Officer Frank Cook
I would like to introduce my father, Officer Francis L. Cook, honorary grandmaster of Big Stick Combat.
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As a police officer, my father developed not just fighting skills, but tactical and strategic thinking. His career in law enforcement started with the police department. In one section in town there were four black bars on four corners. As an idealistic officer, he found that when he went charging into one of the bars in response to a report of a fight, (and fights were common) he suddenly found himself a lone white officer, perhaps with just his partner, facing a very hostile crowd that had him vastly outnumbered.
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He quickly learned not to rush into the bars at the report of a fight, but to circle the block a few times, and enter once things had sorted themselves out. Even better, he decided upon a strategy of waiting outside the bars and ticketing every car approaching the bars for even the smallest infraction. This preemptive strategy shut down the bars.
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Another example of my dad’s tactical thinking can be seen here. We were watching a reality cop show when we saw a cop shoot it out after he found drugs.
“He brought it on himself,” my dad explained. “If it was me, I would have acted like I hadn’t seen any drugs. I would have told them, ‘Alright, guys, I’m letting you off with a warning.’”
“Once they left, I would have followed them and radioed for back up. Once backup arrived, then I would have arrested them.”
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Talking with my dad about these days spent fighting drunks in the bars influenced my thinking on the advantages of the short, heavy weapon, like a sap.
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Officer Cook then became a California Highway Patrolman, a member of what was once an elite law enforcement agency. It was during this era that he began lifting weights with a fellow patrolman and trained briefly with the late James Lee.
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He also learned another important lesson as a young patrolman. Once he was out in the country when he arrested a car full of drunks. His supervisor “flew out there at Mach 9″ to back up my dad. They performed the arrest, and afterwards his supervisor told him that because he was so far out in the country and away from help, the smart thing to do would have been to let them go. Now that may give you pause, and something in you wants to disagree, but sometimes doing the “right” thing can get you killed.
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There are times when a stern demeanor backed up by brute force is the correct response. Officer Cook was a rookie cop out with his mentor making a routine stop. The driver was belligerent and confrontational. My dad responded politely. Suddenly his mentor grabbed the driver by the throat and slammed him onto the hood of the car. In an expletive-laden tirade the older cop lit into the driver telling him in no uncertain terms that he had better shut the &^%$ up and do what the officer said. Miraculously, the troublesome driver’s attitude changed, and he became respectful and cooperative.
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If this seems harsh, interviews with criminals who have killed cops finds a common thread, that the officers who were killed never seemed to be in control.
I remember the time we were at my grandmother’s house, and the family was outside playing baseball. A big dog came roaming around, and it made all of us nervous. A little later my dad got the baseball bat out of the trunk.
“Frank,” my mom said, “there isn’t enough room to hit a baseball in the yard.”
“I’m not going to hit baseballs,” my dad replied. “The bat’s in case that dog comes back.”
It’s a simple incident, but it shows my dad planning ahead and arming himself to face a threat. I now realize that event is eerily symbolic, in that I have studied stick fighting with Filipinos, both in the US and in the Philippines, but eventually arrived at a system in which I prepare myself to face danger with a baseball bat, just as my dad did decades ago.
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