LoudounExtra.com

Tales of Peepers and Thieves On a Soggy Night

Deputy Kim Holway Joined the County Sheriff's Elite Team After Her Battle With a 360-Pound Robbery Suspect

By Bill Snead

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Editor's Note: Deputy Kim Holway was promoted to sergeant in charge of a patrol shift near the time this story was published.

Kim Holway's big, white Ford patrol car moves slowly through a parking lot bordering a Sterling apartment complex. It's dark, it’s been raining since late afternoon and it doesn't look like it's going away anytime soon.

The only movement in the parking lot is that of a man and woman hurrying to unload bags of groceries from the trunk of their car. They return Holway's wave as they run past. A woman in an upstairs apartment stops in front of a lighted window, strains to look outside into the darkness and closes her drapes.

The woman in the window reminds Holway of her experience with a "peeper" who used to look into bedroom windows in this Newberry neighborhood.

"He was really upsetting people around here ... We held special meetings in the community, handed out flyers with safety tips and reminded people to close their blinds," she said. “Many don’t.”

She pointed to a sizable cluster of 8-foot bushes near the edge of an open plot of grass next to the road.

"That was my hiding place during our first and last stakeout, trying to catch this guy," she said, chuckling.

The stakeout was put together because the window peeker was becoming bolder.

"He was climbing onto people's balconies, would watch for a while and sometimes knock on the window,” she said. “Sometimes he'd wave."

Terrified residents would flee their bedrooms and call 911.

She and a few fellow officers from the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office managed to catch their man on the first night out. Holway said officers were positioned between nearby apartment buildings and standing by in cruisers.

"I’m in the bushes and here comes a guy riding a bicycle," she recalled. "He was looking around a lot as he was riding."

He got off his bike and pushed it directly toward the bushes where Holway was hiding, stopped just short of spotting her and shoved his bike into the greenery, barely missing Holway. To dodge the bike, she quickly scooted backward on her stomach. She avoided the bike but not a large pile of fresh, well, dog poop.

A Community Connection

Photo Gallery

Loudoun Sheriff's Deputy Kim Holway

Photo: 0/1

« Previous | Next »

Larger Version

A car with slight exterior damage was left parked by the side of the road in an isolated area of Loudoun County near Sterling. Deputy Holway takes notes as she waits for the arrival of a wrecker to tow the vehicle. (Bill Snead)

Larger Version

The last call of the night that deputy Kim Holway responded to was in response to a false alarm in a shopping center office building. (Bill Snead)

Larger Version

Officer Kim Holway walks down the darkend corridor of an apartment building in Huntington Square. (Bill Snead)

Larger Version

Officer Kim Holway gets information on her cell phone for a lost motorist who flagged her down. (Bill Snead)

Larger Version

Loudoun deputy sheriff Kim Holway checks out the interior of a car before calling a wrecker to tow the vehicle. ()

Larger Version

An abandoned car report gets the full attention of deputy Kim Holway around midnight on a back road in the Sterling area. (Bill Snead)

Larger Version

Loudoun County deputy Kevin Zaldua, left, Kim Holway and Lt. Alan Gabrielli talk about their night on the streets of Loudoun County during a 30-minute dinner break on a Saturday night. (Bill Snead)

Larger Version

Holway talks with a wrecker driver during a quiet, rainy night on Sterling's streets. (Bill Snead)

Larger Version

The interior of Loudoun deputy sheriff Kim Holway's cruiser is a command center in itself. She can send and receive from her laptop computer and if a person's identification is in question, the dispatcher can e-mail a photo of a suspect. Holway has been a Loudoun deputy for 12 years. (Bill Snead)

Larger Version

A man believed to be intoxicated is handcuffed and taken to jail after he was found sleeping in a car in Sterling. (Bill Snead)

Larger Version

Deputy Holway heads for the police cruiser that she drives on a daily basis. New in September, it has more than 100,000 miles on it. (Bill Snead)

Larger Version

Wearing part of her SWAT team gear Kim Holway poses on the Loudoun shooting range off of Route 50. (Bill Snead)

Larger Version

A smiling Kim Holway dressed in her SWAT gear at the Loudoun County sheriff's firing range off Route 50. (Bill Snead)

View all thumbnails

Holman's cruiser is moving slowly through Sterling as she tells the peeper story. She stops to speak to three young men walking slowly in the rain.

