Brainstorming on the VPD + a ‘word cloud‘ program = a pretty cool visual.

By the time he made it to the parking lot John had already switched gears – he had his game face on.

An hour later, when his partner hit the lights and siren and pushed their police car to the limit, John spoke into the radio when assigned a priority one domestic call in an area not unlike where he lived.

“Ten four, we’re only a few blocks out.”

————

Gunpowder.  Strong and fresh.

Other than the cries of a young child there was silence.  There was no time to wait.

John signalled to his partner and the two men buttonhooked through the open doorway.

————

Blood and brain matter were speckled across the wall.  The smell of copper hung on everything, heavy and wet.  The crying child was sitting on the floor next to the body of a woman, a widening pool of blood engulfing them both.

Sweeping his arms with the arc of his gun and trying to take in everything at once, John’s gaze stutter-stepped on a man sitting on the couch. He was very much alive, the proof of which was the chattering of metal on teeth as the muzzle of a gun the man had stuffed into his mouth trembled with the decision on whether or not he should pull the trigger.  The man’s eyes were huge and tears slipped down his cheeks.  He shook his head slowly from side to side, a faint keening from his chest making the hairs on the back of John’s neck stiffen.

————

Police! Drop the gun!

For several moments John hung in the tenuous balance between saviour and enforcer. Having never trained as a negotiator John suspected he was about to get a crash course on the subject.

Drop the gun!

All he got in response was a cement stare.  The man had quieted and was watching him. It was unnerving.  Seeing the man had no intention of putting the gun down, John switched his approach without even realizing it.

Let us get to your baby, make sure she’s okay.

The man looked at John, looked to the body on the floor, and then back to John.  The man’s lips pulled back in a grimace but the muzzle stayed rooted firmly in his mouth. Slowly, he nodded.

Thank you, we just want to make sure she’s okay.  Please, put the gun down.

Under John’s watch his partner made a wide berth around the man and towards the toddler. The child’s face screwed up into a scream, her chubby cheeks red with the stress of sitting beside her dead mother.  John’s partner used one hand to scoop her up into the crook of his elbow, and then he shielded her with his body as he retreated back out of the room.

She’s okay, she’s going to be fine.  But I really need you to put the gun down, okay?

Time slowed.  John gave himself over to the line of tension between himself and the gunman, telling the man he was there for him, feeling like a broken record for the number of times he told the man to put the gun down.  What did real negotiators say?  Did they have a cheater book of subjects to broach when faced with a person seemingly intent on blowing their brains out?  John saw the man’s thumb in the trigger guard and wondered how sensitive the trigger was.  And just above that, the man’s eyes pleaded with him to make everything go back to the way it was.  Sorry man, it’s much too late for that, is what John thought.

It’s okay, everything is going to work out, is what he said.

Moments ticked by.  A touch on John’s arm let him know he had other officers there to help, but his attention was on the man in front of him.

The man finally wrenched the gun from his mouth, badly cutting his lip.  Not once did he point it at John or the other officers; John would have shot him if he had.  The man wailed; he was sorry, so sorry, he hadn’t meant to kill her, he had only meant to scare her, he couldn’t live without her, now he should do everyone a favour and kill himself.

It’s okay, I know you didn’t mean to, just put the gun down, please.

Finally, the man did.  The gun made a hollow sound on the coffee table and the man fell back into the couch cushions, his entire body spent with the reek of defeat.

John couldn’t hear what else the man was saying over the rushing sound of his own heartbeat but he murmured words of reassurance to give himself the second he needed to snatch the gun up and place him into handcuffs.  Later, John’s arms would ache from holding his own gun up, but for now, John had the strength of a bull and he half-walked, half-carried the despondant man past the body of his wife.

————

Outside, John helped place the man on an ambulance gurney.  A short distance away his partner was checking on the little girl but John could not bring himself to look at her, to make her loss more real.  It was sad enough without actually seeing the little girl’s blond curls and seeing the shadow of her mother. John watched other officers escort the man away and then his thoughts turned to his own wife and the friends still at the barbeque.  He knew they wouldn’t believe him if were he to call and tell them what had happened in the last hour and a half, and he was sure they wouldn’t really comprehend how much this call changed everything.

How he would never be able to rid himself of the sight of the man calling his dead wife’s name even as her blood congealed on the carpet at his feet, her hair in a halo around her destroyed face.  The little girl sitting in the pool of blood, her diaper soaked through, a handful of her mothers shirt in her tiny fist as she screamed her fear into the air.

