Pros and Cons of Becoming a Police Officer

[whr19606]

Trek's comments are offensive and insulting. One of my Sons is a Police Officer, and every day that he puts on his uniform he puts his life on the line so that the rest of us can live our lives with some degree of safety. I picture people like Trek sitting at their kitchen table in their underwear using their computer to try to demean those of us who are out working to try to make this a better world. Shame on you Trek. You are disgraceful.

 

[dumpster56]

Hey Guys,
I'm 23 years old and I have been working in the financial industry for about 5 year now. I currently manage a small bank in my hometown of Maryland, and i've been a manager here for a year and 3 months.
I also compete in Mixed Martial Arts, and i actually had a successful debut fight a few months back.
Recently, i've been feeling pretty bored with work, and feeling the need for a career change. i'm looking for something with a bit more excitement.
if anyone has experience in law enforcement or is familiar with it, can i please have some pros and cons?
i know an obvious Con would be the risk of the job, thanks

You seem to have a positive outlook, looking for a new field, I would say heck yes .

I have some good friends in the state police in NJ and would say they are one fantastic bunch of people who put their lives on the line everyday for all of us. I would say go for it and then a big Thank You!

 

[Walt34]

Walt, a bunch of my cop friends are out on disibility and SS disibility. Sorry, but out of a least 10 I know collecting this money only one has a real injury that would keep him from working and he wasn't hurt on the job yet he still collects. They all laugh about it and are in great shape and could go out and do a job. Very few lines of work will get you not only a tax free pension and SS didibility if your injured.

So you miss a few holidays, today many lines of work have to work weekends and holidays. I was in the car biz and not only had to work weekends but most every other day also.

Being a cop today is a great job and to get onto PD like Nassau or Sufflok counties on Long Island NY is almost impossible. When they give the test hundreds of thousands come out to take it. It's a good gig and good for you that you had it.

It says a lot about the character of your friends if they do that. Yes there were a couple I knew of - no more than three - who went out on "disability". They were not and are not my friends. Two were later found out and went back to work. The other the dept. was better off without, which I think is why they didn't pursue it. Most common is back injuries, which are difficult to prove/disprove, and many on this board with back injuries know that some days are great, some are terrible.

As far as working holidays I knew that going in and didn't whine about it. It matters to some people more than others.

I worked rotating shifts that changed every week, a practice since discontinued. The effect is that one's circadian rhythms get all screwed up, working in almost permanent "jet lag". If you've never done that for years on end you have no idea of the effect it has. Permanent shifts are a lot better.

As to how good the gig is, that depends a lot on the area. A guy I worked with was from Long Island and knew about the pay scales there, and yes, they are a good gig. Around here in WV I wouldn't touch it. Pitiful disability, $10k death benefit to family, lousy pay. But their hiring standards aren't so hot either. Long Island requires at least a bachelor's degree. WV only requires high school.

Why does the disability matter so much? Again, 20-25% go out that way, and legitimately. I doubt the same is true in the car biz, and the only place to buy insurance for police officers is Loyd's of London.

Not all departments have the same standards. I saw the video of the ones in New Orleans taking stuff from stores after Katrina with all the other thieves. Disgusting.

 

[Milton]

Trek's comments are offensive and insulting. One of my Sons is a Police Officer, and every day that he puts on his uniform he puts his life on the line so that the rest of us can live our lives with some degree of safety. I picture people like Trek sitting at their kitchen table in their underwear using their computer to try to demean those of us who are out working to try to make this a better world. Shame on you Trek. You are disgraceful.

Well, that's your opinion.

Perhaps you should try to lighten up and not take everything so seriously / personally. Not every post is aimed at you or your family.

Your characterization of Trek ("sitting at their kitchen table in their underwear using their computer to try to demean") is banal and needlessly insulting. I know nothing about him/her, and you don't either.

If you don't like someone's post, by all means challenge its content; but spare us the ad hominem attacks.

