In 2001, the Kansas City Police Department published their history. This is the sketch about Steve Niebur:
"...born June 28, 1939 in Newton, IA and graduated from Minneapolis North High School. After serving in the USMC from 1958 to 1962, he joined the KCPD June 1, 1962. Assigned first to Central Patrol Division, then was an original member of the Tactical Unit, stationed at 28th and Warwick He went on to fly helicopters 1970-1975 as a sergeant/pilot.
"Upon making captain, assignments included East Patrol, Central Support Unit Personnel, K-9 Unit, Crimes Against Property, POC and Crime Stoppers. Attended Southern Police Institute Administration Officers Course in 1981 and started pilot Auto Theft Unit in 1987. During his career, he recovered 2,700 stolen autos.
"Received two Certificates of Commendation and Medal of Valor in 1981 for rescue in house fire. Retired June 7, 1988 as captain and has been the police chief in Osceola, IA since. He is past president of the Iowa Police Chiefs and enjoys golf and fishing.
"Married since 1970 to Linda, he has two children, Louis, on fellowship for a doctorate at UCLA and Natalie, a graphic artist." (The article features two pictures, one in uniform and the other informal. The latter in Steve's case shows him with a broad smile, a lake background, holding a large Northern Pike, evidence of his fishing enjoyment.)
Now in retirement, having been Osceola's Police Chief for 15 years, Steve fills in the details of the above biographical sketch: "My parents only lived in Newton for a year after I was born, then moved to Minneapolis. I attended St. Anne's Grade School in Minneapolis and graduated from North High School there. I attended the University of Minnesota for a year, but I graduated from high school at 16, so at not quite 18, I wasn't ready to settle down and stick to school work. I decided to join the Marine Corps. I was in the corps for four years - in the infantry two years, and then I was sent overseas and spent two years on Okinawa. I was in the Amtracs division. These were armored amphibious landing craft vehicles, and these particular ones had 105 Howitzers on the top of them. They were more or less artillery pieces that were ocean going. I believe our unit, with such machines, were the only ones in existence at the time.
"I actually went into police work by accident. While I was in the Marines, I had a friend from Kansas City, who was with me in California. He was discharged a month before I was, and our plan was to meet in Kansas City and travel around the country together. I got out, showed up in Kansas City about 2:00 one morning, contacted him and said, "Okay. I am ready to do some traveling." His answer was, "That's fine, but I got married last week and I can't go." There I was with about $3 in my pocket and no plans, so I started applying for jobs and noticed the Kansas City Police Department had an opening. I applied and the rest is history. I fell in love with the job right away. It is really exciting doing a job where something different happens every day. There was a wide range of things we were called to do, particularly in a big city like Kansas City. At the same time we were doing a job that was public service where we could help a lot of people. I was a 22-year old kid at the time, and those things appealed to me."
In July, 1962 Steve swore to the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics before Chief of Police, Clarence M. Kelley:
AS A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER, my fundamental duty is to serve mankind; to safeguard lives and property; to protect the innocent against deception, the weak against oppression or intimidation, and the peaceful against violence and disorder; and to respect the Constitutional rights of all men to liberty, equality and justice.
I WILL keep my private life unsullied as an example to all, maintain courageous calm in the face of danger, scorn, or ridicule; develop self-restraint; and be constantly mindful of the welfare of others. Honest in thought and deed in both my personal and official life, I will be exemplary in obeying the laws of the land and the regulations of my department. Whatever I see or hear of a confidential nature or that is confided to me in my official capacity will be kept ever secret unless revelation is necessary in the performance of my duty.
I WILL never act officiously or permit personal feelings, prejudices, animosities or friendship to influence my decisions. With no compromise for crime and relentless prosecution of criminals, I will enforce the law courteously and appropriately without fear or favor, malice or ill will, never employing unnecessary force or violence and never accepting gratuities.
I RECOGNIZE the badge of my office as a symbol of public faith, and I accept it as a public trust to be held as long as I am true to the ethics of police service. I will constantly strive to achieve these objectives and ideals, dedicating myself before God to my chosen profession ... law enforcement. (An abbreviated form of this oath is taken each year by those attending the meeting of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.)
