The following contains dramatized and controversial material. Some may find it disturbing.

2012

It’s getting further into the Christmas season in New England. You’ll never know what you were doing when the radio crackled a heart-stopping call.

Shots fired. “All units, the individual I have on the line says she’s continuing to hear shots fired.” You roll. It’s the goddamn elementary school! Someone inside is shooting a firearm! This isn’t your worst nightmare come true. No. This is a nightmare you never imagined in the first place. Anyway it doesn’t matter. It’s happening.

There’s an officer on scene, just arrived behind the school. The building is in sight. You arrive 13 seconds after the first unit. Now the troopers are coming too. In all the northeast, there are none so feared as Connecticut state troopers. If you’ve done something wrong, they’re gonna know.

Then the next call comes. The shots have ceased. In minutes, you and other officers evacuate the students, almost none of which could possibly not be in shock. You go easy, but urge them on. Outside, goddamn reporters are already filming, the fucking vultures. The school is searched. Three times. You finally see the shooter. He’s just a kid. You saw the weapons brought out. Fucking AR-15. A handgun. What the fuck?

You may go home later, but when you do, you will be different. You’ve heard about cops who had faced the most terrible of things. They all share a few things. Like PTSD. Heart disease as they feed the depression or drink the pain away. Suicides. Early death.

You saw the bodies. Twenty wee children. Six adults. You saw them. Smelled the powder still in the hallway. No. Though you have a job to do, you turn away from everyone else while your eyes fill with tears. You know you’ll see those poor kids for the rest of your days. You wonder how you’ll ever endure it. You wipe your eyes, take a deep breath and get back to work. Then you remember the bathroom. What you saw there is going to haunt everyone who saw it for the rest of their lives. And no civilians except for the parents will ever know. You know their lives are all but destroyed. You know it. But you can’t think about it now. That is for later…

2016

You serve the people in the city of Orlando, Florida. And during the winter tourist season, you can be pretty busy, but the summer is a whole different matter. There are high crime areas. There are drunks at parties. There are traffic accidents and moving violations everywhere. You think some days are the worst you’ve ever had. That every day on the beat after this day is bound to be gravy; nothing could be as bad as the watch you just pulled.

And then you get a call you’re never, ever going to get over. You hear the dispatcher, but you can’t feel anything but adrenaline. SWAT is on its way, but you’re called, too. For all you know, so was the fucking entire force. There’s a shooting going on, a bad one. You hit the light bar and the siren, and maybe, as you drive, you get this feeling. Like, fear mixing all too slowly, as if time slowed down, like in the movies. It’s a terrible feeling. It’s nothing compared to what you’re about to see, and hear, and feel.

Twenty four hours later, you’ve returned. The bodies are still there, still being processed by the crime scene people. Fifty bodies. All victims of the same lone shooter armed with an assault rifle. The cell phones still ring. On the bodies. Some are quiet, some probably have dead batteries. They were ringing constantly last night. But the ones that rang intermittently are ringing again, now, and you think you’ve never heard a worse sound in your life. Some of the fallen have not been identified. You know that you will never have another traffic violation, drunk and disorderly, or any other call that will make you think you have it bad. Because this…

This…

This will always be with you. The victims’ faces are different. By now, their eyes have clouded completely over. The stench is powerful, a familiar odor but one that you’ve never dealt with on a level like this.

Some will have closed-casket viewings and funerals. Some things, even a skilled mortician can’t fix. And it’s so senseless. This was a celebration. It was innocent, there was dancing, music, drinks, fun… These people never knew that when they walked into this room, they would not be leaving it alive. That they weren’t going home that night.

There were other victims. Last night you helped get them out. It was madness. In all, 102 people were shot. Forty nine dead, fifty three wounded, and some of the critically wounded will die. Because being wounded by a bullet isn’t like stories or Hollywood crap. You can linger for months, and then just die.

