PORTLAND, Maine — Chances are, even if you lived in Portland, you might not recognize the name.
Sgt. Richard Betters was a member of the city's police department for two decades, most of that time responding to calls in a patrol car on the night shift.
But if you'd been one of the people who were in trouble enough to call the police, chances are you would have known Betters, and you would have been glad you did.
Rick Betters died this month at the age of 52. Despite a career that regularly put him in danger, he passed away at home, leaving a wife, two daughters and a stunned department.
I've lived and worked around Portland for most of the time he was a member of the force and had a job that brought me into contact with Portland police officers, but I didn't get to know Betters until last year, when we were both part of a delegation to Russia.
You always learn a lot when you travel, but this trip taught me something about life in my own country as well.
I was part of a program funded by the U.S. State Department that fosters dialog within the legal communities of the two countries.
As a former court reporter, I was supposed to explain how a free press could interact with an independent court system without everything grinding to a halt.
Betters and then-Deputy Police Chief Joseph Loughlin (he is now the acting chief) were on the same trip as representatives of the Portland-Archangel Sister City Committee.
As soon as the cops put on their uniforms, they were instant celebrities. Strangers on the street wanted to talk to them. People wanted to touch them and take their picture.
Later we found out why.
The Russians had a low opinion of their own police officers. They are federal employees with no accountability to local authorities. They earn barely enough to survive, about $400 a month, and they are all rumored to be corrupt.
The Russians knew about American police from TV and movies. Seeing a real U.S. cop in uniform in their school or on the street would be like one of us bumping into James Bond.
Betters told me about a shift he and Loughlin spent in a patrol car one night in Archangel, a city of about 350,0000 people.
They drove around for hours without hearing any traffic on the radio. Silence. There were no calls for help because no one thought they would get help by calling.
A night in Portland would have been completely different. Not that we are more lawless than the people of Russia, but when we need help we expect to get it.
Betters was one of the people we'd expect to get it from.
He loved working on patrol – ''the street.'' Although he spent a few years as a detective, he said he wanted to be at the other end of the radio, never knowing what the next call would be, ready for anything.
At his funeral at the Merrill Auditorium in City Hall earlier this month, fellow officers described him as a natural – someone who was practicing community policing before it had a name. He had a way of calming people down when they needed it. When the situation got more intense, Betters' voice got quieter.
In a eulogy, Sgt. Glen McGary described how he and Betters were coming up a dark stairway in an old West End building, not knowing who was waiting for them behind the door. McGary said that Betters stopped him and whispered:
''Look at this molding. It would look great in my house.''
He was also naturally curious.
He loved to travel, and he tried to engage people wherever they met.
On a police officer's salary, Betters had already been to China and India for long trips, and he planned to go to Vietnam and Cambodia in 2009.
And while he wasn't always diplomatic – he told me he wouldn't read this newspaper because it was too liberal – he had a flair for a diplomatic gesture. At a dinner in Russia, a huge Russian judge gave a long toast about how proud he was to host real American policemen. He said that as a student he visited the United States and brought home American police patches as souvenirs, but Soviet border guards had seized them.
In response, Rick pulled out his badge, and gave it to the judge as a gift.
Moved beyond words, the judge picked up the solidly built police sergeant and started running around the restaurant with him like he was a teddy bear.
Over here, we're spoiled.
We go to bed at night knowing that if something really bad were to happen we could pick up the phone and call the cops.
And when we do, we expect to find someone like Rick Betters at our door.