"Hey, how you guys doin'? ... Not getting wet are you? ... You live here? ... Great, have a good night and be careful." She watches them in her rear-view mirror long enough to see them enter an apartment building.

"I really miss the community part of my job and walking the streets," she said, like she was talking about family. "I had time to spend with people who maybe were having problems with an aggressive teenager or vandalism or spousal abuse and I could stop by later to see how things were going."

Holway patrolled Sterling neighborhoods, like Newberry and Chase Heritage, on foot and bicycle. She'd visit with merchants and residents, and "get to know people,” she said.

Now, she says, working out of her sheriff's cruiser, "We show up, make arrests, chase kids, ask people to turn the music down, write runaway reports … I get dispatched to these problems when they're happening, everyone is upset, we take care of the immediate situation and go to our next assignment."

And she’s been involved in several projects with other Loudoun County deputies.

One resulted in the arrest of a man in Sterling wanted for a capital murder in Houston. The other project involved suspected gang members from California who were trying to establish their turf in Sterling.

"We didn't want them in our community,” she said. “We let them know on a regular basis that we were aware of their presence and they moved on."

‘I Always Wanted to Be a Cop’

“280 Charlie” -- that's Holway's handle on the 3 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift -- hears a call for a man, probably drunk, passed out in his car in front of a shopping center pizza restaurant. She’s nearby, so she heads in that direction to assist. The suspect is arrested, cuffed and taken to the Loudoun County jail.

She’s back on the road, in the rain, headed for a call to Huntington Square. A woman living in an apartment there has reported receiving obscene phone calls on her cell phone.

After locating the address with help from her flashlight, Holway parks her cruiser several doors down from the woman's apartment. The policy is not to park directly in front of the address where a complaint originates to help avoid an officer from becoming a target.

While Holway is inside interviewing the woman, two things become clear. The interior of the cruiser is dark, lit only by lights in the parking lot. And, this passenger has not a clue where this parking lot is located.

Photo: Bill Snead

Wearing part of her SWAT team gear Kim Holway poses on the Loudoun shooting range off of Route 50.

Occasionally, someone would step out of the shadows, walk close to the car and peer inside as he or she passed. The scanner is quiet except for an occasional hiss, but there’s still the constant thumping of the windshield wipers.

A couple of thoughts.

Let's say you have, at your disposal, a gun on your hip, a shotgun and an automatic weapon in your car, pepper spray, a lethal-sized flashlight, an ASP (an adjustable club), a two-way radio, a badge, handcuffs, and you're sitting in this car right now, alone. Toss in an overactive imagination, very poor visibility and you'll get the picture. It’s spooky out here, armed or unarmed.

Holway soon returns to her car with a sly smile that says most all is well in Huntington Square.

The scanner has become quieter as the night grows shorter. Holway had predicted that the combination of rain and cool weather could make for a slow Saturday night in Loudoun County. With little action, maybe it was a good night to ask questions.

Holway explained why she wanted to be a sheriff’s deputy.

"I always wanted to be a cop and I love the job," she said. She turned 40 earlier in the month and has been with "Loudoun sheriff" for 12 years, she said.

She attended Duke University on a track scholarship, ran cross-country and graduated in 1989 with a degree in economics. "I got into economics, I guess, because I was good at calculus,” she said.

Plus, her father -- who she calls the “Brooklyn Boy” -- is an accountant who handles investments in New York. She has two sisters: one’s a schoolteacher and the other is a nurse.

After crunching numbers, and riding busses and the Metro into the District, she became disenchanted with her job in economics and applied to the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office. She made the cut.

For the past four years, Holway has been a member of the office’s SWAT team, or Special Weapons and Tactics Team. It gets involved in hostage and barricade situations, and its members gain entry into buildings -- usually by force -- serve search and arrest warrants, and participate in narcotics raids and busts, along with other situations that require their skills, weaponry and muscle.

Holway is the only female officer on the team.

