Fred Pickering was six months out of New Canaan High School (class of ’86) when he joined the New Canaan Police Department.
New Canaan Police Lt. Fred Pickering marches in a recent Memorial Day parade with his son.
His father had been fire chief in New Canaan, and most of his family had been firemen, but a well-known local man named Jack Van Deusen—a former fire chief in New Canaan himself and a Wilton cop—advised Pickering to join the force.
“He encouraged me to apply and next thing I know, I’m a police officer,” Pickering said on a recent afternoon.
Now, nearly three decades later, Pickering—a town resident, local dad and Grace Community Church member who has been deeply involved in youth baseball here—is getting ready to retire from a career that he descried as “beyond what I could have imagined.”
Former Fire Chief Pickering
“I enjoy helping people,” he said. “It’s something I have done. I was a volunteer fireman first and then I became a policeman, and to me there is no better career to help people than to be a police officer or a fireman. When people call you, they are at their worst and need assistance.”
One such instance occurred about halfway through Pickering’s service on the police force, when he was first on scene after a 19-year-old boy got into a car accident on Jelliff Mill Road and was trapped in his car.
Pickering stabilized the teen’s neck and stayed with him, holding his head, for about 45 minutes while emergency responders performed an extraction.
“Later than night, I got a call from his father and doctor that he’d broken his neck and he probably survived because of the care I’d given him and keeping him calm and sitting with him, and that if he’d moved his neck, he probably would have died,” Pickering recalled.
Some of what Pickering experienced on the job is seared into his conscience forever, such as heading down to the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
“It’s something I will never, ever forget is when we pulled in there and what we saw, and dealing with that for several weeks after,” Pickering said.
More recently, residents will recall, Pickering was dragged some 35 feet in a car by a motorist who had been reported as suicidal—a harrowing incident from which he has fully recovered.
Pickering said he has drawn strength from his wife and family, and the community at large. Members of the Police Commission said at the group’s June 17 meeting that a formal party will be held in September for Pickering, who is retiring at the end of this month.
Soon he will start in a new position as an assistant security director in the private sector—a job that will afford him more time at home with his boys, Pickering said.
“It will be a little bit different, but I believe change is healthy,” he said. “I’ve always told myself that. It’s scary. We are all afraid of change but I think it’s a good thing. It’s [been] a long time doing one thing and so this was a big move for me and my family but I’ve had my wife’s support and my kids’ support and I think it’s the right decision. I think it’s time. Going up through the ranks, I was told you know when it’s time and I think I’m there.”
More than anything else, Pickering said, he wanted to “thank the townspeople.”
“The people of New Canaan have been incredible to me and my family for 28 years,” he said. “We’re really a part of this community and it’s just been a great experience.”