How reality seemed to slip for a moment – he had cherished the softness of his wife’s hair against the back of his hand when he leaned in for a kiss, not knowing that an hour later he would be negotiating with another husband who had shot his own wife in the face.

John took a moment and took several deep breaths to keep from becoming overwhelmed. Then he walked over to where his partner was waiting at their police car and the two of them leaned back against the trunk.

Neither of them said a word.

They didn’t have to.

Years later, I’m not sure media outlets intentionally getting it wrong.  Yes, sometimes media coverage of a significant police-involved event is either inaccurate, unfair or biased (depending on the source – there are a few nay-sayers who take advantage of every situation to cry foul), but other times the media is forced to run with what little they have because the police have released little to no information.

When police say “No comment” or “We’re unable to answer your questions at this point” it means police cannot talk about what has happened – usually for several reasons, the most important of which is the integrity of the investigation.

I’ve been involved in an incident or two that has ended up with media coverage – what officer hasn’t?  Being the person I am, I then watched the news and read the papers.  Most of the time news coverage is a basic report on facts released by the VPD Media Section, but a few times I’ve gotten really upset/angry when coverage is not accurate or because one of the nay-sayers is able hold court while police have to refrain from commenting.

Take, for instance, news coverage when there has been a homicide involving the high risk arrest of the suspect.  For the sake of this post we’ll use the example of a fictional homicide.  Newspaper coverage might read something like this:

Vancouver police arrested a man late last night after responding to a shots fired call in the Kitsilano area.  A 35 year old man was taken into custody after the body of a 33 year old woman was found inside a home on W. 7th Ave.  A two year old child was also located inside the home, uninjured, and is currently in the care of the Ministry.  Police are not releasing the names of the parties involved, but according to neighbours the man and woman were in a common-law relationship.

If on television the story might be accompanied by video of the street and/or house and an interview with a neighbour.  Once the clip is finished or the newspaper folded and placed in the recycling bin the story is most often not even thought about until the next news clip is broadcast or the next paper is delivered.

But for those involved in the case the incident becomes all-consuming.  Police, other emergency responders such as EHS and the Fire Department, witnesses, family members, friends and loved ones – everyone has an invested interest in the case.  When I say loved ones I’m not only talking about the loved ones of the victims and suspects, but those of first responders as well.

If you read the above ‘news release’ you might spend a few moments wondering about the people involved and placate yourself with the notion that something similar would not happen in your neighbourhood.  And I’m willing to bet that an hour later the incident would have slipped from your mind.

Now I want you to give it a second thought.  This time think about what the officers responding to the call had to go through.  Think about what they saw, what they said, what they had to do to uphold the law and ensure peace and security.  Think about the absolute worst thing a human could do to another human and then times that by ten.  We humans are a nasty bunch when we want to be, and the nature of police work brings officers into contact with monsters everyday.

It’s a reality.  There is so much story behind what is in the news, and it is the story that changes lives for those who respond to the call.

Tomorrow, I’m going to give you an inside look into the ‘homicide’ reported on above.  All I ask is you take note of what is mentioned in the news and what took place from the police officer’s point of view.  Similar in basic facts?  Yes.

But that’s where the similarity ends.

You’ve seen it, read it and heard it.  So much so, that I think many of us don’t even register the real issue behind the message and it no longer catches our attention.

But here is a commercial that will.

It’s meant for the holiday season so consider this as my early Christmas present to all of you and thanks to TAC (Transport Accident Commission) in Australia for creating it.

Usually I’d post a warning about this video not being suitable for the squeamish but frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.  I’ve seen too many people killed by drunk drivers and I want you to cringe when you watch it.

Also, thank you to Global TV for putting me onto this commercial in the first place.  It’s too bad the television networks couldn’t run this commercial on all the channels across Canada.

Those twelve kids on the cusp of adulthood were a tough crowd.

We gave them a briefing on what to do and what not to say to the people we would meet and then we did the obvious – we separated the boys from the girls and sent each of the two groups in different directions so they could focus on the experience and not on one another.

As I walked with the girls a couple of them walked slightly ahead or slightly behind the group to show us they were able to handle whatever was thrown at them.  They were boisterous and full of nervous energy; their voices raised as they shared a joke and squealed laughter.  This lasted until we rounded a corner and walked into the south lane of the 100 East Hastings St.

