Bad Timing

Hey all, sorry for not having been up to date lately. Switching shift times this week really threw myself and my fellow officers off schedule.

This story is about a day earlier this week on Wednesday thought saw our first homicide in my zone and the second for our city.

I was on a traffic stop in which I had just arrested a driver for driving with a suspended license and expired license of 8 years. The man had no clue as to why I couldn't write him a ticket as opposed to taking him to jail for driving. I raised my supervisor on a secondary channel to have the male listen in her as she confirmed what I told him that he had to go to jail in this situation. As I was wrapping talking to her a partner in my squad told her we just had a stabbing call. The remarks stated a group of males were in a fight and at least three had been stabbed.

At this point I felt really bad that I had my person in custody and was en route to the precinct. When a call like this pops up, you really want to be there to help people out. The following story account comes from fellow officers on scene.

The first arriving officers found a male, 27 years old on the ground near an apartment. In the words of some officers it was the most graphic scene they had been on due to the amount of blood. The male was stabbed in the back and according to them it was if he had been "drained out". Without going into too many sensitive details, i'll just say this. No life should be killed for no reason at all but this just irks you as to what happened.

The man had a 12 year old kid. The kid had asthma. The male didn't live in the apartment he was visiting but apparently it belonged to family. Some people decided to smoke inside of the apartment and he asked them not to because of his daughter. The man got into an argument with the males and a fight erupted which ended with him being stabbed one time in the back. Apparently the daughter witnessed what happened. This job doesn't always have its glorious moments and this clearly was not one of them.

Some things are witnessed by officers that may not be easily forgotten. I've seen my fair share of dead bodies that I won't forget. Thankfully for me, I can honestly say I am not troubled by them but I know not every officer feels that same way. We as officers see life's cruelest moments, yet day after day we return to help the communities we swore to protect.