When folks learn you were a police officer, there are always questions about what you saw and experienced. Working in the San Francisco bay area never lacked excitement. I remember a warm summer night in 1983. I had just completed the FTO program and it was my second shift alone.
We were short at lineup and covering calls off our beats. I just cleared a bar fight and was on my way to another when I was dispatched to a woman screaming. It was exciting rolling code-3, something that was normal on a night like this. I was twenty-three and wanted to save the world.
It was just after midnight as I sped down El Camino Real, hoping a deuce wasn’t going to pull in front of me. I arrived at the apartment complex about the same time as my former FTO.
“We are it,” Sergeant Reed said, as we walked down the alleyway. A scream echoed, followed by “you’re dead, bitch.”
Reed and I ran down the alley and spotted a man climbing the fire escape ladder and he was holding a revolver. Above on the same ladder was a woman holding an infant. Reed and I took a concealed position behind a six-foot wooden fence. Of course I drew my weapon, as did Reed. The woman looked below and screamed again — I was squeezing the trigger.
“Shall we take him,” I said, as I readjusted my grip.
“No, wait,” Reed said, a 12-year veteran.
A moment later, the man climbed down and entered his apartment. The woman and baby safely made it into a neighbor’s apartment on the third floor. Now what?
Calling for additional units to cover the perimeter - “negative Lincoln 113,” dispatch advised.
Shit! Reed and I made our way to the front door and kicked it in. We disarmed the man at gunpoint and in-custody he went.
“Shooting the dirt-bag may have caused the woman to drop the baby,” Reed said.
A lesson well learned. I’ll never forget.
