Publisher’s note: I am publishing Debbie’s last blog(s) posthumously in accordance with her wishes. I have removed the contact information and sign up links as her accounts are no longer active. If you wish to provide feedback or send any additional messages to pass on to the family, please send an email to erica.illingworth@longmontcolorado.gov. 

Dear Readers, 

In recent years, we’ve seen some of the messier aspects of law enforcement. We’ve seen police officers held accountable for illegal and inhumane behavior. However, if that is the only image we have, then we are not doing justice to the thousands of officers nationwide who are doing great work and who care about our communities.  

Image Description: collage of images including an old newspaper clipping and two York, Pennsylvania police officer headshots. In the bottom right is an image of Debbie in her wheelchair.

Throughout my decades in nonprofit roles, I have had the privilege of working with many kind and wonderful men and women who served in police departments. In fact, when I was shot, my two friends, Gene and Al, were the first police officers on the scene and were instrumental in saving my life. If you are a regular Drop In With Debbie blog reader, you’ve heard me speak out against injustice because of race, ethnicity, age, sex and religion. I am only one of many who champion for the safety, protection and fair justice to all in our communities. Reader, what matters to you about your community? 

I’ve recently had the wonderful opportunity to get to know Chris Merkle. Twenty four years in the Longmont Police Department, and now a Senior Investigator with Boulder County District Attorney’s Offices, Chris exemplifies someone who made a career of serving our community and understanding the needs and backgrounds of those that he protects. From a childhood dream of wanting to help others, Chris actualized that motivation into a career protecting the vulnerable in our communities from those who may wish harm on others. It is an honor to know him and I hope you enjoy his story.  

Image Description: Chris in a police officer uniform walkimg a woman and her dog across the street. 

Chris’ grandfather immigrated to the United States from Denmark.  His grandfather landed in America and then traveled to Pierre, South Dakota. There, he settled on some land and became a farmer and rancher. He raised cattle and farmed corn, soybeans, sunflowers, and wheat.  

Chris grew up on that ranch. Chris’ mother was a stay-at-home mom. Chris’ father owned a gas station with three service bays, a U-Haul dealership, and a used car lot. Chris is one of seven children and his dad worked hard to provide for the family. Reader, did you have parents who provided for your needs? How so? 

Chris had five brothers and one sister.  As a child, he enjoyed many hours playing with his brothers and sister, cousins and the children of the farmhands. Living on the farm, everyone was always available to play. There were animals including chickens for eggs, horses to ride and open fields and lots of cattle. Chris and his brothers loved playing “cops and robbers.” “We didn’t have a television, so we had to use our imagination,” he said. Reader, who were your childhood friends? Are you still in touch? 

  

Images: Left – a young Chris fishing in a stream; Right – two children, Chris and his brother, smiling at the camera.

Chris remembers an incident in second grade. One of his classmates, who had a speech impediment, was being bullied by a much older child on the playground.  Chris, in spite of the risk that he might get pummeled, stood up for his fellow-second graders. It worked. The bully stopped. Reader, were you bullied? How did you manage it? 

A few years ago, Chris found a box that contained his Hot Wheels car collection. He was surprised to see how many of the cars that he collected as a child were police related. “I had an entire police force. I even had a police helicopter,” Chris said. If I had asked Chris, in those younger years, if he knew what he wanted to be, he said he would not have known. Yet, when he thinks about his memories and car collection, he said, “Clearly there was something there.” Reader, if I saw your toys from childhood, what would it tell me about you? 

Image: Chris as a young boy wearing aviator sunglasses with a toy gun and holster. 

Chris’ favorite subjects in school were math, science, and history. Some of his high school teachers recommended that he choose a profession that used those skills. So, Chris started his college years at Front Range Community College; he aimed for a degree in chemical engineering. However, as Chris sat in his classes, he had a reality check. “I said to myself, is this what I will be doing for the rest of my life?” He realized that it was not his personal dream.  

