Small-town sheriff shines

Park County lawman became name when gunman invaded Platte Canyon school

James B.Meadow, Rocky Mountain News

Published December 26, 2006 at midnight

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BAILEY - The morning sky is exploding into pink and the 7:17 a.m. bell for first period is jangling in the air as a parade of students swirls toward the big man with the easy, country-boy smile, totally uncool haircut and SIG-Sauer P220 pistol on his belt.

"Mornin'. "

"Hey, Fred."

Once upon a time - has it really been a quarter of a century? - he was just like them. Went to this very high school, a slouching, laughing, wisecracking student. Going to class but probably thinking more about fishing for the brookies in Elk Creek or necking in a car on the dirt roads where houses weren't even a rumor.

Back then, he was a four-time letterman in basketball and football, but he was also a guy who knew what he wanted out of life. Gosh, he had always known, ever since he was 8 and a Denver policeman was kind to him. Never wavered once and wasn't shy about letting you know. So when it had come time to write his ambition in the senior yearbook, it was a no-brainer: "To be the best cop in the country."

"Mornin'. Hey, nice hat."

"Mornin', Fred."

A couple hundred kids move through the doors he is holding open for them, a couple hundred kids - boys in AC/DC hoodies, girls with a little too much eye makeup - flow past him but nobody calls the big man anything but his Christian name. Nobody uses his title. Nobody calls Fred Wegener "Sheriff."

But everybody knows that's who he is. All the kids at Platte Canyon High School, all the people in Bailey, all the 17,000 souls who live in Park County. And, because of what happened on Sept. 27, so do a lot of people in the country and the world.

They know how a gunman named Duane Morrison entered the high school and took six girls hostage in a classroom, molesting them. They heard that he claimed to have a bomb in his backpack. They learned how, after releasing four of the girls, he cut off communication with law enforcement and made vague references to an ominous deadline.

They read about how the order - Wegener's order - sent SWAT teams into the classroom and how, in a volcano of explosives and gunfire, one girl escaped but one did not. How the man killed 16-year-old Emily Keyes and then himself, tearing out a family's heart, battering a community's sense of innocence, thrusting a 44-year-old sheriff onto a national stage where in his darkest moment as a cop he didn't shrink from the light.

Sheriff Wegener, what were you thinking when the call came in and you were racing to the school?

"Honestly, I was scared to death . . . I was just praying we would do the right thing," he said, not relying on a public information officer because he didn't have one.

Who made the decision to go in?

"It was my call," he said, telling the truth, but also taking the heat off the SWAT team leaders whose input was crucial.

What made you decide to send in the SWAT teams?

"He was hurting my girls," he said to the media, grim and sad, omitting at the time specifics of Morrison's depraved behavior toward the girls, omitting the fact that the SWAT teams heard the girls screaming, omitting for the time a lot of things but never the truth.

"When I watched Fred on TV, I was really impressed," said Shauna Doven, a Bailey resident. "He was representing his community, he was representing us; he was beyond what I could ever have expected. At the time, he was bigger than Bailey."

Bigger than Bailey? Not Fred Wegener. Holy smokes, just being a part of Bailey suited him fine.

Where the pavement ends

"Well, as the crow flies, it's about 15 miles to the Dillon Reservoir from here," says Wegener, hands on the steering wheel of his 345-horsepower unmarked Dodge Charger. He is cruising along U.S. 285, pointing out odds and ends of his county, which, he tells you, "is bigger than the state of Delaware."

As the car rolls past the statue of Christ that sits atop a mountain above Santa Maria, Wegener says off-handedly, "A lot of folks don't know this, but that's the largest religious statue in North America."

Sometimes, the commentary will come to a halt when Wegener pulls his car over to drive a herd of bighorn sheep away from the side of U.S. 285. When his siren and flashing lights don't work, he gets out and begins clapping and yelling.

"They come down here because they love the salt," he explains, pointing at the white smear that is used to melt ice on the road.