 

[Gumby]

I think Texarkandy and Walt34 have made some insightful and information filled posts here. They are an example of this board at its best and I thank them for that.

 

[Gworker]

Police work is fun. There are many different departments out there, some are more professional than others. As far as the divorce rate, we were always told it's the same as the national average because the national average is high also.

A larger department means more opportunities for advancement in the future. The thing that always bothered me was when you promoted you usually had to go back to midnights or evenings and work your way back up to the top again. I always remember old timers who were detectives for years who got sent back to patrol on midnights because they pissed someone off also.

Local law enforcement and federal is a way different game. I had fun as a local but the pay and hours of federal sure is nice. Many departments require four year degrees now and in my academy class of 56 I think 54 of us had 4 year degrees and few were lawyers and CPAs so there are all types of people who become cops.

I liked being a street cop but when I think back about it I remember all the good times and fun there were many boring nights also. You are young, the federal hiring process is long and tedious. Sometimes it takes 3 or 4 years to go through the process for IRS or some of the other larger federal agencies. I would look at a good local department and apply there then consider federal. You have until 37 to go federal.

The one thing about being a police officer like someone else said, you get to make your own decisions and rarely is someone watching over your shoulder (except the public).

 

[eddieb]

I think Texarkandy and Walt34 have made some insightful and information filled posts here. They are an example of this board at its best and I thank them for that.

Most definitely, thank you guys. I'll definitely pursue it and hope for the best. Now my only real concern is that My girlfriend and I can make it. I've heard of the high divorce rates and such. Although her and I are not married, I do hope for it some day. Thanks to everyone for pitching in.

 

[73ss454]

It says a lot about the character of your friends if they do that. Yes there were a couple I knew of - no more than three - who went out on "disability". They were not and are not my friends. Two were later found out and went back to work. The other the dept. was better off without, which I think is why they didn't pursue it. Most common is back injuries, which are difficult to prove/disprove, and many on this board with back injuries know that some days are great, some are terrible.

As far as working holidays I knew that going in and didn't whine about it. It matters to some people more than others.

I worked rotating shifts that changed every week, a practice since discontinued. The effect is that one's circadian rhythms get all screwed up, working in almost permanent "jet lag". If you've never done that for years on end you have no idea of the effect it has. Permanent shifts are a lot better.

As to how good the gig is, that depends a lot on the area. A guy I worked with was from Long Island and knew about the pay scales there, and yes, they are a good gig. Around here in WV I wouldn't touch it. Pitiful disability, $10k death benefit to family, lousy pay. But their hiring standards aren't so hot either. Long Island requires at least a bachelor's degree. WV only requires high school.

Why does the disability matter so much? Again, 20-25% go out that way, and legitimately. I doubt the same is true in the car biz, and the only place to buy insurance for police officers is Loyd's of London.

Not all departments have the same standards. I saw the video of the ones in New Orleans taking stuff from stores after Katrina with all the other thieves. Disgusting.

No doubt that some of the people I know are real charachters.

I mention disibility because of the high rate of officers that go out on it. Most of whom have not a thing wrong with them. It's very tempting to take advantage of 100K tax free pension and they do it all the time. The reason you don't see most other workers going out on disibility is because they don't have a disibility policy because they can't afford it. Not many jobs pay pensions after 20 years, so yes I think it's a good gig in most respects.

As far as danger, well a lot of jobs are dangerous, some more than others. If police work is what one chooses they know the deal up front, it's not like being drafted.

Also many of the cops that work tough areas are not paid well, yet others are paid more than the people they protect in many cases. Life's not always fair that way.

 

[Bestwifeever]

I think most people could do almost any job for just one day, but being a police officer is not one of those jobs. I would be petrified every time I had to approach a car that was pulled over, knock on a door for a domestic dispute, even run a kid in for a dui. God bless all of the cops, even the bad apples--there's a reason bullet proof vests are part of the uniform.

