Interesting

…My kids are often asking me to tell them stories that I was foolish enough to tell them over and over again.  I usually tell them that I don’t have any stories but they’ll say, “What about the time Dave crawled through the poop, or the time Dave fell into all of those cups?”  Or so on.  I’ll say, “I don’t remember that one.  How does it go?” And then they will proceed to tell the story back to me verbatim how I remember it. Poor Dave!  I haven’t told my children all of the “stories” I have because some of them are more like ghosts that haunt me. Like the time the kid stuck the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger fifteen feet in front of me.
If someone was to ask me to use one word to describe police work, that word would be easy to come up with, Interesting. I have often wondered what “normal” people would think of our job if they knew what didn’t make the blotter or the field command log.  Just think for a minute of all the times you have laughed until you had tears in your eyes and could not stand unassisted.  The times when you had brains on your hands after assisting at an accident and you feel like you’re going to lose it when the mom shows up.  Then the miracle you witnessed when the mom did show up because she doesn’t normally travel that direction.  How relieved you feel when a child that has been missing for hours shows up. When the whole search you have been remembering that horrible homicide on the west side all of those years ago, or more recently on the east side.
How would a “normal” person react to the same situation?  This career is funny and it is horrific.  The skills that we have to develop to survive the horrible situations that we face, the realities; are learning to laugh or learn to cry, I think both would be better.  
One event that still doubles me over with laughter is an experience with David, one of my most treasured and trusted partners and friend.  Dave and I were prowling around Euclid Street one evening.  There was an old motel that was now being used as a flop house.  It had a tunnel that ran to the old manager’s home that was adjacent it on the property.  (I have always wanted a house with a secret tunnel; this has nothing to do with the story just letting you know)  Anyway, we snuck up to the second level and found a open sliding door that led into a large room that was probably intended to be a living room with a kitchenette at the back.  The carpet is a horrible bluish color that is covered with upright 44 ounce “Super Big Gulp” cups filled to the rim with yellowish, brownish, smelly liquids.  This room had a disgusting odor to it as well as a little trail that ran to a bedroom. The bedroom had a light emitting from the bottom of the closed door.
Dave was feeling kind of spunky that day so he was leading us down the trail.  When we got to the door, one on each side, we motioned back and forth with hand signals about what we were about to do. We were so tactical!  Dave set up to kick the door and motioned for me to knock.  I knock and announce in all authority “POLICE OFFICERS, Open the Door!” and the panic starts inside of the room.  It sounds as if there is a room full of five foot high cockroaches scurrying around trying to escape; pure panic has consumed the room because they know who is at the door. Anyway, that’s how I see it (and I’m the one telling the story.)
The look of pure glee that emits from Dave’s face was a pleasure to experience. It was just like watching your kids see what Santa has just left for them Christmas morning, or a grandparent meeting their first grandbaby, or when your pizza is delivered!  He puts everything into that forward kick that will certainly reduce that door to a bunch of matches for Rain Man to count.  The door seemed like it was waiting for Dave to kick it, much like Lucy playing football with Charlie Brown. Instead of vaporizing into the air with the kick, it absorbed it, and the door bowed in.  The door reached its apex and then with the same amount of force given it, gives it back to Dave propelling him through about twenty glasses of yellowish, brownish, smelly, sticky sludge.  When he came to a stop, he was in a “snow angel” position on the floor.
I damn near fell down I was laughing and dry heaving so hard.  I had to lean against the wall. I was dying! I thought I was going to require medical attention, “Quick get oxygen for that man!”  We eventually arrested everyone inside but it took about twenty dollars in quarters to clean Dave up at the car wash.  Dave always seemed to end up in “poop” and I always got something wrong with my food at the restaurant. Go figure.
We as police officers have had horrific events unfold in front of us over the years.  I have become softer as I have done this job and I actually hurt now when I see the tragedies occur right before my eyes.  One such event was a traffic accident in May 2004.  I was westbound on 2100 south turning southbound on 8000 West to go pick my daughter from school when I witnessed the worst traffic accident I have ever seen.