Someone in the locker room told you that it was the worst mass shooting in the country’s history. To you, it seems an odd thing to say. Because now, the outrage is sinking in. The shooter had an Sig Sauer MCX assault rifle. And a handgun,. Glock 17, which will prove to be the backup weapon of choice common to lots of mass shooters. He left his brass everywhere. Like a war zone. He’d emptied one magazine with the rifle and loaded another. Not because he hated LGBTs. Because he wanted to avenge the deaths of Islamic people at the hands of military forces in the United States piloting drones, among other reasons.

Reports by cable and network news are already saying it was a targeted hate crime against LGBTs. Later, you’ll learn that Omar Mateen was Googling “Orlando night clubs” earlier last night. An investigation will reveal all were protected by armed guards. It’s likely that the man found that out, ending up at the Pulse not because it was a gay nightclub but because he found it agreeably defenseless. None of it will ever matter to you. It’s death, mass death. It’s a horror. It shouldn’t happen. Not here, not anywhere.

You listen to the ringtones. And you wonder… and after a few seconds, you know… there will be another, a worse, a bigger body count, somewhere, probably not too far in the future. As you think about it, you begin to ask yourself one question… and it will go unanswered, because it’s a shitty, unfair world and you know it. The question comes to you without words as you look around at bodies on the floor and the place where last night music played and drinks were served and it was pleasant in here, but now it’s silent except for police radios and the dying cell phones ringing, soon to never ring again. You’ve seen some shit in your time. Stuff you thought was bad. Stuff you knew was bad. And you’ve lived with the nightmares ever since. But as you look for your supervisor, wondering just what the fuck you’re doing here, that question comes back to you and this time it has words: how the fuck do I live with this?

2017

You didn’t see this coming. Typical for early October, the temperature that day had reached about 90, but after sunset it slowly began to drop. Cruising with your window open, you thought it was still in the upper 70s but it felt pleasant under a clear sky. A decent Sunday night. You hoped it would be quiet in the last hour of your tour of duty. Nothing much had happened on this early fall night. You know about the festival going on at the grounds beside McCarran, but it’s Sunday, and people have to be at work and school in the morning. It’s almost over and you just hope for nothing but a peaceful exit from the grounds when it ended.

On the radio, dispatch is talking to another officer about someone’s history. Something about a person having a hernia surgery. Then there’s a response about a silver vehicle and a silver jeep. Generic chatter, stuff you as a veteran can tune out but still register. It’s not your call, and nobody’s going to need backup.

The chatter is as subdued and unintelligible as every other law enforcement channel in the whole fucking United States. Yet like every cop, you can understand it even though no one else can. You relax and yawn, because the night is almost over. It’s actually called Paradise, the area you’re cruising your beat in. You may think all the jokes in the locker room are funny as shit, but in exactly fifteen seconds, nothing about it will ever be funny again.

“We’ve got shots fired! Shots fired, sounds like automatic fire!” It’s rare for a brother or sister officer to sound like that: the guy is frantic. You can’t even tell who it is.

Some garbled sounds from the radio. But you’re not yawning anymore. You’re upright like a statue of a Greek god on a throne in your seat, hairs on your arms raised. You’ve heard shouting on the radio before, but no matter what hairy shit was going down, you have never heard another cop sound like that.

You haven’t been dispatched. You don’t know who that was or where he is. You have a few seconds of merciless uselessness that you can’t tolerate. No cop enjoys that feeling.

“He’s at Mandalay Bay, he’s about halfway up! I see the shots! He’s at Mandalay Bay! About halfway up!”

And you ain’t far away. Now you know where to go. But you don’t really, because like a lot of Vegas hotels, Mandalay Bay had a fucking weirdo for a chief architect. What side is this sniper on?

Wait, what the fuck? A sniper with an automatic weapon that high? This can’t be happening! But your training and experience kick in. You don’t need a dispatch call for this. You just need to hear where the shooter is and where he’s shooting.