Having said that, I just got this in an e-mail, which might be helpful when you take the exam:

A police recruit was asked during the exam, 'What would you do if you had to arrest your own mother?' He answered, 'Call for backup.' ​

 

[Rich]

Thirty eight years as a police officer (twenty in the NYPD - eighteen as chief of a small town on Cape Cod). There is no job like it. You'll see things and a part of the human experience that will be impossible to fully explain to those who haven't been there. Lots of different positions out there, from municipal, state and right on to federal law enforcement jobs. Depends on your background, education and goals.

I'm not sorry I did it. Two more years to go until I have to find another job...

Best of luck,

Rich

 

[accountingsucks]

Here in Canada cops make very good money. $65K to start after a 5 year training/probationary period (I think it's about 40K during that time) and then large increases YOY. An average cop makes over 100K where I live when reasonable overtime is factored in and they still can not find enough people to become cops here since salaries in the oil patch are so much higher.

 

[saluki9]

Well, that's your opinion.

Perhaps you should try to lighten up and not take everything so seriously / personally. Not every post is aimed at you or your family.

Your characterization of Trek ("sitting at their kitchen table in their underwear using their computer to try to demean") is banal and needlessly insulting. I know nothing about him/her, and you don't either.

If you don't like someone's post, by all means challenge its content; but spare us the ad hominem attacks.

Let me get this straight

Trek is allowed to make blanket statements insulting public servants but he needs you to tell us that we're not allowed to say anything about what kind of person it is who would say that?

Thanks for permission boss.

 

[Walt34]

Years ago I read an interview of a retiring police chief who was asked "Why did you want to be a police officer?" His answer about sums it up:

"You get a front-row seat to to the greatest show on earth. The human race."

 

[redduck]

I am not a police officer. Never have been. However, I do know something about the job's affects in a large metropolitan area.

Policemen have an extremely high divorce rate.
They suffer from a high rate of alcoholism.
Many go out on disability at an early age.
They do make good money and do get overtime wages.
Their job is frustrating and political. They become quite cynical and have a "circle the wagon" mentality. It often becomes "us against the civilians"-- no matter who the civilians may be. Many become arrogant.
They are quite brave and courageous and will rise to the occasion.
They have groupies. (So, maybe that's the tipping point for you).

 

[Rich]

I am not a police officer. Never have been. However, I do know something about the job's affects in a large metropolitan area.

Policemen have an extremely high divorce rate.
They suffer from a high rate of alcoholism.
Many go out on disability at an early age.
They do make good money and do get overtime wages.
Their job is frustrating and political. They become quite cynical and have a "circle the wagon" mentality. It often becomes "us against the civilians"-- no matter who the civilians may be. Many become arrogant.
They are quite brave and courageous and will rise to the occasion.
They have groupies. (So, maybe that's the tipping point for you).

OK, let's take these one at a time:

>Policemen have an extremely high divorce rate.

Married to the same woman for 38 years.

>They suffer from a high rate of alcoholism.

Don't remember the last time I had a drink. Not that I'm opposed to drinking beer or wine, just don't care for those drinks all that much.

>Many go out on disability at an early age.

Not me.

>They do make good money and do get overtime wages.

I do receive a decent salary but no overtime (I'm the chief). When I do retire I'll have two different pension incomes coming in from two different municipal governments.

>Their job is frustrating and political.

Yup, sure can be. After a while you learn that life is not fair, just or logical. You deal with it.

>They become quite cynical and have a "circle the wagon" mentality.

Not cynical, just realistic about viable life options. As to circle the wagon mentality, not sure how to respond to that one.

>It often becomes "us against the civilians"-- no matter who the civilians may be.

A police officers life experiences is so different from someone not in the field that if the officer is not careful there is a real danger to take on that mind-set. It takes a conscious effort to remember that my task is to serve the public.

