I’ve bitched about bad cops a lot. So it would be dishonest of me not to mention one of my heroes. It was a long time ago. The 70s. Most of the players are long retired or dead.
My client was a good guy. A nice guy. He owned a little local jewelry store in a little mountain town. But he kept having little “legal” problems, drunk driving, a couple of almost divorces, debt problems. Well, he was an alcoholic. He was young, so he always did real well in rehab programs, and he always came out a new man. But, sooner or later, I’d see him with a beer, but only beer. Then something stronger, but never during working hours. Then during working hours, but never drunk. Then drunk but still in control. Then out of control. That was his life. And I hadn’t yet learned how much of an enabler a bleeding heart lawyer can be.
One morning, he came in to see me. No appointment. Just dropped by casually, as he would. He looked a little tired. Said he wanted to tell me what happened last night.
He said he’d had his usual “few.” So his wife, as usual, packed up her stuff and the kids and went to a girlfriend’s house. Well, that was okay with him, by God. But a couple drinks later he got to thinking he really loved her and needed to straighten things out. So he drove over to his wife’s girlfriend’s house and banged on the door. They told him to go away. He kept knocking and calling for his wife to come out because love. They called the cops. The cops came. The cops told him to go away and not come back or they would have to arrest him. So he drove away. Yeah, that’s what I thought too.
Well, he says, he got a few hundred yards away and decided that by golly nobody had a right to tell him he couldn’t talk to his wife because love and his rights and all and such. So he went back and banged on the door again. This time several cops came. They all sort of spread out around him from a distance. One of them told him to put his hands on the hood of his car. Well, nobody had a right and his rights and all and such, so he reached in his glove compartment and pulled out his almost toy unloaded .22 revolver and started taunting the cops, “Oh yeah? Well I got a gun too!!” They all dove behind bushes and cars with weapons drawn. It was sooo funny!
I stopped him right there. “Why aren’t you dead? Why am I talking to a live person? Why aren’t you in a morgue with 20 bullets in your body? Why are you walking around free?”
He told me that there was dead silence for about 5 seconds and then one of the cops jumped up, ran to a open spot right between him and the others, waved his arms in the air, and yelled, “Hold it god dammit! Everybody put your weapons down. Nobody dies!” Then this cop walked right up to him and quietly asked for the gun. My client wouldn’t give it to him because love and his rights, you know. But he did promise to put it back in the glove compartment and go home. The cop thought a second and said, “Okay, we know who you are, so we’ll talk to you about this later when you’re sober.” He got in his car, with his gun, and drove home and went to bed. Incredible.
That afternoon, I called the police department and asked if there were any charges pending and if my client needed to turn himself in. No charges pending. I asked about the officer who had defused the situation. Nobody seemed to know what I was talking about. Anyway, they couldn’t give me that kind of information. I asked around and found out that the officer was just a mid-level deputy sheriff – not even the senior officer on the scene. I called and asked to talk to him. When he came to the phone he said he was sorry but he couldn’t discuss the matter with me. I asked him to accept my personal gratitude, and the gratitude of my client and his family, for saving my client’s life. I also told him that I was nobody important but to call me if he ever needed a favor.
I hadn’t thought about this incident in many years. But I can’t help comparing it to the recent police killings. Why did my client live and why did Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and Akai Gurley have to die? I’m know race and culture is part of it. But there’s another ingredient. The officer in my case was extremely brave. He walked right into an imminent fire zone! He risked his own life to protect a citizen from himself. I fear he even risked and possibly suffered censure from his superiors. And he saved a life because he could, instead of taking a life because he could. He’s the kind of person I will always trust to give a badge and a gun and street authority over me. I wonder if there’s a test for it.
Police work is not for cowards.