One girl plucked up the collar of her sweatshirt and held it to her nose trying to block out the rotten stench of urine.  The others had horrified looks on their faces.  Even the teacher wrinkled her nose in an involuntary effort to stop breathing.

“It stinks!” one girl said.

“Oh my God, I think I’m gonna puke,” said another.

We stood there for a moment to allow their olfactory systems time to file away the bad smell as a memory.  Then we carried on.

At the other end of the lane, just around the corner from the now closed Contact Center, we came upon two drug addicts.  Both were high; one was perched on a cement step in an alcove and watched us with bleary eyes, the other twirled and flitted about the lane, clearly in the throes of drug induced dance.  By now the girls were clustered together in a tight little herd behind me and not one of them was making a sound.  I stopped at a needle disposal receptacle and was explaining why such things were needed when, from around the corner, a woman peeked her head and called out to the girls.  Perfect.  I had been waiting for someone to reach out to the girls and turn the evening from a look and see tour into an interactive experience.

“Hey, kids!  Don’t do drugs!”

Her words were strung-together-very-fast and she pulled out of sight.  A second later she peeked back around the corner to see if she had caught our attention before disappearing again. I kept talking to the girls, knowing the woman would be back, and I was glad to see the girls were ignoring me and craning their necks to see where she had gone.

When she peeked around the corner again I waved her over and gave her a nod.  She stutter-walked over in her four inch stilettos, flinging her long hair over her shoulder.  Her face was marred by years of drug use, her clothing was dirty and unkempt and her fingers were thick with broken, blackened fingernails.  In one hand she clutched a crack pipe which she waved about as if orchestrating a group only she could hear, and when her eyes crinkled in a friendly smile it was clear she had once been beautiful.  In fact, her smile showed that she still was.

“I like your shoes,” one girl said.

“Thanks, but you don’t want to walk in em,” the woman quipped.  Pretty and witty.  And a drug addict.

And so, this young woman told the girls her story.  How she started smoking marijuana and drinking at the age of 13, how she tried cocaine at 15 and how she was turning tricks at 16. Now, at 23, she lived on the street and used crack cocaine everyday (several times a day if she could) with her every waking thought focused on how to score another hit .  She had two children, both in Ministry care, and she told the girls she hoped to get her babies back when she got sober.

The girls didn’t find their voices until later, after we had thanked the woman and were a few blocks away.  One of the girls, who earlier had been striding ahead of the group, now matched my step.  She didn’t so much as pepper me with questions as pepper the air with proof her world had seen a subtle change.  The other girls listened and soon all of them were chattering.  None of them could believe the women was only 23, and a couple of the girls needed clarification on the term ‘turning a trick’.  I was disheartened (but not terribly surprised) that one of the girls had the answer, “It’s when you screw and get paid for it.”

Two hours and several conversations with locals later it was time for the kids to head home.  All of them were more subdued than they had been on arrival to the DTES, and even the ‘tougher’ boys had some of their hard, exterior veneer stripped away.  What the two groups had seen were the same – person after person approached these kids and talked to them about how they, too, had once been young and healthy.  How some of the speakers had come from good families, how some had come from broken ones.  How all the speakers had been caught in the web of drug abuse and how they would never wish their lives on anyone.  How they hoped the kids would stop using drugs and make some good choices before it was too late.  The compassion pouring out of these long-time drug users was amazing, but no matter how poignant their stories, it all comes down to individual choice.

The kids will have to make their own choices, and it is up to us, as adults, to give them the knowledge, support and power to make the right ones.

There was nothing to say.

————

I’m not privy to the case, nor do I want to be.   Facts, circumstance, evidence, witnesses – there are many facets to a criminal investigation. 

When a police officer is the one arrested the rest of us often don’t know what to say and besides, there are not enough words to describe the letdown and uncertainty.

- Ashleigh Brilliant

This describes what my life is like at this time of year.  Between being a full-time police officer and a full-time mom/wife, I’m a dedicated sports fan which translates into being a part-time taxi driver as the kid’s sports now take us all over the GVRD.  Which means, for this weekend at least, I’ll be away from the computer and enjoying the sound the ball makes when it hits the sweet spot on the bat.

I think Brilliant was on to something when he decided to keep all his quotes to seventeen words or less.  Short and to the point, sort of like this post.

Have a great and safe weekend everyone!

Before I try my best to answer her, you need to understand the answers are going to be subjective and others may have drastically different views on women’s role in policing.

Differences in opinion are a good thing and I’m interested to hear what other have to say in response to this email, so let ‘er rip with the comments.  Just keep them clean, please.