“Control, that is correct. Active shooter, many people down stage left.”

Another officer: “Do we have anyone covering the southwest corner between Mandalay Bay and the venue?”

Another: “Can anyone in the CP tell me where it’s coming from?”

Response (female, officer or dispatcher unknown): “It’s coming from Mandalay Bay!”

Then: “719, I’m gonna form a strike force, I need five officers on me.”

You know what to do now. A strike team is going in after the shooter. For the “many people down at the venue,” you have to go. Good God, how many people are at that concert?

The shooter is loosing hundred-round bursts. They’re right over your head as you go into the fenced open-air venue. You get into a bent position and press on. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. Bodies lying on the ground everywhere. Some have to be dead. You hope not all. One woman is in tears, she and her friends trying to get out and you look around carefully. “You’re good from where you are. If you can’t see Mandalay Bay, he can’t see you.”

Then calls about other shooters come in. And it could be true. The sounds of the shots are so close together. The rounds are hitting a larger area now. Adrenaline alone is keeping you from collapsing. You begin to check bodies. One woman who’s hit in the leg is bleeding. You need to get a tourniquet on it. If she’s left here, she’ll die. You get another officer to help get her to your cruiser. Paramedic units can’t enter an active shooting scene. Your trip to the hospital is fast. Doctors and triage nurses are waiting outside. The wounded started coming in a few minutes ago. They get the young woman out of your vehicle. “That’s been on for fifteen minutes, that tourniquet,” you say.

You have to go back. The shooting has stopped. A radio call reports a strike team forced the door to one of the shooter’s two suites open. Their horror is clear. The man had shot himself. Around him lay an arsenal. A fucking arsenal of AR-15 rifles, one AR-10, and more. Hundred-round magazines were everywhere, and some 50-round mags as well. The whole thing lasted ten goddamn minutes, and when you get back to the Harvest festival grounds, the lights have been off since the shooter was still firing when someone killed the power. Even with flashlight in hand, you are stunned by the carnage. The dead are everywhere. The wounded moan and scream but dare not move because they’re in shock and still terrified that to do so will get them shot again. Even if unable to silence their pain, they’re playing dead.

You’re not going end-of-watch. This will be the longest night of your life. And not one detail can ever be forgotten. You’ll have nightmares for the rest of your life. Your wife won’t understand. Same as husbands won’t. They’re going to beg their boyfriends, girlfriends and fiancees to quit. They sat in front of the TV and were scared shitless that their loved ones were dead.

During the massacre, bedlam: one officer shouted, “We can’t worry about the victims! We have to get the sniper before we have more victims!”

“Be advised I can hear automatic fire from one floor above us.”

“I’m at the end of the 32nd floor. We have a security guard shot in the hallway. He’s down!”

“He’s shooting at the medical tent! We have one vic shot in the head!”

At the end. The casualties were staggering. 59 people were dead. 869 wounded. One Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department officer is among them. For whatever reason, Stephen Paddock had become the most lethal shooter in domestic criminal history. And you will never be that same cop you were at 22:00 local time on 1 October 2017, and  there’s nothing that will ever change that. Still, you ask yourself: how am I going to live with this?

Four days later, a candlelight service is held in honor of Charleston Heartfield. He’s the brother officer slain by a fucking madman. Among members of the department, that night brings a respite from the shock. For a moment, the emotional reaction can bleed through. Some cry. One is hugged by another officer. The crowd genuinely grieves for the fallen hero, hurt for his son and widow. Las Vegas cries. You cry with them. And you don’t know how you can go on.

2018

You’re having the nightmares you feared. This country is sick and getting worse every day. But in a little over four months, something will happen 2, 500 miles away that will shock you, sicken and make you seethe with anger. Unlike other historic events, you’re not going to remember where you were when the news broke. But the evil and vile details, you won’t forget. And they’re going to change you again. And the Mandalay Bay shooting won’t make any more sense because of it, but finally you will have that answer your wife asks for still: why do you insist on keeping “The Job”?