Later, while patrolling some of the county's subdivisions, he points out, "The pavement used to end here; it goes five miles further now." Or, "That's Jeff Bode's house; I graduated high school with him. Those moose antlers you see? He got those in Alaska."

Occasionally, a note of frustration will creep into his voice when he talks about losing his deputies to higher-paying municipalities, concluding with, "Holy smokes, raising law enforcement salaries is like pulling teeth on a frog."

But frustration with the job is quickly eclipsed by satisfaction: "To me, being sheriff of my hometown is pretty special. You kind of know everybody, and because of that you're deeply ingrained in the community. You have a tighter bond with the people who live here."

But no tighter than the bond with your deputies.

Badge of leadership

The sound of heavy metal music joins with the clang of heavy metal objects in the Platte Canyon High School training room as the sheriff and two deputies heft formidable weights. Military presses. Parallel squats. Bench presses.

Wegener screws up one series, shakes his head and says, "Mentally, I made that a lot harder than it was."

After finally completing the set, he points to an old scale that he says must be at least 50 years old.

"So what you're saying is it was here when you went to high school," cracks Sgt. Glenn Hardey.

Not to be outdone, Deputy Rich Sonnenberg mentions Wegener's "old man love handles" and the fact that his military career was spent in the "Chair Force."

Wegener mock-winces, but can't help laughing loud and long.

"That's the thing about him," says Hardey. "He's a real person to us; he's not 'The Sheriff.' We can joke around with him. But, hey, we all have the utmost respect for him."

Nearby, Wegener bench-presses 225 pounds three times.

"You're an animal!" says Hardey.

At least a different kind of animal.

"I was told a long time ago in the Marines that there are three traits of leadership - example, example, example," says Lt. Mark Hancock, who is also the head of Park County's SWAT team. "That's him.

"With the sheriff, what you see is what you get. The only thing I can say is he's for real," says Hancock, who then goes on to say a lot more.

Like how when Wegener is on SWAT duty - he is a fully trained member - and they're raiding a house, "He wants to be the first one through the door, the 'tunnel of death.' I've had to assign him to the perimeter because he's not supposed to be the first one in."

He's not supposed to handle traffic duty either, but he does, another thing that "drives me crazy."

The problem, as everyone - including Wegener's wife, June - says is that, "Fred is a s--- magnet." Chances are the speeder he stops will be trouble. Outstanding warrants. A car full of illegal drugs or weapons. Wegener's disdain for sitting behind his desk (which, by the way, he is proud to tell you he got for $15 at an office liquidation sale) is turning Hancock's hair gray fast.

As recently as October, Wegener tried to stop a motorcyclist who had left the scene of an accident and was flaming through Bailey. But when the driver reached the roadblock Wegener had set up, he accelerated, knocking the sheriff down and zooming away. Wegener, only his ego wounded, got up, jumped in his car and chased the biker over Kenosha Pass and along the "gunbarrel" straightaway of 285 at speeds nearing 145 mph. Outside Como, he caught the guy, nudged the motorcycle's rear tire with his bumper and forced him off the road. A cop's job.

If he isn't picking himself off the ground and pursuing suspects, he's ticketing speeders. If he isn't doing that, he's sitting in his car during a snowstorm, closing off 285. There is, however, one thing he's never done in 20 years of law enforcement.

"Have I ever shot anyone? No - amen," he says, loosing a loud whew in the process. "Sure, I've pulled my guns numerous times, but . . . ."

About the only time he can remember pulling the trigger is when he shot out the front tire of a car. Of course, the guy kept going.

"Holy smokes, that was a heckuva chase," recalls Wegener, who, naturally, was in the middle of it.

Because that's where a sheriff belongs.

"The thing about Fred is he doesn't ask anything of his guys that he wouldn't do himself," says June Wegener, perhaps remembering the time two Christmases ago when her husband worked the holiday shift pretty much by himself so his deputies could be with their families.

Even when Wegener is home, the job is never far away. Although he says he and his wife have reached a compromise on when the police scanner is operating in their house, she shakes her head and laughs, "What compromise? I lost. It's on 2 4/7, although he does lower the volume at night. But if there's a page, he can still hear that."

Still, June Wegener prevailed when her husband quit Bailey's volunteer fire department after his first two years as sheriff.

"That had been a point of contention. I did get into a little trouble with the missus over being away too much," confesses Wegener.

Not that Wegener lacks extracurricular activities. His duties as sheriff haven't prevented him from chaperoning middle school dances, manning a booster club concession booth at a high school fundraiser or - more recently - being a civilian volunteer for Parents at the Door, a monitoring group at the high school established in the wake of Sept. 27.

For the past two years, he's also game announcer for the high school football team, a task he takes seriously enough to make sure he identifies each player by number and name.

But he takes most tasks seriously.

When Carmela Schweer's husband, Lanny, passed on in 2004, there was only one person she wanted to preside at his funeral: her boss.

"Lanny would have thought it was an honor because he knew the kind of man Fred was," says Schweer, a secretary in Wegener's office. "Fred did a beautiful job."

If it sometimes seems that Wegener is really Sheriff Andy Taylor and Bailey is really Mayberry, well, some residents might agree. And, just like his TV counterpart, Sheriff Wegener has "this strong quiet presence about him," says Bailey resident Rhonda Davis. "I think we feel safer knowing Fred is around."

"Fred really cares about his community," says Mike Pilcher, who runs the Knotty Pine restaurant with his wife Barb.

"Fred's for real, too," adds Pilcher. "What you see is what you get."

"Approachability is a good word for Fred," says another Bailey resident. "So often, you find people in law enforcement are aloof. Not Fred. He and June are just folks."

Then the man who is speaking smiles. He has lived in Bailey for nine years and met the sheriff on various occasions. But it wasn't until September that he really knew him. It wasn't until John-Michael Keyes lost his daughter that he saw a deeper side of Fred Wegener.

Respect and the truth

It is mid-December, nearly three months since the unthinkable happened. Keyes sits in his airy home in the hills above Bailey. A sign over the door says, "Live Well. Love Much. Laugh Often."

Keyes is talking about standing on a porch visiting with Fred Wegener in years past while their children - his Emily, Fred's son Ben - went to birthday parties together. He is talking about how in 2002, at the height of the devastating Snaking Fire, when flames were dangerously close to consuming Keyes' house, Wegener made himself available to talk; he even arranged for Keyes to return to his evacuated home so he could retrieve some business files. Keyes is also talking about his differences with Wegener, largely over the sheriff's stringent control of the annual Bailey Days celebration.

But mostly he is talking of the visit the sheriff made to his and his wife's home two days after the shooting.

"It meant a lot to both of us, me and Ellen," says Keyes, explaining that Wegener's insistence on talking to them personally was "a clear indication of respect. It was absolutely a statement on Fred's part of assuming responsibility. Yeah, it would've been easy to send someone else, but that's not what he did."

He sits there, a lean man with soft voice and sad eyes. Although occasionally his gaze turns inward, he has the expression of someone who has made peace with tragedy because he was told the truth.

"I have no doubt it was real hard for Fred to walk through the door - it was a tough visit. But I wanted to hear - and he wanted to say - what had happened in that room. It was important to me to let him know that I supported his decision."

How about now? After reviewing the reports and talking with SWAT team members?

"If anything, I'm even more convinced that it was absolutely the right decision to go in."

What else was said that Friday?

Keyes smiles but says nothing.

Did he and the sheriff cry?

He slowly nods his head.

"It's funny," he then adds. "With today's political correctness, Fred is a PIO's worst nightmare. He speaks from the heart. He doesn't give you the glass face."