————

Hi Sandra,

For a long time now I’ve been trying to figure out what kind of balance a female police officer has to make while working.

On one hand, you can’t be ultra-feminine or you will not be taken seriously, but being a super cranky female police officer doesn’t seem to do more than enforce stereotypes about women in law enforcement. Where do you feel female police officers fit into all of this? What’s your personal stance? I’ve been a bit worried because it’s still my dream to join the police but I am 5′2, 120 pounds and I don’t want to ever come off as a joke even though I know there are numerous petite sized police officers out there.

Listening to a retired recruiting officer made me a little disheartened. He talked about what he “looked for” in potential police officers and mentioned that he looked for “strong, broad shoulders, someone who looked like they could fight me.”

But is it always about fighting and intimidation? To a certain point I feel intimidation has its place and looking tough does have its advantages, but where do women who are not necessarily muscular and “broad-shouldered” fit in?

I would appreciate any sort of input you have on this.

Thank you!

————

When it comes to balance, all police officers have to remember to be themselves.  Women are still going to be women, and men are still going to be men.  Each gender brings something different to the job and it is those differences recruiters try to expand on.  Overall, recruiters are looking for level headed, emotionally stable, fit people who are willing to work in a demanding environment.  It’s a little more complicated than that, but for the sake of keeping this short, it’ll do.

Now, about being feminine – you can still be a cop and be a girl. 

You can still have nice hair, wear a bit of make-up, and by all means, the fitter you are the better.  You just have to be prepared to get dirty and to not give a hoot what you look like if you get strung through the ringer.  One night on the way back to the station after a particularly long and intense call, my partner looked at me sideways as he took in my ripped uniform, sweaty face and the halo of blond hair frizzed about my head after some of it came loose from its bun.  

“You look like you’ve been drug through a knothole backwards!” he said.  And I did.  But I was thinking how we had made an excellent arrest, not about what my hair looked like. 

So keep it in check.  As a police officer you are expected to take care of the issue, not become it.

Also, there is about as much room for the uber-bitch female officer as there is for the woman who seems to have had a starring role in all those early-eighties horror flicks (you know the one – the girl who would run away, arms flailing, while screaming in a breathy voice only to fall over a toothpick and cower on the ground as her ability to save herself vanished with an audible *poof*).  Unfortunately, most police agencies have at least one police officer who falls into each of these extremes, both male and female, and the VPD is no different.  It happens.  I wish it didn’t.

Besides, cranky is just plain cranky.  It might make for a good movie, but in real life you won’t make many friends on the force (except for other grumps) and being cranky will only make your job much more difficult.  You can be tough but you must be fair, at least most of the time.

Don’t let your physical size become your issue.  Sure, being tall and muscular has advantages, but so does being smaller and more lithe.  You must know what you are physically capable of doing, and you must know when it’s better to wait for backup, regardless of your size. 

I know several shorter in stature officers, men and women alike, and here’s the thing about the good ones – they know how to do their job and they do it very well.  No one thinks they are a joke and their size simply doesn’t matter.  There are jobs where size does matter, but it’s less important in policing now than it was a few decades ago (perhaps when this retired officer was working recruiting?).

Every incident requiring a police response is situational and it’s most definitely no longer all about ‘fighting and intimidation.’  Yes, sometimes you have to fight but you must be prepared to use your verbal skills as well.  

There are many people more experienced than I who have opinions on this and if any of them feel like adding to this, please do – I’ve skimmed quite a bit (plus, I’ve run out of steam…I need to go to sleep now). 

I’m sure the woman on the other end of this email would appreciate it very much!

So I spent this afternoon computer shopping. This is NOT a task for the faint hearted.  With my limited computer knowledge I was prone to questions such as, “A Giga-what?” and, “I beg your pardon, but what is a DDR3 and should I really know what four SO-DIMMS are going to do?”

It got even more confusing when I compared PC’s to the Mac line of computers and now I’m totally lost. 

PC’s have gone to an operating system that none of my old software is compatible with and Mac gave me the option of upgrading to a Snow Leopard from a regular Leopard, saying the former is quicker than the latter (snowshoes, perhaps?).  I’m guessing the feline terminology referred to the computer operating system and not to my age as it relates to cougars. 

Any way I look at it we’ll have to start from scratch for a desktop and a new laptop.  This is so confusing, and I’d much rather be chasing after bad guys than trying to decipher the PC vs Mac debate while deciding which computer system is best for us.