It is obvious that Steve loved his work in the Kansas City Police Department. He spent 26 years there. He had about 12 weeks training in the Police Academy in 1962. The training now is much more extensive. There were only 12 in his class. Kansas City had about 900 officers, so they added them sparingly.
Late in the '60s or early '70s, most departments added many officers because the government helped with a lot of money. After the 12 weeks they were sent out to "some old grizzled Sergeant" and turned their reports in to him. "I remember mine was Sergeant Chittim. I would turn in a small report on a theft, perhaps. He'd meet me out in the field, pull up beside my car, I'd hand him the report and if there was one typo, he would rip it up, throw it out the window, and tell me to do it over again. That taught me a good lesson. Today my officers say I'm really tough on them in their reports, because I think they are really important for court."
In the beginning years, police work was quite different than now. Police cars were '61 Chevys. There were no portable radios, no air conditioning, no AM radios - they didn't even have snow tires. The Chevys had little bitty six cylinder engines in them and the sirens were operated with a foot pedal hooked up to the engines. When the officers pushed down on the pedal, the car would lurch forward and just about die. In a car chase, they had to make a choice of whether they wanted to use the siren or catch the offender. "We had radar but it took a whole car to house a unit, so we only one or two in the whole department and didn't use it very often. The only non-fatal device we had was a nightstick. We had no bullet proof vests, no portable radios until the '70s, and computers hadn't even been heard of. In the late '60s the department got one computer for Headquarters, and it took up a whole room. When I started in 1962, I was assigned to the famous 12th and Vine area, which was really wild. We didn't even go down there after midnight when all the bars were open because there were gun shots in the air all the time. And, of course, offenders resisted any way they could. Once, when I stopped a fellow for questioning, he bit me several times and was arraigned on a charge of assault with intent to kill".
In 1964, they apprehended a 16-year old who admitted that he fired a shot that critically wounded a 46-year old truck driver. The high school dropout related how he and two companions, ages 14 and 12, spent the night looking for someone to rob. All three had juvenile records. They had stolen their weapons - an ice pick and a 22-caliber revolver containing live shells - from a restaurant. Two shots had been fired, one into the air to make sure the gun was working and the other was used to shoot the truck driver.
Niebur made Sergeant in '67, and was transferred to a Tactical unit that patrolled the high crime areas in the hours of high potential. He worked that for five years, and, unfortunately, that is when he got involved in some shootings. "Of course, we were always running into armed robbers and such, and in some cases it was necessary to shoot the offender."
He was still single at that time. He and Linda met about 1966. She was working for a dentist in the Plaza. They dated for about 3 years and were married in January 1970. However, Linda began keeping a scrap book of some of Steve's experiences in the '60s, and she has a clipping of one of the shootings: (The burglar, Williamson, an ex-con, was attempting to rob a barbershop shortly before midnight. He set off an alarm and Niebur and Patrolman James Eapmon arrived at the same time. Eapmon saw Williamson through the front window, went to the rear of the building, and both officers shouted for him to come out. Williamson yelled, 'I'll come out!' He opened the door and Niebur grabbed him and turned him toward the wall to search him. Williamson had a cloth wrapped around his arm. He said there was another man inside and Eapmon went to look for him. While he was gone, Williamson pushed a gun through the cloth and pointed it in Niebur's direction. Niebur heard the gun click two times, then shot him. Williamson ran around the side of the building and Niebur and Eapmon followed and fired more shots before the episode was over. It was learned later that Williamson had a record dating back to 1958 - 18 arrests for car-theft, burglary and robbery. Niebur has several letters thanking him for risking his life to protect the citizens of the community, one from the Kansas City Crime Commission, and all of them commending him for his ideals and integrity to do his duty as it had to be done. Niebur said the newspaper article written in May '66 with the caption 'Policeman Weeps after Bloody Days' more accurately described his feelings. He had been involved in several shootings prior to that one and it left him in a state of shock. He recalls those as some of the worst days of his career.