Because on Valentine’s Day, at just after 14:00 local time, a former student of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida walked in with a Smith & Wesson Ar-15 style semiautomatic assault rifle and proceeded to shoot students and staff on three floors in ice-cold blood. It would eclipse the Columbine Massacre and Sandy Hook and take its place as the worst school shooting, and you watch in disbelief as you learn a deputy on duty at the school remained outside even as he heard shots fired. There’s no greater dishonor than to stand by as an officer of the law and allow kids to be killed. One school staff member hid in a closet. It’s not just deputies that failed the kids, you’ll tell your wife. But teachers have died protecting kids, like at Sandy Hook. These staff members were garbage as far as you’re concerned. You’d like to have a minute alone with that chickenshit deputy.

You point to the TV. “That,” you tell your wife, “is why we do it. We’re supposed to mean something. Stand for something, help people. We know what the risks are, but unlike that pissy deputy, we go in.”

And cops do go in. They save lives. They die doing it. To most police officers, that shield means something. Something bigger than civilians know.

In Dallas, they ran toward the shots.

In Manhattan on 11 September, 2001, they surged into the twin towers. They had no time to think they may not come back out. Even if they did, they went in anyway. Most didn’t come back out and some were never found.

We mourned those intrepid souls, our fallen heroes. Not just New York. The whole country. We cried for them all, the first responders who died that awful, ugly, horrible day. Firefighters. Police. Paramedics. Everyone who was visiting. Everyone who worked there.

Before the towers fell, anyone a block away heard a sound that made some of them throw up. Others would scream. People above the burning impact areas where the planes had gone in were seen with their heads outside broken windows. Smoke, thick and black, belched from those windows. They still could not breathe.

The cameras on the ground recorded what made people scream and vomit. Bodies of the jumpers hitting the pavement from such heights made a sound Hollywood couldn’t reproduce on a multi billion dollar budget. There would be no forgetting it. If you were unfortunate enough to see those bodies land? That trauma was only a part of that unbearable day, and yet it’s one that affected people around the world.

Like so many disasters before, the police were mourned as heroes. Survivors got hugged. But now… that’s all over.

There are shouts of threats. Name calling. Curses. Cries to defund police departments.  A blanket condemnation of every cop in America, a thing no different than bigotry against all blacks, whites, Latinos and American Indians. And it has sobered me and I’m not one of those cursing cops.

What happened to George Floyd was heinous. There’s no argument there, and anyone who tries is purely wicked to the core. But although I want justice for the man, I don’t like what’s been going on since he died. I liked Al Sharpton’s eulogy. I wept. But then it was exploited by cable news shamelessly while other major news had never gone away. Reporters were in positions where they knew goddamn well they should not be. The coverage sickened me. I honestly got sick.

When corporate owned news bashes the police and puts cameras in crowds waiting for cops to do the slightest thing so they can show the video a million times, something is fucked up.

I will never call for the police to be defunded. They get extra training. They carry extra equipment. They are often first on the scene, before medics and firemen. They have to negotiate intense situations medics can’t even get near, and they do it, every day. They don’t hesitate. You’ve heard that 99% of cops are good. It’s more than that. You’re going to have to use decimals and no fair counting an honest mistake as the actions of a bad cop. You’ve done it as have I. We’re like that, harsh, reactionary, judgemental creatures. Well, I wish we weren’t. I will never hate cops nor lump them all together as bad. They’re not. They’re human. They have feelings and carry scars. They have families to take care of along with taking care of you and me. And you throw shit at them. Try to provoke them so you can use your cellphone camera.

Shame on you all. Then you’ll need a cop. You’ll call 911 one day. If they’re not there in ten seconds, you’ll complain. Try to hire a lawyer. Post negative shit on Twitter and Facebook. Because I know you. And that’s just how you are.