Police officer found a beat like no other

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This article was published 02/03/2018 (2933 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ventriloquist cop Dave Dixon always seemed to get an unusually high rate of confessions from his suspects.

His eye-popping numbers made even CIA water-boarding torturers look like Girl Guides. Dixon’s suspects would confess to their crimes, then look up, down and behind, and claim they never said anything.

Fake news, unfortunately.

Dixon, who will have a retirement reception today and donate his (alleged) dummy, Sgt. Willie, to the Winnipeg Police Museum, only used his special skill ethically. Dixon, a longtime Winnipeg Police Service member, and Sgt. Willie are widely known in the city, having entertained scores of school children from 1996 to 2001 with safety-themed seminars.

But Dixon confides he always harboured a special fantasy his ventriloquism would prove handy in the line of duty. Perhaps, someone holding him at knifepoint: he would throw his voice (“Drop it! I’ve got a gun!”), the suspect would look behind him and that would be the split-second Dixon needed to wrestle the suspect to the ground.

It will have to stay an unrealized fantasy.

Dixon isn’t the only ventriloquist cop out there. He once met a ventriloquist state trooper from Louisiana and knows of a police officer in Virginia.

He’s been ribbed by his fellow cops, over the years. “You know how police are. You get a haircut and they’ll tease you, but it’s all in fun.”

Dixon got the bug in the early 1990s, while visiting his wife, Donna, who was the nurse at a Salvation Army youth camp. A female ventriloquist was there entertaining the children.

“I drove to every library in the city and took out all their books on ventriloquism,” he said.

Then, he did something few people do. He stuck with it, training himself to speak without moving his lips. He practised on his three children ad infinitum.

“I’d get them to watch my lips. Do my lips move? My kids would critique me,” he said.

Dixon had it down pretty good except for six letters — B, F, M, P, V, W — because you have to pop or purse your lips to say them.

So, his early performances were tightly scripted to avoid those letters. Or else, he did what many beginners do and substitute letters, such as a d for a b. So, he would start out saying “dasketdall” and skim over the word so quickly no one would call him on it. Or he would say “thish” instead of “fish.” He took a course in Colorado to hone his technique.

“There are certain words I still don’t do,” he said.

One of them is “every.” It’s really tough to say, but a very common word. “Bread and butter” is another phrase to avoid.

He’s been attending the annual Vent Haven International Ventriloquist Convention, a four-day convention of workshops, in Fort Mitchell, Ky., since 1994.

Throwing one’s voice is an illusion. Dixon explained you squeeze your vocal chords, so your voice sounds distant, then help it along with some physical cues to fool your subject.

He started out performing at birthday parties, daycares and church functions, and has graduated to fairs and festivals in small towns and company family Christmas parties.

“I like it because you can be really creative and not a lot of people can do it,” Dixon said.

He began to mix it into his job when he became a community relations officer and worked alongside recently retired Winnipeg police chief Devon Clunis. Dixon and Clunis also served as police chaplains for many years, meeting the spiritual needs of force members, including assisting with family funerals or saying grace at special events.

The community relations officer had to go into schools and do safety seminars on topics such as bike safety or “street-proofing,” and so, Dixon started introducing Sgt. Willie, his wise-cracking sidekick. He developed an assembly-style act and ended up going to a different school almost every week from 1996 to 2001.

The use of ventriloquist dummies and dolls in horror movies did pose some problems, however, Dixon said.

Several times, Dixon said, he would introduce Sgt. Willie and some smaller children in the front row would start screaming. He had to hone a method of introducing Sgt. Willie slowly and calmly, so as not to cause any alarm.

“I thought I’d won the lottery because I was able to do my passion at work,” the 56-year-old said.

He was eventually promoted to patrol sergeant and ends his career as a staff sergeant.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca