GOSHEN COUNTY – The Goshen County Historical Society met at the Torrington Platte Valley Bank Tuesday evening for a brief, but gratifying retrospect of law enforcement in Goshen County.

The guest speaker, on behalf of the socity for the evening, was retired long time Torrington officer and former chief of police, Billy Janes. 

Janes began his presentation with an appreciated focus on his wife and three children, one who in fact just celebrated his own 25th anniversary of working in law enforcement.

While Janes’ presentation covered both exciting and painful memories of nearly four decades in police work, the retired Chief made it abundantly clear law-enforcement was not just a career, but a compact passion.

Although retired from police work, Janes stills stays active and productive by serving on various parole boards within the Wyoming Department of Corrections.

“I retired from the police department and had 41 years in,” Janes began. “I’ve actually completed a few more years since then. When I returned from the PD, I had served 30 years as chief. That’s a position where you are appointed, and you serve one year at a time. It’s mayoral appointed, and I made it through eight mayors.”

Janes was met with some giggling and light applause from all in attendance.

“I am currently serving on the parole board, which is appointed by the governor,” Janes said. “I’m in my third year now, and it’s very interesting. I’ve sent a lot of people to jail, but I never really knew what went on when they went there. My eyes have been wide open ever since. The prisoners that are within a year of their bottom number go to the parole board, and tell us why they should get out on parole. Our goal is to parole them if they have done everything they are supposed to do, and if they are not a threat to themselves and society. I’ve had to actually excuse myself from some.”

Janes then proceeded to give a memorable presentation before the society, dropping down bits and pieces of both his and Torrington’s history of handling severe criminal incidents.

As Janes later put it, certain things happen in big cities do not often happen here. However, sooner or later severe/violent criminal behavior reveals itself even in the most quiet and peaceful rural towns.

Just like any other experienced police officer, Janes had to start by paying his rookie dues in the world of law enforcement. Remarkably, those dues began by amusingly working for none other than the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Washington D.C.

“I started as a fingerprint file clerk for the FBI,” Janes laughed. “There were hundreds of fingerprint file clerks for the FBI, and I didn’t make it through summer. I hated Washington, and I hated that job. I really didn’t want to get into stepping up the ladder for the FBI because that takes a very long time, but it got me interested in fingerprints. Eventually, I got certified as a fingerprint expert, and I came back to Torrington.

“There was a lot of debate with plenty of things going on that interested you, and kept you enthused about what was going on in the world,” Janes continued. “At that time a new chief of police had just been hired, and had started a reserve program. I joined up and there was a group of us who mainly worked things like dances, house checks and things like that. Just voluntary. It was interesting and they did a lot of training for us. Some of the training was with secret service and the FBI, so that was my start in law enforcement.”

Once again however, Janes would find himself at first somewhat disillusioned by what his police officer duties would first entail.

“One of the things you had to do back then was the parking meters,” Janes said. “It was the biggest pain in the butt. I couldn’t write a ticket and not get my butt chewed. You would write someone a fifty-cent ticket, and they would just chew you all up and down. You actually had to have a generator, and a drill in order to put the new mechanisms in. It was our job to walk around once a week, and we had a container with a propane cylinder. There were pennies back then, and we would pour them into the container. Of course I always liked to take a few pennies, and throw them out into the street where someone would be happy to find pennies. That was one of the fun jobs.”

Moving further along with his presentation, Janes made it a point to mention one other old school law enforcement position; one that has seemingly gone out of style in recent years.

“Another fun job Torrington had was animal control. Every officer at some point was in charge of doing animal control. In the 70’s, when I started, it was not good. We picked up around 350 dogs every year, and out of those, hundreds would be euthanized. Our dog pound at that time was a little shelter, and it was just something that took a lot of work. Fortunately things have changed, and Teri Smith has done a wonderful job.”

While Janes recalled plenty of fun and amusing moments in the early years of his career, becoming a respected and seasoned officer required having to confront dangerous, violent, or sometimes life-threatening situations.

“Torrington is a small community and relatively safe,” Janes explained. “But every crime that happens everywhere else happens here at some point. If you look at our history, one of our worse cases was J.B. Minor, which happened roughly two blocks over and five houses north of here. A pastor of the Baptist church shot and killed his wife, four of his five children and then committed suicide.”

This of course was just one example of the disturbing cases Janes was forced to confront. Other times, things could get even more extreme. 

“One of my first experiences a couple of months after I had started was when I was working by myself. This guy had kidnapped his girlfriend’s four kids from Gering, and I’m by myself here in Torrington driving around enjoying the day. Dispatch calls me, and says this guy called from a payphone here in Torrington. At the time there were two payphones in Torrington. One was at Coors Warehouse by Deacon’s, and the other was by the phone company. I drove down by the phone company, and there he is. He sees me and boom the chase is on. I’m young, new and enthused and here we are going by Eastern Wyoming College on West C, and his back window breaks out. And I thought, ‘Wow he’s shooting at me.’ He points his rifle at one of the kids, and then shoots out the back window. Another officer joined me, and we ended up some 20 miles north of town, then we ended up something like 10 miles east. We’re braking fences, fences are flying, and finally he gets stuck. Ron Price was the sheriff in an airplane following us because radios weren’t good at the time, so it was hard to tell people where you were at. The FBI was also involved, and this went on for 12 hours. Basically, we were in Nebraska when he gave up. There were cops everywhere who came from all over to help out, he gets transported away, was found guilty and I think he died in prison.”

Ironically, after an intense first chase with an armed and dangerous assailant years ago, Janes couldn’t help but reveal a most riotous ending to an extremely threatening situation.

“Whenever there is something serious, something dumb always happens,” Janes snickered. “We got that taken care of, and then I get stuck in the middle of the mud. The radio can’t hear me while they’re taking this guy to jail forever. So, I turned on my sirens and lights, and I just sat there.” 

Once again Janes was met with more chuckling as well as some light clapping.

“Then here comes a generous rancher who got me unstuck.”

The end of Janes’ presentation was met with applause and handshakes in appreciation of his four decades of maintaining peace, law and integrity in Torrington, .

The meeting ended at 8:35 p.m.