Editor’s Note: This week’s essay comes from PoliceOne Member Keith Bettinger. In PoliceOne “First Person” essays, our Members and Columnists candidly share their own unique view of the world. This is a platform from which individual officers can share their own personal insights on issues confronting cops today, as well as opinions, observations, and advice on living life behind the thin blue line. If you want to share your own perspective with other P1 Members, simply send us an e-mail with your story.
By Keith Bettinger
Police1 Member
It was February 21, 1991. I could have retired that day, but I was at work. My wife didn’t want me to retire. I was angry with the Chief of Patrol, my big boss. He took the unit I was assigned to out of plainclothes and assigned us back to uniform duties to manipulate manpower shortages and overtime.
I was working the front desk on a four to twelve. Suddenly people came running in screaming about a crazy man crashing his car into other cars. I ran out of the precinct and apprehended him just down the street from the stationhouse. I had to force him out of his car and take him into custody. Now I had neck and back pain from his resistance to go along with my anger.
I had at least seven people who remained on the scene and reported being crashed into on purpose by this individual. They all had to be interviewed, statements dictated and photos taken of their damaged vehicles. I was gathering the necessary information and preparing to go to the hospital emergency room to have my injured neck treated.
I gathered the license and registration from one woman who appeared visibly shaken while patiently waiting with her daughter and neighbor for me to interview them.
When she handed me her license, I read her address and was suddenly back to a dark and frantic night in the 1980s. With a number of other officers and ambulance crews I responded to the house at her address for an aided case involving an infant. The victim was a little girl who fell victim to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The ambulance took the baby and the father to the hospital. I transported the mother.
I looked at the lady before me and asked, “Was I at your house during a tragic event?”
“Oh my God, it’s you!” She came running over to me and threw her arms around my neck and hugged me. “I’ve wanted to thank you for years.”
She then pointed at her daughter and said, “This is her twin.”
Nothing more needed to be said about that night so many years before. The paperwork was eventually completed, my neck didn’t hurt as much as it did earlier in the tour, and my anger subsided.
