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Tom's
Page > My Career
 I am a Deputy Sheriff with the Marion County Sheriff's Department in
Indianapolis, Indiana. I am presently a detective assigned to the Sexual and Physical
Abuse Unit (SPAU) Road Patrol Section of the Investigations Division.I started in Law Enforcement more than 30 years ago- but made my decision to go into police work in my senior year of high school in 1972. My teacher in Sociology required everyone to do something out of the ordinary as a final project- he called it a 'Creative Response'. There weren't any requirements other than it had to be something other than reading a book and writing a report. My entire family is very police-oriented. My father was an Indianapolis Police Officer along with my brother, two uncles and two cousins. As a senior at Warren Central High School I was planning to attend Purdue University for four years to get my DVM- Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. Looking for an easy way to get a good grade in Sociology I thought it would be a great idea to ride along with my brother, John, on several of his shifts and tape what happened. I'd play the tape back in front of the class and hopefully glide into my final semester of my senior year. I captured some rather dramatic recordings- a lot of sirens and screeching tires. I was also lucky enough to record a very serious run from the time it was dispatched till the time John marked back 'in service'. John was working late shift the night before Thanksgiving. It seemed like an excellent opportunity to ride because even thought I would be up all night I could sleep during the day and wake up to a turkey dinner with our entire family. The district I would be riding in was known as "Frank 6" and back then (and for that matter, still) it was not the friendliest part of town. We were dispatched to a 'man with a gun'. I was thrilled! But I couldn't understand why John didn't have the red lights and siren going. He explained the lights would only make us a target and at 1:30 AM there was no need for a siren. As we turned onto the street John saw a man with a .30 Carbine standing on the roof of the porch of a house. Simultaneously he floored his car, yelled at me to get on the floor and called for his backup to to step it up. Luckily the man didn't take a shot at us but jumped to the ground and ran. We screeched to a stop about three houses down the block. I still remember John pulling his shotgun from its rack and yelling at me to "stay in the car!" as he slammed the door close to chase the man. I stayed in the car! He came back moments later and broadcast a description of the subject and the direction he ran- all of which I recorded. I edited the final tape for my class splicing in several other incidents from subsequent rides. The reality series Cops was years away and the effect of the tape on my Sociology class was electrifying. It was real, dramatic and everyone, including the teacher, questioned me at great depth about my adventure. I got a 'A" for the class! I rode with John several other times and I became hooked. My first semester at IUPUI I gave up on the idea of becoming a veterinarian and changed my major to Criminal Justice. I was lucky enough to qualify for a full-ride scholarship through the Law Enforcement Education Program (LEEP) which paid for my classes and books. The only stipulation was that I had to work as a full-time police officers for four years after graduation. In my Junior year I joined the Cadet Officer Program offered by the Indiana University Police. I spent two weeks of the Summer in training at the Bloomington campus. In the fall I worked part-time for the University Police doing non-sworn work- dispatching, writing parking tickets, writing police reports among other things. The summer before my senior year I completed the Cadet Officer course and was sworn in as a police officer and worked part-time doing everything the full-time officers did. During my senior year a full-time position opened up on the department and I was allowed to fill it. Although I had to finish my degree work on a part-time basis, ultimately in 1977, I was happy to have the job and not have to pay back my scholarship. The Indiana University Police Cadet / Cadet Officer Program is still in operation and is a great way to get a degree, certification as a police officer and on-the-job experience. In the spring of 1977 the Marion County Sheriff's Department began taking applications for the position of Merit Deputy Sheriff. I applied for the job- along with 1,700 other people. The hiring process takes several month and I had to past several different tests, an interview board and a background investigation. I was sworn in on September 3, 1977 as the sixth person hired. Back in 1977 all deputies started in the Jail working the floors. The next step was to make it to the street as a road deputy. The procedures in place then required each new deputy to spend his own time riding with a seasoned street officer learning procedures, policies, paperwork- in short everything else about the job. This wasn't something you could do in a few weeks- it was not unusual for officers to spend five years making it to the road. Even after the initial phases you were required to sign out a departmental commission and work district by yourself (again, on your own time) until there was an opening on the street. After 17 months I was ready to get out of the Jail. At that point the normal procedure was to transfer into Communications as it was thought that the district cars really needed to understand the job the dispatchers did before they, themselves, hit the street. It was an excellent idea and one, I am very sorry to say, that is no longer being used. Normally deputies would spend a couple of years in Communication (working with some of the finest people I've ever known) and then transfer into the Law Enforcement Division. The job in Dispatch is the hardest I've ever been assigned. You worked eight hours without lunch or breaks and if it was busy you simply didn't leave your console. This is back before 911 system and you answered the phone, wrote out the runs by hand, dispatched the units and kept tabs on them until they were back in service. There was a manpower study done on our Communications Section comparing it the Indianapolis