By Suzie Ivy
I love the cops are human message. I became a certified officer at the age of forty-five when most people begin thinking about a slower pace. At that age, I was fairly stuck in my ways. When I say stuck in my ways, stubbornness is what I mean.
Like most cops, I have many stories. I came out of the police academy with an us and them attitude. It slowly dissipated as I learned to police in my own way. Every call was a lesson. Some hard and some incredibly simple, but all worth learning.
It was a cold and blustery day, truly, it was because I was freezing my butt off. Dispatch notified me that they received a call that Roger Schmuck (yes, made up name) was reported by his ex-wife for driving without a license. I ran Roger’s information and sure enough his license was revoked. I should also mention Roger wasn’t a nice man. I’d been on a call with another officer a few weeks before and learned this the hard way.
Today, I was alone on patrol and not crazy about dealing with Roger without backup. Working in a small town this would be the case more often than not. I was looking in the area where he was last seen, and I found him a short time later. He was behind the wheel of his car being towed by another car.
I hit my lights. The lead car pulled over and Roger rolled to a stop behind him. I waved at the first driver to remain in his vehicle as I approached Roger. I informed him he was driving without a license. He immediately began yelling.
“I’m not driving you stupid blankety, blank, blank.”
I ignored his use of language. “You had control of the vehicle and you do not have a license.”
“You must be the dumbest cop alive,” he continued to yell.
After he failed to produce a valid license, I walked back to my patrol car to issue him a ticket, and, I began wondering, is it control of a vehicle if the engine isn’t running? I knew for a DUI, the keys could be in your pocket, but if you were sitting in the driver’s seat, and in control of the vehicle, I had you. I combed through my trusty Arizona Revised Statute, Title 28, and couldn’t find what I needed. I decided my best bet was to phone my on-call supervisor and ask. It turned out, I was wrong and Roger was right. According to my supervisor, I didn’t have a crime.
To Roger’s great enjoyment and my embarrassment, which he relished, he left without a ticket. Over the next six months, I dealt with Roger two more times. His language never improved, and each time I came away wishing I had something to arrest him on. I was never that lucky.
On a warmer and less blustery day a few months later, I was heading home an hour after my shift ended. Directly in front of me, a driver lost control of his vehicle and slammed into a parked car. I activated my lights and notified dispatch. I ran to the vehicle and discovered a teenage boy whose head had hit the steering wheel. Blood covered his face but he was conscious and talking to me. I held him in c-spine while keeping him calm. I asked him questions and discovered this was Roger’s son. The boy asked me to call his dad and I did as soon as the ambulance arrived. While the EMS crew tended to him, I took pictures and began filling out paperwork.
He was transported to the hospital, and, about a minute later, Roger ran up on foot.
Now, we had a problem. The hospital was 30 minutes away and Roger had no transportation. The vehicle his son wrecked was all he had and he still didn’t have a valid license. I didn’t think about it, to me there wasn’t a decision to make. I told Roger to get in the front seat of my patrol car. I drove to my house (everyone knows where all the cops live in town), informed dispatch I was off duty and switched to my personal vehicle.
We never spoke on the way to the hospital. Roger didn’t even look at me. After a few stitches, his son was released, and yes, I drove them home.
While on duty about a month later, I saw Roger talking to some men outside our local convenience store. He walked over to me and apologized for how he behaved previously and thanked me for driving him to the hospital and calming his son after the accident.
Roger and I were never friends, but he was respectful every time we interacted after that incident. We recently crossed paths and he said he’d heard I’d retired. I admitted I had.
“It’s not the same without you. You were a good officer.”
I thanked him and walked away.
The lesson that hit me over and over as an officer was that people are human and so are cops. I took a lot of flak from coworkers for driving Roger to the hospital. What really happened that day when his son crashed, was that Roger finally saw me as human.
