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Hernando Today

Suspected Police Patch Thief In Court

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By KYLE MARTIN

Published: June 18, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - One night was all it took to steal 40 years of Buford White's life.

It was Sept. 22, to be exact, that someone snuck onto his property under the cover of darkness and ransacked his hobby room. The thief lit a fire inside the outbuilding and escaped in a rusty, red pickup.

While an expert thief, the suspect wasn't a skilled arsonist and the fire sputtered out on its own for lack of oxygen. Not that it really mattered. The intense heat ruined White's collection of die-cast police cars and uniform hats.

That wasn't the worst of it. There was something much more valuable missing: 23,000 police patches, amassed over four decades of hard work, tough sells and hard bargains.

Police say they know who was behind the theft and made an arrest in January. But today a judge will hear a motion to dismiss the case against Francis Harris, and the odds are favorable that Harris will leave the courthouse without the charges of grand theft and dealing in stolen property.

This stings almost more than the betrayal of a man White once considered his friend.

"There was 40 years of work in here," White said Wednesday in a renovated hobby room that still smells of fresh paint. "It's like losing one of your young'uns."

Harris' lawyer makes a strong argument that all of the evidence is circumstantial and that Harris has an impeachable alibi. Harris was with White the night of the theft.

White, 64, got his start in patch collecting as a young dispatcher for the Florida Highway Patrol. On a tour of the offices in Tallahassee, White got his first look at a display of patches mounted on a wall.

He took an FHP patch home and then began writing letters to police departments around the country. A fellow collector in Canada contacted him and offered to trade for a Royal Canadian Mounted Police patch.

The collection grew. White moved to the Brooksville property where he was raised after his parents' death in 1978 and dedicated a room to display the patches. Collectors from around the world began to drop by and look over White's collection.

After the death of his first wife, White filled the long nights by organizing his patches.

After 9/11, patches were harder to come by because law enforcement was loath to distribute any paraphernalia emblazoned with "police." But the advent of the Internet and trading sites like eBay granted unparalleled access to the hobby.

There were also tradeshows, where collectors from around America could come together and swap stock. That's where White met Harris in 2004.

Harris, who goes by "Jay", told White about his plans to compile a book of all the patches past and present of Florida's law enforcement. White had a few rarities, including a first-issue Mascotte patch and a West Panama City patch, so he invited Harris to take pictures of his collection in Brooksville.

For several days, Harris and his girlfriend visited with White and documented his collection. He proposed that White sign a contract giving him the Florida patches upon White's death. The other ones would be sold off and the proceeds given to White's two daughters. White declined.

Over the years, the two kept a friendly relationship, though, and met annually at trade shows. Then White got married. Harris still wanted those Florida patches, but White's wife was interested in the collection and Harris was turned down again.

"That was the point in my opinion that he began scheming all this," White said.

Two weeks before a trade show last September in Orlando, Harris began calling White to make sure he was coming. Typically, Harris just called when he was headed to the conference, but the calls came at a steady pace over the week and several times the day of the conference.

The two got together that night in Orlando and stayed up until midnight swapping badges. When White got back the next night, he discovered his hobby room smelled of smoke. He thought an oscillating fan by his rocking chair had caught fire.

On the following Sunday, a longtime friend and fellow collector dropped by to chat. White pulled one of his loose leaf binders off the shelf and noticed it was empty. He thought it strange, so he investigated the other binders. All were empty.

"It liked to have rip my heart out," White said.

Reporter Kyle Martin can be reached at 352-544-5271 or kmartin@hernandotoday.com.

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