He said, "We didn't have Post Trauma Stress Training in those days. When we shot somebody, we had to go right back to work on the same shift. This happened to me three times in ten days. I was pretty well shook up after that and finally they just said, 'Go home for while.” Since the stress training has been instituted, when officers shoot somebody, they are put on leave, and have the benefit of a counselor. This is one of the best things going."
The department was quite successful in the recovery of stolen vehicles and a booklet that Niebur wrote was published by the Kansas City Police Department. In an article in "Police News" of August 21, 1981, under the title "Unique Ability Nets Numerous Stolen Cars over the Years," the writer commented on the innate abilities by which certain officers are noted for their skill in conducting interviews, others have a knack for catching burglars. 'Few individuals, though, have ever rivaled the ability of Captain Stephen Niebur to locate stolen autos. His unusual talent in that respect first brought him credit as a young recruit when he recovered over 100 stolen autos during his first year of service… in nineteen years, Niebur estimates that he has recovered approximately 2,500 stolen vehicles and he still averages over 100 recoveries annually.
He is said to have the advantage of a photographic memory by which he can form mental pictures of stolen autos, their colors, models, damage reports and other distinguishing marks and retain that information for extended periods of time. However, in the booklet he included tips that are helpful to any officer in this line of police work. "The greatest advance was an innovation by Chief Clarence Kelley, who later became head of the FBI, in the use of helicopters.”
In 1967 the International Chiefs had their conference in Kansas City and they brought some demo models for us to try, to see how effective they were for police work. At that time I was in the Tac unit and was pretty good at recovering cars so they put me up as one of their observers. The very first day we used helicopters, we recovered seven stolen autos, and Chief Kelley was convinced that we probably should get helicopters. I hadn't even thought of flying before they got me in one of those, but when I saw how much fun it was going to be chasing cars around, I jumped on it and applied for the unit. I was trained as a helicopter pilot and flew those for about six years. I have a letter dated March 13, 1969, from Chief of Police Clarence Kelley informing me that my rank was changed from Sergeant to Helicopter Pilot Technician with a suitable salary increase. After my helicopter training I was promoted to Captain."
There were about 40 cities in the country with helicopter units at that time. Linda has saved lots of clippings because they were extremely successful. "Police Send up Copters in Fight on Urban Crime;" dated 4-4-70: "Copter Aids Arrests in Holdup Case;" 6-1-70: 'Copter Aids in Capture;" 7-6-71: "Five Arrested in Car Chase;" and this undated: "Kansas City Patrol Officer Recovers 231 Stolen Vehicles: Ground units responding to a radio call from Kansas City Sgt. Stephen Niebur often locate a stolen car - and many times nab the thieves as well. As of August 12, 231 stolen vehicles were recovered by Sgt. Niebur while serving on the city's Sky Alert Team. On one day in March, the Sergeant located a total of seven stolen vehicles between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 9:35 a.m. (This has to be a record.) Additionally, Sgt. Niebur has a total of 171 felony arrests to his credit, all of which were accomplished while on air patrol. He has been instrumental in locating twenty-two stolen cars which were occupied resulting in forty nine arrests... "In a column, "Herguth's People," in the Chicago Daily News, Tuesday March 17, 1978, is "Kansas City's Secret crime-stopper is not its police helicopter. It's Sgt. Stephen Niebur, who rides in the copper chopper. He memorized a list of stolen cars and spotted eight of 'em from the air in 95 minutes Monday. It's Swooperman!"