"I didn't have any strong, heart-felt desire to be on the team," she said. “When I first started this job I couldn't imagine myself on the SWAT team."

She didn’t qualify on her first try. “I just wasn’t strong enough to make it through the obstacle course,” she said.

She said she “hit the gym, changed her power-lifting routine and worked out with a couple of officers in Fairfax County who were into body-building.”

Six months later, on her second attempt, she handled the obstacle course.

"Kim Holway's knowledge of the community, her attitude and her passion for her work makes her an excellent deputy," said Capt. Rick Frye, assistant patrol division commander of the sheriff’s office. "There is no assignment I'd hesitate to give her."

A Life-Changing Experience

Holway is 5-feet-4-inches tall, weighs 135 pounds and bench-presses 185 pounds, aiming for 200. She lifts three times a week.

Her motivation to be stronger and better prepared for her job came the day after she tried to arrest two men suspected of stealing an elderly woman's purse outside the Safeway in Sterling.

The woman described one of the men to Holway as being "really, really big” and the other as being short with one arm. "I knew exactly who the two guys were,” Holway said.

The big man weighed 360 pounds and stood 6-feet-5-inches tall.

"I had talked to the big guy numerous times on the street and if someone in his group started giving me a bad time he’d handle them," she recalled.

She knew if she didn't find the thieves in short order they would take the cash and valuables and ditch the purse.

She spotted the two sitting on a park bench not far from the Safeway, radioed her dispatcher and asked that another officer be sent to the scene. The closest unit was working an accident in Ashburn, 10 to 15 minutes away.

Photo: Bill Snead

A man believed to be intoxicated is handcuffed and taken to jail after he was found sleeping in a car in Sterling.

It was 4:45 p.m., June 28, 2002, and Holway was about to have a life-changing experience.

As she approached the men from behind, "I saw the big guy drop the purse on the ground, between his legs," she said.

Both remained sitting as she walked around to face them.

"I started chatting and didn't want to mention the purse. I wanted to wait for my backup to get there ... but the big guy stood up,” she said. “I told him he wasn't free to go.”

"’Hey Holway,’" she quoted the man as saying. "’What's up? You know me. What's going on?"

The man took off running and Holway said she could see contents of the purse spread on the ground. She figured he’d probably already taken what he wanted.

"I'm a distance runner and I just chase people ‘til they can't run anymore," she said with a smile.

Her suspect stopped running but kept walking, ignoring Holway’s order to stop. She stepped in front of him, hitting him with a blast of pepper spray. Unfazed, he charged past her and again, the chase was on.

During her pursuit, a citizen walking with his family caught up with the deputy for a short while asking what was going on. She discovered later that he'd called 911.

When the suspect stopped a second time, Holway pulled out her baton and held it in front of him, telling him to stop.

"This was a big deal for me,” she said. “I'd never used it (outside of training) before."

They were in an alley and she struck him on his upper thigh and upper arm, "the meaty places on the body you're taught to hit.”

What followed was a tug of war for the baton. Punches were thrown.

"I came in again and at this point he grabbed hold of me, I pulled hard, he let go and I fell (she sounds as if she’d just failed). I kicked him a couple of times and he grabbed my wrist, trying to take the ASP (baton) away,” she said.

Photo: Bill Snead

Deputy Holway heads for the police cruiser that she drives on a daily basis. New in September, it has more than 100,000 miles on it.

She said in the academy, trainees were taught that when someone takes your baton, it constitutes a deadly force situation and gives the officer the option to shoot the assailant.

"I really didn't want him to get it because in my mind I knew I'd have to shoot him and I didn't want to do that,” she said.

Holway said he reached for her gun and they struggled on the ground.

"I landed a pretty good kick when he was hitting me,” she said. “I'd already hit the emergency button on my radio and followed that with, 'I need help.'"

In a crouch position, she said she pulled her gun to shoot him when she saw the look of fear in his eyes and, hearing sirens, he turned away and ran. She holstered her gun and gave chase, and he stopped in front of his house.

"I still had my ASP," she said. "I held it with two hands and started hitting his leg and got him down on the ground.”

That’s when the suspect’s sister jumped on Holway’s back.

