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Who was Brian Hayes?
When anyone first meets Brian, they will figure out 3 things
in the first 5 minutes. Brian is tall,
he is extremely brilliant, and a goofball.
For many of us, our first impression of Brian was less than
flattering, but like many of us, Brian grew on us like a fungus. Over time, you could not help but find the
whit and childish comments amusing. Once that happens, he's in. He's in your heart
and soon after he became our friend like he has to so many of you.
Brian’s charisma evolved from his sense of humor, sarcasm,
intelligence and kindness.
Brian was somewhat of a child prodigy. Brian learned to read at age 3 and graduated
high school two years early!! Brian
became interested in the law at a young age.
Mrs. Hayes shared with us that one of Brian’s interest was to read the
Vehicle Code book, starting when he was a sophomore in high school and talking
about the material with his father over dinner.
Interestingly enough, even though Brian was extremely knowledgeable with
computer science and technology, he never took a formal course in this
field!! Brian self-educated himself, as
he did with most subjects he took an interest in.
Brian’s involvement in law enforcement started in 1991, when
he became a Police Explore for our department.
Brian later became a Police Cadet for the Garden Grove Police
Department, or as he put it, “The Grove.”
Brian often talked about his time spent at “The Grove” which he very
much enjoyed. Little known fact, Brian
was actually a cadet with Ron Light at “The Grove.”
Brian was sponsored by the Garden Grove Police Department
during the Police
Academy and was a
graduate of OCSD class 131.
Unfortunately Garden Grove
was in a budget crunch and upon graduation Brian was not sworn-in by them.
Brian was hired as a Police Officer for the El Segundo
Police Department, a small city located in the South Bay. We often joked with Brian and asked him what
he was thinking when he applied with El Segundo and his response would be, “I
wasn’t.” Brian would tell us he got more
street experience while he was a Police Explorer then his time spent at El
Segundo PD. We would ask Brian when he
realized El Segundo was not the place for him.
Brian said he actually always wanted to work for Anaheim PD but being
the stubborn person that he was, he didn’t want to work under his father’s
shadow.
Brian told us, during one of his shifts in training, he was
dispatched to a small community park regarding a call of some juveniles skating
in the park, which was against their local regulations. They arrived at the location and quickly
located the juvenile delinquents. Brian
thought it was no big deal, warned the juveniles and told them to go skate
somewhere else, end of story right? Wrong!!
Apparently Brian got chewed out by his F.T.O. for not conducting a
proper investigation and completing full FI’s on these KIDS!! Brian said he knew right then El Segundo was
not going to be a fit for him. His mind
was totally made up later on when he was approached by 20-year LAPD lateral. This 20 year veterano had a hard time
adjusting to the El Segundo ways himself and saw the potential in Brian. He told Brian he was wasting his talents at
El Segundo and encouraged him to apply at a much busier agency. Brian heeded the advice and decided to come
home.
Brian was initially hired as a reserve officer but quickly
made the transition to a full-time officer.
Brian would joke that Chief Baker just wanted him to have an extended
probation period that’s why he was initially hired as a reserve.
Brian’s career quickly flourished and went on to have
assignments in the Traffic Bureau, PRO Unit, Technology Bureau, Sexual Assault
Detail and as a Field Training Officer.
In 2004, Brian and Officer Ben Starke were awarded the Distinguished
Service Medal for saving a person’s life which was in imminent danger.
You could always count on Brian to lighten up the mood. Brian was a kid in a grown man’s body. You could always count on Brian to punch you
each and every time after seeing a VW Bug on the road and calling out “slug
bug!” Man this would piss us off
sometimes! Brian would just smirk. You couldn’t help it but to let it slide and
laugh it off. Brian also had the
annoying habit of expelling gas silently.
Unbeknown to his victims, he would set you up by saying, “hey you got a
minute?” As soon as you made your
approach, you couldn’t help but to get an awful whiff of his raw sewage. Brian being Brian would shrug his shoulders
and say “what” followed by his laughter.
Another one of Brian’s trademarks was to walk up to you, no matter what
the mood or setting was and act like he was going to gouge your eyes out with
his index and middle fingers.
Brian had his infamous black list. This was the list you made if you pissed him
off or didn’t meet his work expectations.
But just as quickly as one would make the list, he would take you
off. We know everyone who knew Brian
made this list at one time or another and he would definitely let you know
about it!
Brian’s interests included computers, technology, reading,
shooting, 4x4 and poker but his true passion was flying.
We always found it amusing and uncomfortable the first time
Brian met a female employee. More times
than not, Brian would make a comment and we would have to say, "Don't get
offended, it's just Brian." Then in
no time at all, that same employee would genuinely enjoy Brian's presence and
banter. We spoke to a few female
employees about Brian and one said, "He had no filter and did not care I
was a supervisor." His supervisor
knew that Brian was harmless and had no mal intentions. Brian had a huge heart and the women could see
through all the goofiness to know he was nothing but a fun loving dude. Believe us, we could NEVER pull of the
comments Brian said because only Brian could get away with it. Well and maybe Bill Cowhey!!
Working patrol one day, I (Manny) along with the rest of our
team, clearly heard Brian put out a 961 on Green Channel. Brian put out his 10-20 and vehicle plate
information. You guessed what comes
next, “224 can you 10-9 your plate?”
Well in typical Brian fashion his simple reply was “224 NO.” This must have thrown the dispatcher off,
actually it threw everybody off, because the radio was followed by silence for
the next several seconds. I about lost
it from laughing so hard. I immediately
called Brian and confirmed he said what I thought he said. Brian’s response, “Yeah I said it, they need
to pay attention up there. You heard me
right?” Yes Brian we heard you alright!!
Brian was his own person. He never took the easy path. One example is the type of alcohol he would
drink. Brian wasn’t much of a drinker to
begin with but when he did drink, Foo-Foo drinks were his preferred choice. Ones that would come in pretty colors, with a
cute mini-umbrella. Picture a group of
mostly cops drinking JD (or any other type of hard liquor) and Brian with fruit
hanging on the lip of his drink. He would
always get ripped apart. Brian did not
care. When asked why he drank those
drinks his response would be, "It taste good." In many ways this complex person had very
simple reasoning.
On another occasion, Brian and Nicole both recently attended
a poker tournament representing our POA at a local fundraiser. I (Manny) was playing with Brian on the same
table during the tournament. During one
hand I was dealt a non-suited ace and ten.
I drew two pairs on the flop and I laid out a big bet. Well Brian challenged my bet and went in with
me. I was a little confused as I was
pretty confident Brian did not draw two pairs like I did. I forget what the third card on the flop was
but it was a lower heart suited card.
Unbeknown to me Brian was holding two heart suited cards and that’s why
he went in. Brian challenged me all the
way and the guy ends up getting a backdoor flush draw. Brian flips his cards and he presents a
suited three, six. I looked at his cards
and was like WTF!! I immediately confronted
Brian and told him, “Dude you went in on a three, six??!!!! The knucklehead replied by saying, “what,
they were suited.” I just had to shake
my head in disbelief. For those of you
that don’t play poker let me put this into black jack perspective, it would be
like hitting on 19 and the dealer is showing a six!! Of course Brian would get a 21, the dealer
would get a 20 and everybody else at the table loses. Freaking Brian!!!
We mentioned Brian was not much of a drinker let us give you
a little inside story. There was a group
of us who would go on a yearly white water rafting trip. One particular year Brian got so wasted on
two wine-coolers, no joke, that he ended up crashing out on top of a very large
rock. Well as you could imagine the
party continued without Brian. Brian had
been passed out for a few minutes when suddenly he was approached by a family of
skunks. The skunks came within five feet
of Brian!! We woke Brian to warn him
about the impeding spraying. Brian woke
up however he was so drunk, he just took a look at the skunks shrugged his
shoulders and went back to sleep. Brian
must have been very comfortable sleeping in the outdoors. Surprisingly the skunks did their thing but
left Brian alone. Needless to say Brian
woke up on this rock the next morning and we have pictures to prove it!!
Because of Brian's intelligence, he constantly challenged
his supervisors on why do we do it this way, when we can do it that way. We could only imagine the thoughts of Brian's
first couple of supervisors. But as time went on, Brian was involved in every
technological aspect at Anaheim PD. Not
only that, he won over the hearts and souls of many of us.
Shelly McKerren, one of Brian’s former supervisors, informed
us Brian was involved in over 21 current or former technology projects at the
Police Department. No matter whether he
was on or off duty, Brian would trouble shoot problems and could always find a
solution to any technical problem.
Projects Brian was involved with:
MDCs
MRE
Afaria
Helicopter MDCs
Map loads with the RDs
Puma recorders
Created Cage Jail Management
E-pounds
Transcription/dictation for entire department
Instrumental in Jail management implementation
Customs report in Jail
Presentation for Versaterm
On-line citizen reporting
MyAPD
RMS Upgrades
CAD upgrades
Cogent Blue Check
Coplink
So-Cal Link
DashBoard
New Patrol Beat Plan
As a Detective, Brian’s work ethic
was unmatched. He was very thorough with
his investigations and extremely knowledgeable when it came to case law. Brian was the type of Detective which I would
want to have as a crime victim to investigate my case. Brian was constantly sought after by his
peers, supervisors and command staff to address the countless legal questions
or to provide case consultation.
Lieutenant Harvey who was the AFJC commander at the time commented on
how valuable Brian was to this organization.
Brian was no doubt the “go to” Detective in the Sex Crimes Unit.
Brian had a thirst for knowledge and
when something peeked his interest he went after it. Brian decided to brush up on his Spanish
skills by enrolling in a study-abroad live-in program in Costa Rica. The back story to this being that Brian was a
little irked by the fact he was “logged” several years ago for speaking Spanish
during a call. You see Brian stuck his
neck out and translated the best he could during this particular call even
though he was not a “certified” Spanish speaker. Brian went to Costa Rica last year and spent
approximately three weeks in this portion of the world. Brian came back, eager to take the 5
percenter Spanish test. We were quite
impressed with the vast improvement he had made in these short three
weeks. Brian went on to pass the test
and became a certified Spanish speaker.
That was just the type of person Brian was.
We hope we provided a little bit more
insight to the type of person Brian was for those of you here at Anaheim PD who
didn’t get a chance to work with or knew Brian too well. Brian's fun loving style will be missed in
our life and many of yours. Love you
bro...
Remember to have a wine cooler in honor of
Brian every July 17th!
-Gris and Manny
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