A moment of fear...

As a wife of an Officer I am pretty calm and do not get worried too much about my husbands job in Law Enforcement but on occasion I can be gripped with that fear that all who are married to a Police officer knows about.
At 3:am when he is normally walking through the door, home safe from his shift, my phone rang instead, I looked at the time, saw that my husband was not there and my lungs seemed to seize on me as I answered my phone with a weak “ Hello?”. “ Hey Sweetie, on OT, got into a bad accident but I’m ok, not hurt.” We talked a second more and I was assured that he was not laying in a hospital somewhere and that he was just having to wrap up the scene and paper work and would tell me the story when he got home.

At 6:am I’m up and about and getting going about my morning routine, I called his cell but no answer, this is rare unless he’s talking to a higher up or on a chase or at the very moment un-able to take the call, usually not a problem, I’ll leave a message and he’ll call me back with in minutes or so. But this morning I had visions of him in a car accident, even though he tells me he’s ok and not at the hospital I cannot keep these visions out of my mind. The fact that I have spent the last week researching many things and in doing so read about Officers deaths by car wreck, then read an article about Police Deaths in car wrecks, etc.

I jumped onto LAPDwife and vented a bit, waiting for the phone to ring, trying to decide to call the station or not when he walked in the door, safe and sound thankfully. After the biggest hug in the world he told me the story….


“He and his partner went on pursuit of a vehicle running a red light and the suspect ran a couple of red lights then one more and crashed into some already crashed cars then threw the car in reverse and crashed into the cruiser (was listed as moderately bad damage? But the front end was wrecked completely and the passenger side door, was crushed with the frame of the car) my husband was passenger where the car hit worse and their car was thrown backwards then his partner saw yelled "GUN" the suspect jumped out of his vehicle with a gun in his hand and took off running, hubby's partner jumped out and chased but hubby couldn't get door open, finally did manage to kick it open (I don’t suppose it’s real easy for a big man in vest and belt to jump over the seat and go through the drivers door) and went on chase too, they called K-9 out and set up a search, the guy is still at large. I was originally called during the perimeter set up so before the search was over and the paperwork and booking began.”

Both he and his partner where ok and showed no signs of damage.
We chatted a bit more and discussed the accident. He had a moment that hit him emotionally as he described him and his partner a bit dazed from the wreck and the suspect could have easily walked up and shot them, thankfully he decided to run and not use the gun but it was close.
Last week he had been the arresting Officer in a domestic dispute involving a knife (took the guy down while the man had a knife in his hand) and then another chase, this time on foot, after a suspect that had opened fire on Officers. He and his partner had jumped a huge California style brick wall and he had come close to breaking his ankle when almost landing on a parking curb as well as injured his arms quite badly (though I told him when he wrapped his wrists with a bandage he looked like an attempted suicide and to wear long sleeves).

We joked about him ripping two shirts in one week and how the OT pay from this mornings extra hours will come in handy.

With the latest in the News (i.e. Devon Brown, etc) the Police lives are at even more risk than usual due to people “looking for justice” and so they decide to go shoot at cops or we have another episode of a stolen car and the guy speeding in reverse towards the patrol car and harming the Officers lives as well as others while running red lights and crashing cars.
So as a wife of an Officer I pray even extra through out the day “ Dear God bring him home safe after each and every shift” and give him an extra strong hug when he walks through that door.

At the same time I sit here and ask logical questions of un-logical people, why run from the cop’s? Why run those red lights? Why lead a life of crime and steal cars? Why speed towards an Officer in intent to harm?

I guess the guy one was thinking " oh, well, I can run the car towards the cops but they can't do anything about it now" or some other stupid thing. And as the Police are restricted more and more due to politics their lives become more endangered and they are un-able to do their jobs and apprehend criminals without worrying about lawsuits, losing their jobs and going to prison themselves.
Stolen car, gun, evading arrest and running red lights, driving recklessly, ramming vehicle into citizens cars and patrol car.... and I read a few blogs this week saying that there was no need for cops at all and people could take care of themselves. Hell, the public has shown us they can't control themselves or their children. My husband often refers to himself as a family referee, children are out killing and mothers are dumping babies in the trash, men beat and rape women…. Yes, it seems as if Police are not needed, citizens are doing a great job themselves….
I’ll just have to continue with those prayers…