Cops Share True “On Duty” Ghost Stories

Nurses aren’t the only professionals with creepy on-the-job tales.  Check out these real ghost stories from Officer.com, a forum for law enforcement professionals.

UPDATE: Check out the second installment of Cops Share True “On Duty” Ghost Stories

The Shadow Woman
“I related this before, but I as part of my Reserve training, I had to pull a 12-hour shift in Corrections. Our county facility is old, old, old… Anyway, it was med-call, so the nurse had opened the little clinic, and we went to each cellblock and had inmates line up to get their meds. After that was finished, the nurse left, the clinic was closed, and all of the inmates were back in their blocks. I secured the last block, and as I turned back towards the clinic, I saw the shadow on the floor of someone crossing back to the clinic. I dashed around the corner, thinking an inmate had managed to avoid being secured and was sneaking into the clinic. There was no one there. The shadow had been absolutely distinct. One of the other COs laughed and said, “Oh, that’s just Miss Rose. She’s been hanging around here for years!”

*Shudder* It creeped me out pretty good…”

The Door at the End of the Hall
“Myself and a buddy on my squad responded to an alarm. The incident location was an old office type building that had been converted to doctor’s offices. There was a pharmacy attached to it. Our dispatch received a motion signal from an upstairs office. Key holder arrives on scene and we go in to secure the building. The stairs were locked behind a door that, of course, the key holder didn’t have keys to, so we took the elevator up to the second floor (not the most tactically sound option, I know).

Elevator opens to a pitch black hallway… except for one overhead light at the end of the hall. We start checking doors, and so far all are secured. We get to the last office, and sure enough, the door is unlocked. We make entry and observe it to be an unused office. The door opened to a sizable waiting room and reception area. There were about 10 or 12 exam rooms, all cleared with no hiccups.

We exit the office and immediately, something seems off. That is when I realize the overhead light at our end of the hallway that had been on was now off, replaced by another light over by the elevators. I look at my squad mate and he is completely white. I ask him what is wrong and he says, “Weren’t all those doors we just checked closed and locked?” I tell him “Yeah, so?” Buddy says, “Well now they’re all standing open.” Sure enough, all the offices down the hallway we had just checked were now standing open. Pucker factor sinks in at this point.

So we start clearing offices and securing offices. We finish the last office, and on our way out, just before we turn the corner to get into the waiting area, the main door just slams shut. Then, our radios start going nuts with some kind of static feedback. Now I just want to get the hell out of there.

We get back in the elevator and head down to the first floor to make contact with the key holder again. However, key holder is nowhere to be found. I contact dispatch and request a call back number for the key holder so I can advise him of what we found. Dispatch states that the key holder was still en route to us and was advising an ETA of 5 minutes. I advise dispatch that we had already been out with the key holder. Dispatch requests I give them a call.

I call dispatch and she tells me that there is no way we were out with a key holder. She states that the alarm company had only just made contact with one. Eventually, the “real” key holder arrives on scene and I ask her about the man that had let us in the building (the first key holder). She asked me to describe him, so I did. She states that that sounds like one of the doctors that used to lease the office on the second floor AT THE END OF THE HALL. She then states that he had committed suicide at his summer home several days ago.

I still won’t go back there.”

Grandma’s Back
“When I was a municipal cop, I was sent to a missing person/runaway juvenile call. The town I worked in was inner city and poor, but it was one of the better streets in town and the family was squared away (the husband and wife were both educators).

While I was taking the report of their runaway teenage daughter in the family’s living room, an older daughter who was in the room pointed toward a hallway and yelled, “Grandma!” The husband ran into the hallway yelling, “Ma, Ma!” The husband returned to the living room, and asked, ‘Officer, did you see her? Did you see my mother?’ I told him I had not, and asked him why it was remarkable that his mother had walked down the hallway. The husband replied, ‘She died last year. We see her walking around the house all the time.’

I took the rest of the report while standing on the front porch.”

The Abandoned Hospital
“A few years back, prior to sworn LEO, I worked as a security guard at a hospital. Sounds cool, and it was, except for the fact it was 9pm to 7am, I worked alone, and the hospital I guarded was abandoned.

I was always a 3rd shift kind of person. I don’t get night ‘jitters’ or scare easily. But this place could do it to the best of ‘em. Every night I would walk (or ride a wheelchair) through the halls that were supposed to be empty/unused. Every night I would end up having to close doors and re-lock them. I would walk one floor, move up to the next, and continue on.

I got a little shaky when an hour after already walking a hallway, I would have to turn off the same hall lights and close the same doors AGAIN in the building. Or when I would be walking a hall and then I would hear footsteps on the floor above me, doors opening and closing, elevators moving from floor to floor, phones ringing, nurse call lights going on, etc.

There were only three times I got the “I hate this s#&%” feeling. First time I was checking offices on the 4th floor. There was a light on in a locked hallway (no surprise). This hallway hadn’t been renovated since the place was built, short of electricity, so everything was from the 1920’s. Unlock the door, flip the lights, walk out, re-lock the door, and turn to leave. Behind me I hear the “flip” of a light switch. Through the frosted glass I see the lights went back on. I left the hallway alone that night.

Second time was riding an elevator between floors. I was taking the elevator to the top floor, when at about #4 of #5 floors, I hear laughing and muffled talking. It kept getting louder as I got higher. Elevator makes it to #5, doors swing open, and absolute silence. Of course, every light on the floor was on, even in the patient rooms. I checked high and low, not a single living and breathing person in that place except for me.

Third, and worst of all, was just an average night. I’m on the lower level locking a door in a corridor. The door had a glass middle but on the backside it was covered by white tape. The room it led to it was dark and the hallway a few feet behind me was partially lit, so the glass acted like a perfect mirror. Everything normal, key in, lock clicks, turning the key… When behind me I see the full outline of a person walk past me in the hallway. Clear as day, just a full shadow of a person walk past. I froze only for about a second, and then ran into the hall after the supposed ‘person’. No one, just silence.”

The Shadow Walker
“I was sitting in the flat of a hill, monitoring traffic. It was about 2-3 am. Where I was sitting; its a well known spot where an unsolved murder victim was found about 26 years ago. No other officers would sit here, even though citizens are constantly doing 15-20mph over the limit in this area.

As I was sitting there I saw a shadow cross the back of my unit, coming from the passenger side. Almost immediately afterwards the shadow came up the driver side of my unit then across the front. Mind you it’s completely dark in this area, and the only lighting around me is from the moon.

Thinking the worse, I turn on all my lights to light up the area to see if I can see who, or what is around me. —– Nothing.

I figured it was time to leave that area. Once I got to a lighted area I stopped and realized that my camera was recording from where I hit my emergency lights. I reviewed the footage and you can see where a figure starts from the driver front of my unit, then for a half a second the entire camera goes black, as if someone put their finger over the lens, then it goes back to normal.

Needless to say, I haven’t sat back in that spot.”

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Gurney image from Library of Dust by David Maisel, all others from morgueFile.com