You were gonna shoot me?

I've been trying to figure out how I want this blog to go. Will it be a collection of insightful posts that cover all topics? Will I mostly sit around and tell war stories? Or should I record my daily activities like a diary? I think it will become a little bit of all these things depending on my mood. Today I think I will go with a war story.

When I am off-duty and meet people for the first time, they often ask me questions like "What was your scariest call?" or "Have you ever pulled your gun and almost shot someone?" I have several stories that I tell but this incident usually is the first to come to mind.

I had only been a cop for a few months and was coming on shift. As I was entering the station, I saw all these other officers rushing out. I asked what was going on and was told that an officer in another part of town had just been shot during a traffic stop and wasn't expected to make it. Officers had to go out and help cover calls in that area while others tried to find the suspect. This really shook me up. As I said, I was very new and this was the first time an officer had been injured or killed since I joined up. Up to that point, it was really just a fun game for me and the danger didn't seem real.

However, I still had work to do so I grabbed my gear and went in service. The first call out of the box was a disturbance call at a nearby apartment complex. The 911 caller heard shouting and stuff breaking next door and wanted us to check it out. Due to all the things going on, there was no back-up available. Now this apartment complex was well known to me. It was mostly welfare housing and had all the usual welfare problems such as drugs, fights, drunkeness, and the like.

I arrived and tried to find the building where the call came from but the complex was like a maze. As I walked through the parking lot I saw an old beat up Lincoln driving towards me. There was a black male behind the wheel and an black female running after it. The female was yelling, "Stop him! Stop him! That's mine!" I really didn't know what was going on at this point. it could have been a family disturbance or an auto theft for all I knew.

I raised my hand and stopped the vehicle. I then began giving the driver commands to get out of the car and get on the ground. I didn't draw my weapon at this point but had my hand on it. The driver looked at me, got out of the car, and started walking back towards the trunk. I kept yelling for him to get on the ground but he ignored me and kinda paced back and forth by the trunk.

I could see that he didn't have a weapon so I began walking towards him with the intent to grab him and take him to the ground. As I got about five to ten feet near the front of the car, he turned and went back to the driver's side. He then reached down and put his hand under the seat. I thought, "Oh my God, he's reaching for a gun." I drew my weapon and began screaming at him to put his hands up but he kept digging. He then straightened up and began turning towards me with his right arm extended. As he did so, he said, "I don't wanna go back to jail." I could see something black in his hand.

I remember time seeming to slow down as I thought ,"This can't be happening." Remember, we had just had a officer shot (and killed as it turned out) less than an hour earlier. That fact quickly flashed through my mind. I began to apply pressure to my trigger as the guy continued to turn towards me. At the last second I saw that he had a cell phone in his hand. I released the pressure on the trigger as the guy put the phone on the hood of the car.

At this point, I am pissed. I holster my gun and draw my baton and I approach this guy. By God, he is getting on the ground or getting the stick. The dude looks at me and takes off running. I chase him through the apartment complex and straight through a basketball court with a game in progress. He eventually loses me but there was another unit that heard me yelling on the radio that caught up with him on a side street. By then, the guy had run himself into the ground and just gave up.

I get the suspect from him and walk him to my car. As I said, I was pissed. Turns out the guy had just gotten out of jail that day (nice) and came over to visit his girlfriend. The two got into an argument and a dish got broken. He was driving off in his car but she had left her phone in it. That was why she was running after him and the reason he reached in the car to get it. That's it. There was no assault and no arrestable offense until he ran.

This guy had no idea how close I came to killing him. I asked him what the hell he was thinking and if he knew I almost shot him. He looked at me in surprise and asked, "You were gonna shoot me? You only wanted to shoot me because I'm black."

Priceless...

I still think about that incident. What if I had shot an unarmed black man? The press would have had a field day with that and would still be talking about it. Still, I would have been legally justified due to his actions and that fact that I feared for my life when he came up with that phone in his hands. Why didn't I shoot? To be honest, I hesitated too long. If he had had a gun, he would have gotten the first shot off. Luckily for him, I don't think I had completely come to grips with pulling the trigger on another person. Since then, I have had a lot of training on the warrior mindset and how action beats reaction. I doubt I would hesitate as long now.

Johnny