Police Department. The study indicated that IPD had 74 people working in Dispatch, had Computer Aided Dispatching (CAD) and during one year they handled 600,000 runs. In the same year with 18 people and no CAD we handled 500,000 runs. As I said before it was the hardest job I've ever done, I am grateful for the experience it provided me, I am proud of my work- but after 10 years in Dispatch I would never go back! Even though my plan was always to work my way to the road I found out that it didn't rain inside dispatch. It didn't rain or snow or much of anything. People didn't shoot at you, you didn't get in fights or get hurt (unless you stumbled over a chair and sprain your ankle) I was also a Marion County Hostage Negotiator for five years. The training for the job was extensive. I spent in excess of 240 hours in classroom instruction through the FBI and Northwestern University. The MCSD Hostage Negotiation Team further required a minimum of an additional 96 hours of in-service training each year. In my five years as a negotiator our team was called out to 49 different incidents. In sixteen of those incidents I was the lead negotiator. In only a single incident were we unable to talk a suspect out. In that instance, early one Easter morning, we hid behind a brick wall as the subject shot at us. Unfortunately he spoke only Spanish and we spoke only English. The gentleman was upset when he returned to his home and found his wife with another man. After chasing the man from his house he started shooting up his apartment. We were called and latched onto the only person who could translate for us. Long story- short- SWAT gassed and grabbed him. We found out that the reason he kept shooting at us is that the person doing our translations was also the man he found in bed with his wife- ouch! I was always fascinated by computers- I still am. Toward the end of my tenure in Communications a friend who worked in the Data Processing Section left the department for a better job. It was getting time for me to leave Communications. After almost ten years in Communications Merit officers were slowly being replaced by civilians. It was time for me to go elsewhere in the department. In order to even apply for the position in Data Processing I had to take a competitive math and logic test, as well as pass an oral interview board. Somehow I passed all the tests, the interview board and was permitted to transfer into the Administration Division, promoted to the rank of Corporal and assigned to the Data Processing Section. (Now called Information Services.) My primary job was that of Analyst/Programmer in a VAX / VMS mainframe environment primarily programming in COBOL and utilizing DCL. This was back before the advent of PC networks and client/server environments. As personal computers became more popular I became the department's PC Specialist giving me a background in DOS (versions 3.1 to 6.0), Windows (version 2.0 through XP) and Microsoft Office (versions 2.0 through Office XP). I also became involved in criminal investigations involving personal computers. I have extensive training in computer forensics through the International Association of Computer Investigative Specialists (IACIS), the National White Collar Crime Commission (NWC3), Forensic Association of Computer Technologists (FACT). I was a member of the FBI's Small Computer Attack Team (SCAT) and Indiana Infraguard. However, now my functions as a investigator are now greatly diminished after the Sheriff's Department started the Cyber Crimes Units as part of the Investigations Division. In May of 1998 I was given the assignment to develop a new web site for the Marion County Sheriff's Department. This represents an amazing opportunity to me. I was given no formal instructions as to the site's content. I also had no idea as to how to even make a web site but I was given enormous freedom to as I wished. I took an 8-hour class in Microsoft FrontPage and was given a book to read. The MCSD web site was first published to the World Wide Web in June of 1998. There was only five pages of content and none of the graphics worked! The Marion County Sheriff's Department Web Site grew dramatically. The site received several awards and in 1999 I was given the Mayor's Excellent Award by Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith. The City of Indianapolis calls the MCSD Web Site "one of IndyGov's biggest and most popular web site." We were the first public Safety Agency in the State of Indiana developing significant Spanish-language content- sitio del Internet del Departamento del Sheriff del Condado de Marion (DSCM). At present we have 45 pages of Spanish language content and the only restriction is the available time of our departmental Spanish translator, Deputy Matthew Andrade. My experience with web site development also permitted me to start a small part-time web site design business, Custom Design Concepts as well as, of course- the Wood Family Web Site.  I've been at Marion County for twenty-seven years
(here's the picture of me being awarded my 25 Year Pin). My son, Jeff, is also a Merit
Deputy at Marion County where he works day shiftin the Law Enforcement (uniform) Division.
Incidentally, Jeff also was an Officer with the I.U. Police where he attended the Indiana
Law Enforcement Training Academy in Plainfield, Indiana. He graduated from ILETA
with an Honors Diploma and was ranked as 5th in his class. My brother, although now
retired from active duty with the Indianapolis Police Department, remains a Reserve
Officer. His son, Thomas Douglas Wood, is a patrolman with the Greenwood Police
Department.Since September of 1952 there has always been at least one member of the Wood Family in police work in Central Indiana. | UPDATES: On June 6, 2003: Hmmm, it seems my career is taking another turn. I was transferred from the Data Processing Section to the Law Enforcement Division, Road Patrol Section. June 7, 2004: After a full year as a street officer I was lucky enough to pass an interview board and assigned to the MCSD Investigations Divison as a detective. I am now part of the Sexual and Physical Abuse Unit. This is a terribly important job, more important than any job I've ever had. I will do my best to make my family and my department proud.  Return to Tom's Page
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