By MICHAEL MOORE JR.
USFSP Student Reporter
He was there when Sgt. Thomas Baitinger was gunned down in the line of duty. They had been dispatched to the home of a fugitive in January 2011.
He was there when a small airplane made an emergency landing on 18th Avenue S in October 2017. He saw the plane come down in what seemed like slow motion.
And he was there when a beehive containing nearly 25,000 of the angry insects scared away some would-be burglars in November 2016. He donned beekeeper’s gear to dust for fingerprints.
In Officer David Rogler’s 17 years as a police officer, every day is different. During that time, he’s also seen a lot of change.
“In the old days, all we had was a stick and a gun,” he said. “Technology makes it so that we don’t have to put in the legwork that we used to.”
Rogler, 50, says that there are a lot of officers today who couldn’t have been on the force 10 or 15 years ago – and he’s not always so sure that’s a good thing.
“My rule is if technology makes something possible, it’s great. If it makes something easier, it’s bad,” he said.
On this particular day, technology is doing a little bit of both. The computer in his cruiser receives an alert dispatching him to a residential dispute.
That thrusts him into the role of mediator between two women arguing over money. Harsh screams and accusations of herpes fill the air. He can’t force either one of them to leave, he tells them, but he also doesn’t feel comfortable leaving them alone together.
But eventually he has to.
Nothing was resolved, but he did his best to mediate and lower the intensity of the situation. That’s how it is most days, he said.
Most days he doesn’t get a lunch break. He doesn’t like taking his police cruiser through drive-thrus because of the negative perception some people have about police. So instead he usually ends up eating a cold burrito or his kid’s leftover pizza from the night before.
Today, he munches on cold, gluten-free pizza.
When he isn’t on duty, you can find him rock climbing at Vertical Ventures, bird watching at a local park or even studying Buddhism on occasion – though he’s quick to point out that he doesn’t consider himself Buddhist.
He says he doesn’t want his son to become an officer.
Most days are spent issuing tickets and leaving his cruiser to perform what the police chief calls “park, walk and talks.”
Some days officers are killed. Jan. 24, 2011, was one of those days.
Rogler recalls the day Baitinger died as one of the scariest moments he has ever had on the job.
A second officer, Jeffrey Yaslowitz, also died, and a deputy U.S. marshal was wounded but recovered. St. Petersburg police had not lost an officer in 30 years.
“So many rounds were fired that day, I remember hearing when handguns were being shot and thinking to myself, ‘Oh, that’s only a handgun. I’m OK.’”