He thought about his life skills. From the age of thirteen, he had been working at a bicycle shop. He enjoyed it, but he knew he did not want to be in sales. He liked helping people, but he didn’t want to be cooped up in an office all the time. He decided to change his college trajectory. At the end of his college freshman year, with a clearer vision of his career goals, Chris said, “I knew I wanted to be a police officer.”  

Image: Chris as an older teenager riding a tandem bicycle with his mother.

Chris enrolled in the criminal justice program at Aims Community College in Greeley, Colorado. Now, living independently, he worked full time and attended college. He graduated in 1995. Then in 1996, the Longmont police department hired Chris and he attended the police academy. Chris was fortunate that the Longmont police department began funding their new hires and paid for all their equipment and the academy. Reader, did you have someone encourage your career dreams? 

“The program was intense,” Chris said. In his first three months they had to learn all the state laws, constitutional law, and criminal. “I’ve heard the academy described as it’s like taking forty college credits jammed into three months,” he said.   After the training academy, Chris began the field training program at the Longmont police department.  This involved training to be an officer and covering the specific curriculum Longmont PD required for their officers.   

Chris described this part of his training in three phases: 1) I’ll show you; 2) I’ve shown you; now you show me; and 3) Show what you can do by yourself.  

In the first phase Chris learned how to make the police calls, use the radio, write reports, and other technical aspects. A police trainer closely followed and monitored Chris. 

In the second phase the expectation changed. Chris was now required to complete many more aspects of the job (calls for service, arrests, reports, and general assists).  During this phase he worked on and began to develop investigation skills. Again, he was very closely monitored; he was not yet on his own.  

Finally, in the third phase, Chris had to show that he could do a lot of the job by himself. He developed the critical thinking skills to know what to do and who to call if he didn’t know. He learned, when going into an investigation, to determine who would be part of his team for solving the case. For example, if he responded to a sexual abuse situation, he might need to involve social services, health agencies and possibly some of his peers.  

Finally, after completing phase three, Chris was in his police uniform and partnered with another officer who was not in uniform. So, then when they went out on a call, the attention gravitates to Chris, the officer in uniform. His partner observed, and later critically evaluated Chris’ officer skills. “They want to be sure that you can do the job all alone,” Chris explained.  

Now imbued with the skills needed to be a police officer, Chris passed his test and officially started working alone as a police officer. He began his first work as a police officer on the swing shift. That meant he worked from 1:45 pm until 11:45 pm. It was not the most desirable shift. He was the newbie so he was also assigned to work on the weekends. “It was baptism by immersion,” Chris said about those early years. 

Image: Chris as a young police officer. He has short blond hair and wears a dark police officer uniform with badges and a brown tie.

At the very beginning, Chris sometimes doubted the career path he had chosen.  Chris’ father was concerned about him being in this profession.  Being a police officer is not the easiest profession. Chris would question, “am I going to make it through this?” Over the years, he did a lot of introspection and came to understand that this was exactly what he wanted to do and was meant to do. Chris’s father died in 1995 and never stopped worrying about his son’s safety. Reader, did your job put you at risk? 

Throughout his career, many of Chris’ friends respected him for the noble profession he had chosen. However, he also faced some challenging and awkward times when his investigations involved people he knew or even possibly involved former classmates he went to school with. 

For the next 24 years, Chris served in the Longmont Police Department. He held different positions throughout his career, including patrol officer, traffic unit, where he became an accident investigator, personnel and training officer, and lastly in the detective division.  

In the beginning Chris experienced a lot of stress as a patrol officer.  He said, “As a baby cop, you are scared to death when you hear your number called on the radio dispatching you to certain types of calls or calls that you have never experienced.  Over the years, as a senior officer, you are more relaxed, enjoying the job and the opportunity to help people.” Reader, what was a job that took many years for you to reach your comfort level? 

Chris said that the cases he worked on sometimes “stick in your brain.” When people call the police, it is often because they are in need. For the most part, “they don’t call the police because they are having a great day,” Chris said. The people Chris served in the community became personal to him. Some of the things police officers observe can be very traumatic.  “You are impacted because, as a police officer or detective, you are a human being too.” Reader, what is your relationship with law enforcement? 

