Quotes by Fred Richards

“After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.””

“I wished at that moment that the Wests had killed me, it would have been a merciful release from the hell that DC Smith was putting me through. This barrage of questions by DC Smith and his heavy-handedness into this inquiry and his bullying barrack-room interrogation style of interviewing had left me feeling shamed.””

“I thought they were going to kill me there and then, which would have been a relief. To my horror, they spoke words that I will never forget: ‘We are going to keep you in the cellar and let our black friends use you and when they have finished with you, we will kill you and bury you under the paving stones of Gloucester. There are hundreds of girls there, the police haven’t found them and they wont find you!””

“scheduled to begin Monday. The next morning, the crew rode to look at Slaughter’s cows and calves. They saw most of them and told Chet he made a very good buy. The cattle were great. Chet and Jesus took the late stage back from Tombstone. Fred and Spencer took a room, stabled the horses, and were to join them Saturday night in Tucson.””

“When the fight starts you do not have time to stop and think about the fundamentals.” ~Chet Richards, Certain to Win 1   Chet Richards wrote an interesting piece “Developing the Touch”, in which he asks the question, if Fingerspitzengefühl (fingertip feel) can be taught, why do so few people have it? He goes on to make two key points: First, Fingerspitzengefühl is a skill, so although most people can get better at it, some are going to get a lot better. Second, it’s a strange kind of skill, not for performing complicated or even dangerous tasks mystically well, but for sensing what is going on among groups of people in conflict and then influencing what happens.2 Chet’s points got me to thinking about, why is it we in law enforcement often times have difficulty applying what we know to a given situation? How do we get better at it? The answer lies in creating and nurturing our abilities in “Operational Art” taking what you know and being able to apply it to a given set of circumstances to affect your strategy and to bring an end to a potentially violent occurrence using appropriate tactics. To do this takes awareness, discipline, adaptability, skill development and strength of character to focus our efforts on the task at hand to meet our overall intent. You cannot learn this by sitting in some training class listening to an instructor give you a checklist formula on how to solve a particular set of problems. As Chet states: The first problem in learning Fingerspitzengefühl is that you can’t learn it by yourself. You have to have at least two groups of people to practice with”