BY ELLIE OHLMAN
NNB Student Reporter
ST. PETERSBURG – “Call me from booking, baby! I love you!”
Police officer Rich Thomas looked up momentarily, then resumed putting Edelmiro Nadal into the back seat of his cruiser.
Nadal, 53, was being arrested on a warrant for outstanding drug charges. The snitch who turned him in? His wife, Nellie, who was now calling out endearments to him.
She did not want to call the police, she said, but she is desperate for her husband to turn his life around. “I didn’t want to do this, but he needs the help.”
It is rare – but not unheard of – for one member of a family to turn in another, said Thomas, 50, a 26-year veteran of the Police Department.
“Family members get tired of putting up with their bad habits and eventually turn them in,” he said.
During his career, Thomas said, he has seen a lot: spikes in cocaine use, child abuse, murders and domestic abuse.
For all but one of his years on the force, Thomas has patrolled District 1, which covers most of the sprawling south side of the city.
The district includes some of St. Petersburg’s nicest neighborhoods: Tropical Shores, Lakewood Estates, Bahama Shores, Pinellas Point and Broadwater.
It also includes low-income neighborhoods like Midtown, where drug use and gang violence are problems and police officers grow accustomed to the hostile stares of some residents.
Thomas’ patrol shifts have been as trying as they have been rewarding, he said. He knows that any time he is dispatched he could be heading into a tense, life-or-death situation.
In 26 years, he “has practically heard, done and seen it all,” he said. But he has never had to fire his weapon.
He plans to retire in five years. He knows those years will be bittersweet as he finishes living out his boyhood dream of being a police officer.
His plans for retirement? “Nothing,” he said.
Fair enough for a man with 32 years in law enforcement.