ROCKLAND, Maine — Drunk fishermen, burglars and criminals armed with shotguns were no match for Lloyd Daniels during his nearly 32 years as a police officer in Rockland.
But blocked veins put an end to his career with the Rockland department.
Daniels retired from the Rockland department on Feb. 28 because of his health problem.
The problem began in September when Daniels was at a store with his wife, Jen, and stepdaughter. He said he became extremely dizzy and everything appeared to be spinning rapidly. The dizziness became so severe that he became nauseated.
He was taken to Pen Bay Medical Center in Rockport and after a few days of X-rays and scans, doctors determined that Daniels had blockages in jugular veins on both sides of his neck. Doctors told him that with medication he could be back to 80 percent of his former self within two years.
Daniels had weathered a prior health scare when in 2000 he underwent a quadruple heart bypass. This time, however, he knew he could not go back out onto the streets both because of the dizziness — which now is limited to a sense of wobbliness if he turns his head to the left, he said — and because he is on a blood thinner that poses a risk if he is assaulted.
The retired officer said he does not know what the future holds for him in terms of work but that he already misses law enforcement.
“It’s hard for someone, no matter what the career, to be in it for so long a period and then for it to end,” Daniels said.
Daniels’ interest in becoming a police officer began when he was a teenager. He said he got into trouble a few times as a teen but that, at 15 years old, he observed officers dealing with situations and knew he wanted to be a police officer.
Then living in Newburyport, Mass., Daniels dropped out of school and figured his only path to law enforcement was to join the Army. He did, and was assigned to be a military police officer. A requirement of his military service was that he obtain a GED, the equivalent of a high school diploma.
After six years in the Army, he left the service and planned on becoming a police officer in Massachusetts. But he would have been required to take civil service tests and also become an emergency medical technician, which meant taking a course that cost $1,200.
“That was a lot of money back then that I didn’t have,” Daniels recalled.
Instead, he came to Abbot Village in Maine, where he had spent time as a youth with an aunt and uncle. There were two police officer vacancies being advertised in the newspaper — one in Dexter and one in Rockland. He ended up getting the job in Rockland at the end of May 1982.
Trying to help people solve their problems is one of the things that Daniels said he found most rewarding about his job on the police force.
In some cases he was able to convince people to turn their lives around, but in many other instances, he acknowledged, people would continue with their troublesome behavior.
“I think some people become comfortable with their problems and find it easier not to change,” the veteran officer said.
Daniels said he is heartened to run into people on the streets or in stores who recall interactions with him that helped them.
At 6 feet, 2 inches tall, Daniels was among the tallest officers on the force. He said that was an advantage in that his sheer size was able to convince some people to comply with police orders.
He said he has gotten into some bar brawls trying to subdue a suspect but those instances most frequently occurred in the 1980s. He said the addition of tools such as pepper spray and Tasers helped to reduce the number of physical confrontations with unruly people.
Most of the time, simply being able to talk to people would lead them to comply, he said. But, he said, force has to be used sometimes.
One case that stands out is when a troubled man came to the police station in early 2004, when it was located with the fire department on Park Street. The man fired a shotgun. Officers surrounded the man with their weapons drawn and used their cruisers as shields. Daniels was able to circle around behind the man and tackle him, putting a safe end to the standoff.
Police later learned that the man had intended for officers to shoot and kill him.
As a police officer, he said he tried not to bring the job home.
“I put the job on when I put on my uniform and took it off when I took off my uniform,” he said.
He acknowledged that was a challenge sometimes, particularly in a case when a child died.
As for his future, Daniels said he wants to get back to good health and then maybe consider work in private security. He also plans to focus his time on his family.
Rockland Police Chief Bruce Boucher said Daniels’ retirement is a big loss for the department.
“This leaves a huge hole in the department’s institutional knowledge. Lloyd was the go-to guy if you wanted to know something about the community or about a person,” the chief said.