Published: April 25, 2009 09:02 pm      

Deputy emerges from past to help domestic violence victims

Domestic violence has left Randy White with two permanent scars.

One is a bite wound on his leg, and he says he has a professional boxing suspect “on drugs and out of his mind” to thank for that.

The other, invisible one is from being a terrified 4-year-old boy who watched his mother being beaten.

White, 35, is a 15-year law enforcement officer and current Raleigh County sheriff’s deputy. From both painfully learning first-hand how domestic violence affects children and later having a respected police chief steer him in the right direction, White has distinguished himself as a deputy who can work with domestic violence victims and suspects on a personal level while still keeping a cool head.

Even though White’s mother and biological father divorced when he was only 4, he said images of violence in his own home are burned in his mind. His mother, Christine Lusk, eventually left her husband with White, his brother and six sisters in tow. He calls his mother one of his greatest heroes.

“She’s my rock and somebody I idolize,” he said. “She makes me want to continue to be a good person.

“I remember my biological father pulling guns, beating my mom. .. It was always hectic. I was always in fear.

“I can still tell you what the inside of our house looked like — from room to room. It always stuck with me.

“When my mom and dad first split up, my mom had to work as many as three jobs to support her eight children. She never went on any public assistance, wanting to do it all by herself. I’m the youngest of the kids, and she did it until I left home.”

White’s mother eventually married his late stepfather, Toy Lusk, a Sophia town police chief. Toy Lusk, he explained, was the man he called his father and also one of his biggest influences. Life for the young man then turned around for the positive. Law enforcement was a family tradition as White grew up. One uncle was a state trooper, a second worked as a Chicago police officer and a third was a deputy sheriff in Woodbine, Ga.

“(Toy Lusk) was the type who cared about what people thought of him,” White said. “He wanted to be good to people. And when people would see him out, they’d come and speak to him. He was the whole town’s hero.

“My whole family worked in (emergency medical services), as nurses — all careers where they helped people. It all fell into that category.”

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As an adult, White would both follow in Toy Lusk’s footsteps but also encounter people living as he did as a younger child.

White recalled a domestic violence call from early in his career that left a lasting impression — in all senses of the word.

He was sent to a residence along County Route 1 in Colcord, where the nearest backup was a half-hour drive away. There, he came face-to-face with a suspect who was a professional boxer.

“He was attempting to get into the house, where the complainant’s daughter lived with the kid they had together,” White said. “He was on drugs and out of his mind. ... When I was walking up to the house, he had already run off. But when I got to the porch, he walks up. I told him I needed to talk to him because he had a (domestic violence petition) against him. He says, ‘I’m going to kick your lungs in,’ and he swung and hit me on the side of my head.

“We fought for probably a good five minutes. There were times I didn’t know if I was going to make it. Backup did arrive, but not before he bit me on the leg.

“We ended up in the middle of the road. That’s when the blue lights came like an angel out of nowhere. (Cpl. W.J.) Crist stepped out, and we got the subject taken into custody. I had no breath left. I wondered, ‘Lord, what would have happened if that backup wouldn’t have come?’

“I was upset thinking, ‘Man, is this the way it’s going to be?’ But someone else in that house would have probably been seriously injured or even killed if we hadn’t have been there.”

The bite wound required six stitches, and White still has a scar.

When handling domestic violence calls now, White will try to talk with both parties involved and encourage the victims to get out of abusive relationships. Often, the victims are scared and financially dependent on their abusers. That was the case with his mother.

Sometimes, he’ll even share his own story.

“I’ll say, ‘Listen, it’s rough at first. You will lose an income, but you will also get rid of the person abusing you,’” White said.

“A lot of times, they’re too scared. But I’ll say, ‘Look, if you don’t do this for yourself, do it for your kids.’ I can speak from experience about what the kids go through.”

Sometimes, children who encounter police in a negative situation — particularly when Mom or Dad is being arrested — will become scared of police officers or have an overall negative impression of them. White works to combat that by spending time with children at Raleigh County pre-schools and trying to comfort scared children he encounters at crime scenes.

“I try to build a rapport with them, maybe by showing them a magic trick,” he said. “I always try to tell kids that we’re your best friend. We are here to help. When we come to your house, don’t hide from us.”

To curb domestic violence, White believes men must take a stand, and noted how some people deeply desire friends’ approval.

“Sometimes, men will be around friends in a domestic situation,” he said. “A man will say he hits on his wife and the friends will laugh, thinking it’s funny. Somebody needs to say that isn’t cool. It’s the same situation with drugs. If someone will stand up and say they don’t agree with what their friends are doing, that could help a lot.”

Misconceptions are numerous, according to White. Not all aggressors are male, and the number of women arrested for domestic violence has increased, particularly during the last 10 years. Neither situation, he emphasized, is OK. Also, domestic violence isn’t necessarily physical.

