Sea of Blue

At one of the police departments that I worked at I had a routine to start the shift. As soon as I walked in the shift and I would joke around for a bit, argue over where we would eat for dinner, then I would use the bathroom and get to work. Everyone in law enforcement has heard this phrase before; “nothing is routine.” So while this was my typical schedule my shift didn’t always start that way. This story is about one of those days.

On this day when I showed up to work, I was told to help out an officer with one of our resident crazy people. We were told she was trying to commit suicide… she was not. She just ripped some stitches on her hand. So as soon as I showed up, she was given a ride by EMS to get her stitches fixed. I drove back to the office to use the restroom. The shift was in the parking lot when I arrived and I just thought “great! We are still on schedule.” Before I could even get a word out our radios went off. The radio said “arm robbery just occurred. Heading down Main Street. 2 males in a black BMW.” In the area I used to work we knew that whenever serious crimes happened the criminals would always try to get to the highway. The road to the highway is a very long two-lane road. This road is completely straight, has a few stoplights, and passes through 5 different police jurisdictions. When the call came out all of the officers in the area got on Main Street and waited for the vehicle. There were about 14 officers. Every officer was spread out about 500 yards, maybe more. Just enough where you could barely see another police car. I was positioned as the last vehicle in line. I didn’t want to be here because I didn’t think I would get any action being the last car. So I listened intently to the radio for the bad guys to be caught. I watched my Sergeant Colin drive right by me and by a black passenger car. As the car came closer I saw that it matched the suspect vehicle. I thought there was no way this could be them. I was the last car in line and Colin drove right by them. I then saw two males in the car that matched the description of the suspects. I paused and then it clicked. “Oh, it’s them!” I threw my car in drive and got behind them. I called out over the radio and told them I was behind the car. Before I could my location someone else began to ask questions. He came over the radio and said “shhh uh are we sure it isn’t an SUV… because I see an SUV and I think it’s the vehicle buuuuutttttt if it’s a passenger car then it’s not this car because I’m with an SUV.” The issue is that only one person on the radio can speak at one time. So while this individual seems to be having an existential crisis and is airing it for the whole county to hear, I am following this car out of my jurisdiction and we are slowly getting to the highway. Finally, he stops talking about I’m able to say where we are but a new issue presented itself. I was all by myself. I was already the last car in line and we drove a few miles so none of the officers knew where I was. A called out my location and some of the officers didn’t know where it was because we were now in a different county and city. All of the officers that heard it just raced towards the highway but they were all pretty far from me. So I just followed the car at a decent distance and waited for backup. I was getting a little nervous because it would be a lot more dangerous to stop these robbers on the highway than on a normal city street. All of a sudden I look in the opposite lane of traffic and see a blacked-out SUV flying towards us. The SUV cuts through the median and pulls behind me. The radio clicks and a deep southern voice comes over the radio “I’m in the SUV brother. Let’s get them.” Once I heard his voice a sense of calm washed over me. I had never met him before but we had the same goal. I knew he had my back and he knew I had his. The weird thing about the job is that oftentimes you are thrown into intense, sometimes life or death situations with strangers. And the only way you can survive is to trust these complete strangers completely. At this point, I’m the lead car. That means I determine what happens. I tell him to wait for my signal. We come to a red light. The silence is deafening. There are multiple citizen’s vehicles, bad guys’ cars, then my police car, and then the SUV. As soon as the light turns green I yell “now!” I hit the gas and drove into a turning lane then cut off the bad guy’s car. The SUV pulls in and we have the suspects blocked in. Although we never worked together this is an old school method that was used to prevent car chases. So the SUV knew what to do as soon as my car moved. I jumped out of the car gun-drawn pointer at the driver. The officer in the SUV does the same thing but pointed at the passenger. We both yell “let me see your hands!” As we approach the car. The driver looked at me, shook his head, then dropped it disappointedly. I walked over to the driver and told him to open the door. He ignored me. I pulled on the door handle and the door was locked. I sucked my teeth, pulled my gun hand back, and was about to smash the window when I heard the officer from the SUV yell “whoa whoa wait.” I looked at him and this was the first time I got a good look at him. He was a bit older and shorter, but extremely muscular. He looked at me, smiled, and said “watch this.” With his gun still pointed at the passenger, he said “hey buddy. Open the door for me?” Now I’m not sure if it was his southern charm or the Glock pointed at the passenger but his door immediately opened. The officer from the SUV gently took his person out of the vehicle while I waited for him to finish. Before I could pull out the passenger I heard sirens in the distance. I looked to my right and saw at least 10

police cars with their lights and sirens on. It looked like a sea was coming at you. Finally backup arrived. The car was surrounded by about 15 cops. The driver was yanked out and placed in the car. We looked in the back and saw all the stolen items. The SUV officer ( whose name I found out after was Staff) and I began to tell about how we stopped this car. Staff kept telling them I did a great job with how I stopped the car and kept telling everyone how Staff got us into the vehicle. All of us are chest-bumping and high-fiving, completely forgetting we still have an intersection blocked. We move off the roadway while we wait for the original officer to officially identify the bad guys and the items to arrive. While waiting, all the officers come up one by one and tell me good job. Then Colin came up and said, “you did good but you messed up.” I asked him what I messed up on and he said we would talk later. So after the scene was cleared I found Colin and sat down with Colin and we began to eat dinner. He was talking about all sorts of stuff but not the intense traffic stop we just had. I finally just came out and asked “what did I do wrong, Colin.” He said, “oh… uhh.” And I watched him think of a response. Colin then said “you shouldn’t have pulled in front of the vehicle you could have been hurt. I mean what if he shot you while you were parked in front of him?” I looked at him and said “ok” got up and left. By the end of the shift, he gave me an award for my file for doing a good job. In his description of my actions he never once mentioned me making any mistakes. Later on, I realized that Colin wasn’t actually against the maneuver I did, he was just mad he missed the vehicle. This isn’t speculation. A few months later he did the same move to stop a car chase. But that is a story for another time.

Originally posted on my blog (https://ourstoriesfrombehindthebadge.wordpress.com/)

Romans 8