars arrived. Now the attendance each Saturday is approaching two hundred cars! Jim is now the sole organizer of the group and you can see their website at http://www.pismoderelicts.com/.

Jim said he’d love to see any of us whenever we’re in the central coast area of California. Jim also mentioned that several ex-NBPD employees now work for American Homeland Solutions. The company is located in Anaheim.

If you go to their website at http://www.americanhomelandsolutions.com/ team.aspx and click on “Our Team” you will see faces and names like Russ Sutter (Senior Training Manager) and Tom Little (VP of Regional Operations). Vic Thies (President and CEO) is a retired Captain from Irvine and Joe DeLadurantey (Senior VP), member Mike DeLadurantey’s brother, was a Police Chief in Torrance, CA “if my recollection is correct.”

June 4, 2008