I Don't Think This Feeling Will Ever Go Away

I start crying for no reason today.  Well, there is a reason, but at unexpected times.  When the news is on.  I see the Cops with that black band on their Badge, and I can't help it. 

I've been off, "The Job" as they call it back east, for five and a half years now, but I wore that band TOO many times, and I don't think I can ever convey the feeling you have when you have lost a brother behind the Badge.  It's like a death in the family.  Even this many years out of the game.

The first thought is, "Did I know him?  Did I work with him?  Were we in The Academy together?"  And the older I get, and the farther removed from the job, the chances of that are less and less, but still...

I don't know about the military, I was never in it.  But I can't imagine the death of every soldier in a war zone affects you in the same way.  You kind of expect it.  The death of your buddies?  Sure, it's going to rock your world.  But in, "Cop World" every loss feels like a death in the family.  Because we DON'T expect it!

We expect to be the thin blue line between society and anarchy, and we EXPECT to win every time.  We don't calculate, "collateral damage", or, "acceptable losses".  NO losses are acceptable in our business!  So every one hurts.  And it hurts a lot.

No one becomes a Cop to get rich, or famous.  Some of us ended up in the business completely by accident.  But the pay checks don't bounce, you always have work, and health insurance.  At least until you retire.  Thanks for that, Jon Huntsman, by the way.

But once you DO become one, you become part of a brotherhood (and I don't mean to exclude my sisters behind the Badge, I'd have taken the bullet for any one of THEM too. Just being lazy in my typing.  My best Cop buddy is an awesome, beautiful, woman my kids grew up calling, "Aunt Di").  And no one who does not live in it will ever understand it.  It's just...  Different.  You are different from everyone else.

You have to live to a higher standard.  You can't make waves.  You have more responsibility.

And your job is dangerous.  It might kill you with a bullet like it did the young officer  last night.  Or it might kill you with bladder cancer from being in meth labs like it tried to do to me.  But the job is after you all the time.

I don't know what happened last night.  I don't have any more information than I get from the TV news tonight, because this morning's paper didn't have much.  But if these guys were serving a warrant on a possible Marijuana grow, and ended up getting shot?  I have to say this was a really bad call. 

The original news report last night was for a, "No Knock" search warrant.  At night.  You have to have some pretty extraordinary circumstances for a, "No Knock" at night.  Just growing and selling pot would NOT meet those expectations.

Today I heard it was a, "Knock And Announce" warrant.  OK, that's less of a standard, but still, at night?  Knock and Announce is usually during the day.  You can still punt the door if they don't answer, but to do this at night?  When your goal is a bunch of Pot plants?

You can NOT easily FLUSH, Pot plants.

It's not a pound of easily flushed Cocaine.  What were these guys after?  And why then?  And why didn't they know this guy had Army weapons training?  And a gun?

I'm totally speculating here.  I repeat, I don't know the whole story.  But I would hate to think a good, young officer lost his life because of a lack of planning, or desire to make things more interesting.  I'll be anxious to see the whole story when it comes out.  But I have a feeling it's not going to be a good story.

I hope, with all hope that I'm wrong, and I don't know what I'm talking about.  But 20+ years in the business tells me, that things are not going to work out well.

And if this fine, young man lost his life and his young children lost their father for nothing more than a Pot grow?  Why don't we legalize this stuff?  Because if we do, THIS will never happen again.