- Joined
- Mar 17, 2015
- Messages
- 1,627
Disclaimer; I don't think it'll be a problem for this story to be told here. None of you know my full name, and none of y'all know where I live, or what county I work for. I won't tell the victim's name. This could've happened anywhere and none of my coworkers or the brass know I'm in a forum. So I SHOULDN'T get any heat from the department over telling this story. But if this goes against forum rules here please let me know. Also, I post this not for blowing my own horn or making myself out to be some kind of hero because I ain't but to illustrate a point about knives i guess. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time to do something once.
Most knife people, it seems, carry high quality knives. Lots of different manufacturers, steels, styles, etc. Some carry more than one knife. The one thing I think that's pretty consistent in this forum is that they're all seemingly high quality in my opinion. I have, at times, carried a quality knife and a lesser one, the mindset being the lesser quality one can be sacrificed for things that could potentially damage or destroy a knife, while keeping the better one sharp and damage free.
I keep a Buck 110 on my duty belt and a pocket clip folder clipped to a back pocket of my uniform pants. My reason being that the 110 is my very last ditch defensive tool / eating utensil sometimes. I have no illusions of knife fighting with bad guys whatsoever. But if put into a situation where all my guns are out of ammo or disabled from incoming fire or taken from me and the OC spray and Taser won't do the job... yeah, I'd use the Buck defensively. Used to be the pocket clip knife I carried for work was a cheaper one in case of damage or loss. These days it's a Benchmade Griptilian.
BUT...A long time ago I went to work one day and wound up in a very unexpected situation while carrying this knife in the back pocket; a S&W "extreme ops" with probably 1-CR-somethin-somethin-MOV blade steel. No clue what the steel is and it never mattered. It'd get dull and I'd take the diamond stones to it. Sometimes I'd stop at extra coarse and sometimes just for kicks I'd go up through extra fine and strop it to a pretty high polish. I bought it used for around $6 because I thought it looked cool, albeit in a late 90's/early 2000's kinda way with the style of it and especially the pocket clip and it's tip down only carry. I used a needle file and tweaked the locking surfaces and piddly things like that.
Pretty decent looking edge. It'll leave a bald spot on my arm still.
Well, this one day before my shift started I was talking to other deputies in the office. In there there's camera monitors of the goings-on back in the main jail. Everybody is all over the place at shift change. Sitting around talking and all were watching the monitor screens. In one holding cell was a male inmate who was hanging from a bed sheet tied around the bars in the door and hanging by his neck. Not moving. A quick glance to the monitors told us that the other cells were shut and locked, as was that one so this wasn't an escape ploy. Luckily for the inmate, he didn't have room to do a long drop hanging and so he was at the end of his makeshift rope slowly choking to death, about two foot off the floor.
Me and another guy take off with a set of keys to get back into the jail. We had to unlock a couple doors to get to the holding cell and while the other deputy was opening the holding cell door I cut him loose. I'll never know why I reached for this knife instead of the razor sharp 2 dot Buck in it's case on my duty belt at the time, I just don't know. But this S&W knife got yanked outta my back pocket and sliced through the sheet tied around the bars of the cell door, holding the inmate in the air. No sawing, just one clean slice. He fell to the floor and during the short fall he hit his head on the wall or something knocking him out cold. We sat him upright once we got in there with him and I cut the sheet out from around his neck. He was then carried to the medical room and checked out by a nurse when he came to.
Being that we were both armed in a no-gun zone, the other guy got my duty gun and took it to the arms locker. Can't have guns in a secure jail for obvious reasons. Some couple days later the inmate asked to speak with me and I went into the main jail and he thanked me and the other deputy for saving his life. I shook his hand and told him I hope things change for the better for him and never to give up. Cliche' but I'm not good at talking feelings. I reckon he'll be locked up for quite a long time on drug trafficking or some such charges. I ask about him every now and then, hoping he's doing well.
I got a very public reaming out from the brass about not carrying knives into the jail, even in emergencies. In front of a room full of admin and other cops. I told the captain that I'd do it again, and if he wanted to chew me out for something then how about carrying a Glock 9mm into the jail? He puffed up and stomped back to his office. I didn't get in any trouble but so what if I had've. Another 30 seconds to secure the piece in the arms locker and that boy would've most likely been in a body bag.
All this to say, sometimes it ain't the knife with the best steel or the tightest lockup, or even one worth more than $5, but i reckon sometimes a sharp blade is all that's really needed to do a job. The old 2 dot Buck 110 would've done the same job probably better. The newer Buck 110 and Benchmade Griptilian I carry now on duty would've too. I'm not saying anybody shouldn't carry quality, nothing of the sort. I love good steels and quality knives but this beater knife literally saved the day one time. Any sharp knife could've worked in this particular application but it was this one that I grabbed.
I got it out of my pickup earlier and wiped it down with a rag and Rem Oil and stuck it in the gun safe after i snapped a few pictures of it for y'all's enjoyment. On the shelf in the safe are Bucks from the 1970's to 2006, the unsharpened, mint stag handled Case Shark Tooth from 1975, American made Kershaws with date stamps, Grandpaw's old Case stockman from the 1960's, the last knife my uncle sharpened before his massive heart attack that took him from us, the John Primble stockman I had in my pocket when I got married and when my daughter was born,... and a much sharpened and abused second hand Smith&Wesson Extreme Ops liner lock that saved a dude's life in a jail cell.
