We lost one. One of our brothers-in-arms went down last night. He was murdered. My agency hasn’t lost an officer in 10 years. I’m angry, sad, proud, mad and a whole bunch of other things. I’m gonna walk through my night and hope we all get something out of it.
My cell rang. I didn’t get to it, but I knew it was work because it came from the agency trunk line. No message. I figured they were looking for bodies, so I didn’t call back. About a minute later my home phone rang. A dispatcher identified herself and told me we had an officer down, and they needed tactical team members to respond. This was the first time in the evening I was sickened by my own thoughts, but I didn’t know how to change them.
I asked for the officer’s name. I come from a medium-sized agency so I know everyone. I’m ashamed I was relieved to hear that it wasn’t a close friend but rather a young, hard charger I only knew in passing. Those thoughts still make me sad to be inside of my own skin, and I still can’t shake them. But I’ll deal with my demons later.
Last night I had work to do. I ran upstairs, woke Mrs. Bullethead and asked her to throw together some food. I started dressing with one hand and calling my team with the other. One officer stopped me when I started giving him details and asked where to go. Another yelled at me that this wasn’t happening again. Another expressed guilt because he’d been drinking and wasn’t in a state that allowed him to deploy. It wasn’t his fault he decided to have a few on the same day some scumbag decided to murder one of us, but that didn’t make him feel any better.
When I got to the scene, it was a mess—half patrol dogs and half SWAT on a jacked up perimeter. Outside agencies manning the outer perimeter. Our air support was on the way out because the rain was on the way in. We used dogs to try to track the SOB, and we searched about 500 structures. No, I’m not kidding about that number. By morning we were tired and soaked, and we had nothing to show for it. This piece of dung was outside of our perimeter before we ever found his ditched stolen car.
Everyone was angry. We had communication issues. We had tactical issues. We had ego issues, and we didn’t have anyone in custody. In spite of all this, I was proud because every cop out there did a great job. None of them believed it though because we had nothing to show for it. The debrief focused on negatives, and we had some lectures from the senior guys telling the junior guys what they needed to do to ensure we were ready after the Dicks got us a name and place to go find this crook. I tried to find a bone of leadership and leave the guys feeling a little better, but I don’t think it helped. Later, all I could do was beat myself up about my own failures and what I should’ve said that would’ve been better.
I almost crashed about 10 times on the way home because I couldn’t keep my eyes open. After my gear was back in shape I was out. A few hours later I awoke with more anger and more regrets, and I was still sick of myself because I was relieved the dead officer wasn’t a close friend. The Dicks had nothing for us to go on, so after a few phone calls to brief my team, I tried to spend some time with the family. I was on edge. I yelled at the Capheads for no reason a whole bunch of times. Mrs. Bullethead gave me some slack, but I could tell she was about to let me have it for going off on them. She was right, but, again, I was acting on something that wasn’t showing itself, and I couldn’t seem to control it.
Today, I have two choices: Wait for the phone to ring so we can go get this murderer while acting out for no reason against my family, or get to work fixing all the things that should’ve been right. I’m focusing on the latter while dealing with my own shame and anger that we weren’t perfect the first time. I don’t know that changing our course of action would have made us catch this scumbag, but I still think about the what if’s.
Rest in peace my friend, and know that your death will not go unanswered.