If you like stories with a bit of adventure and a bit of history focused on Cook County, you should put “Chasing Justice,” by Richard (Dick) Dorr, on your reading list.
Almost 30 years after he was forced to retire from the Cook County Sheriff’s Department for health reasons in 1997, Dick reviewed all the log books he’d kept during his career to craft his memoir.
He’d thought about writing it in the early years of his retirement, but he found the emotions associated with the memories were just too raw. Although his book doesn’t shy away from his own emotions and errors, he wrote, “Some of the memories were too dark to revisit.”
Dick seemed destined to make a career in law enforcement. His dad worked for the US Border Patrol and was transferred to Grand Marais to be chief of the station when Dick was 11 years old. He writes fondly about memories of his dad’s uniform, badge, and gun. His dad’s brother became a sheriff in central Wisconsin, so law enforcement was a family tradition.
Dick enjoyed a happy childhood in Grand Marais and graduated from Cook County High School.
He writes unblinkingly about the stresses of being a front-line law enforcement officer and shares anecdotes of his mistakes. Writing about attending a police academy early in his career, he shares a story of how a couple of classmates walked into his room at the Holiday Inn in Alexandria, MN, the night before the on-range shooting part of the course, to razz him that they’d “kick his butt” on the range.
He writes, “I had a full pop bottle sitting on this dresser. I had just cleaned my gun, so knowing it was empty, I raised my trusty old .38 and while aiming it at the pop bottle, I told my buddies who were standing at each end of the dresser, ‘I’m going to just squeeze the trigger and…’ BLAM!”
There were no injuries, except the shattered pop bottle and the walls of several rooms that the bullet penetrated. Dick writes, “Since that day, there is no such thing in my life as an ‘empty’ gun.”
Those who knew Dick when he was working saw a man who was approachable, friendly, and compassionate to all. He was the same man in retirement.
He writes about his disappointments in finding justice in the cases he worked hard on. His first murder case, in which he had a taped confession from the gunman, ended in acquittal in a Cook County Court. He writes, “I was just over eight years into my career, and I spent the next 18 years never trusting a jury again.”
Although he writes about the tedium of rural patrols, especially at night, he also writes about some memorable events he was involved in.
In 1978, Sheriff John Lyght, State Trooper Jim Dols, and Deputy Dorr were called to Lutsen to dispatch a real, full-size lion that had escaped its cage and was a danger to local residents.
Early in his career, Dick left Cook County and accepted a deputy position in Marshall, MN. Not long after he settled in, a friend of his, a State Trooper on the North Shore, was gunned down during a so-called routine traffic stop in Cook County. “An incident like that takes away the innocence of the area forever,” he wrote. He was honored when his sheriff allowed him to take his squad car to Grand Marais for the funeral services.
After retiring, Dick joined his high school football teammate Norman Moe to do the radio broadcasts on WTIP of Cook County Vikings football and basketball games for 25 years. Norman did the play-by-play while Dick did the color commentary.
“Chasing Justice” is available on Amazon.com for $12.99 in paperback, $7.99 in Kindle, and free if you have Kindle Unlimited.
