Officers' Handling of Bizarre Call Leads to Recognition

Michael Peterson has seen a lot in the past 27 years. So when he and Barry Ratcliff were standing outside Community Medical Center on Oct. 8 and a hysterical man in his mid-20s approached an empty patrol car and began talking to it, he wasn’t really surprised. After all, on a past call he’d been told a magician was running across a curtain rod and throwing down lightening bolts, so to Peterson, this was just another day.

“We were at Community on a call and this young man comes up and starts talking to Barry’s patrol car, telling the vehicle that he needed help,” Peterson recalls. “Of course we approach him, ask if we can help him with something and he starts wanting to know if we see them; the ‘black shadows’. There were black shadows that were chasing him and they were everywhere, all over.”

As one of the San Angelo Police Department’s most senior officer, Peterson had become accustomed to situations like these, and quickly determined the best way to handle the incident might be to play along. The goal, he said, was to calm the man down, and when someone’s in that state telling him he’s imagining it all isn’t always the best recourse.

“Of course, we started talking to him, trying to help him and no way. All of sudden he decided that well, the shadows were after me, too,” Peterson said. “Of course maybe I helped him with that by telling him this, trying to get him to calm down, and then he decided that I was working with the shadows.”

As the officers spoke, they utilized a 10-code to describe the situation, which apparently the man knew. Thinking Peterson had tricked him and was secretly one of the shadows, he ran across Sunset Drive toward the bank drive through, screaming for help and heading for cars with open windows.

With the officers in sprint behind him, the man began searching for entry to a car, and a woman manages to get her window up just in time.  

“He turns from her when she gets it up, goes and jumps into the window of another car,” he said. “Of course the whole time he’s screaming and hollering, ‘Help me!’ because the shadows are chasing him and I’m one of them.

“Once he gets in that window, I realized then—I wasn’t sure what he was going to do—but as soon as he went in it I realized he’s not trying to hurt anybody.”

At the bank, the man, Mike Belman, has entered the vehicle of James Halfast. Heeding the officer’s instructions not to hurt the man, Halfast and another man nearby, Mike McApline, assist the officers in getting Belman out of the car.

“Both of them jumped in and helped and did a good job,” Peterson said. He later recommended that the two receive awards for their assistance, and the Police Department gave them each a certificate of appreciation and an SAPD challenge coin.

“When they came in to receive their awards we explained to them we definitely appreciated their help. We were trying not to arrest or harm Belman; we were trying to protect him from himself. He wasn’t trying to hurt anybody,” Peterson said.

As for the Belman incident: “It was like a normal day, actually.”

Peterson has been with the PD for 26 years 9 months, and in that stretch of time, the shadows incident was not near the strangest he’s ever dealt with. For his and Ratcliffe’s handling of the situation, both officers were nominated the SAPD Officers of the Month for November. Still, Peterson says, he’s not seeking any recognition. He was just doing his job.

Reflecting on past incidents equally strange in nature, Peterson said there’s no real key to knowing how to handle these situations, and says he bases his reactions on experience and situational awareness. His decisions aren’t always right, he said, but each is a learning experience and that’s what he enjoys most about his job.

“Belman heard Barry and I talking and we made the mistake of using one of our 10-codes. Well, then he knew what those codes were so that’s when he decided we were with the shadows. You realize that’s a mistake. [We] should have just continued playing the shadow game with him,” he said pensively.

Growing up in a family with several law enforcement officers as close friends, Peterson said it wasn’t always his dream to become an officer, and he didn’t play cops and robbers as a kid. Instead, he developed a deep respect for those around him, which served as a motivator to start his own law enforcement career.

On Feb. 1, 1988, Peterson was hired at the only PD he’s ever served, and moved to San Angelo, where he’s remained ever since.

“It’s the only job I ever applied for in law enforcement, right here,” he said. “My mind was simply made up that this was where I was going to work, and the truth of what drug me here as far as that end of it [was] they had three lakes. That was the whole thing, though—they had three lakes…if you knew how much I really enjoy fishing…”

Attracted by water that has since dried up, Peterson said the lake levels aren’t the only things that have changed since he began on patrol at the age of 24. Back then, he said, he was young and thought he had a good idea of what was going on. He had his opinions and his youthful notions of how the world worked, but the next couple of decades would teach him something different.

After so many years on the job, Peterson said he’s learned that “you don’t know what you think you know about [human nature]. Everything is possible and I know I have seen this, but I know I haven’t even scratched the surface about what’s going on. That’s the one thing that I’ve learned that anything is possible. I don’t second-guess too many things anymore.”

Balancing the abhorrent and the bizarre takes something from you, he said, but at the same time the positive side of helping people and breaking down stereotypes with a stark look at reality has had a positive impact on his.

“I would say that it has made me, probably a much better person,” he said. “When you first start out, you’ve got your mindset. But then you get out there and you realize it’s not just one thing, but several other things as well. I try to be as unbiased as I possibly can; as understanding of things.

“I enjoy meeting different people; learning about different people. I learn the good and the bad and that’s probably most of the enjoyment that I get out of it,” he said. “I’m one of those where even if you’ve done something wrong, I’m still not angry with you. I enjoy learning about people.”

Although he could have technically retired in 2008, Peterson still wakes up to head to work for his shift four days a week; a routine he for one reason or another can’t break. Despite having filled out his retirement paperwork three times, each stack continually ends up in the waste bin. He doesn’t know when he will retire, he said, but for now he’ll continue putting on the uniform and lacing up his boots.

“I enjoy doing what I do,” he said. “I like being out here doing this. I think the only way you ever really get good at something is to do it and do it for a while.”