Missouri man releases book on airborne law enforcement

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Once, while riding with a member of the Kansas City Police Department, Donald Bachali spotted a suspected burglar ducking into a shed to evade police.

From 500 feet in the air, he knew no one left the shed, even when police couldn't find the suspect upon initial inspection.

"We knew he was in there," Bachali said. "There was an old car in there, and in the early days, you could raise the hood and you could get down inside where the engine was. He was hiding in the engine area. They finally started inspecting the car and they found him. It's just crazy things that happen."

For the St. Joseph-born man, what started as a position with the ROTC at the University of Kansas eventually led to a civilian job with Hughes Helicopters and a ground-level part in starting the helicopter patrol program with the Kansas City Police Department in the 1960s and 1970s.

Earlier this year, Bachali, assisted by his wife, Irma, published "The History of the Airborne Law Enforcement Association: My Personal Journey" about his experiences.

"I was with the original group and there are not many of us left from the late 1960s. I've waited for a policeman or a deputy sheriff to sit down and pen this, and nobody ever has," he said. "I had a lot of material that I'd kept over the years. I still knew a lot of the policemen who had the materials, so I was able to collect a lot of the data. Plus I'd kept a diary."

After attending St. Joseph Junior College, Bachali attended the University of Kansas in Lawrence to study architecture. He joined the ROTC and started his aviation career before graduating with his degree in architecture in 1961.

He applied for Army helicopter training his senior year of college and was accepted, attending training in Georgia, Texas and Alabama before being stationed in Okinawa, Japan. He served in Vietnam before returning to Fort Rucker, Alabama, to serve as an instructor.

After being released from active duty, Bachali was employed as a salesman and demo pilot with Hughes Helicopters where he was based out of Kansas City. Shortly after returning from five weeks of training in 1967, Bachali helped take a demo helicopter to the International Association of Chiefs of Police convention in Kansas City. It was there that Clarence Kelley, the Kansas City chief of police in Kansas City, Missouri, at the time, took a ride.

"I guess he was so impressed by it, he came back that afternoon and wanted to go up again," Bachali said. "It went very well."

Impressed, Kelley requested a two-week project called "Project 67" to test how the use of helicopters would work with the city law enforcement, Bachali said. When the statistics came back, crime rates had dropped in areas patrolled by the helicopter.

"The results came back, and they really liked it," Bachali said. "... They went out on bid, and we won the bid."

A few years later, as the helicopter patrol industry continued to grow, the Airborne Law Enforcement Association was established by a group of helicopter pilots in 1969. It first went by the name Law Enforcement Aviation Association (LEAA).

The first convention was held the following year in Wichita, Kansas, where it was discovered the LEAA shared initials with the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration. After a few more changes, the organization eventually settled on its current name in fall 1970. A conference has been held annually since 1970, and the organization's magazine, Air Beat, had more than 8,000 subscribers as of 2015.

Over his career, he has been able to see the instrumental role helicopters can play in law enforcement, Bachali said.

"The helicopter can come in and light up that area with a 30 million candlepower light. Or if they don't want to light it up, they can turn on the FLIR system, which is a forward-looking infrared, and it picks up anything with a body heat with a variation of one degree," he said. "They can see perpetrators hiding behind buildings, behind trees, up in a tree. It's outstanding what these men do."

The paperback books detailing Bachali's personal journey and the history of the industry and association are available for free, including free shipping. Any donations from the book go toward scholarships for dependents of military and law enforcement personnel. Currently, they've sponsored eight scholarships through donations from the book, Bachali said.

"We wanted to give back to the organization," he said. "... it took me about two and a half years to research and write the book. It has kind of been on my bucket list."

Bachali hopes to be able to work with colleges to incorporate aerial observation education into criminal justice programs.

"Somebody going into criminal justice, they really ought to know how a helicopter works out there, helping those men on the ground," he said.

Bachali worked for Hughes Helicopter, later purchased by McDonnell Douglas, until his retirement in 1994. Since then, he has done aviation work in Oklahoma and does consulting work from the couple's home in Vero Beach, Florida, where they moved in 2014.

"I really expected just to fly," Bachali said of his early career goals. "... I thought I'd go back into architecture after the Army and be an instructor, but I was kind of like a wild dog being chained up behind a drafting table after I got out. The excitement was still there."

Information from: St. Joseph News-Press/St. Joe, Missouri, http://www.newspressnow.com