Sitting nearby is Lou Gonzalez, a close friend. Gonzalez has lived in Bailey 32 years. He knows Wegener; knew his mother, Beverly Walker, who was Park County treasurer for eight years. He, too, has had his differences with Wegener. He, too, says that isn't what matters.

"You know, Fred's a tough guy, but his emotion was there for all to see," says Gonzalez. "Everyone saw how he responded, saw the depth of his concern. He spoke the truth. That touched us all."

'Freddy' fell hard for fishing

Sometimes Wegener's reputation for honesty can be a burden. Take the time years ago when he was deputy sheriff in Park County. He had arrested some guy on a domestic abuse charge and was in court as the jury was being selected.

"They asked if I could be impartial," recalls Barb Pilcher. "I kinda said, 'Well, I know Freddy a long time. If he said the guy did it, he probably did.' They almost couldn't get a jury; just about everybody knew Fred and they all figured he was telling the truth."

Of course, everybody in Bailey knew Fred. How could they not? Didn't he move up from Denver with his mom, stepdad and a passel of siblings, half-siblings and stepsiblings in 1970, when he was 8?

Back then, pretty much everybody knew everybody in Bailey. Especially Freddy. He was all boy; did all the things a boy should, especially fish. Loved fishing so much he would pay his sister to do his chores so he could head off with his pole.

If he wasn't fishing, he might be down at the Bailey Country Store, eyeing Mr. Mason's penny candy. Or going to Boy Scout meetings at the old firehouse.

By the time he reached high school he was 6-2 and 150 pounds. Barely cast a shadow, but he was a good enough athlete to letter in football and basketball.

When he wasn't playing ball, he was serving as class vice president. When he wasn't doing that, he was volunteering as a cadet for the sheriff's office, getting a taste of law enforcement. Liking it.

Scarcely a month after graduation, he joined the Air Force. Figured the service was a good way to get law enforcement training. He spent six years with the security police, most of them in Alaska, including a stint at Shemya, a secure island base a scant 200 miles from Russia.

When he mustered out of the service in 1987 he didn't need a compass to know which direction to head. He came home to Park County and became a deputy sheriff.

He hadn't been deputy very long when he went on a blind date. They ate at Bennigan's, saw The Witches of Eastwick and that was that. Within six months he and June were married. Dani, their daughter, came along pretty quick. Ben followed a few years later.

Deputy Wegener did well. Learned to think on his feet. Like the time some guy belted his girlfriend and then ran off toward the river. Instead of chasing him in the dark, Wegener growled into his bullhorn, "If you don't come out, we're gonna release the dogs!" So what if there were no dogs? So what if it was Wegener barking into the bullhorn? Guy came out of the woods with his hands up. Good cops improvise.

He served eight years as a Park County deputy. Almost ran for the top spot in 1994, but thought better. Then, in November 1995, he left - "differences in philosophy" with the incumbent sheriff. He wound up as a jail detention officer with Aurora.

Being cooped up inside in a jail was about as agreeable to him as coffee. He hated coffee. (Give him Gatorade or a Coke.) Even worse, he and the missus and the kids had moved to the suburbs and "I just hated living there." Not enough Bailey.

He stuck it out in Aurora for a year and a half, but he "needed to be back on the road." Hired on with the Idaho Springs police in April 1997. Thanks to a "small community" and a "wonderful chief," Idaho Springs was a "real good fit for me."

He loved the job, moving from police officer to detective. Even better, he moved back near Bailey, back to the modest house he and June owned. The house that sat as close to the river as you can get, where "There's no other noise in the world except the water going by."

In 1998, some folks asked him to run for Park County sheriff. Hmmm.

He won by 199 paltry votes, maybe a bit of a surprise considering everybody knew him. Maybe they didn't think he was ready. He was only 36 and looked even younger, what with that flattop haircut - more scalp than hair on the sides - and whispery mustache.

