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View a picture of the Journal Inquirer page In his 25 years as a cop, Sgt. Spence Frazee learned that using the right words in a tense situation could be as powerful as drawing his gun. Frazee recalled once such situation during a recent interview. He is retiring From the Police Department after 25 years on the job. The right words saved the lives of Frazee and another officer, Bill Daley, more than 20 years ago. The two had been sent to investigate a domestic dispute on Oakland Street. A man with a shotgun surprised them, and there was no time for them to draw their weapons. "At the top of the stairs a guy came around the corner with his shotgun and held us at bay for maybe 20 minutes" Frazee said. The man pointed the shotgun at them - and racked it. All he had to do was fire. "He got the drop on us," Frazee said. "And he was distraught, desperate, and at wit's end. He wanted to end it all. We were there for 20 minutes with nothing but words." Frazee and Daley diffused the situation by simply talking to the man. In the end, the man put the shotgun down. He was taken to the hospital for an emergency psychiatric committal. "Both Bill Daley and I lost a few years on that one," Frazee said. That was the worst moment in Frazee's career. The best was a case he worked on in the early 1980s. A woman had been stabbed by a stranger as she walked home. The case went unsolved for a couple of months, until Frazee solved it and arrested the man. The woman was so impressed with Frazee's professionalism that she later named a son after him, as an expression of gratitude. "That's the coolest and nicest thing that's happened in 25 years," Frazee said. "It shows that you actually made a difference to someone." The ability to make a difference " in the lives of others was what attracted Frazee to police work. After graduating from college with a degree in mechanical engineering, Frazee, who grew up in the Rockville section of Vernon, went to work at Pratt & Whitney. He lasted six months. "I realized I hated it," he said. He then went to work painting houses, and later became a store detective at G. Fox in Hartford. It was while working there that he applied to become a Manchester cop. The Police Department hired him in 1976. Frazee went on to work in the detective division, become an original member of the Tri-Town Narcotics Task Force, and join the department's SWAT team. In 1997, he became a patrol sergeant. He never took the lieutenant's exam, he said, because it would have landed him behind a desk - and away from the streets. "I just like people. I like doing my job" he said. "I get withdrawal when I get an assignment that's not on the street." In 1998 and 1999 Frazee wrote a column for the Journal Inquirer called "Street Cop." In it he answered questions from residents and students, and expounded on the tribulations of police work. "I enjoyed the questions from the kids. They were the best questions, and sometimes the deepest," he said. "One girl wanted to know why people took drugs, and I hadn't even thought of that question. And when I started to look into it, that article became deeper than I ever thought it would be." Writing has been one of Frazee's loves. He hopes to do more of it while in retirement. Last summer Yankee Magazine published an article he wrote about his infamous great-great uncle, Harry Frazee. As owner of the Boston Red Sox, Harry Frazee in 1919 sold Babe Ruth to the hated New York Yankees. "He's condemned me to be a Red Sox fan forever," Spence Frazee said. In the immediate future, however, magazine writing will have to wait. Frazee is in the process of buying his friend's private detective agency, Foxfire Investigations, which he will own and operate in Vernon. The agency investigates insurance fraud, helps criminal defense lawyers with their cases, and performs electronic surveillance and accident investigations. "That's the part of police work I like - investigating" Frazee said. "I haven't been able to do that because I've been on patrol, so now I'll be able to get back into it." Frazee leaves police work at a time when the department is embracing wholeheartedly the concept of community policing, where officers take a proactive approach to combating crime by working more closely with the community. While he's not opposed to that concept and says it has good intentions, he worries that resources will be stripped where they're needed most - on the street to catch the bad guys. Frazee has advice for the young officers he leaves behind: "Don't judge the people you're dealing with on the street. Listen to them. And don't take away their hope, because sometimes that's all they've got."
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