Chasing bad guys, serving public like Dad

Growing up the sons of a Miami police officer in the 1970s made for an exciting childhood for Kenny, 39, and Richard Dobson Jr., 41.

Their father, Lt. Richard Dobson Sr., brought his sidekick home every night, the amazing Rocky, a German shepherd who played hide and seek with the boys and saved his teeth for the bad guys. The violence of Miami’s streets — punctuated in the 1980 Liberty City riots — if stressful for Richard Sr., offered thrilling tales for the boys.

“We couldn’t wait to hear his stories when he got off from work, what he did that night,” said Richard Jr.

Occasionally, they saw it first hand, pulling up on car accidents, stopping petty crimes in progress and generally helping those in need. Richard Sr. has a knack for being where he’s needed.

There was the time Richard Sr. and a 15-year-old Kenny spotted a tire thief, and father and son split up to give chase.

“I’m running between houses chasing the guy, don’t know what I’m going to do when I catch him,” Kenny recalled. “And I hear this little car screaming and sliding around corners and it’s (Richard Sr.) in the passenger’s seat. He’s got a lady, who he confiscated her car. She’s driving.”

As they grew older, both sons embraced their father’s love for helping people: Richard Jr., first in his 22-year Navy career and now as a newly minted corrections officer at the downtown jail. Kenny as a firefighter, and now the chief of the Fort Myers Fire Department

Richard Sr., at 60, is still collaring the bad guys, now for the Lee County Sheriff’s Office in Lehigh Acres.

If his sons’ childhood excitement has worn off, or at least matured into caution — Richard Sr. says he’s relieved that neither works road patrol as he does — it has been replaced by something more basic.

“To me, it’s working with people — inmates, other officers, the public,” said Richard Jr. “It’s just working with other people that I like.”

His brother, bound more to his desk than a fire truck these days, finds a similar energy in outreach, speaking to children at schools or detention centers.

“I actually don’t miss the tactical and operational aspects of the job,” he said of his position. “I miss the contact with the people.”

It’s called public service, a simple ideal passed on from one generation to the next.

“I think all of us feel the same way,” said Richard Sr. “Now, whether they picked it up from me or we picked it up together through living together, I don’t know. But I think it’s something we all feel.”

Link