Yesterday, I had the honor of participating in a ceremony to remember a fallen officer. His name was Louis Collins and I worked with him many years ago. The ceremony was at the Naples Police Department, my old home, where I had not been for many years. It brought back old memories.
This is the week when we honor our fallen brothers and sisters. And, it has to make you ponder why anyone would choose a profession such as ours. Many years ago, when I had just made Detective, I was asking myself the same question.
Struggling to keep my family together, working two or three jobs to make ends meet, putting in 12-hour days with no overtime, was making me wonder if I'd taken the right path. That was on my mind, one night, on my way home to Brookside Village. My thoughts were interrupted by some movement in the weeds on the side of the road, just before the Royal Harbor entrance.
Pulling the car over, I could hear murmuring from a huddled form in the tall grass. It was a young woman who crossed her arms in front of her face and whimpered as I got close. I held out my badge so she could see it and said, "It's okay now, I'm a cop. I won't hurt you."
She studied me with terrified eyes for a moment then rushed to me and hugged me and began crying in earnest. Tears of relief. It turns out she had been raped and dumped beside the road like one might dispose of an empty beer can. Her assailant had done unspeakable things to her with a broken pine bough.
Standing there with her clinging to me, her horrors for the moment lessened because she knew she there was a cop there, I knew I could never do anything else but this. No matter what it paid. No matter what the hours. No matter what the price.
All cops who stick on the job have this same, private, defining moment. There's a fancy word for it: epiphany. One day a special time with come that will cause you to look back and remember yours. Mine was yesterday. Look forward to it.
'We're gonna get the bastard that did this to you," I said to the girl. "And when we do, he's gonna pay. He's gonna really pay."
And we did.
And he did.
This is the week when we honor our fallen brothers and sisters. And, it has to make you ponder why anyone would choose a profession such as ours. Many years ago, when I had just made Detective, I was asking myself the same question.
Struggling to keep my family together, working two or three jobs to make ends meet, putting in 12-hour days with no overtime, was making me wonder if I'd taken the right path. That was on my mind, one night, on my way home to Brookside Village. My thoughts were interrupted by some movement in the weeds on the side of the road, just before the Royal Harbor entrance.
Pulling the car over, I could hear murmuring from a huddled form in the tall grass. It was a young woman who crossed her arms in front of her face and whimpered as I got close. I held out my badge so she could see it and said, "It's okay now, I'm a cop. I won't hurt you."
She studied me with terrified eyes for a moment then rushed to me and hugged me and began crying in earnest. Tears of relief. It turns out she had been raped and dumped beside the road like one might dispose of an empty beer can. Her assailant had done unspeakable things to her with a broken pine bough.
Standing there with her clinging to me, her horrors for the moment lessened because she knew she there was a cop there, I knew I could never do anything else but this. No matter what it paid. No matter what the hours. No matter what the price.
All cops who stick on the job have this same, private, defining moment. There's a fancy word for it: epiphany. One day a special time with come that will cause you to look back and remember yours. Mine was yesterday. Look forward to it.
'We're gonna get the bastard that did this to you," I said to the girl. "And when we do, he's gonna pay. He's gonna really pay."
And we did.
And he did.
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