But he was ready all right. Whether it was a $3 million marijuana bust in 2000, a triple homicide in Guffey in 2001, the Snaking Fire in 2002 - or folks trapped in their bathroom by a mountain lion, Wegener made sure he and his deputies kept the peace. People noticed. He was re- elected with 77 percent of the vote.

In the meantime, Park County was growing - an influx of citified people, "folks complaining about barking dogs, which we never used to hear much about." People of a different mind that the ones Wegener had grown up with, the ones who preferred the "small-town leave-us- alone pace."

To accommodate both, the sheriff stayed current. Took law enforcement executive development seminars at colleges, attended the FBI training academy in Maryland. He wrestled with budget constraints brought about by the TABOR Amendment and worried that he only had 19 deputies to patrol 2,200 square miles of county.

But he tried to keep things personal, like stopping in for breakfast at a local cafe and going in the kitchen to say hi. He was pleased that folks asked his department to do "vacation checks" on their homes when they left town. He had always liked "that feeling of helping out."

Above all, he learned it was important "to check your ego at the door," to not be "badge heavy." He learned the trick to being a good sheriff is "You want to arrest somebody like you were arresting your own brother. Because in a small town, the person you arrest on Saturday just might be sitting next to you in church on Sunday morning."

Above all, as a sheriff, you had to be "willing to help people."

He loved his job enough to run for a third term. Sure, it hurt that the backers of one of his opponents were accusing him of fiscal irresponsibility and dishonesty. Sure, it bothered him that a Libertarian candidate was dissing drug busts and drunken driving arrests as pointless and intrusive. Sure, it irked him that the guy he had beaten in 2002 was running again. Still, life was good.

And then it wasn't.

Holding onto an angel

After the call came through about an armed intruder in the high school, Wegener remembers it took about three minutes for him to go "sailing" across 6 1/2 miles, his tires "probably not touching the pavement." He remembers briefly thinking that Ben was in the building, but putting that thought aside because "there were a lot of other students who needed to be evacuated." He remembers "the look on the faces of the kids as I opened the doors to get them out." He remembers the "sense of urgency," the "surreal feeling." He remembers "a lot."

He remembers being at the command post on the football field, getting reports from Hancock, hearing the word "assault." He remembers thinking, "What would I do if it was my daughter?" He remembers wondering if the gunman had explosives. What did he mean something would happen by 4 p.m.? He remembers thinking, "This guy had a plan."

And once he made the decision, he remembers it felt like it took "four hours" before the assault was launched. Actually, it was the longest 15 minutes of his life.

After the shooting, as he was gearing up to face the media, he called June. Hearing the emotion rending his voice, she told him, "You need to find someone else to do this."

"Nope, I'll be OK," he said. He knew he had to be the one because, "When people elect a sheriff, they put their trust and faith in him. I knew it would be better hearing what happened from my mouth."

He didn't know exactly what he was going to say, but he knew that, "You have to be straightforward and truthful. Otherwise it'll come back and bite you in the rear."

He also knew that, "You can't pussyfoot around. If you got something to say, say it. And if you have something to hide, than you probably shouldn't be in front of the cameras anyway because you'll come off like you got something to hide."

When he finally got home, his wife was worried. Whenever he experienced a trying day, his usual therapy was talking to June and playing some cribbage. He did neither that night. Nor the next.

For the first month, Wegener averaged three hours of sleep, vainly hoping the nightmares would stop. It helped that the Keyes family backed his decision. It helped that one of his opponents, Rob Raskiewicz, extolled Wegener's performance ("I've seen a side of you that I never imagined could exist," he wrote in a letter to the local paper) and withdrew from the sheriff's race. It helped that most of the tsunami of mail and e-mail was positive.

It didn't help that some was not.

Two in particular stung. One said, "How can you cash your paycheck knowing you were so cowardly to not go in soon enough?" The other read, "I would rather have had a raped daughter than a dead one."

Wegener looks up as he speaks, not pussyfooting around the hurt.

