When ‘cops and robbers’ turns deadly
Pick up your newspaper or turn on the television and notice the steady rise in deadly assaults on police officers throughout this country. Probably, to most of you, the event passes with a shake of the head and a “what is the world coming to” exclamation. But to those who have been, or who currently engage in active law enforcement, the news is both sad . . . and disgusting.
It has been said that the police deal with people when they are most threatening and when they are most vulnerable, when they are angry and when they are frightened, when they are desperate and when they are violent, when they are drunk and when they are ashamed. Yet each of these “encounters” can suddenly turn into a desperate struggle, for too often, one of the players in this deadly drama will lose.
It was supposed to be a quiet midnight shift for Platoon C of the large southern department. All the ships with their rowdy seamen had sailed from the estuary and most of the zones would be asleep on this Sunday night.
As the 30 officers finished roll call and filed out of the muster room, several checked out their powerful cruiser and headed for favorite coffee shops. The veteran officer and a new rookie eased out of headquarters parking lot, toward Zone 1, located in the warehouse district next to city docks. As they swung the cruiser around deserted streets, the pleasant aroma of several Cuban bakeries blended with salt air of the night. Only the intermittent static of the patrol frequency broke the stillness of the night.
Within a short time, the veteran officer suggested the rookie leave his cruiser and gain some experience walking the beat. Leaving the car, the quiet young man smiled and requested that he only walk for one hour.
The cruiser eased around the corner, heading for a small diner across the river.
Suddenly, the radio came alive with the dispatcher advising all units of a shooting in progress at a nearby hotel. Swinging the cruiser back around the corner, the officer was confronted with a heart-stopping scene. The rookie was standing behind a concrete lamppost, exchanging fire with a man crouched behind a small foreign car. The entire event seemed framed in slow motion as if each of the players were puppets on strings. Even the firing seemed unreal as each weapon winked small red flirtations of death. The veteran began firing, first at the man’s chest, then at his feet – not understanding why. The heavy bucking of the .38 seemed to protest . . . to oppose the terrible business of the moment.
The drama continued to unfold in slow motion as the suspect seemed to pretend pain . . . then slowly fall sideways, curled as if asleep. As the officers ran forward to look down, their first impression was that the game of “cops and robbers” was over . . . that mom was calling all of us home for dinner. Only the game would not end, for the small, purple hole in the suspect’s right temple was evidence he would never play again.
The officers began to drink great gulps of air, hoping the terrible trembling would stop. This too, would be a long, long time coming.
Most of the officers responding to that call have since retired . . . some died natural deaths . . . one took his own life. But they were good men . . . I think of them often.
-Alex Taylor’s column on history and criminology appears in The Times on Tuesdays.