Chris spoke about a patrol call he responded to in the middle of a torrential rainstorm.  The call was a domestic violence call and Chris was wearing his police issued yellow rain slicker.  When he knocked on the door, a small child answered the door.  Seeing Chris (who stands 6’5” tall) standing at the doorway in his yellow rain slicker, that went all the way down to his boots, the child called out to his parents and said, “Officer Big Bird is here!” It was a nickname that stuck with Chris for a long time. Reader, what is your nickname? 

You’ve probably heard of the book “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”. As Chris told me this next story, it reminded me of that title. The day of the incident, Chris was working in the traffic unit. He didn’t experience a lot of joy giving out traffic tickets. However, it was his job to hinder the risk of accidents. Officers do so by reminding people to follow the driving rules, including not speeding. “People die in crashes,” Chris said. He had seen enough, to know that monitoring people’s road behavior was important.  

One day he was enforcing traffic when he saw a driver speeding down the highway. The man was driving well over the speed limit. Chris pulled over the driver, walked up to the window and asked for his license and registration. By the man’s reaction, Chris could tell that this guy did not think highly of police officers. The driver was angry and argumentative.  

Chris went back to his patrol car and wrote the man a ticket for speeding. As it turns out, the man had a previous criminal record. He also had a parole officer. That means that the driver must report any interaction with the law to his parole officer.  

Chris walked back to the man’s car window to serve the driver his summons and, “he gave me an earful,” Chris said. “He was steaming mad.” Chris wanted to talk to the man in a defusing manner. He calmly asked, “Why are you so angry? Why are you mad at me?” Chris wanted to understand. The man kept repeating many times that “No one ever gives me a break.”  The driver, who had done time in prison was adamant that he had never, ever been given a warning for his conduct, only tickets and arrests. 

Chris, in reflection of this conversation, said to me in our interview, “it’s not fun being categorized as the bad guy.” Chris gave the example of a construction worker that builds roofs.  He said, if you have a roof collapse on you, you shouldn’t go around and say all construction workers are horrible people. Yet, as a police officer, some people are quick to lump all officers into the same category, based on the poor conduct of one officer. “The only difference between you and I is that I put on a blue uniform,” Chris said. “It’s my job to keep you safe.”  

So, on that day, as he and this gentleman continued to talk, Chris listened and then asked the man to give back the speeding ticket he had just issued the driver.  Chris took the ticket and ripped it in two. Then he said to the man, “I hear you say that you have never had a break. After today, you can’t say that anymore because I am giving you a huge break. I don’t normally do this, but I am doing this so you can no longer say, ‘no one ever gives me a break’. That’s our deal.” He also told the man that he would not have to go to court or pay the fine. He said that when reporting this to his parole officer he could report he was just given a warning.  

This driver was someone who had been hardened by life and his years in prison. Yet, when Chris said all this, the man thanked Chris. And, in embarrassment, the driver cried. Chris said, “For twenty minutes, we were humans.” 

Chris didn’t follow the man’s record to know what happened to him for the rest of his life. He hopes that day made a difference. “I felt it was a necessary thing to do. There were ten people earlier that day that didn’t get a break,” Chris said. “But this time, I felt it was the right thing to do.” Reader, did you ever have someone give you a break when you were not at your best? 

Another important characteristic about Chris’ dedication to understanding the community is his choice to learn Spanish. Chris put a lot of years and studies into learning the language. Over one quarter of Longmont residents have a Latino heritage. Having bilingual skills allowed Chris to communicate more effectively. At times Chris has been the translator with fellow officers and the community. “It has become a bridge to foster relationships,” Chris said. Reader, what skills did you learn to better understand your community? 

In 2020, Chris had to undergo a major ankle surgery. Leading up to that time, he had been thinking about when the right time might be for him to retire from the Longmont Police Department. He had enjoyed his work and knew that he was reaching the time when he wanted to explore other options.  

While out on injury leave, an opportunity arose.  There was an open position as an investigator with the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office. Chris decided to take the opportunity and apply for the new job.  Chris was accepted and was hired. “I went out for ankle surgery, and the next time I was at my desk at the police department was to clean it out,” Chris said about his departure from the police department. He left on good terms with his Longmont team. He greatly valued his career with Longmont PD.  He said it was “the perfect fit and the perfect time” for his change and transition in his new investigator role with the DA’s office.  

As a patrol officer and later detective with the Longmont Police Department, Chris helped build cases for filing and possible adjudication. This involved interviewing, evidence building, and focus on solving the case. At the District Attorney’s office, he works on cases for all of Boulder County, not just Longmont. His job is to work on current cases that have already been filed, making sure they are ready to go to trial.   

Now, Chris’ caseload is quite varied. He covers anything from domestic violence cases, sexual assaults, homicides, and burglaries.  His passion is to work cases involving vulnerable victims.  He especially likes working on cases involving the elderly.  

Over the years, Chris has seen changes in the law. When he first started with the police department over two decades ago, domestic violence was one of those crimes that had just started to be taken more seriously. It used to be that it was the discretion of the officer as to whether or not there would be an arrest. While some abusers were arrested back then, others were just given a stern lecture for their conduct.  

Now, we know that the recurring rate of domestic violence is “off the charts,” Chris said. It’s about power and control and it’s a cycle that repeats itself. With that understanding, legislation changed. Now, if an officer has “probable cause” to arrest for a domestic related offense, there is very little discretion, as the state law requires an arrest.   

Another change that Chris has seen over time are the crimes against those that are considered “At Risk,” or more vulnerable.  These At-Risk crimes (crimes against vulnerable adults or someone with an intellectual developmental disability) carry a higher sentencing enhancement.  Sadly, Chris has worked on cases of physical and sexual abuse with at risk victims ranging from age 3 to 93. He said it is the very young or sometimes those who are elderly that may not be able to advocate for themselves adequately. Reader, what do you do to protect the vulnerable in your circle? 

The community’s passion for crime shows has created a new challenge for those in law enforcement. We, as television watchers see horrible crimes happen, investigated and solved within an hour. In real life, that’s not how it works. As viewers, we expect crimes to be solved with DNA instead of probable cause. It can be difficult to get a conviction when, in recent years, juries want to see some DNA evidence to convict the criminal.  

However, having DNA proof is not always possible, Chris said. Sometimes there isn’t DNA or not enough to get a sample or the DNA may have been compromised. A lot of cases are robust with proof that the offender committed the crime without the presence of DNA.  Chris said when a jury doesn’t convict because they were expecting DNA, it hurts those victims who deserve justice when their case was solved utilizing other evidence. Reader, have you been on a jury recently? What was your experience? 

Chris has also been recognized for his skills as a public speaker. For example, in 2018, he presented at the Ending Violence Against Women International conference in San Diego.  This conference is for police officers, district attorneys, victims service providers and others in related fields.  In 2022, he was again a presenter at this conference, this time in San Francisco.  Chris’ presentation at these two conferences was about a victim-centered approach and response to elder abuse investigations.  This topic is a passion for Chris, and he presents this training both locally in Colorado as well as nationally.     

Just like when he was in second grade taking a stand against the bully, Chris is still gratified when he can intercede for others. “I want to be one of those that does,” he said. Chris said he is often inspired by the quote, “If not me, then who?”  

Image: Chris and his favorite horse, Bear. They touch forheads together on a sunny day. 

It has been my pleasure to know Chris and learn more about what he does for the community. Thank you, Chris for your dedication. Thank you for your years of service. Thank you for all that you do to understand your community. Reader, what are some life-lessons that we could learn from Chris? For me, I am inspired by his passion, and I will ask myself when I see those downtrodden, “If not me, then who?” 

I hope you enjoyed Chris’s story as much as I did.

Until next time, may peace be at your side,

Debbie Noel