“I didn’t even see her coming,” Holway said. “She weighed like 100 pounds so I was able to fling her off my back.”

The suspect almost was inside his house, but Holway put her boot in the doorway. He punched her in the face, shoving her back, but she got her baton in the door to stop it from latching.

“That’s when (Lt. Eric Noble) got there, shoved the door open and the guy gave up," a relieved-looking Holway said. "The living room was full of people and it was one of those houses where sometimes 20 people hung out ... We'd get calls there for narcotics and there had been at least two rapes there."

An officer who'd been on the scene later told her that when he arrived her face was beet-red.

"I was hyped up and at that point didn't feel anything. In fact, I was the one who transported the guy to jail," she said.

At the jail, she asked him what happened. She remembers him being apologetic, saying "’I don't know, Holway.’"

Bruised, and with a scratched cornea, Holway returned to the street that night to finish her shift patrolling the streets. At 2:10 a.m., 20 minutes before her working day was scheduled to be over, a serious accident was reported a mile away.

“I was the first on the scene even before rescue got there,” she said. “A passenger in one of the cars, a young woman about 25, had taken a direct hit by a car that ran a red light. Both drivers had been drinking.”

Holway said she and a driver extricated the injured woman from the car. She was bleeding from the mouth and her chest had been crushed.

“I was holding her hand, talking to her. She asked me to help her and then she died,” Holway said. “It was the worst day of my career.”

The next morning, Holway said she could hardly get out of bed. She missed three days on the job. “When I got back to work a lot of my peers were free with advice, telling me what I should have done.”

‘That’s What I Live For’

The trial for the purse thief didn’t happen for nearly a year.

"I was at SWAT training and got a phone call from the Commonwealth Attorney's Office," she said. "They’d made a deal with the big guy, had dropped the charge of assault on a police officer in trade for a guilty plea to robbery.”

Holway said, "It was the first time I'd lost my temper with a Commonwealth Attorney and I just went off. Here’s a man I almost shot, a man who changed me as a police officer for the rest of my career and you can't do this ...”

She said the word had traveled around the neighborhood that she had beaten him and it made it difficult for her to work.

“Now I'm coming up on a scene and they're yelling, ‘you're the one who beat so-in-so’ and it made my job difficult. I created attention when I came up on a scene.

"I would still get out of the car doing what I was supposed to do but I'd break out in a sweat not knowing what was going to happen,” she said. “Took a while for it to go away."

Photo: Bill Snead

Loudoun County deputy Kevin Zaldua, left, Kim Holway and Lt. Alan Gabrielli talk about their night on the streets of Loudoun County during a 30-minute dinner break on a Saturday night.

She was transferred to the western part of Loudoun for several months.

She said the incident has made her much more assertive. "I have them sit down, immediately," she said, pointing to the ground.

The thief was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to 10 years on several charges, including assaulting a police officer, plus he got additional time for a parole violation. The day of the incident was his last day on parole from a former crime.

After the jury found him guilty Holway said the judge addressed the defendant and said, “'She should have shot you.'”

"That really surprised me and I'll never forget him saying that," she recalled.

As a precaution, after the trial, Holway was escorted outside by bailiffs.

“Now my whole mindset has changed,” she said, somberly. “When we were struggling, and after the ‘Oh crap factor, this is going bad fast,’ I was thinking I’m going to have to shoot him and I didn’t know if I was going to make it home from my shift that night. But, it soon became a determination that it was not going to be me, it was going to be him.

“I was doing everything I’d been taught and I could not get this man on the ground. I knew I needed to learn better skills and I knew the way to learn them was by joining the SWAT team.”

How difficult is it for a woman to compete with male police officers?

“Guys coming out of the academy are automatically accepted as part of the group,” she said. “As a woman you have to prove yourself first and what men get initially, women have to earn that spot.”

One of the reasons she likes Loudoun: “I’ve never experienced that out here,” she said.

She said when she tried out for the SWAT team nobody gave her grief.

“I just did it and that was it. When I made it, that was it, on the second shot,” she said, grinning.

“I love the SWAT team and that’s what I live for now.”

Copyright 2009 The Washington Post Company