First Days and (Lifesaving) Nights with the Greeneville Police Department

First Days and Nights with the Greeneville Police Department

So, I put in an application with the Greeneville Police Department. At first hiring, I was passed over. I come in second on the list, and they hired Gilbert Burger. I took the test again and I came in first. They had the choice of hiring out of the top three. I was lucky to have moved in across the street from Pete Luttrell, who at that time was well known by Chief Aud Shepherd. Pete and Chief Shepherd were talking over about the top three, and Pete told him that Hinkle was a good man. Shepherd shook his head and said, “I don’t like the damn name Hinkle.” 

After I went to work in June 1965 I found out why he didn’t like the name Hinkle. Hinkles were always drunk, fighting or stealing or something. So, thanks to Pete I got to go to work for the Greeneville Police Department.

I started out working six days a week, graveyard shift. Well, I didn’t start out that. They put me on day shift first, for about a month. I walked the streets, wrote tickets and checked businesses. I was on straight days, then they put me on graveyard.

My first day at work I was put on the street with Jay Walker.  Our beat was Main Street, from one end to the other just about. We'd go right up by the bus station which was on the corner of Church and Main at that time. We'd check the bus station and then walk on up by the car wash that was on the right, belonged to Bill Whitehead. And we'd walk up to Laughlin Hospital across the street at the corner of Spencer, and walk back down checking meters. Joe Walker complained I like to walked him to death, that I never rested. I was on the beat with him about a week, then about a week I had it by myself.

Then they took me off the street and put me on graveyard, straight graveyard, six days a week.

At that time, we were riding two in a car, and J.R. Boles most of the time was my partner. He was a hard worker. He’d work graveyard shift and then go work on the farm for a dollar an hour. He’d come in tired and irritable and Bobby Britton would say something to get J.R. started, then I’d have to crawl in the car with him, and J.R. would complain most of the night … about something.

We were riding out the Asheville Hwy. I guess it was about 2:30 in the morning, we was working graveyard shift, and there was a cross along the road where says three people killed here. And, as we were going towards Asheville on the Asheville Hwy., we got a glimpse of somebody hanging on to that cross and then fall down the bank. J.R. looked at me and blinked, and I looked at J.R. and blinked, and I said, “Did you see what I saw?” He said, “yeah!” so we pulled up there and stopped.

A lady had wrecked and run off the bank and she’d just gathered enough strength to crawl back up to the top and hang, and hold on to the cross, and then passed out and fell back down the bank. So, we got an ambulance and got her out and she survived.

She wrote a nice letter to the chief of police telling how we’d saved her life.