I like to think that years down the road after his prison sentence is over with, if I ever see him I'd like to give him the knife I cut him down with if it wouldn't be too morbid a reminder of that day. I'm still on the fence on that because I wouldn't want to trigger anything like that in his mind again.
Most knife people, it seems, carry high quality knives. Lots of different manufacturers, steels, styles, etc. Some carry more than one knife. The one thing I think that's pretty consistent in this forum is that they're all seemingly high quality in my opinion. I have, at times, carried a quality knife and a lesser one, the mindset being the lesser quality one can be sacrificed for things that could potentially damage or destroy a knife, while keeping the better one sharp and damage free.
I keep a Buck 110 on my duty belt and a pocket clip folder clipped to a back pocket of my uniform pants. My reason being that the 110 is my very last ditch defensive tool / eating utensil sometimes. I have no illusions of knife fighting with bad guys whatsoever. But if put into a situation where all my guns are out of ammo or disabled from incoming fire or taken from me and the OC spray and Taser won't do the job... yeah, I'd use the Buck defensively. Used to be the pocket clip knife I carried for work was a cheaper one in case of damage or loss. These days it's a Benchmade Griptilian.
BUT...A long time ago I went to work one day and wound up in a very unexpected situation while carrying this knife in the back pocket; a S&W "extreme ops" with probably 1-CR-somethin-somethin-MOV blade steel. No clue what the steel is and it never mattered. It'd get dull and I'd take the diamond stones to it. Sometimes I'd stop at extra coarse and sometimes just for kicks I'd go up through extra fine and strop it to a pretty high polish. I bought it used for around $6 because I thought it looked cool, albeit in a late 90's/early 2000's kinda way with the style of it and especially the pocket clip and it's tip down only carry. I used a needle file and tweaked the locking surfaces and piddly things like that.
Pretty decent looking edge. It'll leave a bald spot on my arm still.
Well, this one day before my shift started I was talking to other deputies in the office. In there there's camera monitors of the goings-on back in the main jail. Everybody is all over the place at shift change. Sitting around talking and all were watching the monitor screens. In one holding cell was a male inmate who was hanging from a bed sheet tied around the bars in the door and hanging by his neck. Not moving. A quick glance to the monitors told us that the other cells were shut and locked, as was that one so this wasn't an escape ploy. Luckily for the inmate, he didn't have room to do a long drop hanging and so he was at the end of his makeshift rope slowly choking to death, about two foot off the floor.
Me and another guy take off with a set of keys to get back into the jail. We had to unlock a couple doors to get to the holding cell and while the other deputy was opening the holding cell door I cut him loose. I'll never know why I reached for this knife instead of the razor sharp 2 dot Buck in it's case on my duty belt at the time, I just don't know. But this S&W knife got yanked outta my back pocket and sliced through the sheet tied around the bars of the cell door, holding the inmate in the air. No sawing, just one clean slice. He fell to the floor and during the short fall he hit his head on the wall or something knocking him out cold. We sat him upright once we got in there with him and I cut the sheet out from around his neck. He was then carried to the medical room and checked out by a nurse when he came to.
Being that we were both armed in a no-gun zone, the other guy got my duty gun and took it to the arms locker. Can't have guns in a secure jail for obvious reasons. Some couple days later the inmate asked to speak with me and I went into the main jail and he thanked me and the other deputy for saving his life. I shook his hand and told him I hope things change for the better for him and never to give up. Cliche' but I'm not good at talking feelings. I reckon he'll be locked up for quite a long time on drug trafficking or some such charges. I ask about him every now and then, hoping he's doing well.
I got a very public reaming out from the brass about not carrying knives into the jail, even in emergencies. In front of a room full of admin and other cops. I told the captain that I'd do it again, and if he wanted to chew me out for something then how about carrying a Glock 9mm into the jail? He puffed up and stomped back to his office. I didn't get in any trouble but so what if I had've. Another 30 seconds to secure the piece in the arms locker and that boy would've most likely been in a body bag.
All this to say, sometimes it ain't the knife with the best steel or the tightest lockup, or even one worth more than $5, but i reckon sometimes a sharp blade is all that's really needed to do a job. The old 2 dot Buck 110 would've done the same job probably better. The newer Buck 110 and Benchmade Griptilian I carry now on duty would've too. I'm not saying anybody shouldn't carry quality, nothing of the sort. I love good steels and quality knives but this beater knife literally saved the day one time. Any sharp knife could've worked in this particular application but it was this one that I grabbed.
I got it out of my pickup earlier and wiped it down with a rag and Rem Oil and stuck it in the gun safe after i snapped a few pictures of it for y'all's enjoyment. On the shelf in the safe are Bucks from the 1970's to 2006, the unsharpened, mint stag handled Case Shark Tooth from 1975, American made Kershaws with date stamps, Grandpaw's old Case stockman from the 1960's, the last knife my uncle sharpened before his massive heart attack that took him from us, the John Primble stockman I had in my pocket when I got married and when my daughter was born,... and a much sharpened and abused second hand Smith&Wesson Extreme Ops liner lock that saved a dude's life in a jail cell.
I like to think that years down the road after his prison sentence is over with, if I ever see him I'd like to give him the knife I cut him down with if it wouldn't be too morbid a reminder of that day. I'm still on the fence on that because I wouldn't want to trigger anything like that in his mind again.