“A lot of people think domestic battery is hitting with physical contact,” White said. “But it can also be putting someone in fear of their life. It can be sexual abuse, controlling, threats.”

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A sheriff’s deputy assigned to road patrol, White said, never slows down.

“One minute, you might be on an accident report,” he said. “The next, you may be on a physical domestic. You won’t know if there’s guns or what’s going on. Then, you’ll have an armed robbery you have to investigate, taking statements, getting videotape, getting fingerprints, doing follow-ups.

“There’s not a day in the year when you’re not busy.”

Raleigh County’s illegal drug trade, White believes, is responsible for at least half of all crimes — both violent and property-related. Deputies handle problems tied to the rapidly growing prescription drug trade almost daily.

“I arrested a shoplifter while working an off-duty detail at Kroger. He was acting like he was drugged out of his mind,” White said. “I asked him if he was on drugs, and he was adamant he hadn’t taken anything. I looked and saw almost a whole pill up his nose. He had crushed and snorted the rest of it.”

One of the most rewarding cases of White’s career allowed him to give closure to a group of people whose grief was only compounded. In August 2008, almost $90,000 in bronze vases were stolen from Blue Ridge Memorial Gardens headstones. Suspects allegedly cashed them in at a recycling center, but most were recovered.

“We had a lot of upset people,” he said. “Visiting your loved one’s graveside is bad enough. You’re sad and depressed because they’re no longer with you. Then you find out someone has desecrated your loved one’s graveside. I know that would upset me.

“We had a couple dozen family members call in here upset, but they appreciated that we recovered the vases. That made a difference and put several of their minds at ease. And those things cost $300 apiece.”

One of the serious positives of working with the sheriff’s department is the level of training deputies receive before being sent on the road by themselves. Some smaller departments turn new officers loose after only two weeks with a training officer. He credited people like Sheriff Steve Tanner, Chief Deputy Dave Stafford and Sgt. D.R. Joynes, his current patrol shift supervisor, for mentoring him.

“They took me under their wings and they always had my back,” he said. “As I continued at the sheriff’s department, the same people were always there for me.”

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Police encounter society’s worst on a daily basis, and one of their greatest challenges is simply keeping emotions in check, White said.

“Almost every call you go to as a police officer is going to be something negative. If it involves a small child or an elderly person, it’s really hard not to go home and think about it,” he said.

“There was one time on the Coalfields Expressway where a man in his 20s had his car go off a mountain. He was alive when (Sgt. D.R.) Joynes, (Sophia Police Chief Tim) Sweeney and I got there. We couldn’t get him out. We worked, worked and worked — did everything we could do. Eventually he died.

“I thought for weeks and weeks and weeks. Maybe I could have done this or that. It affected me and bothered me.”

According to White, he has learned to properly balance his work and home lives, but some parts of one affecting the other is inevitable. The emotional gravity of the work often makes him latch onto his wife and three young daughters.

“I shelter my kids probably a hundred times more,” he said. “You see so much happen to children — abuse, things happening when they aren’t watched, getting in trouble or getting hurt. Some people think I’m too hard on my kids, but I just love them too much.”

But at the same time, he knows boundaries must be set and kept. His daughters — ages 8, 7 and 5 — keep him in check.

“On the job, I can go to three domestics and have to fight with somebody who uses foul language,” White said. “Then I can go home and watch ‘High School Musical’ and ‘Hannah Montana’ with my kids and just have a normal day.

“My 5-year-old especially puts me back in the real world. After I answer calls like that, I can go home and help her put clothes on her Barbie doll.

“Spend as much time with your children as you can. They just grow up so fast.”

At their young ages, White’s daughters want to be “superstars” when they grow up, immersing themselves in cheerleading, gymnastics and other sports. His youngest daughter loves to sing. But if they decided to follow in his footsteps, he would give them advice the same advice he received from his dad.

“Don’t do this just for yourself or because you think you’re going to make a whole lot of money,” he said. “Do this because you want to make a difference in the lives of others. And you’re not going to get rich doing this.”

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Sheriff Steve Tanner said an officer like White, who can show compassion and relate to others on the job with his personal experiences, is both rare and remarkable.

“As a deputy, it’s easy to get cynical. You see the worst of mankind — all that’s negative and bad. It’s very easy to become negative and embittered. But after all of Randy White’s years, he’s still very positive, a warm and generous person.”

All people, Tanner said, go through traumatic and heartbreaking experiences in their daily lives. What sets White apart is that, while exercising proper control, he uses his negative past experiences to help fellow citizens who were once in his situation.

“Police officers have to control their emotions when they see what they see,” he said. “They have to detach themselves often when handling these calls. If you show emotion, it’s a risk to your very soul.

“But Randy White can handle the full emotional value of a situation and make it work. He’s a person whose personality you would try to put in a bottle and give to every policeman. To have that is remarkable. He does take a negative and turn it into a positive.”

— E-mail: apridemore@register-herald.com