P1 First Person: In the blink of an eye

By Marty Katz
Broward County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office (ret.)

There is a term used in police work — in a blink of an eye — which often refers to danger. For example, “Anything can happen in a blink of an eye” or “That accident occurred in a blink of an eye.” To drive a point home, I’ve used this term many times in classes I’ve taught. It is a term that has instance recognition. Rookies need to hear about the dangers of their new profession and the veterans must hear it to remind them not be become complacent.

After a 34-year law enforcement career, the term blink of an eye has taken on a new meaning. There is some truth to the fact that the moments are long but the years are short. In a blink of an eye, I went from the interview process to get hired into law enforcement to my retirement party. Where did the time go?

From the moment I decided that I would like a career as a police officer, everything I did seemed to take forever. The hiring process of completing the application, waiting for the testing date, taking the written test, waiting for the results, then waiting for the physical testing date, nothing was ever quick. After the physical test there was the polygraph test, then psychosocial test followed by more interviews with a lot of waiting between each of the steps of the process. Finally, I was hired and had to wait for the next academy class.

The academy took months, 720 hours of classes, testing both mental and physical abilities and waiting for that graduation day. I began my career walking a beat. My shift was eight hours of walking, talking, and handling calls and mounds of paperwork. Every shift seemed to last about a week. I walked in the snow, ran between the rain drops and sweated in the summer heat. I had to wait until there was an opening in a patrol car.

When I finally got a seat in a patrol car, I had to wait for the hot calls. Sometimes I would find interesting things to fill the time but for the most part, in the beginning, it was waiting until called.
When I decided to relocate to Florida from New Jersey, the entire process started again. The hiring process was a bit shorter but still took weeks. There was the endless testing but luckily I only had to attend a shorter version of the police academy. As fate would have it, I had to wait until the class was scheduled.

As I gained experience — which, by the way, takes time — I had the desire to transfer to other assignments. Some of the assignments I had were Field Training Officer, property crimes detective, SWAT, undercover narcotics detective, academy instructor — each came with its own brand of waiting. Waiting for the opening, waiting for someone to retire, or waiting to take the required classes — it was always some form of waiting.

Of course, there was also waiting for court — constantly waiting for court. In Florida, every case appears to be tried three times. First there is the deposition, the defense’s search to find out what you know and what you did. Second there is the motion to suppress, did you have all elements of the crime and was everything obtained legally. Third is the trial itself. At each level, your are subpoenaed and once your arrive, the waiting begins.

Each waiting period seems like it will never end, like standing in the rain at an accident scene. The hours just seem to hang in mid air, slow motion. All those classes, a break every 50 minutes, the standing around waiting your turn at the firearms range, if it pertains to police work then waiting is always included.

For some, there was the occasional disciplinary wait. Time really goes slow when you are waiting to see the command staff and you know it is not going to end well for you. Even minor such meetings take their toll in the minutes running into hours, especially the waiting days prior to the meetings.

Then there is the dead time of investigations and stake outs. Long hours of doing nothing but waiting. Ever be assigned to a wire tape? That is like a slow motion moving slower.
In other words, it appears that if it is related to this job, the minutes tick by slowly. Well, not if you are involved in a chase or a critical incident. That has the tendency to move quickly until the moment it is over and then the endless paperwork, court, explanations or things even worse such as getting injured on the job which now creates a super slow day. Usually the wait at the hospital is not very long, long but not as long as others have to wait. The real wait comes as the required paperwork must be completed before you finish your shift.

Unfortunately, the ultimate wait is that of the funeral procession. I have attend far too many and the wait for the pain to ease never really seems to end.

So, as you can see, the entire career is made up of periods of waiting for this or waiting for that.

The strange thing about all of this waiting is that it seems like just yesterday I began this career. It seems like yesterday I was excited about the upcoming entry test. It was like yesterday that I’d had that nervousness of completing that first application. Now looking back, I wondered where the time went. It seems to have flown by and the years all melted together. I don’t really remember the change from being a 21-year-old man just pinning on the badge for the first time and the 55-year-old man thanking every one for attending at my retirement party.

It seems like just other day I was learning how to shoot my handgun, write a report, and shine my shoes. Now, I’m writing about all my memories since that day.

Take a moment to stop and think about each moment. No matter what you are doing — responding to call, writing a report, cooling your heels outside of the courtroom, or waiting to get your ass chewed by the captain — at the time it might seem forever but at the retirement party, you will wish you had just a few more minutes of those times.

Marty Katz is a retired sergeant with the Broward Sheriff’s Office in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. During his 34-year career assignments included field training officer, SWAT team member, undercover narcotics detective, academy instructor street crime suppression unit and supervisor of Recruitment, Criminal investigations and Patrol. Marty is a Florida Department of Law Enforcement certified instructor (Firearms, Defensive Tactics, Driving, First Responder, Ethics and Human Diversity), Expert Witness for Use of Force issues, a member of ILEETA, and past Florida Chapter Director for the International Association of Ethics Trainers In addition, Marty has trained in Japan with the Tokyo Metropolitan Riot Police and is a martial arts instructor.

Marty is owner and chief instructor of Crimewave Solutions, a training company for officer survival and common sense self defense. His first book, Past the Uniform, was published in 2008.