The stories are not those of historians but rather the unadulterated truths coming from old street cops, letting you know first-hand what it was like to walk a beat during this time when the criminal justice system was about to explode.
These police officers had a lot in common with each other. They had come from blue-collar working families and had served their country in the war where they had seen both the best and the worst of mankind. They knew right from wrong and treated everyone with respect, until shown otherwise. As new officers they all got to know the "night people" during their assignment to the graveyard shift. These men called Mansfield, Ohio their home. Mansfield was also the home of the Rev. Joel King, uncle of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Shirley Rhodes, secretary and manager to Sammy Davis, Jr., and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Louis Bromfield. Their stories figure prominently in ours.
Armed with a nightstick and a .38 caliber revolver, the new policemen went to work in the street. Their job changed rapidly through their lifetime. It was a roller-coaster ride of good and bad, the vibration from which can still be felt today. There is a message in every chapter taken from the point of view of the cop who worked the street or from the people who lived the story.
