Cops Share True “On Duty” Ghost Stories: Part II

Given the success of last September’s “Cops Share True ‘On Duty’ Ghost Stories,” I thought I’d dredge up a few more creepy tales from Officer.com, a popular forum for law enforcement professionals. Enjoy!

The Haunted Church
“I used to work for a private police/security firm as a patrol supervisor. On one of my patrol routes, we had a huge church that was also a private day care and kindergarten. It was my responsibility to clear and secure the building every night between 3 and 4 a.m. due to recent instances of doors being found left open in the morning. In the early 1900’s, the building was a schoolhouse and supposedly a fire killed several children trapped inside. I didn’t know any of this prior to working for the company. Several extremely creepy things happened while at the church:

My first night there, I had just walked down the very long main classroom hallway to clear all of the rooms and when I turned around to walk back up the hallway there was a red balloon floating in the middle of the hall that was definitely not there prior.

In the old pastor’s office there was a lamp shaped like a lighthouse that sat on a table in a large window. When I would pull up to the church, the lamp would be the first thing I would see in the office window. It was always turned on. However, when I would go to check/lock the pastor’s office from the inside, the lamp would always be off. When I would get back into the car to leave, the light would be back on again.

I also had the usual phenomena of previously closed/locked doors being found open just seconds after closing and locking them. Another officer that filled in for me one evening quit the very next day because he reported that as he was checking the main chapel, the pipe organ started playing itself.”

A School That Isn’t Quite Right
“My FTO told me about this one school on Oahu that has a statue. Two officers were sent there because the alarm was going off and both walked past this statue that is outside on campus.

The officers didn’t find anyone inside the school, and after the case was done, the two officers asked each other if they had seen the statue’s head turning to look at them. Apparently, they had seen it move.

That same school is also notorious for having false alarms when the school is closed and one is inside. The school installed a microphone in the classrooms and during one call, picked up the laughter of children. Only the voices were shimmering, or moving in and out, I can’t describe it. Sorta like the ghostly effects from movies.

I got sent to that school last week for an alarm going off in a classroom, and again the dispatcher said they could hear juveniles. However, the school was closed and there wasn’t a kid around. The doors and windows were locked too. Weird.”

A Call for Help That Came Too Late
“I was on duty one night at the front desk of our office when I got a call from an elderly male in a village a few miles away. He was very short of breath and wanted me to give him the number of a local doctor. I didn’t have the number on hand, so I put the phone down for two seconds while I looked it up.

When I picked up the phone again, the line was still open but I couldn’t hear anything. I tried shouting into the phone, telling the man to make any sort of noise if he could hear me, but I got nothing.

I contacted the control room on another line and got them to trace the call so I could get help to the man who, I was convinced, had collapsed and was dying.

When the number was traced the local cops went round to the address which they recognized as the scene of a sudden death three weeks before. The sole occupant of the house had died of a respiratory illness and the house was empty and vacant on their arrival.

It would seem that had a call from beyond the grave. I don’t answer the phone anymore.”

The Intruder

“Several years ago while on duty, another officer and I responded to a possible prowler call. When we arrived, we were met by the residents who advised that the light in the living room had turned off and they saw a female walking in the room. We were about to conduct an interior search when a neighbor called us over. The neighbor told us that everyone who rents the house leaves after a couple of months due to strange occurrences. We went back and asked the resident if they were moving out (we saw moving boxes through the window). The residents said they were moving out because they would see female in the house and lights would turn on and off. Not too scary a story, but different.”

A Guardian Angel?
“A traffic guy at my agency was catching up to a DUI suspect, no lights/sirens. The suspect was easily 300-400 yards ahead, at 0330 hours, on a very long stretch of semi-rural road. The left side of the street was lit by street lights, and the right side was dark. Both cars were moving fast, about 80 mph or so.

His dash cam video showed the suspect vehicle lose something from its rear and it turned out it was the suspect’s rear bumper. After the bumper stopped tumbling, the video showed a black figure dart into the roadway from the left, (the side lit by streetlights), pick up or move the bumper, and then dart to the right side of roadway where it was dark. The video showed nothing on the right side of roadway when the officer drove by the area. The officer did not see this occur at the time, but instead when he reviewed his video in the car to find out where the suspect lost his bumper.

The dark figure had no reflective clothing on, as most joggers/dog walkers do in the area, and was definitely in the ‘right place at the right time,’ as the officer most likely would have hit the bumper due to his speed and possibly crash.”

Bumps in the Night at the Blackstone Hotel
“Prior to law enforcement, I was in college and worked nights as a security officer at the historic Blackstone Hotel in Ft. Worth, Texas. The Blackstone was a luxury hotel when it opened the year before the stock market crash and depression, but it went to seed in later years. As part of my job, I had to do floor checks, including stairwells. I usually started at the top and worked my way down using the stairwells in a back and forth pattern since they were located at opposite ends of each floor. Each well had fire doors about every five floors. The top floor had a permanently closed restaurant, ballroom, and bar. The top ten floors weren’t being leased to anyone at the time.

One night, I started my usual check at the top floor and entered the first stairwell. As I entered, I heard footsteps in the well and the fire door below me slam shut. I figured one of the local homeless had somehow slipped into the building and camped out, so I rushed to catch up. I was in pretty good shape but never got closer than two floors to my quarry. The stairwell emptied into an entry foyer from the street that was locked at night so there was only one way out, which was into the main lobby and past the front desk. I asked the clerk/night auditor where the intruder went as he or she should have passed right by the desk. The clerk hadn’t seen anyone.

While posted in the lobby after doing checks, I often saw the two main elevators return home (lobby) after taking passengers to their respective floors. On several occasions, I watched the elevators leave the lobby level when no one had entered, go to the top floor, then return to the lobby. When the doors opened, there was no one inside the elevator.

My boss at the time was a FWPD officer of about thirty years service who told me that there were a several people did double gainers with a half twist out the windows when the market crashed. He also said that over the past fifteen years (this was around 1975/80), the hotel probably averaged one suicide a year.”

The Black Figure on the Hill
“When I was working as an EMT/security officer at a casino, I was walking the parking structure around 0300 hours. Up on the hill, by the top level, were some street lights, a guard rail, and a road leading up to a water tower, but nothing else.

This night the light seemed to be a lot dimmer then usual and there was an all black figure just standing there looking straight ahead. I couldn’t tell if it was looking down the hill at me or up the hill towards the tower. I didn’t have a flash light on me so I decided to go grab one before investigating. I went down one level and met up with another officer and told him about the figure. The hill was in sight the whole time. I turned to speak with the officer briefly and when I turned back around the lights seemed to have been turned up to normal and the figure was gone.

I found out later that there had been a number of sightings in the area and on level 5-7 of the garage. Apparently, when the casino was put in they had to move an old Indian cemetery and the sightings started soon after that.”

Are you a cop with a creepy story to share? Submit your ghost story here or email ghostsghoul@gmail.com.