Note: [Over 30 years ago Shaffer was tried, convicted and sent to prison

for shooting a burglary suspect]. Bill Bernsen Webmaster

 
 FROG IN WATER
 By Robert Shaffer
 
MARCH 7, 2004
 
I appreciate the extra site you put in but I don't think I will be using it anymore. 
There seems to be way too many negative responses to my presence and I think your members 
would probably want to chat about other more positive times.
 
You asked a while back for an apology.
 
In April 1970 I wrote a profound and lengthy apology to Pitchess...who refused to accept it, 
and to every station commander including Dean Wert, surrounding LAPD commanders, 
every paper we could think of. Wert, according to my sources, did not read it. 
It was printed in one free press type paper in Hollywood. I am the sole cause of going to prison. 
I have always said that. Not Malone, not Meyer, not anyone but me.
 
I had an old good friend who would slip up to visit me once in a while. 
He worked homicide when I was arrested and he was one of a few who argued there was no murder. 
When he would come he would always say to me..."but for the grace of God
there go I".
 
I took a justifiable and defensible shooting and embellished on it to such a point that 
I sealed my own doom and I lied on my report. I did not ask anyone else to lie or do anything wrong.
 
And I paid dearly for my actions, and everyone in law enforcement suffered because of 
my utter stupidity. And don't think for a moment I have forgotten about that night. 
Someone pointed out if I knew about all the wrong things going on around me why I didn't report them. 
Cause I was like the frog who got caught for dinner. 
Throw a frog in a boiling pot of water and it will jump out, put it in a cool pot of water 
and turn up the heat and it will stay until it is boiled to
death. That's a Cajun way of saying the conduct was acceptable for the things we put up 
with the trade off so to speak. Some deputies may or may not know what I am speaking of. 
And I am not saying they did anything wrong, but we worked the same areas the same time and 
could have, by chance, seen the same things. Maybe not.
 
Might not make any sense to anyone who never did or saw ANYTHING wrong, but I let 
law enforcement be the number #1 priority in my life. Ahead of God, family and country. 
I was totally out of alignment but didn't recognize it, and if anyone around me did recognize it they didn't say.
 
Not making excuses cause I was still the cause of my own problems. 
Me, myself and I alone pulled the trigger, wrote the report and testified before a coroner's inquest.
 
You may not be aware of this but I was invited to speak at the academy about what I did, to graduating
classes, in hopes of keeping this from re-occurring. It was close but eventually denied.
 
I was also invited back to Firestone, and I went, during the PM shift change, driven in 
a narcotics unit. It was very uncomfortable for me but I was greeted with handshakes 
and hugs by many, including line and staff. No one asked about what happened, it was 
inferred knowledge. But I left with a heavy burden still knowing I caused a lot of damage that
May never be erased.
 
Robert Shaffer