>Many become arrogant.

I introduce myself to everyone I meet using my first name.


>They are quite brave and courageous and will rise to the occasion.

OK, I can live with this one....

>They have groupies.

Still looking.

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking with it!

Rich

 

[redduck]

Well, I'll tell you Rich, if I'm ever back in Cape Cod and you arrest me, I think I'll be in good hands. And, maybe we could even talk about asset allocation over a Brandy Alexander because I still can't quite figure out what type of bond funds I need in my portfolio.

 

[clifp]

I think Texarkandy and Walt34 have made some insightful and information filled posts here. They are an example of this board at its best and I thank them for that.

Ditto to what Gumby said.

I know a few cops, but none well enough to add any insight.

I would say that there are only handful of jobs where you are confident going in to the job, that at you retirement party you will have made a difference in somebody's life. Doctor, teacher, firefighter, police officer... I think that is worth a lot of money.

 

[frank2009]

Finally a post that I could intelligently respond to and everyone else beat me to it! I retired as a sergeant in the NYPD.

Most of he posters here got it right; not sure where some of the others are coming from.

It's difficult to discuss pay and benefits because they vary so widely by department. The main thing is this is a job that you really want to do. You also need family support.

Last I heard, the divorce rate among the general population is about 50%. I do not think the rate for police officers is much higher. Supposedly the sucide rate is high but not as high as dentists. Go figure!

All I can say is you are still young. Try it for 3-5 years and decide if it is for you.

Good luck
frank

 

[Redbugdave]

Eddie,

I am not in law enforcement, however I have several friends that are. My advise for you is to go ahead and take the plunge. You are young, and while you are young that is the time. If you are not comfortable in the banking profession, the comfort level will probably get worse in years to come. As you get older, the idea of benefits and retirement will become much more important. As a young man, those things don't mean a hill of beans since you are living more in the moment. I don't know anyone in banking, but I would imagine a person could do pretty well financially in that field. But then, banking jobs could flop, (as you probably know), and you would be out there with the rest of them. I see the law enforcement profession as a noble one, and not many could retire as early with as good benefits. As good, (maybe better), as many retired mil officers, (ask Nords).

 

[Milton]

God bless all of the cops, even the bad apples

Well, I certainly wouldn't go that far.

A 'bad apple' cop is just a criminal, only worse than the run-of-the-mill street thug because s/he has the authority of the badge to hide behind.

I doubt that one or two 'bad apple' cops are capable of corrupting an entire police force. But their actions can poison definitely the legitimacy of the police in the eyes of the general citizen ... and that hard-won respect is more important to police work than any gun could ever be.

All I can say is you are still young. Try it for 3-5 years and decide if it is for you

Sensible advice.

 

[eddieb]

Finally a post that I could intelligently respond to and everyone else beat me to it! I retired as a sergeant in the NYPD.

Most of he posters here got it right; not sure where some of the others are coming from.

It's difficult to discuss pay and benefits because they vary so widely by department. The main thing is this is a job that you really want to do. You also need family support.

Last I heard, the divorce rate among the general population is about 50%. I do not think the rate for police officers is much higher. Supposedly the sucide rate is high but not as high as dentists. Go figure!

All I can say is you are still young. Try it for 3-5 years and decide if it is for you.

Good luck
frank

Very good advice, thanks Frank. Hey I have a question, and this may seem silly. Is there a height and weight requirement to being a police officer? I stand and 5"6, and weigh about 155lbs. I have been competing in Jui-jitsu for a few years and have always fought taller and bigger guys at tournaments, so I am confident in my abilities to hold my own, but i'm not sure if there are specific requirements, thanks

 

[bbbamI]

Very good advice, thanks Frank. Hey I have a question, and this may seem silly. Is there a height and weight requirement to being a police officer? I stand and 5"6, and weigh about 155lbs. I have been competing in Jui-jitsu for a few years and have always fought taller and bigger guys at tournaments, so I am confident in my abilities to hold my own, but i'm not sure if there are specific requirements, thanks

I just talked to a Sgt about height and weight requirements. He said there were none...as long as a person can pass the physical test, the size does not matter. He said most p.d.'s have adopted this rule, but there is a possibility of an exception. IMO, I think you'll be fine.

