THE COP THAT CARED: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is a collection of criminal cases, personal events and memories in short story form from Earl Taggart's career as an Indiana State Police officer and Sheriff. Earl Taggart was born and raised in New Castle, Indiana; after graduating from Chrysler High School Earl joined the Army in December of 1965 and was assigned to the army artillery. He was discharged in December of 1968 after obtaining the rank of sergeant E-5. Upon returning to Indiana, Earl worked a short time at Delco-Remy in Anderson and it was during this time that Earl applied to The Indiana State Police. Earl was accepted to the State Police Academy in February 1970 and was assigned to the Seymour District upon his graduation in April of 1970. After completing his probationary period he started his State Police career in Jennings County. During Earl's career with the State Police he worked as a road trooper, a narcotics detective, and finally a district detective. Earl successfully completed numerous specialized training courses during his tenure as well as teaching investigation classes in drug enforcement, criminal investigations, and hostage negotiations. Earl was a team leader for the State Hostage Negotiation Team and the State Police Crises Intervention Team. Earl retired from the Indiana State Police in December of 1998. In November of 1998 Earl was elected as Sherriff of Jennings County and served in office for 8 years. These short stories are a collaboration of different events that occurred during his law enforcement career; some humorous, some terrifying, and some unbelievably sad. -The youngest was 3 years old. She was just too young to give any details. I got to thinking about the tattoo on him. I went to the prosecutor for a search warrant to examine his body. It was several weeks before I could locate him. He came in with his attorney. -I noticed that the glass from the door was on top of the blood. So if someone broke in, the glass should be on the floor, and the blood on top of the glass. The scene was staged; she was already dead when the door was broken open. -I forgot to tell Bill of the curve, we hit it and slid! Bill grabbed the dash with both hands and held on for life (when I traded that car there were eight fingers pressed into the dash). Each story has you rolling through your emotions like you were there in living person, you wont want to put it down!