Being lucky enough to have the day off work I spent last night flipping between two hockey games – the Vancouver Canucks vs the St Louis Blues and Canada vs United States in the World Junior Championships.
I wasn’t sure my heart was going to take all the action with the Canucks winning in overtime and the Juniors game tied 4-4, especially when Canada’s winning goal was disallowed with under three minutes left in the third period. I went from jumping out of my seat with my hands raised in victory to having those same hands pressed to my mouth in disbelief when the ref flagged his arms out to the side with a crease penalty. AHHHHHHH!
Regulation time came to an end, as did overtime with no goals scored. Then it was down to the shoot out. All eyes in our house were on the TV as Canada scored, then seconds later as Canada’s goalie blocked the US shot. Victory!!
But I digress….even though our Canadian hockey teams did kick some serious butt.
I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions because people usually never stick to whatever resolution they’ve made themselves. Instead, I look at January 1st as a fresh start, as a time to put into play everything learned during the previous year.
As a police officer the words spoken by a colleague are words to work by – ‘Never assume you know it all’.
By observing fellow officers we are able to take in what is good about our chosen profession and what are the certain aspects better left behind. Policing is a constantly changing playing field with evolving expectations and requirements. That said, I’m fortunate to be doing something I love – working in the Dog Squad is the most challenging, most exciting and simply the best place I’ve ever worked.
As a writer the last twelve months have been productive. This blog has been up and running with a wide readership for over a year now (thanks to all of you!) and the Vancouver Sun column is a gift. A large cross section of the Canadian community has shown their support for police officers in general, while citizens and police officers from other countries have written in to share their own stories and show their support for their respective law enforcement agencies.
On another note, I’ve finished a novel and am in the editing stage, which is proving to be an education in itself. Writing a novel requires significant effort with no guarantee it will be worth reading. The last two-thirds of my novel are pretty good but the first third is gawd awful and in serious need of a rewrite. Perhaps today is the day to round-file it.
A fresh start.
An opportunity to put into action everything learned.
Not as a resolution but as a way of life, in an effort to be a better, more productive person.
Now THOSE are words to live by.
Happy New Year to you and yours, and here’s to wishing everyone a great start to 2010!
Several years ago, while I was a patrol officer assigned to the North East Section of Vancouver called District Two, my partner and I responded to a call that ended up demonstrating how quickly a call for service can go from ‘routine’ to a ‘I-may-have-to-shoot-this-guy’ kind of call.
It was at the very end of our night shift, and the sun was rising over the eastern horizon. We had just turned our patrol car towards the office, ready to go home, when dispatch advised a desk clerk from one of the rooming houses in the Downtown Eastside had called into 911. The desk clerk reported having problems with two tenants, and the situation was escalating into a fight. We forgot about going home, and raced to the rooming house, where another one-man police car was also pulling up. The three of us ran up the steep staircase, ascending into the dark and gloomy foyer, where we were met by the frantic desk clerk.
The desk clerk, his eyes huge and scared behind his glasses, pointed up the next flight of stairs, but not that we needed any direction. From the area of the third floor came the sounds of screaming and a great battle. Again, a sprint up the stairs brought us to another landing, on which a life and death struggle was playing out. My instincts and training kicked in, and I was looking down the sights of my pistol without even realizing I had unholstered my weapon.
Directly in front of us were two men. They were entwined, in an almost intimate embrace, but it was clear they were not lovers. Between them and the focus of their fight, a knife danced in the light as one man tried to plunge the blade into the others neck. Both were covered in blood, and the victim was screaming for help. The man with the knife saw us, and immediately spun the victim, placing the victim between us and him. The entire time, the knife jerked with the effort of both men.
There was a moment of the agonizing realization I was going to shoot the man with the knife, but with the victim as a human shield, I could not. The suspect peeked out at me from over the victim’s shoulder, and with a final grunt, plunged the knife into the man’s collarbone. The victim shrieked like a rabbit in a snare, and dropped to the ground. The suspect pulled the knife free and started to take a step towards us, his eyes blazing out from his blood smeared face. I could feel the tension in my finger as I started to pull the trigger back. At the same time, there was another shout, this time from behind me, and the suspect snapped his head to see who had yelled. My partners timing was perfect – he delivered a blast of pepper spray directly into the suspect’s eyes.
The next few seconds were a melee of tangled arms and legs as all three of us tackled the suspect and gained control of the knife. Once the suspect was handcuffed, we tended to the victim. His upper body was covered in stab wounds, and he was rushed away in an ambulance. Eventually, we found out that none of the injuries was life threatening. The suspect, in the meantime, had been treated for the pepper spray (officially called ‘oleoresin capsicum’), and was taken to jail, where he was charged with multiple offences.
By the end of it, when I finally made it home, sleep was a long time coming as I replayed in my head how quickly the call had gone sideways. My mind kept coming back to the fact that for once, the pepper spray had worked on what we call a ‘goal oriented person’. Usually, at least in my experience, ‘goal oriented people’ are not affected by the spray and are able to fight through it. If the pepper spray had not worked, I’m sure the ending of the incident would have been much different.
Ultimately, this call is a good lesson to all of us in the policing world to never treat any incident as ‘routine’, because it might just be the call where you will be called into action.
The topics and conversations to be had about the world of policing are almost limitless. When deciding on how to format this blog, and what topic should be covered for the very first post, I was a little overwhelmed. There are simply too many things that I’d like to share, and so many stories that deserve to be told.
So, instead of just forging straight ahead and starting with what recruiting is looking for in potential candidates, or what it’s like to work with a police dog, or how best to protect yourself against auto crime, I thought I’d take a few moments and explain how this blog is going to work.
First of all, let me explain that this blog is for you. Yes, you read that right. FOR YOU. My goal is to try and blur the ‘thin blue line’, just a little, to show you what it is really like to be a police officer in the new millennium. To show you that while the officers who have sworn to protect you and your property are brave, courageous and strong, they are still human beings with feelings and emotions.
In keeping with this theme, I will also talk about a variety of topics as they relate to policing, and I hope to keep some sort of schedule. Topics will include, but will not be limited to:
- Recruiting - everything from the application process to graduation from the Police Academy
- A Day in the Life of… - the Specialty Squads within the department
- Crime Prevention
- Code Four - stories and incidents from the Operations Division (Patrol)
- This Week in Policing - where I will blog about a recent event in policing (and not necessarily from the VPD)
I welcome to you to this blog, and I hope are able to learn something about the men and women who wear the uniform of the Vancouver Police Department. They are my brothers and sisters, these people in blue, and I am very proud to have them working by my side.