The little car in front of me wasn’t paying attention, misjudged or something then proceeded to pull in front of a semi pulling two loaded trailers of Pepsi.  The driver of the semi did everything he could to avoid the collision, almost put the truck on its side, but there was nowhere for him to go.  I knew there was going to be a collision. I knew what was going to happen. I have enough ghosts, so I looked away while reaching for the radio and telling dispatch that there was an accident and to send Highway, fire and to get a helicopter standing by. This one was going to be bad.
I pulled my newly issued police truck into the traffic lane to block further damage and started walking towards the front of the semi rig.  The driver was trying to get out. He was bleeding from his legs from injuries he had sustained trying to push the brake pedal thru the floor boards.  He had actually been standing on the brakes in a heroic attempt to stop. I have to hand it to the guy, he really tried.  I walked around the front of the truck expecting to see the car in the grill or under the tires, but it wasn’t.  “Where is the car?”  I asked the driver. He started crying and pointed two hundred yards down the street.  “There was going to be fatal in this one,” I thought as I started trudging down to the car.  I was wearing sandals, shorts and a tee shirt and the brush was tearing at my feet as I made my way to the car.  As I neared the car the weirdest thing happened, it was as if I left my body and watched myself approach the car to see what remained inside.
Hanging from the rear view mirror was a tassel from Cyprus high school, my high school, and my parent’s high school. I probably knew these people.  There were two seventeen year old girls lying in separate heaps not moving inside of the nearly crushed car.  The driver had not been wearing a safety belt and looked dead, the passenger had a safety belt on but wasn’t moving either.  Just then a very helpful, but not really, EMT showed up and started trying to remove them from the inside of the car.  I returned to my body and started barking orders. The loudest one was not to touch them until the real medical team got here.  I had to get closer to determine what I had, and found that the passenger was coming to and trying to get up, she was in shock. (She also had internal injuries that required immediate surgery.)  The driver was making a sound that I associate with death; I call it “the carp”, (fast shallow panic driven breathing,) and I’ve heard it lots of times before.  She was not conscious.
I sure wanted the cops and firemen to show up. My daughter is not much younger then these girls and it was getting personal.  I thought that things were grim, but because I must have needed a challenge, the car caught on fire.  The engine compartment had caught on fire and was starting to smoke. EMT boy wanted to move them again so I sent him to my truck two hundred yards away to get my extinguisher. I wasn’t as concerned about the front catching on fire as I was moving these girls without a team ready to deal with them.  The rest of the story is kind of frightening as the fire got bigger, but eventually fire arrived and the girls got sent by helicopter to U of U and LDS hospitals for care.  I kept things together, I did my job, and I did it as well as anyone else could have, no better no worse.  I filled out the witness statement; made sure I had all of my equipment and drove away.  I made it about a block before I pulled off into a church parking lot where I knew I was alone and wept.  I knew that Casey, the driver, was not going to make it to University Hospital alive.
Some experiences don’t even make any sense.  Craig, Rick, Jim and I were fortunate enough to go to Reno for some amazing training when we were assigned to the training unit.  We were shooting for ten to twelve hours a day solid and were exhausted.  As we all got off an elevator one evening at our hotel near the end of the week,  I said something to Craig that made us both laugh so hard that we fell to the floor and had to crawl to our rooms down the hall.  Rick and Jim thought we were insane because we couldn’t tell them what was so funny. When we were able to (about forty five minutes later,) it wasn’t funny to them.  But Craig and I know it was funny! I still laugh out loud when I reminisce about that trip. Good friends equal good times.
So, we laugh and we cry. It sure is an “interesting” job that we do.  Over the last fourteen years I have had the opportunity to grow up performing this service.  I blame my softening on my sweet wife and wonderful children who give me the perspective that life is fragile and important. I also blame it on the citizens who have taught me that everyone we contact deserve some sympathy and respect, even the drudge of society.  I blame it on good supervisors I’ve worked for and the amazing brothers and sisters I have on the department.  I know that I laugh more then I did in those first years, gallows humor only gets better with age, but tragedy hurts more than it ever did before.
Casey lived by the way, after several surgeries and spending months in ICU and therapy. She is planning on getting married later this year.  She is beautiful. My most valued accolade for being a police officer is a Christmas card from her this year thanking me for being her guardian angel...