“Courage is the ability to move; when all around you are frozen in fear
and no one would blame you if you did nothing at all.” Capt. Click. Phx PD 

Recently I took my wife shopping at a fabric store.  It was busy, with most of the customers being women.  There were two men waiting to buy fabric.  One held bolts of gingham.  The other, who was empty-handed, wore a dark green button shirt that was not tucked in.  The bottom of the shirt on the right side did not hang with the rest.  It rode up behind the handle of the Sig Sauer he wore on his hip.  He was not a cop.   

Having spent nearly thirty-two years in California law enforcement,
     I was unaccustomed to this sight.  In California, wearing a firearm
                                            in a public place is illegal, even if it’s in plain view.  

I wanted to wrestle the guy to the ground and put him in handcuffs.  But this was Arizona not California.  Of all the people in that store, I was the only one who seemed alarmed.  I went up to him and said, “You’re showing.”  His answer, “It’s legal.  I’m wearing my gun to desensitize Americans to their fear of firearms.”  I thought he was some kind of crazy, a man who at any moment might take a hostage or start shooting people, just because he was frustrated that he was seventh in line.  Naturally, I’m a cynic.   

While I know people can show forth their best,
                                              many regularly act their worst.   

Cynicism is one of the bi-products of working the streets in a Marine town.  Of course, I like to put a positive spin on my cynicism.  I call it being prepared.  It doesn’t seem logical to spend a healthy portion of your life watching people be mean spirited and not become suspicious of their motives.  I’m happy if people are noble.  But being a street cop taught me never to be surprised when they’re base.  Human greed and mendacity are great entertainment. 

Still, at times, for a street cop the pathos can be overwhelming.  A man takes his prepubescent sister hostage inside an empty house in his neighborhood.  The police surround the dwelling.  A fifteen year old, who lives nearby and is a delinquent of sorts, gets curious.  Due to poor police perimeter control, he slips in and out of the house, first a seeming hostage, then a seeming informant thought to be safely behind police lines, then a foolish youth who sneaks back into the house, unaware to police.  

Negotiations break down and SWAT is given the go ahead to shoot.
                           They hit the boy, a .222 round ricocheting off his collar bone
                                          and making mincemeat of his heart and lungs. 

              I babysit his body for two and a half hours waiting for the coroner.
                       The hostage taker kills himself, miraculously leaving his sister alive. 

It is the pathos of a minor accident on the freeway where the disoriented driver crawls from his car, only to have his head crushed by a passing van that runs him over and keeps going.  It is the pathos of a man who beats his girlfriend’s three year old son with a bamboo pole to teach him not to go outside.  He kills the boy.  It is the pathos of girls forced into prostitution.  It is the pathos of four men who rob a restaurant, kidnap and gang rape the waitress.  It is the pathos of a man who threatens me with a knife and I shoot him.  He lives, only to be shot again a year later by sheriff’s deputies in another standoff.  It is kids who kill their parents and parents who kill their kids.  It is those who drink until they fall down, and those who drink and drive until they are taken down. 

I once gave a prisoner I was transporting a screen test because he spit on the back of my head.  I was angry, but it didn’t feel right so I stopped giving screen tests. 

           Another man drove off with me hanging out his window
                                          in the midst of an arrest gone bad.
                                                 I split his head with my flashlight.
                                                                                  I didn’t regret that.   

I suppose the whole being-a-cop thing is the adrenaline rush.  It’s being able to be a looky-loo at a traffic accident while you order everybody else to keep going.  It’s going solo against four men in a fight and winning.  It’s finding a way to arrest someone because they desperately deserve it.  It’s catching a prowler in the backyard of an old woman’s home so she can feel safe again.  And it’s convincing a schizophrenic you’ve apprehended the alien on her roof. 

I have this theory – not scientific by any stretch – that we are allotted
                               only so many heartbeats.  We cops live to use our heartbeats.   

I wouldn’t say it is so much we have a death wish as it is the price we pay to do what we do.  Most of the officers I worked with did not last the three decades I did.  Somehow they got all used up in just a few years.  They developed bad backs, bad knees, and bad attitudes.  

Being a cop was so much fun, they grew to hate it.
                                            They wanted to be away, anywhere away.
                                 They couldn’t handle all the good times. 

One of my partners retired at fifty-three, after thirty years of service.  Seven months later he dropped dead in his house.  He left behind a saddened girlfriend, two ex-wives and four daughters.  At his funeral one officer told me, “He was robbed.”  I’ve often thought about that.  It seems to me we die when we die.  Maybe Ralph died sooner because he used up his heartbeats.  He was also an avid runner.  Or maybe there is a time granted each of us, our few moments on planet Earth to do with as we will. 

According to a study I read, the average life expectancy of a California cop after full service retirement is three years.  If that’s the case, I’ve used up my time and Ralph’s time, and I’m now living on the time of other retired officers from other agencies who I’ve never met.  Someday I’ll thank them.  On the other hand, I don’t smoke and I don’t drink and I’ve lived with the same wonderful woman over forty years.  We have eight sons, eight daughter-in-laws, and twenty-eight grandchildren.  Maybe I’m still alive because they are so vibrant.  Maybe I’m still alive because I have a faith deep within me that God appreciates all the heartbeats I gave to the City of Oceanside. 

I have to think Heavenly Father is the cops’ friend.
                                     After all, Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” 

I’m a Mormon, tried and true, through and through.  But I was a cop first.  I was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in my thirtieth year.  My reasons for joining the Church were self-serving.  I had three kids.  Sons.  As a cop I’d observed that a lot of people were failures at living.  Most of these failed at being parents too.  Some of these poor parents were cops.  Most were not.  I did not want to be one of them.  My wife and I talked.  We acknowledged we were inadequate to raise good children in a messed up world.  We needed help.  We needed something larger than ourselves, something that would lead us to strive to live better.  My brother was L.D.S.  We asked him to send the missionaries.  He had to make multiple requests over many months to have any elders come by.  It was as if the Lord was saying, “How badly do you want my help?”  Finally the elders knocked on our door.  It was the very day we had agreed, “Let’s not worry about the missionaries anymore.” 

         Nevertheless, when we saw the elders we said,
                                                   “We’ve been waiting for you.” 
                We were baptized three weeks later and we’ve never looked back.
                                                                       It’s a good way to live.

Captain Michael D. Shirley, ret.