Niebur said, "There was continual upgrading of our education. After helicopter assignment and promotion to captain, they sent me to a hostage negotiators' school. I was in that unit for about five years and they had about 75 of what they called Operations 100s, which is armed and barricaded persons, either with hostages or without. That was very valuable training and they sent several of us to New York to learn from the experts." He has certificates from 1974, 20 hours in an Auto Theft Seminar; 1977 attendance as an observer in a program of advanced criminal justice technology transfer. A Kansas City Star article of Monday, May 22, 1978 tells about 60 members of the Kansas City Police Department in "rugged tactical training at Fort Leonard Wood" in a five-day course including instruction in the use of heavy firearms, armored vehicles, chemical agents and gas weapons, squad maneuvers, combat assault, building searches, hostage negotiations and physical training. He had 32 hours of Assessment Center Training, a 28-hour Hostage Negotiations Seminar, a Law Enforcement Retraining Program in 1985, in1986 a seminar on "Starting and Expanding Victim Assistance Programs," and attendance at a specialized school in legal problems facing law enforcement executives.
Niebur received several awards through the years. One was a Medal of Valor, but he says it was one of those things that anybody would have done if they had been there. It was in 1981, when he came upon a house fire and noticed three children standing on the front porch. A cab driver also stopped and Niebur gave him the kids. They said their grandma was inside and she was crippled. Niebur kicked in the back door but a wall of smoke blocked his view. He didn't know if he would be able to get inside, but when he heard her voice, he knew he was going to get her out of there some way. Unfortunately, she weighed about 300 pounds, so that added to the problem. He did get her out. She was pretty badly burned, but she survived. He was taken to the hospital with smoke inhalation but was back at his normal duties the next day. Niebur regards that as probably the crowning achievement of his career, and Linda didn't know about it until she saw it on television the next day. One of his rules is that he doesn't bring his job home. He and Linda have talked about this quite a little. He doesn't believe in having her worry, and it has worked out pretty well for them. "It would be a terrible life if she had to wonder every time I've gone to work if I would survive the shift. My work has to be separated from my home life, or it would drive us both crazy. She says she never thinks about it. She knows I'll be all right."
He said, "It will be no surprise that the worst I ever experienced was when between 105 and 115 people died in the tragedy at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Crown Center. They were having a tea dance about 4:00 in the afternoon and people were dancing on each of the walkways of the four floors above the main floor. The walkways were concrete, held up by rods, and apparently the rhythm of the music and dancing caused the top rods to collapse. That concrete floor fell on the one below, on and on through four levels onto people dancing on the main floor. All those people were crushed under huge concrete slabs which were impossible to lift. I was the Commander of the TAC unit so we were one of the first ones called up to assist. It is something that is very hard to talk about, pulling mangled people out of the rubble. They had to use a crane to break through the front of the hotel. It took hours. We were working in blood, and I saw sights I never want to see again. In one case, a doctor took a chain saw and cut off a woman's arm to get her out from under a concrete block. That's how horrible it was. I didn't sleep for months after that. That is one of the things that is really bad about this job. You see some things you can't get out of your mind for a long time. I'll always remember this as the worst moment in my career. In such situations, you just sort of have to distance yourself while you are doing the work or you'd go out of your mind. You don't consciously do so, but subconsciously you have to tell yourself it isn't real. That is the only way you can work on it.
"On a lighter note, I became a Kansas City Chiefs fan while we lived there. When they first came to Kansas City in the mid-60s, they had their games in the old municipal stadium at 22nd and Brooklyn, and to help promote them, our Chief assigned several of our Tactical units, which I was part of, to work the games on duty. I remember standing there in '66 when they first won the division title, and lost to the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl I. During that season some games were played in murderous weather and I was assigned the second tier of the stadium to stand next to the open air gates. During some of the games in '69, when they won Super Bowl N, there must have been about a minus 20° wind chill. In this most recent one, they had a good year but I also had some great times cheering for them when they won three games and lost 13. I guess once you're a fan, you're a fan, and you stick with your team.
"I had body guard duty on many celebrities and politicians, including Presidents Johnson, Carter, Nixon, and Ford; two weeks personal security on Yul Brynner, as he performed in 'The King and I.' Brynner was ill with cancer, and after singing and dancing on stage, had oxygen waiting in the wings. Nicest were Elvis Presley and Rosalyn Carter, the president's wife. Both were down to earth and made sure the officers were fed and taken care of. Another favorite was Clint Eastwood.
"Most celebrities were nice, but one senator, still in office, treated security very poorly, cursing at them if they were slow to move, and made no effort to treat them well.
