STORY BEHIND THE POEM BARNEY
Tan Tran, PC 1776. He's Vancouver Police Department's very
first Vietnamese officer. He is very new to our squad and an enthusiastic
and hard worker. On this particular day, he was in an absolute
panic. He had taken home his issue .40 caliber Beretta and all
three magazines, to do the required weekly cleaning and maintenance.
He had come into town for Squad training day and left his weapon
safely locked up at home because, training day is all inside.
After training, he stayed in town because he was too tired to
make the commute home and converting over from night shift to
day shift is hard at the best of times. He had his girlfriend
bring in his gun box containing his weapon so he would have it
for the next day. Unfortunately, as per policy, his magazines
and ammunition were kept locked separately. She didn't know, and
didn't bring in the second box. Imagine his surprise when getting
to work the next day to discover his gun was there, but the ammunition
wasn't. Tan like all new members, wants to make a good impression
and of course doesn't want to have a mistake found out. He tried
desperately to hide it, but while sitting in roll call, his discomfort
was readily apparent. Of course the rest of the squad quickly
picked up on it and kept prompting until he admitted what had
happened. Policemen being the caring, sensitive individuals that
we are, began to fire off a string of one-liners teasing Tan about
this mistake. Until finally one member shouted out, "Hey
Tan we can give you one bullet to carry in your shirt pocket like
Barney Fyfe". This broke everyone up, including Tan, and
from that the poem was born. Oh, and we did manage to borrow some
ammunition and magazines so that Tan went out on the road properly
equipped.