 

[saluki9]

Very good advice, thanks Frank. Hey I have a question, and this may seem silly. Is there a height and weight requirement to being a police officer? I stand and 5"6, and weigh about 155lbs. I have been competing in Jui-jitsu for a few years and have always fought taller and bigger guys at tournaments, so I am confident in my abilities to hold my own, but i'm not sure if there are specific requirements, thanks

I wouldn't worry. My sister in law is 5'6 and 110lbs. She has no problem taking bad guys down.

 

[Milton]

Is there a height and weight requirement to being a police officer?

It depends upon the individual department (such details are usually available on the recruiting portion of their website).

 

[Leonidas]

Please Note: I got way too involved in thinking about this post, and in my efforts to give the OP an honest answer, it caused me to dig up some personal memories that I had shut away.

There are some examples of real-world violence and sadness in my post, so exercise your own best judgement before reading further:

I thought this would be easy to answer, but in the midst of it I started thinking about my son, and how I would answer him if he asked what I thought about him becoming a police officer. Trying to put it on paper was difficult, and I kept getting to three, four or even five pages of stuff and would erase it all because it wasn’t right.

It’s important that I say that overall, I absolutely enjoyed what I did for a living. There were days when something about the place or the job really ticked me off, and I went through periods of being disillusioned, but for the better part of all those years, police work fit me like a glove. And I had a great career with eight different assignments that just got better and better. Not once did an ambulance load me up, and my very few trips to the ER were for minor stuff.

And the retirement benefits are not bad at all

Thinking about it brought up a lot of old memories. I thought of my soon to be 20-year-old son who is so full of light and energy and started thinking about me when I was 20 and graduated from the police academy. Walt’s post that he linked to in which he mentioned memories of the charred body of a suicide reminded me of my own similar memories. Mine was forgotten for twenty-five years, but when I read that, an extremely vivid picture from that night leapt into my head. Thinking about this thread over the last several days made that memory come back repeatedly. To steal a line from Tommy Lee Jones,

That's one of a hundred memories that I don't want.

I think this turned into a cathartic exercise for me, and as many times as I’ve stopped myself from posting a reply, I started typing a new one. Last night I couldn’t get to sleep as I kept remembering things that happened that I had forgotten for years. I’m hoping I can post this and then slam the lid on this stuff.

The guy who was our main shrink for all of my career was a very smart man who had a lot of insight into what makes cops tick, and how they react to the stresses that their work brings on. Most of us have what he referred to as the “police face” and the “Husband/Daddy face”. We act and think one way at work in order to stay safe, and we act another way around our friends and family because you can’t bring the things of the street into your home and expect to have a sane and happy life.

In twenty-three years of marriage, other than an occasional glimpse of Mr. Policeman, and couple of phone calls home to say “if you’re watching the news, don’t worry because I am okay”, I kept work at work, and that’s where it stayed.

Once I started thinking about my oldest being a cop there were memories that had been compartmentalized for years. It started getting very complicated for me emotionally. A huge part of my life has been dedicated to keeping the real ugliness out of his life. I remembered when he was 4 or 5 years old and he and I were watching television together. He fell asleep and I started flipping channels and stopped to watch some crime drama. There was a scene in which a police officer was killed, and suddenly, my son who had woken up and was watching with me, suddenly grabbed me around the neck while violently sobbing.

I don’t remember his exact words, but the message was clear. Apologies and assurances spilled out of my mouth as I hugged him back.

