True Police Stories

"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

My Name is Chris Rash

Taken from the book Think About it...  for your reading convenience

My first name is actually Robert. I feel extremely honored to have been asked to share my feelings with you. As all little kids do, I went through a stage of wanting to be a police officer. I’m sure part of this was from the influence my grandfather had on me. My parents divorced when I was six, due to my fathers’s increasing troubles with alcoholism. My grandfather became the father figure in my life. He had been a police officer for nearly thirty years in Ohio. He was far from being a saint but the one characteristic he possessed that has always stood out in my mind was his love for helping others. When I was fourteen, my grandfather died. The only role model in my life was gone and I had a lot of questions about life, death and what’s it all about.

          I had always been told that there was a God,
                  but I had never been taught anything about God.
                          I can only remember going to church a few times in my whole life.
                                                                I started searching.

When the “Mormon” missionaries taught me about the gospel plan and the eternal nature of families, it was like hearing something I had been taught before. Though I had never really been taught anything about God or Spiritual matters, it made sense. I knew it was true and I was baptized at the age of sixteen. I became the only member of the church in my family. When I turned nineteen, I put my papers in to go on a mission and was called to serve in the Florida, Ft. Lauderdale Mission. I served all over southern Florida and spent almost half of my mission in Nassau, Bahamas. During this time I learned the great joy that comes from service to others and I learned how to develop a personal relationship with my Father in Heaven.

When I came home from my mission I knew that it was my calling to be a police officer. I had always remembered being in the fifth grade and the Mesa police officer that came to my school and talked to my class. He had left an impression on me that never left. I don’t remember what he said, I just remember the countenance, or in police terms, the command presence that he presented in such a professional manner. Little did I know that I would someday respond to calls with that same officer, Officer Sam Jeppsen, #3751.

I graduated from the Mesa Police Academy in 1994 and started my career as a police officer. At times it has been very difficult to be LDS and a police officer at the same time. As a police officer you have to be skeptical and judgmental and it is very easy to become cynical in this line of work. I have a high activity level and I make a lot of arrests. In doing so, you begin to size up everyone you come in contact with as whether they are a “scumbag” or not. In my short time as a police officer I have struggled with these challenges.

I decided that what I would do is apply the gospel and its principles to the experiences I have on a daily basis at work. My goal was to have a spiritual experience at least once a day at work in order to keep in tune with the spirit since I was unable to attend my church meetings. What I started doing was looking at the experiences I encountered with people. I would analyze these peoples’ lives and how they came to be where they were. I would then think about it in terms of gospel principles.

By doing this the gospel has become very applicable in my daily life. I find myself now giving counsel to people using basic gospel principles without preaching religion to them. This has brought me closer to the spirit and has allowed me to feel the spirit in situations that are not always at the onset, conducive to the spirit. One such situation happened recently during routine patrol.

I am an FTO (field training officer) and my OIT (officer in training) was driving when I observed a man and a woman who were obviously having an argument on the side of the street. Their body language indicated that this could easily escalate to a physical confrontation between them. I instructed my trainee to turn around so we could investigate. We contacted the couple and
immediately separated them. We then began to talk with them and find out what was going on. They were both very hesitant to talk and the woman was fairly uncooperative with us.

They told us that they were married and were having an argument. I then explained to them that I had a duty to investigate what was going on and that I was concerned that someone might get hurt if I didn’t step in. As I spoke to the couple I learned that they had been married for five months and had gotten into an argument about something very insignificant. They had made a “mountain out of a mole hill.” From talking with them, I got the impression that they were LDS. I asked them if they were and the expressions on their face immediately changed from the agitated upset look to the look of embarrassment and realization of how they allowed such an insignificant event to impact on their relationship. I spoke to them of being LDS and knowing the frustrations that occur in marriage. I ended my counsel by having them hug one another. They embraced and tears welled up in the young woman’s eyes. They left arm in arm with smiles on their faces. I left with a smile in my heart.

                               At times,
             I have encountered situations where being a priesthood holder
                                                took more importance than being a police officer.

One night on patrol I was sitting in a parking lot doing paperwork when a hot tone came across the radio. It was a CPR call for an infant drowning and I was dispatched as the primary officer. I was three blocks from the house and arrived within a minute. I ran into the house and found two frantic parents with a small, one year old infant on the floor. The child was a pale blue color. I checked his vitals. He was not breathing and did not have a heart beat. I started CPR. It seemed forever before the fire department arrived and took over. The child was flown into a trauma center where he was pronounced dead. I learned that the child had fallen into a large bucket of water and had only been out of sight of the parents for a few minutes. What a tragedy this was. I could only think of my own son who was the same age and looked very similar to this child.

My heart went out to this family. As I looked around the house I saw that this family was LDS. The parents went to the hospital and I remained with the child’s aunt and two small brothers and a visiting teacher. There was a very somber feeling in the house. The two small brothers were confused and upset. The aunt was upset. I was the only priesthood holder present. I offered to give the aunt a blessing but then felt prompted to call everyone in for a prayer. I asked the aunt if that would be ok and she agreed.

                     I will never forget the feeling I had
                                              as I knelt in a prayer circle with this family
                                                                       and offered a prayer in their behalf.

At a moment when I did not know what to say, the words came to me. There was a divine presence that dictated what I said in that prayer. I ended the prayer and with tears welling up in my eyes, I left and had to go back to work. You never know when you might be called upon to exercise the power of the priesthood. What a humbling experience it is to be the macho street cop that everyone imagines we are and in an instant, be the priesthood holder and servant of God.

With recent events such as the Rodney King incident and the O.J. Simpson case, the public has lost a lot of trust in police. Those incidents have impacted police officers everywhere. It is a comfort for me to know so many officers that are doing their job with a desire to serve their fellow man. Many are LDS. I have come to feel that being a police officer is a calling from my Heavenly Father. I know He has inspired me many times to know what to say and how to say it in a manner that avoided confrontations and impacted the people I was dealing with. I know that God lives. I know that He has an eternal plan for each one of us.

                  I know that as we draw close to Him,
                                          He in turn, will give us guidance in how
                             to handle any situation we encounter.
         This is my testimony, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

                                        Officer (&RM) Robert “Chris” Rash Badge #10740

 

If you are or were a police officer, soldier, fireman
or wife, mother, father of such or some other branch of emergency personnel
and would like to share an unusual testimony building experience with others,
please contact us for details at

Samuel@ldscops.com

or use the link on the front page of this site at

www.LDSCOPS.com

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