Bayer, Scott, retire from YPD

By Joe Gorman

jgorman@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Officers George Bayer and Helen Scott both worked South Side beats when they joined the police department, and both also retired Friday.

Bayer, who had been on the force since 1981, began his career in Car 205 and ended it as part of the department’s jail unit, which escorts prisoners back and forth from the Mahoning County jail for appearances in municipal court.

Scott began her career in 1989 and worked Car 206 before becoming an investigator in the Juvenile Bureau, then being moved to the jail unit, where she finished her career working with Bayer.

Both said the South Side was a hectic beat in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as gangs formed and then began to exert their influence on the drug trade. Scott said it was not uncommon to have 25 calls per shift, and Bayer said there were times on afternoon or midnight turn where he was getting calls before he even left the police garage.

“A lot of times you would run red [emergency lights] right out of the garage,” Bayer said.

Scott said as a juvenile investigator, she worked a lot of homicides, and she said she was struck by how many gang members would attend those funerals.

Bayer said he became a police officer because he always was interested in police work. He took the civil-service test in Youngstown the first time it was open to noncity residents. He said that proved fruitful because shortly after he took the test he lost his job when U.S. Steel closed down.

Scott said she joined the department after a friend talked her into it. She said she thought it would be a good way to help children since she was around kids a lot before she was a police officer.

Bayer and Scott said one of the biggest changes since they began their careers is the technology available, both to criminals and law enforcement. Both also said they have seen a big attitude adjustment among not just children, but adults who lack respect for any kind of authority.

Scott said oftentimes, it seems as if people want nothing to do with police until they need them, and then “if they call you, they want you to do what they want.”

Both officers were signed off on the department’s radio by dispatcher William Golec, a longtime officer himself, who choked up as he designated the pair “Signal 13,” or out of service, and wished both of them luck.