INDEPENDENCE - Police officers spend a lot of time looking for people.
James T. Bass, just starting out with the Kenton County police department, went looking for James T. Bass.
His was the kind of work they don't teach in police training. It happens sometimes that our toughest showdowns are with ourselves. So it was with Jamie Bass.
The story of Mr. Bass, a 21-year-old Cincinnati resident, is a police story with a twist. He never stared down a gun barrel, but he did something any one of us would agree is almost as scary: He took a long, hard look at himself.
Always a dream
What Mr. Bass saw on the surface was someone created in the image of a lawman, descendant of a long line of police officers. His father, his uncle, his cousin - Cincinnati cops all. Naturally, Jamie wanted to keep the tradition.
''It was always a dream of mine,'' he says.
In the fall of 1995, Mr. Bass took his first step toward that dream: He took the entrance exams required to become a candidate for a job on the Kenton County police force. His scores on the oral and written tests earned him a spot on the eligible list, 20th out of 51 candidates.
''He's a very bright young man,'' Kenton County Police Chief Mike Browning said.
Mr. Bass is only four hours away from a degree in criminal justice at Northern Kentucky University. But he was even closer to becoming a police officer.
Mr. Bass had been called up, had passed the requisite psychological and physical exams, the polygraph test, the drug screening and the background and credit checks.
As the weekend of Jan. 18 and 19 loomed, all that remained was for Mr. Bass to attend a 10-day orientation session at Eastern Kentucky University's police academy in Richmond.
Heart-to-heart talk
Orientation was to begin that Sunday. But on Friday, Jan. 17 - just before he would have had to move south from his parents' Cincinnati home - the whole thing came to a screeching halt.
Chief Browning, having heard the new recruit was filled with doubt, called him in off the firing range for a heart-to-heart talk. Mr. Bass admitted it: He was having second thoughts.
''He was having a difficult time over what to do,'' Mr. Browning says. ''He said he'd never agonized like this over a decision before.
Having trouble sleeping
''He was having trouble sleeping and eating.''
The chief listened compassionately. The conversation was pleasant enough. Chief Browning and Mr. Bass both are friendly, intelligent men.
Mr. Bass was not the first or the last new officer to have doubts about his chosen line of work. ''This has happened before,'' Chief Browning says.
It wasn't Mike Browning that James T. Bass had to confront during those crucial moments in the chief's office, after all. It was himself. And the thought of all those relatives who had been cops before him.
First and last manhunt
Mr. Bass resigned that night. ''I just don't think I'm ready for it right now,'' he says. The chief advised him to go home, order a pizza and live his life again.
''He might be the CEO of Procter & Gamble in 15 years,'' Mr. Browning says. ''The kid's really bright, and I think he's going to do well.''
This spring, Mr. Bass will concentrate on getting his degree from NKU. But now he has an idea what he wants to do with his future.
''If I can get my grades up, I want to go to law school,'' he says.
And that's that: James T. Bass, at the end of his first and last manhunt as a lawman - a search in which he found James T. Bass, even though he is not where he thought he would be:
Not at the firing range;
Not following in a relative's footsteps;
Not in a police cruiser, lights flashing, chasing someone else's dream.
Rob Kaiser is The Enquirer's Kentucky columnist. His column appears regularly on Sundays and Thursdays in The Kentucky Enquirer. He can be reached at 578-5584.