"Our children were born in Kansas City. We had our first child in June 1971, and named him Louis after his grandfather. Louis graduated from Kansas City in 1988, the year I came to Osceola. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Iowa, earned his Masters degree at the University of Texas in Austin, and has just finished his doctoral paper at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles). He will be the first doctor in the family. He is teaching at UCLA now. He did a lot of his studying in England, and has job applications in colleges all over the world, so he will be moving. I hope he doesn't decide on England. That is too far to go.
"Our daughter, Natalie, was born in November 1973. She graduated from Clarke; and attended college in Iowa. She has worked for the Osceola Sentinel and the University of Texas paper in Austin. She married Mike Lukich in 2003. They reside in Hammond, Indiana and Natalie is a graphic artist for the magazine 'Chicago Athlete.' Her official title is Production Designer."
In 1988, Steve began to think about retirement. Kansas City is unique in Missouri, along with St. Louis, in having their own retirement system. After 25 years on the force, officers can retire at 50% of their salary, and there is a mandatory retirement after 30 years. Steve had put in 26 years, was 48 years old, and was working for about 2% of his salary, so he decided to look for another job. He was in a high stress unit, and wanted to get away from that and move to a small town. He saw an ad in the Kansas City paper for a police chief in Osceola and decided it would be about the right size job.
Looking back on 15 years, he says it has been interesting to adjust to the pace of life in a smaller community, and learn how to deal with people on the more personal day-to-day basis. There are good and bad aspects of that. He likes being seen around the community so he can get to know people and vice versa. "If you have a problem or you need something done in a community of this size, you probably know someone personally who can handle it. But it is necessary to change perspectives, to see that a problem that really isn't so large seems very large to the person who is facing it, and a lot of time is taken up solving small problems which we didn't deal with in the city."
What he is proudest of in Osceola was starting the DARE program, which he regards highly. This is a program in which an officer goes into schoolrooms and teaches the kids about drugs. Osceola was one of the first police departments in Iowa to be involved in the program. Steve is one of five Chiefs in the country that is on the national advisory board for DARE for America. They decide the curriculum for the program. He's been on that board for three years, but is resigning now. He will be resigning from several such positions. The only one he is keeping is his position on the 911 Board. He's not sure how long he will be doing that.
A second achievement since he has been in Osceola has been computerizing the department. There were no computers when he came and everything had to be done in longhand. He remembers that made it tough to get information. The department was also increased from five officers to nine. "Services were starting to overwhelm the people, and with such a small staff, there were times when there were no officers on the streets and we'd have to call somebody from home. Additionally, we usually have one high school student each year come to the department to check out their interest in police work, and we also have interns from the college in Ottumwa. We train three or four of those each semester and they go along with police officers. I think it is a really good program. The COPS (Community Oriented Police System) program has helped because it pays 3/4 of the officers' salary for the first three years. We have gotten two new officers in that program."
Third, and most obvious, has been the new Law Enforcement Center. "We helped promote the new building, working along with citizens who got together and promoted it. It has been exciting. We were in very cramped quarters until it was built."
During the years Niebur has been here, the casino came. He was skeptical about it at first and checked with police in other places where there were gambling facilities. They reported the same as has been true in Osceola. It was kind of a surprise to him that there haven't been more problems. "The biggest thing has been parking lot accidents. We haven't noticed a difference in the crime rate. Occasionally there will be a drunk who presents a problem, because he won't listen to them, will start to fight them, and they call us. One of the fears was that the availability of gambling would lead to addiction. But they patrol their own area, and if they detect a developing problem, they direct the person to a program called Bets Off. My personal opinion is that it has been an asset to the town because of the boost to the economy.
