Milliinaire Dollar Baby I Challenge Thomas Hitman Hearns
DETROIT'S MILLION-DOLLAR Police force HELPER
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September xv, 1981
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Car 10XR was patrolling an area of Detroit heavily infested by narcotics when the telephone call came in. A homo had been seen hiding a purse believed to incorporate narcotics behind a bush. Car 10XR was closest to the scene. Bobby Butkines, Car 10XR's driver, is a traffic enforcement officeholder with the 10th Precinct of the Detroit Police Department. He responds to all accidents, and of cours e to any officer-in-tr ouble runs.
On his 8-hour shifts, Officer Butkines oft drives with a reservist, a civilian volunteer who needs to be protected. ''I respect how important he is to the city and to and so many people,'' Officeholder Butkines says of the rider and occasional codriver whom he has had for the last eight months.
On this call, well-nigh 4 months ago, Officer Butkines and his partner searched the area but could find nix. Officer Butkines questioned a adult female who lived at the address given on the written report. ''She just didn't know anything,'' he said in a recent interview. ''She just didn't encounter anything.
''All of a sudden, she noticed that Thomas Hearns was standing at that place.'' Dissimilar Work Clothes
Thomas Hearns, in police uniform and wearing his .357 Magnum, is not so absorbing a figure as he is in his regular piece of work clothes. In boxing trunks, wearing eight-ounce gloves and an icy stare, he may make even Sugar Ray Leonard'southward middle beat a little faster tomorrow nighttime.
The woman recognized Hearns, Detroit'southward biggest hero since Marking Fidyrich talked to baseballs. ''Hey, I'll show yous where everything's at,'' she said. ''She took u.s.a. to this rock, and underneath there's a brown paper bag which contained twenty or 25 packs of suspected narcotics,'' Officeholder Butkines said. ' 'She simply spilled her guts. She wouldn't tell me anything. She told it all to Thomas. At least for that 24-hour interval, we injure the narcotics trade.''
Tomorrow night, then, Leonard will have his first brush with the law, meeting his fellow globe welterweight champion to unify the championship in Las Vegas, Nev. Leonard will earn more than $10 meg, Hearns slightly more than than $5 million.
''I recall we're going to have a million-dollar baby who wants to be a police force officer,'' Officer Butkines said. Unusual Size and Reach
Men of Hearns's wealth don't wind up on constabulary forces although Hearns is a rather unusual 22-year-old millionaire. His manager and trainer, Emanuel Steward, and Leonard characterize him as a freak because of his size and reach - half dozen feet 1 inch of rod-like muscle with a 78 1/ii-inch wingspan worthy of a small plane.
He is a common cold-eyed knockout puncher who, in the ring, doesn't ''care most the other fighter'' but who, after the knockout, ''when you're supposed to exist feeling good, I feel sad almost it, wondering if the man is O.One thousand.''
He is an athlete of enormous concrete talent, a feared puncher, who as a scrawny child ''had to work up my nerve to ask to go far the neighborhood football games.''
''I used to terminate up on the bottom of the piles,'' he said the other solar day in his Caesars Palace hotel suite, ''and when I would hit a guy he'd simply proceed on going and drag me along. When I was 10, I didn't call back there were any sports for me.''
Now, undefeated in 32 professional fights, with 30 knockouts, he cannot believe anyone tin can beat out him. It was not always that fashion. ''When I was young,'' he said, ''it seemed I always had to fight guys much amend than I was. I was basically just a one-two, ane-two fighter.'' In the past, he feared aught simply failure. ''I used to remember,'' hesaid, '' 'What if I lose to this guy? What wi ll people remember of me?' '' Success took care of that worry. He Says What He Ways
He is a blunt, no-nonsense person who doesn't waste syllables. While on his publicity bout for tomorrow's fight, he was asked by a Black Muslim in Harlem, ''Are you lot spiritual?'' He looked at the human being with the same glare he uses in the ring, then answered, ''No.''
He is a physical person, who likes the combat of boxing and of wrestling with Steward and friends when they least expect it. ''I knew he was getting stronger when he jumped on my back, just like he always does, and I couldn't throw him off,'' Steward said.
He is also introspective, someone who likes to take long lonely walks to think things out. In Las Vegas, waiting for the fight, he has been caged in a hotel suite. His walks, he said, are ''from there to there,'' and he pointed to two opposite walls.
He is a product of Detroit'south East Side ghetto, a quiet kid neighbors remember simply for his dedication to boxing. School over, Hearns would hop a series of buses to go to the West Side to be trained by Steward at the Kronk Gymnasium. Grooming over, he would return home and work out in the backyard or in the basement. Steward says he never thought the 11-twelvemonth-old Hearns would amount to much as a boxer, just he was impressed with the youngster's conclusion and fearlessness.
''Thomas is scared of nobody,'' Steward said. He realized at that place was no manner he would forbid Hearns from beingness a volunteer policeman. Here'southward a homo, risking millions of dollars, doing dangerous work for nix. ''That's Tommy,'' Steward said. A Friend of the Police
''I e'er used to think about what it would be similar to be a police officeholder,'' said Badge 1220 of the Detroit Police Department, the Globe Battle Clan'due south welterweight champion. ''It seemed like difficult piece of work. We never had plenty police officers where I grew up. I remember all kids think about being policemen.''
''Hey, I know that feeling,'' said Officer Butkines, who is 34 years quondam and became a policeman 13 years ago. ''That'south all I ever wanted to be. He knows what he wants to do, and he'll be qualified. He watches with a very close eye how I handle my reports.
''He'll voluntarily take the load off me. If we're at the scene of an accident, he'll ask if in that location were any witnesses and ask their names, their addresses and phone numbers, and what did they run into. He's very courteous and seems to get along with anybody. He's from the 'hood - lived there all his life - and has that bones street sense. He could be a very good officeholder. He'due south a very adept partner. He knows what'southward expected of him.''
Officeholder Butkines said Hearns did not like crowds, simply ''if we're working and people kickoff asking him for autographs or merely desire to talk boxing with him, he'll be polite and say, 'Wait till nosotros stop our business.'
''One time, we had to arrest a guy nosotros stopped for making a prohibited left turn, and he could non produce a driver's license,'' Officer Butkines said. ''En route to the 10th Precinct, he looked at Thomas and said, 'You lot kind of look like that boxer, what'southward his proper name? Everyone ever tell y'all that?'
''I said, 'Who do you call back you're talking to?' And he finally looked at Thomas'south name tag. 'You're Tommy Hearns?' he said. 'Information technology's a pleasure existence arrested by y'all'.'' Right Paw Is Real Weapon
Hearns said he liked ''working with kids.'' ''As a kid, I didn't accept the attending I wanted to accept,'' he said. He likes to remember he is a adept shot with his Magnum, only Officer Butkines, who has never seen Hearns on the shooting range, said, ''All the other officers say he couldn't striking the broad side of a barn.''
Hearns's best weapon remains his right hand, the one he said yesterday could make this the ''easiest fight I've ever had.'' ''It's very possible this fight can end very, very quickly,'' he said. ''No more than than three rounds.'' If it doesn't, he isn't worried virtually Leonard'south repeated contention that Hearns volition vesture downwards in the fight. ''I might be tired,'' Hearns said, ''but Ray better non underestimate me. Tired, I'm all the same able to break ribs and break jaws.''
Officeholder Butkines won't be there to spotter. He'll be at i of the airtight-circuit outlets in Detroit with $40 bet on Hearns.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/15/sports/detroit-s-million-dollar-police-helper.html
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