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A career of quiet service |
After 30 years with the Newberg Police Department,
Sgt. David James is retiring |
By Gunnar
Olson, Newberg
Graphic reporter
E-mail Gunnar at
golson@eaglenewspapers.com
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Sgt.
David James apologized for not thinking up more stories to tell of
himself. The hardest thing for him to do, he said, is talk about
himself.
His resistance to turning a conversation on himself was apparent
early this week. After 30 years as a Newberg police officer, James
is retiring. His last day is Thursday and the city saw to it that he
was sent off with a warm farewell. Council
President Bob Larson at Monday night’s council meeting read aloud a
proclamation recognizing James’ three decades of service to the
community.
“He has been and will continue to be an example for the younger
officers and for anyone in the police profession,” Larson read from
the statement prepared and signed by Newberg Mayor Bob Stewart. The
speech was met with a standing ovation.
In the room full of people James wasn’t afforded much choice but to
nod and accept the glowing remarks, which included references to a
life saved by CPR and an armed man arrested. Offered the
floor to speak, James thanked the council for the opportunity, and
the community for the chance to serve. In smaller company
James might have resisted taking too much credit.
Sitting at a coffee shop late last week, his eyes shifted from the
scribbles being made in a notebook and the traffic passing outside —
people watching mostly, he said, but with a cop’s eye for anything
suspicious. A self-described man of simplicity, James, 54, drives an
ordinary Ford sedan, dresses in plain clothes, sports a buzz cut and
wears unadorned eyeglasses. His vice in life is eating too many of
his wife’s sweets and pastries.
In retirement James hopes to teach at the state police academy in
Monmouth. He’ll also spend more time fishing and hunting, he said.
He and his wife, Judy, will spend more time with their parents as
well as their four grandchildren.
His biggest accomplishment is having been able to work all these
years, he said. Three times he confronted an armed person.
“And three is more than enough,” he said. “One is more than
enough.”
Born in Portland, he moved to Newberg at 2 years
of age. He wrestled and played football for Newberg High
School and graduated in 1968. He and his wife moved to Dundee in
1971 and live in the same house today.
James attended two years of higher education, one at George Fox
University and another at Portland Community College, before he quit
school in favor of working to support his family. He
worked for about three years at A-dec Inc., as well.
In the early 1970s law enforcement piqued his interested. One of
the reasons for the interest came from a car accident that left his
wife with injuries that occasionally pain her today. She was hit by
a drunk driver, who killed himself in the process and left his
passenger seriously injured.
“I wanted to go out there and arrest drunk drivers so others
wouldn’t have to suffer these tragedies,” James said.
He started as a reserve officer with the Newberg Police Department
in 1973. He was then hired on at the Yamhill County Sheriff’s
Office, but less than two months into his job there he was selected
to fill an opening in Newberg.
During his early years he developed a knack for spotting and
arresting drunk drivers, sullying his popularity in the small town
in an era where driving under the influence was free of the stigma
it carries today. One year early in his career James wrote more than
100 DUII tickets. (On Thursday morning, watching eastbound Highway
99W traffic with a officer’s perspective, he said he saw nothing
that sent up red flags. Newberg, he would say later, is a nice
community).
The department’s media contact, Sgt. Tim Weaver, said only Ron
Niehus, who started in 1972, has been with the department longer
than James.
“This is really the end of an era for us at the old cop plant,”
Weaver wrote in an e-mail. “He has worked so quietly around here for
these years, but those of us close to him will feel his absence and
realize the huge loss for us and the community.”
When James started with the department there were several senior
officers who served as his mentors. One of them, Ed Savage, who
rounded out his career as the police chief of Sweet Home and retired
to Newberg, was in charge of the reserve program when James was a
reserve.
“Good man,” Savage said. “Good man.”
Savage said in those days he helped decide who would be hired.
“Dave came across as intelligent and stable. Very stable,” he said.
“And a fellow with a lot of good common sense. And that’s the way he
proved to be on the job. He worked out very well.”
Toward the end of his career James became the one the
young officers looked to for guidance. James is quick to point out
that mentoring the rookies is a department effort, but James did
offer that he was at least part of the reason his two sons are now
working in law enforcement, adding, “They couldn’t be talked out of
it.”
When senior officer Mark Cooke joined Newberg in 1994 as a reserve
officer, James was the field training officer. He said to him James
is, “honestly, a hero.
“There’s not a person in the Newberg Police Department that doesn’t
know if they’re in trouble he will go through hell or high water to
bail them out.”
Once, Cooke recalled, James made contact with a woman who was
traveling through town, but who complained she was destitute with no
money for gas to make it to Portland. James had her meet him
at a gas station and with his personal credit card sent her on her
way with a tank full of gas.
Cooke, who said he’s not a “touchy, feely guy,” said it “kind of
chokes me up to even talk about the guy. He’s left a mark on the
city of Newberg.”
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From May 19,
2004, Newberg Graphic
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