That was a tough moment for me. Before that night, I didn’t think that he understood what I did for a living. The uniformed phase of my career had been over long before he was born, and I must have naively thought that he had not yet picked up on the truth. That he made the connection between what he saw on television, and me, and felt the emotions that he did, made me realize the gentle innocence of that kid. Keeping bad work stuff away from home became an even greater priority in my life from then on. Thoughts of him doing police work were something that never crossed my mind until I read this thread.

So, in this exercise I tried to imagine my kid in patrol when I was his age, and the more I remembered things the more I thought to myself that I must be mis-remembering things. It couldn’t have been as bad as I was recalling. There were lots of good memories, but in the midst of it I would suddenly remember something that was not so good. I kept seeing all the people who tried to kill me, and I remembered what seemed like the countless times I found myself stepping over bodies, pools of blood and spent shell casings. And worse than all of that were the just horrendous injuries and deaths in car wrecks. The aftermath of a shooting or cutting can be almost peaceful compared to what happens in motor vehicle wrecks.

I remembered going to a lot of police funerals.

It all seemed so incongruous with everything else I remember, especially the last half of my career. Sure, it’s a big city with its share of violence, but nothing like what I was remembering. So much of the last 15-20 years on the job were relatively similar to what most everyone else here has related. I did wind up in a deadly force incident two years before I retired, but I worked narcotics then, and we did a lot of really dangerous stuff every night.

Nothing seemed unusual, but the things I was remembering from the first five years were demanding an explanation.

It came to me last night to go look at some statistics and some things I had stuck away in a box in the closet. I wasn’t wrong in what I was recalling; it was an incredibly violent time here.

A few brief figures for comparison to illustrate what I’m talking about.

Today there are 2.3 million people in a city of 600 square miles, policed by 5,000 officers. There will probably be around 300 murders this year, 10 – 15 instances of police officers using deadly force, and unfortunately 1 or perhaps 2 officers might die in the line of duty. Lots of bad stuff, but about what is “normal” for big cities.

Then I looked at the 80s. 1982 was a dark crescendo to a decade filled with lots of bad stuff. That year there were 1.5 million people living in 500-550 square miles, with a little more than 2,200 police officers. There were 705 murders, and more than 600 fatal motor vehicle accidents. There were 77 incidents of police deadly force that year. Two of those were mine and occurred exactly one month apart, almost to the hour. Five officers were killed, three by gunfire, one motorcycle officer hit by a drunk driver doing 87 MPH and another motor officer killed in an accident involving a gasoline tanker, the stories I heard about that are the stuff of nightmares. The two motorcycle officers were killed on the same day.

For every one of those deaths of police officers, or citizens murdered or killed in an accident, there were…I don’t know, something on the order of 50, or maybe 100, that were seriously injured by assault or vehicle collisions.

1982 was a bad year.

One of the officers killed by gunfire was a very close friend of mine.

In March of that year she and her rookie were assigned to work a temporary morgue at the scene of a high-rise hotel fire that killed 12 people. I went by there to bring her a fresh battery for her handheld radio, and I was there when the bodies of a family of five were brought in.

She was killed in a narcotics buy-bust in August of that year.

I remember the nights when we left the doors to our car unlocked because there weren’t enough handheld radios for everyone on the shift. We justified it by saying, “If I have to fight my way back to the car to call for help, I don’t want to have to look for the keys when I get there.”

There was one night while I was taking time off, and my regular partner was almost killed. By fire ants.

That almost sounds comical, but the real event was one of those unpleasant memories of someone’s nightmare of a night at work. Since I was off they made him ride with a less than sharp rookie, that we had nicknamed “Spanky”, or “The Squirrel”. They stopped off for a couple of cold drinks at a convenience store, and as they were leaving a guy stepped out of the pool hall next door and was in the midst of venting his rage at the world by firing his gun in the air. He looked to see the police car backing up at the same time they realized what the “pop-pop-pop” noise was. He decided to re-target at the blue & white.