In the end, the people of Park County provided the best medicine. Wegener was elected with 84 percent of the vote.

But Wegener isn't talking about the election now. He is talking about meeting the president of the United States in October at a school safety conference in Washington. ("Holy smokes, talk about being out of your element.") He is talking about his mother, who died in 1995. He is talking about his kids. He is talking about fishing. He likes to talk. He likes people.

Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the little silver angel he always keeps with him. The one that is engraved Emily.

"I'll never forget the decision that was made," he says in a soft voice. "I'll have to live with the fact that Emily died as a result of my decision and that will stay with me forever.

"Closure? We'll never have complete closure. I know that."

Has the shooting changed him?

He says he always carries a gun with him now and takes nothing for granted. He says a lot of days he wakes up and "I feel like I'm stuck in September." He says it took a long time for him to drive by the high school and "not feel compelled to stop." Even now, there are some mornings when he can't help but drive by the school parking lot to make sure his truck - the one Ben uses - is there. Some days he drives in the lot and sits in his car for a while. Doesn't know why. Just does.

"Changes in him? I think it has made him closer to his family," says his wife. "But there's nothing that you would really be able to notice."

Wegener isn't sure.

"It's still too fresh for me to know how it's going to change me," he says. He pauses and lets a little jet of air escape his lips. "I do know that I sure feel older."

There is a tattoo on each of the biceps of the sheriff of Park County, souvenirs from his Air Force days. On the right arm is a sword going through a heart, with the message, "Death Before Dishonor." On the left, a sword, skull and cobra are the backdrop for "Sworn to Fun, Loyal to One." Maybe a man can have too much free time in Alaska.

The tats are covered up by the short-sleeve sport shirt Wegener is wearing today. As a volunteer at the high school, he's not in uniform; he's just a parent, opening locked doors for students, eagerly sampling cookies being handed out by students on the cusp of Christmas vacation, enthusing to a stranger, "Have you ever seen our new cafeteria? I'm really proud of that."

Students, sheriff interact

Meanwhile, students amble up to the sheriff. One shows him a math problem he's working on. Another displays a cool new T-shirt. A third, Daniel Day, shows him the book he's reading, The Natural.

"Oh, didn't they make that into a movie with, uh, what's his name - Robert Redford!" says the sheriff.

As Wegener goes to open one of the locked doors for a student, Day, 15, says, "Fred is one of the most trustworthy guys I've ever known."

John Carpenter, another student, would agree.

"He wants me to run for president," laughs Wegener.

Well?

"Not interested," he laughs.

How about, say, governor?

Wegener smiles and says, "Noooooo. You can say for certain that Fred Wegener has reached his aspirations for political office."

Furthermore, he insists, this term will be his last at sheriff, even if his wife isn't 100 percent sure.

"Let's not throw away those 'Wegener for Sheriff' signs yet," she laughs.

As far as the future goes, he's thinking about maybe something to do with the Safe Schools programs on a state or national level. He's also thinking about working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, although, "I might be too old."

What he really dreams about, however, is packing up and heading to Florida's Gulf Coast, where it's always warm and the fishing is perpetual. On a recent vacation in Florida, "I saw my future when I saw a guy going by in a boat. It said 'Marine Patrol' on it and I thought, 'That job's got my name all over it.' "

Maybe. But maybe not. It might be harder than he thinks to walk away from law enforcement. Because, funny thing, Fred Wegener's been so busy pursuing his dream he might not be aware he's achieved it. He might not realize it but, holy smokes, the kid from Bailey who wanted to be the best cop in the country just might be.

Park County

• Square miles: 2,201

• Persons per square mile: 6.6

• Whites (2004): 96.6 percent

• Blacks (2004): 0.6 percent

• Hispanics (2004): 5.4 percent

• Per capita income, 1999: $25,019

• Median household income: $52,110

Population

• 1970: 3,300

• 1980: 5,333

• 1990: 7,171