Tess O’Rourke was on track to become the first female police chief in Long Beach, California. But after the incident, as the story evolves and a blogger with an anti-police agenda gets involved, Tess faces an outpouring of anger and blame. Truth is truth, but people’s preconceived ideas can color any situation.
When I was a patrol officer, back in the 1990s, we didn’t have body cameras or dash cams. There were times when I wished that we did. People—at least many of those committing crimes—lie. And most of the time we dealt with subjects who had no interest in being truthful about anything.
One time I was accused of beating someone with a nightstick. Not only did I not ever beat anyone with my nightstick, but—I hate to say it—I often left my car without my nightstick. I would take it out of the ring in order to sit comfortably and forget to grab it when I got out on a call, especially if there was a true emergency. In this instance, a witness who saw me without the stick saved me.
In another incident, a male officer and friend was accused of rape. He was on the cutting edge back then; he’d taken to carrying a small voice recorder in his shirt pocket. He recorded the woman taunting him, saying that if he didn’t let her go, she would tell internal affairs that he raped her. When he got the complaint, he played the recording and saved his job. And this was not an isolated incident.
It happened to a lot of guys I knew who were good, proactive cops.
Today, a lot of agencies have dash cams, and many organizations are moving to body cameras for officers. But as much as I wanted them years ago, I wonder if they are the be-all, end-all problem solver I thought they’d be.
It’s dangerous when people don’t have all the facts. They see only a portion of a film clip from a body camera; then a judgment is made. When an officer screams, “Show me your hands!” the camera can’t zoom in on the hands to show what has the officer agitated. It can’t broadcast what is going through the officer’s mind at the time he pulls the trigger. In the dark, what is that in the man’s hand?
A gun? A knife? A phone?
Our legal system is based on the presumption of innocence. A person arrested is innocent until proven guilty. When something controversial pops up in the news about a police incident, I always try to put myself in the officer’s shoes. I’m not sure people realize how quickly bad things can happen, how short of an instant an officer has to react. In a shooting incident, we’re not required to wait and get shot first; we must assess the situation quickly and decide to shoot or don’t shoot in the blink of an eye.
When I was in uniform, after squad meeting as we’d head out to our cars, we’d say to one another, “Stay safe.” The common desire for the night was that we’d return to the station at end of watch alive and well. That’s why I give cops the benefit of the doubt. They don’t start a shift wanting to shoot someone; they start a shift wanting to complete it and go home to their family when it ends.
In Crisis Shot, Tess fears for her life and pulls the trigger. But when the smoke clears and news spreads that the incident involved an unarmed teenager, people accuse her of making the wrong decision for the wrong reasons. In the court of public opinion, she’s considered, at best, incompetent, and at worst, a cold-blooded killer. In the eyes of the law, however, she was following protocol and her actions were justified.
Cases like these always remind me to pray for police officers. The job is never easy or simply black-and-white. These men and women put on the uniform day after day and bravely stare danger in the face. The least we can do is pray for them and respect the law.
Can you think of a time when you jumped to a conclusion and later learned you were wrong? How did you respond?
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Winning over the residents of Rogue’s Hollow might be more difficult than adjusting to her new role as police chief in the small, backwater town. Especially when her closest friend, the pastor’s wife, goes missing and the woman’s cousin is found shot. Tess finds an ally in sheriff’s deputy Steve Logan, but as they track down Rogue’s Hollow’s first murderer, she worries that she’s breaking one of her rules and getting too close to him.
