Sandy Sears knows how to speak softly, show compassion and carry a fully charged cell phone.

        Those skills kept a suicidal man alive, and made a reluctant hero out of the Fairfield police detective.

        Sandy spent a good part of last weekend on the phone with him after he shot and wounded his estranged wife and her friend.

        The detective and the shooter kept in touch by cell phone. She got his number from a family member. He had the good sense to answer his phone.

        They spoke late at night. Early in the morning. Once for a few seconds while she typed up warrants for his arrest. Once for 30 minutes from their cars.

        They kept their conversations on a first-name basis.

        “I told him straight up,” Sandy said, “"I'm a regular person just like you are.'”

        The man spoke as he drove around Butler County. During their first phone call, he talked about killing himself.

        Sandy pulled her car over immediately. She started pacing in the street as she gave him reasons to live.

        “I told him committing suicide was a permanent solution to a temporary problem,” the detective said.

Sears

        “I told him he had other options.”

        They kept talking. She spoke in a soft, steady voice.

        “I try to sound very calming and friendly. Not authoritative, angry or excitable,” Sandy explained to me. “If you are calm, they calm down.”

        She made him promise not to harm himself. Or anyone else. He kept his word.

        She eventually persuaded him to put his gun away and surrender. He did. Sunday afternoon. In the crowded parking lot of Jungle Jim's grocery store.

        That's an unusual store. So, its parking lot was a fitting place for their initial face-to-face meeting.

        The first words he said to the woman who was about to place him under arrest were: “Thank you for being so nice.”

        Sandy feels no thanks were necessary. She was just doing a job she loves. She has been a cop since 1992, starting in Glendale. Today marks her 18-month anniversary with Fairfield's police department.

        Uncomfortable in the limelight, she emphasized she did not do this alone. “Members of all three families were a great help. And it was a team effort with many police officers.”

        She started naming names, wanting to share the glory “of a day where you can go home and know that you won on all fronts. You helped the victims and the offender. He didn't harm himself or anybody else.”

        Nice of her to want to share. But there's no denying she was the voice of reason on the phone for one troubled soul.

        She was his lifeline.

        “I've done that about 10 times in my career, where it's been touch-and-go with another person at the other end of the phone,” she said.

        Every time, she reminds herself: “If I was ever in a situation like that, I would want to be treated fairly, with courteousness and respect. That's the way I treat everybody I deal with. It really works.”

        It worked for one man. He's still alive.

        It works for the people of Fairfield. When they're in trouble, they know they can call Sandy Sears.

       Columnist Cliff Radel can be reached at 768-8379; fax 768-8340; e-mail cradel@enquirer.com.
       

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