Lasting legacy

I was barely 21, with all of three months on the job at LPD when I teamed up with Sgt. Jon Briggs. He recruited me to join his six-person Alcohol Safety Action Program Squad in late 1974. I joined Officers Steve Wetzel, Jon Morris, Mike Garnett, Barry Rogers, and Steve Worster in the most difficult assignment of my career: working a shift from 7:30 PM to 4:00 AM, Tuesday and Wednesday as days off, with court appearances at 9:00 AM, 10:30 AM, and 2:00 PM almost every weekday. We spent our nights smelling beer breath professionally, and our days cat-napping between court appearances. Jon Briggs was the supervisor of our squad, and he had mastered the art of small group dynamics. He managed to teach us what we needed to know (Jon, Mike, Steve, can you still remember the Poropak-Q column, the flame-ionized detector, and 37.5 degrees Celsius?), motivate us to perform some incredible work, and make one of the worst assignments imaginable positively fun in the process.

It wasn't the last time I worked for Jon. A few years later, as a young sergeant myself, I joined him in the Traning Unit, where he was the lieutenant in command. For about three years, we worked tirelessly to create a police academy, and produce an incredible array of in-service training every Wednesday, all year long. Sgt. Jim Hawkins, Sgt. Mike Siefkes, Sgt. Steve Lamken and Lt. Jon Briggs were quite a team, but Jon was the spark plug that made the engine roar to life.

Jon and I also worked together for several years in a part-time consulting assignment. We would burn up all of our accumulated vacation hours, and haul off to somewhere like Baltimore or Fresno as subcontractors to the Social Development Corporation, living together in a motel room for a few weeks conducting job analyses. What a great time we had on these jobs: seeing the country, working intensely, and earning extra cash for such things as the new furniture that still graces the Casady living room more than 30 years later. At the top of his game, Jon was an inspirational leader and the quintessential idea man.

I'm sure many other LPD officers younger than me had the same kinds of experiences when Capt. Briggs commanded LPD's Northeast Police Team, when he served as a late shift Duty Commander, and when he commanded the department's SWAT Team. They may not, however, realize that Jon Briggs is responsible for bringing the Field Training program to LPD, and the Chaplaincy Corps, and Problem-Oriented Policing, and Domestic Crisis Intervention, and that it was Jon Briggs who conceived the City's Problem-Resolution Team--to name a few of his innovations. Jon had an incredible ability to perceive and pounce upon great new ideas.

Jon retired in 1998 after 31 years of service, and passed away this week. I have been smiling at memories of our work together, our roadtrips, our pranks, the things Jon taught me, the bizarre experience we shared learning to ski (quite ill-attired) at Badger Pass in Yosemite on Christmas--my first and last time on the slopes. And I'll never forget one evening after a long day on the road when we relaxed in our motel bar on the National Pike.  It was a typical collection of business types enjoying the free buffet, when about 8:00 PM the place suddenly morphed into an east coast disco curiously named Rodeo, and straight out of Saturday Night Fever. Jon tried to teach me how to ask a girl to dance, the memory of which had me laughing aloud and alone in my office yesterday. Ah, the stories I could tell....

It was hard for those who knew him in his peak years to witness his decline, but I will always remember him for his brilliance, humor, motivation, and above all, his friendship. He leaves a lasting legacy at the Lincoln Police Department.