"In contrast to the city, in the years I've been here we've had one homicide within the city limits. That was at the Super 8 motel, when a traveling preacher named Peterson, was murdered by a jealous lover, Robert Benn. He crushed Peterson's skull, hitting him 70 or 80 times with a baseball bat. Part of the time I was in Kansas City, I was with the homicide unit and we saw lots of nasty things. The worst is when little kids are involved. Those are memories you forget as soon as you can. Here, about 25% of our calls stem from domestic abuse; about 50% revolve around drugs. There is a lot of drug activity, but that is not just in Osceola. That is true any place you go. Meth labs are usually out in the country where people can't detect the smell, but we get the results in town when people bring it in town to sell it. Either somebody is stealing in order to buy drugs, or taking an overdose - it's a bad problem. Police officers tend to become really cynical because of some of the people they run into. It isn't quite as bad in a small town but in a city, in the nighttime hours, everybody you run into is not the best kind. That is when you can really become cynical, which is one reason I wanted to get out of that atmosphere.
"One of the problems in which police are caught in the middle is kids loitering. Some business owners complain that kids are congregating in their lots and trashing them, breaking windows, etc. They have to clean them up in the morning to make their area safe and attractive. This is always a touchy situation because the kids have to have a place to meet, and it would be taken care of if they would police the area themselves. Our duty is to obey the store owners' wishes because it is their property and they are entitled to some decency on their lots."
All of this aside, Niebur considers Osceola's reputation to be pretty good right now. He was elected to an office in the International Association of Chiefs of Police and SACOP; which is the State Association of Chiefs of Police and a division of the international association. He was elected as regional coordinator over Chiefs in 13 states, and held that post for two years until he retired. He also was president of Iowa Police Executive Forum, IPEF, and an organization of 100 Iowa chiefs, for two years.
Among his enjoyable jobs has been marshalling special events such as the 4th of July parade and RAGBRAI. The first RAGBRAI came through Osceola 11 years ago. Because it was new, Steve checked with chiefs in other towns to learn what precautions should be taken.
He enjoyed it and put together a book about their preparations and procedures. "We have loaned
it to other communities. We're proud of our handling of such events. Officers are sometimes asked to take off-duty jobs for private parties, for instance. They have to have special permission but the only place we don't permit them to go in their police capacity is where liquor will be served. That brings up problems and it is on those occasions that officers are apt to be injured.
"So, I am coming to the conclusion of my career- 41 1/2 years total - 26 years in Kansas City from 1962 to 1988, then 15 1/2 years in Osceola... You don't get into public service for the money, but I will now see the benefits of Kansas City's nice retirement system, which I paid into all those years. Presently I am training the new chief who will take over. I was only somewhat involved in the selection process. Three Chiefs came and interviewed the candidates, then gave a list to the mayor and the choice was made."
Retirement will be a new experience. Immediately Steve and Linda will do some traveling. He has a sister in Phoenix, and they will see her and go on to see their son in California. "Maybe I will have time to play golf, to fish - I haven't had the time to fly since I've had this job and I love to fly. Maybe I'll have time for that. I conclude my career feeling that I have been very fortunate. I am grateful to Osceola and the citizens for all the help in these years. This is a great town to live in and we plan to stay."
Retirement will be a good chance to continue a family tradition of a fishing trip to Canada every June. Steve's father started the tradition in the 1960s, and several family members, including six police officers in the family, have kept the tradition going for almost 40 years. Besides being a very relaxing week it is serving as a family reunion. "We have a family rule that no one under 10 may go. My brother started taking his son when he was 10 years old; now his son is taking his son. A brother-in-law, who is a policeman, took his son for the first time last year and recommended that maybe we should raise the age limit to 12."
Steve updated his account after returning from California: "Getting away was wonderful! I have never before had a chance to do that. We spent a week with my son, one with my sister, and another with Linda's sister. We also spent some days in Mexico, and went out into Ventura Harbor to see the gray whales. We found some big ones and followed them for awhile. Linda was ready to come home after three weeks, but I could have stayed another. She has just started a job at Younkers at Southridge. She is in the cosmetics department, which was a job she had in Kansas City. She is younger than I and wasn't ready for retirement. What I am looking forward to next is flying to California to see my son get his diploma. I can see the possibility of my retirement becoming like others who have said they didn't know how they ever had time for a job. I am having a wonderful time!"
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