It all culminated with my partner chasing the guy around the back of the shopping center, only to find that the bad guy had stopped running and was laying in ambush. Two rounds past my partner’s head made him fall to the ground in mid-run, only to land on top of his gun at the bad guy’s feet. He was laying in fire ants and basically had to play dead until the guy got tired of laying in wait for the rookie to come around the corner. Meanwhile the ants started biting, and if you’ve never been the victim of a fire ant, I can only describe the sensation as white hot molten pain.

It was a no handheld night for him, so he stumbled back to the car and tried to call for help. Back then everything was overtaxed and insufficient to the demand, including radio airtime. The radio was just non-stop calls and requests for backup from 8 at night until 4 or 5 the next morning. We had an unwritten rule that nobody got on the radio for anything self-generated unless it was they needed help. We didn’t call out on anything routine like traffic or suspicious people/circumstances, and we didn’t even advise of our arrivals at calls scenes. He couldn’t get any free airtime, and, as he told me later “I just kept the mike keyed and screamed for like 30 seconds so they would shut up.”

At the hospital it was looking bad for him and the prognosis was not so great.
They were about to crack his chest when he started to come around. He said that his doctor told him later that they believed he survived only because he was in such good physical condition.

There were never enough cops for anything on the street other than trying to keep the lid on the war zones. There were a lot of one-man units because they were trying to cover most of the beats. For a while they would always send another one-man unit to check by on anything that had the potential for danger, but that didn’t last long. On some nights there were ridiculously dangerous situations being responded to by a single officer.

One such Saturday night, when it was as busy as it ever got, I was dispatched to a shooting in progress in an apartment complex parking lot. When I arrived, all I found were about 50 shell casings, some spilled Tecate beer cans, a ziplock baggie full of limes, a .380 pistol, and blood trails leading off in different directions. The only available unit for backup got pre-empted by a similar call a couple of blocks away. At that point there was no backup, everybody else was either downtown booking prisoners or scattered around the district dealing with their own little slices of the big nightmare.

Following the blood trails lead me to the victims. One dead in the bed of a pickup truck, one made it to the second floor landing of a stairwell, the third died in the bathtub of his apartment.

SOP was to hold the scene and wait for homicide to show up. Only they weren’t coming, or so the dispatcher informed me. There were fourteen murder investigations already in progress, all three shifts of homicide detectives were already working those locations.

Fourteen homicide scenes in one night, and a lone patrol guy working a triple homicide by himself, I don’t know if that ever happened before or since, but I know that I lived it that night. Of course the scene down the street, where my erstwhile backup was, that was the other half of my scene. They were the guys who showed up to start the shoot out with my beer-drinking victims. One dead and three wounded down there.

Eventually, as I was half-way done botching up a crime scene investigation that was way over my head, a half-asleep and very rumpled day shift homicide detective showed up and the whole mess was his. Another unit eventually showed up, and we got it worked, but I doubt that investigation would win any award as an example of good police work.

But that was the way it was back then, we didn’t go to work, we went to war.

I did not set out to have a psychoanalytical moment over this. It started as the search for a honest answer and turned into something else. If I thought I would stop typing these things and then erasing them, I would never post this response. But I want to close the door on it and move back to happier thoughts. You get stuck with the mess because I feel that the only way to move on right now is to post it and just stop thinking about the subject.

At least I came up with what I would do if my son asked the OP’s original questions.

I would tell him these stories, and some others that only the surviving participants can recall, and which are partially detailed on some old dusty reports in storage somewhere. Not that I would dwell on this aspect, but it is part of the whole package, and I would not feel as if I had adequately informed him if I left any of the truth lay hidden. In twenty-five years I got to do a lot of good by helping people out here and there. I also saw, did, and experienced things that were not very pleasant. Everyone’s experiences will differ, although just about every cop alive can duplicate or outdo just about anything I said here.

There will be many good days, and a few that are best forgotten.