Retiring Police Detective Reflects on his Life of Service

Terry Michaud always knew he wanted to be a police officer. Growing up in an unsettled home, Michaud saw firsthand the stability and security a police officer could provide and he knew early on he wanted to provide that same sense of safety for others.

“Back in the day it was a very abusive-type family environment,” Michaud said. “I used to know all the cops … So, yeah, I knew from fifth grade, just because of the environment I had, just in the hopes of being able to be that person, that positive person for someone in that type of situation.

Michaud, 59, officially concluded a near 40-year law enforcement career with his retirement on Wednesday, Feb. 1. Beginning as a corrections officer and a police officer during eight years in the U.S. Air Force, Michaud went on to work another 31 years in civilian law enforcement including tenures with the Maine Department of Corrections, the Rockland Police Department,  and the Maine State Police. He spent the final 14 years of his career working as a detective with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office.

“I loved working here,” Michaud said.

Lincoln County Sheriff Todd Brackett called Michaud a good friend and an “exceptional” individual and said his dedication and presence will be missed. “He really found his niche as a detective here in Lincoln County,” Brackett said.

In the immediate future, the Jefferson resident said he doesn’t plan to have a firm schedule. Michaud hasn’t ruled out the possibility of eventually returning to the work force in some capacity, but if he does, he knows what he is not going to do.

“Anything but police work,” he said. “I love the job, don’t get me wrong. I’ll do it until the last day. When that day comes and I can walk out that door, I’ve been telling the folks here, once I leave, I don’t know as I want to come back into it. Cops leave and then the next thing you know, they are doing something cop-related. I have no interest.”

As much as Michaud always wanted to become a police officer, he expressed concern the profession’s current image and reputation is enough to dissuade young people from considering it as a career these days.

“It’s making it less and less attractive,” he said. “Why do I want to subject myself to that negativity?

Growing up in “an abusive-type situation” as he did, Michaud learned to look at police officers as a source of security. Police coming to his childhood home meant a chaotic situation was about to settle down, at least for a little while.

Michaud acknowledges there are problems in law enforcement, but he feels the profession is suffering an image problem due to the actions of a small group of individuals.

“I just shake my head because it’s a bum rap we don’t deserve,” he said. “For the most part I think most cops here, most that I have worked with, have a job to do and want to get it done, you know? It’s not about who we are or that person is this or that. I never felt that way.”

Graduating high school in Fort Kent, Michaud served two years in the National Guard before enlisting in the Air Force, all with the intention of making law enforcement his career. In the Air Force he spent three years as a corrections officer, working at the United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth, and served five years as a military police officer.

Intent on pursuing his chosen career as a civilian, Michaud took a job with the Maine Department of Corrections in 1992, four months after he mustered out. Working at the Maine State Prison in Thomaston, Michaud enjoyed the job to a point, but he had a goal.

Even though he was a trained military police officer, he still needed the 100-hour course certification required to become a police officer in Maine. Then as now, the most typical route to such certification is hiring on with an agency that sponsors and pays for the candidate to take the course.

Looking to launch his career and needing an opportunity, Michaud asked then Waldo County Sheriff John Ford Sr. to sponsor him for the course. Ford agreed to do so, with the stipulation he could not offer employment at that time. Still, it was enough for Michaud to get in the door and he registered and paid the $400 course fee out of his own pocket.

Certification in hand, Michaud joined the Rockland Police Department in November 1993. Michaud said he loved working in Rockland and he would have been happy to spend his entire career there if it wasn’t for the police department administration at that time.

He left Rockland in 1998, submitting his resignation directly to the Rockland City Council in open session. Michaud said he resigned in person, in public, because he had no confidence the police administrators at the time would accurately represent the reasons for his resignation to the council.

“I couldn’t stand the chief and I refused to work for him,” Michaud said. “I am the type of person that I tell people right where I am at. It’s point blank sometimes, and some people don’t like the truth. That’s the only reason I left.”

Michaud wasn’t out of work for long, catching on with the Maine State Police later in 1998.

“In fact, I got hired by the state police and the commander there was Mac Dow,” Michaud said. “The ironic part about that is Mac Dow used to come to my house when I was a kid and used to haul my stepfather off, so Mac Dow and I kind of had a connection, although he may not have remembered it, from years earlier.”

By 2009, Michaud had more than 25 years in as a patrol officer and he was ready for a change. During a chance meeting at the Whitefield Superette that year, LCSO Lt. Michael Murphy encouraged Murphy to apply for an opening in the LCSO’s Criminal Investigations Division. The two had worked together briefly in Rockland in 1993.

“I had been in law enforcement/corrections at that point for 27 years when I started asking to go to CID,” he said. “There comes a time when you feel the need to do that 9-5 and stuff; holidays and weekends off, and feel like a normal person.”

As a police officer, from his first day to his last, Michaud relied on a strict personal code to guide him when it came to dealing with the public, some of whom he dealt with in less than ideal circumstances.

“I always treated people the way I wanted to be treated or I would want my family members to be treated,” he said. “That’s kind of the way I thought about it.”

Looking back over his career, Michaud said he feels one of the changes he has seen the most has been the diminishing value of human life. Thirty years ago, mass shootings were rare. Now they are almost a daily occurrence and the perpetrators are seemingly trying to outdo one another, spurred on, in part, by media attention, Michaud said.

“I think young kids nowadays don’t respect the value of human life,” he said. “I hate to say that, but there is a different value than when I was a kid in the sense that when you look at these school shootings and all that stuff going on, it’s kids trying to one up one another. Broadcast the news, but do we really need to dwell on it for three weeks? I hate to say it, but when it is so prominent in the news every night, night after night after night. I don’t know.”

In his immediate future, Michaud is looking forward to doing some traveling, and some serious motorcycle riding on his 2002 Yamaha V-Star. Encouraged by some motorcycle riding friends, Michaud took the state course and obtained his motorcycle license in 2018, something he had been thinking about doing for at least a couple years before that.

“Some friends of mine asked me to take a course with them, so I did, and I passed my test for riding motorcycles so I’ve been out riding my motorcycle a lot,” Michaud said. “I took a trip up to Fort Kent last summer with my cousin. Took the whole weekend, rode up there, spent nights out there in a tent in a campground and stuff like that, and I enjoyed it.”

When not riding or working, Michaud likes to go fishing. He is particularly partial to saltwater fishing.

“That’s where you get your biggest fight from the fish,” he said.

Michaud is also looking forward to doing some traveling abroad. He has been to England a couple of times, the first time dating back to his military service.

“London is great and all that stuff but I like to get out and check out the old castle ruins,” he said.

Michaud said he would like to make his first post-retirement trip an excursion to India to take in the Taj Mahal. A trip to the Vatican, and maybe an extended cruise are also ideas on the table.

“At some point my intentions are to sell the house,” he said. “It’s bigger than I need. I have always thought about traveling anyhow, so why do I need a house? My intentions would be possibly to buy an RV. In summer time do the northern states and winter time do the southern states.”

Looking back over his career, Michaud said he has no regrets. Even with its challenges, he said, law enforcement was the perfect choice for him.

“Most of society looks at it and says ‘I don’t want to be a cop,’” he said. “When (expletive) hits the fan, we are going to go running toward the fan.”