I’ve lost a lot of friends in my life. I’ve lost more cop friends than anything else, most to wounds sustained in the line of duty.
So many wounds in the line of duty.
The death of Lt. Chris Picou is one I won’t be over soon, if ever. This is a water mark in my career. It’s a wound that’s going to hurt every time it rains until my own funeral. I still can’t believe I’m writing this.
Let me tell you about Lt. Picou.
He was a fearless leader. He would lock horns with anyone who didn’t have the best interests of his guys on their mind. Whether it was about pay or equipment or any of the other procedural cop things, Picou wasn’t afraid to stand hard on the ground that said, “You’ll give my guys what’s fair, and nothing less.”
He was strong-willed, so that happened somewhat often, but once the confrontation was done, he was past it.
Picou’s legacy in K9 narcotics and interdiction work will echo into the next several generations in a way few other law enforcement officers can claim. The thing about Lt. Picou is that he was so good at what he did, but he didn’t keep it to himself. He taught those in his command everything he knew. He didn’t want to be the only one who was the best – he wanted his team to be the best, and he wanted each and every one of his guys to be the best.
They are, too. There’s not enough room to list all the awards they’ve won, or more importantly, the cases they’ve solved and drugs they’ve intercepted, the suspects they’ve tracked down or stopped because they were the best-trained handlers with the best-trained dogs in the state. That’s not just Rankin and Madison County, either. Picou had students all over the state.
You could tell him the name of a dog and its agency, and he could almost tell you all about every one of them. K9 handlers? Yes, he knew them all by name and reputation and capability.
Lt. Picou taught me so much about interdiction himself, but also by letting me ride with his team while I filmed my series, “Front Lines.” Because of that intensive in-car “classroom” experience, I see a new part of policing a whole new way that I wish other media could see. I now know why it’s important. I can read a media account of some guy who’s accusing a Rankin County deputy of some really ugly stuff and know exactly why he’s lying before I even watch the body cam footage.
Lt. Picou gave me a bank of knowledge on how K9s work too, and introduced me to the world of K9 trials. I can watch a dog performing its job now and to some extent, tell if it knows what it’s doing or not. I can tell you to some degree of accuracy if a handler knows what he’s doing. I can look at accounts of K9s “attacking” suspects and tell you if they did it right or not. There aren’t a lot of media folks that can do that. Lt. Picou gave me that because he said someone on our side of the tape needed to understand that.
When he was at the Hinds County Sheriff’s Office, Undersheriff Picou had to deal with people who didn’t like it that the Sheriff had picked a white undersheriff. He butted heads with some of those in authority about the way to do things. But that said, he was instrumental in bringing in the Metro Area Crime Eradication program, or MACE, which drastically reduced violent crime in Precinct 3 (I think it was legitimately 80% at one count) until the program was left by the wayside under Victor Mason. He made an unequivocal, stark difference everywhere he went.
I’ve just told you a few little glimpses into that long, storied, distinguished career. I think they could write a book and still not even touch on all the accomplishments and impacts of Lt. Picou.
So now let me tell you about my friend Chris.
Chris and I weren’t in Lincoln County at the same time, but we knew each other because you don’t go to Lincoln County and come out not knowing who your friends are. Almost as soon as I hit the metro area, Chris was looking out for me. He’d call me about stories, sure, but as often as not, it was just to talk about stuff that was going on.
Chris was a phone talker, and if he called I knew I’d need at least 30 minutes to chat. He was there to help and vent to both times that I’ve had to make that really hard decision to put down an ailing elderly dog, and he was my go to when I couldn’t make sense of some law enforcement politics nonsense thing that was going on.
He looked out for me. He stuck up for me. It wasn’t just me — these were things he did for all his people. We didn’t always see eye to eye on things — he would get mad at me over something and I wouldn’t know it, then one day he’d call and say, “I’ve been so mad at you for XYZ,” or if I was mad at him, he’d call and say, “Therese, you sure are hard to get hold of. What’s on your mind?” At the end of the day, though, he was the best kind of friend to have because if you were his friend, he’d burn the world to the ground for you. If you heard he said something about you that you didn’t like, don’t worry, he’d say it to your face, too. Even people who disagreed with him or disliked him respected the hell out of him.
Chris loved his family — he was so damn proud of his kids, to include his kids-in-law. His last Facebook post was of his youngest son, waiting in the deer blind for the game of the day. His dogs were family, too, and he could tell you about every K9 partner he’d ever had. He loved hard. He tended to be so matter-of-fact with most people that if you didn’t know him, you might not recognize that enormous heart that beat under the kevlar.
There had been several times recently that Chris and I had talked about retirement — something that he was pretty sure he was ready for, while I was just really daydreaming about it. We talked a lot about the struggles of the section of humanity we live in that breaks your heart every day and exposes you to things you never should have seen, and I knew that he was ready to not have to do that so much anymore.
But I felt like he’d always be involved in whatever the K9 community was doing, though, because Chris was just a dog guy, both personally and professionally. That’s the best way I know how to put it. And you know, it’s certain that his legacy will last for generations of Mississippi dog cops, so I’m right about that.
His beloved partner Splinter died recently, adding his name to a long and distinguished list of Chris’s K9 partners that were waiting on him on the other side. His voice cracked just a little when he told me. I cried about that one too.
And now I can’t talk about Chris without that crack in my voice. I hope I was the friend to him that he was to me, and I think that’s something we all hope for as we think back on his life. I keep feeling like the phone will ring, and I’ll hear him on the other end saying, “Therese, you didn’t believe all that, did you?”
I don’t, Chris. I won’t for a long time. And I will miss you so much — we all will. Godspeed, my dear, dear friend.
