By By JESSICA SIEFF / Niles Daily Star
NILES – Some might say the biggest benefit to a career, is the benefit of perspective. Perspective on a job well done, lessons learned, challenges met and conquered.
When he leaves his office for the last time at the end of September, Captain James Merriman, Operations Commander of the Niles City Police Department will be leaving with more than just hindsight of his career as a police officer, but with a unique perspective on life.
"It's a long life that got me here," he said.
Merriman joined the Niles City Police Department in 1979 – and aside from a one year stint with the Niles Township Police Department, he's been with the city ever since. His mother was from the Buchanan area and died when Merriman was just seven years old. After her death, he spent time in an orphanage in Chicago until the age of 15, when he went on to high school, he said, basically taking care of himself. After high school, he decided to join the United States Marine Corps. It was 1970 and the Vietnam War and the draft were still going on. His perspective then, was to complete his duty of serving his country before "everything else." Before he had a girlfriend or a wife or a family waiting for him at home.
He spent three years with the Marines, gaining Sgt. status and when he finished, Merriman said, "I knew I didn't want to go back to Chicago." One thing that hadn't changed in him – was his desire to serve the public.
"Everyone knows helping somebody makes you feel really good inside," he said. He went eastward, looking at Buchanan, where his mother had spent her time. But Niles seemed to suit him better. And he'd wanted to join the police force – but that required being a resident of the state for at least one year. So Merriman settled in Cass County, working for the parks department five years.
It was 1979 when he focused his attention back on becoming a police officer. Joining up with the Niles City Police Department, Merriman attended Lake Michigan College, graduated from recruiting school and began a "versatile" career – 29 years long.
In his office, pictures hang on the wall of his former colleagues, his father, his grandfather – both Chicago police officers – and his former K-9 partner Billy. Merriman said he knows what it's like to interview others, with years of experience interviewing witnesses and suspects. And he knows what it's like when they command a conversation. But, he joked, "it's my turn."
His title might be intimidating, but Merriman is anything but. Often cracking a joke, he takes time to explain his point of view and even stops to shift focus to the interviewer. Not a single officer at the department has been there as long as Merriman. And whether or not he likes it, he seems to wear a fatherly figure – and some might say he wears it pretty well.
"For a career," he said. "For me, it has to be exciting and interesting … you don't do just one thing." Merriman joined the K-9 unit in 1985 until 1994. "That was probably the most exciting time of my career," he said. While officers stand at "the front of the line" in any given situation, Merriman said as part of the K-9 unit he sometimes had to go even further than the front – closer to the situation.
"Every day you come here," he added. "You don't know what that big challenge is going to be. It's dictated by nature."
Later, Merriman joined the department's detective bureau doing "more in-depth investigations." In 2002, the department approached him with the position of Operations Commander. Overseeing those operations of the department is no cushy desk job. As a police officer, "you don't want to slip up," he explained. "To where you lose the case down the road." The buck – so to speak – stops at his desk. Such a situation, Merriman said, hasn't happened at the Niles City Police Department. "We have good people here," he said. "And that's one reason why I really like it here."
He hesitates to pick one 'most memorable' memory. "There's just so many," he said. But there are plenty of lessons that he'll take with him.
It's important to "start with the basics". To be on patrol, learn how to protect a scene and survey a scene before moving on to detective work, when starting out, he said.
One aspect of the job Merriman talked about was informing a family about the death of a loved one. "For the rest of the time," he said. "You wonder, 'what could I have done different?'" He remembers his first such experience. Going past that house, he said, the memory still rushes back.
Those experiences are shared with fellow officers, a unique bond that Merriman acknowledges. Some situations, he said, one thinks, "no human eyes are meant to see this…" In those moments, fellow officers turn to each other. "People think there's a secret hidden code of blue," he said. "There's not. There's just that camaraderie."
And there are situations officers might not be prepared for. Still, "while everyone has to run away from this (danger)," he said. "We run toward it.
"We're a bunch of supermen/women sometimes," he said, explaining that he keeps posted above his desk a photo of the grieving son and wife of South Bend officer Nick Polizzotto, who was killed in April 2007. "That's what it's all about," he said.
As for his family, his wife, daughters and grandchildren await his retirement with a shared sense of loss. He married before joining the force, so when he says goodbye, he said, his wife will be saying goodbye too. "She's retiring right along with me," Merriman said. "It's our career."
For incoming officers, Merriman said, the key to success is to watch closely the work of fellow officers. "Pick their good traits," he said. "Then you develop your own self."
Future officers of the Niles City Police Department won't have the chance to observe Captain Merriman's best traits as his last day comes Sept. 26. But in his own words, it seems, the work of a police officer never really fades away. "You want to do the best job you can (as an investigator)," he said. Speaking of the affect the work has on the lives of those served, he added, "what you're going to do, will last forever."