Sam Fowler

May 30th

D Period

3,251 ​Fear

Dear Diary,

I don’t think it’s occurred to my parents yet that kids have ears too. I hear a lot more than

they think, and notice it too. It’s difficult not to. I hear the clunk of a uniform on the floor

in the middle of the night as Mom comes home from work. I watch my father walk her out

the door each night, and I listen as they say the same words over and over again.

“Be safe.”

“I will.”

It’s impossible to count the number of times I’ve heard these words, watching as my mom leaves

for work. The years of my father walking her out the door, calling for her to be safe. I wonder

how many other police officers hear those words when they leave home. It seems almost like an

empty promise. “I will,” I will be safe. Nothing bad will happen tonight. The pistol on my belt

will return with the same number of bullets in it. My vest will clunk to the floor at 2am as I

stumble into bed for far too little hours of sleep. ​It took me too long to figure out why he said

that. I’ve heard the tales Mom tells every night. A shooting, a stabbing, crazy things done

by crazy people. The stories she tells make me grateful for the sound of a work belt hitting

the floor at 2 am, because it lets me know that Mom’s home, and none of that stuff

happened to her.
Dear Diary,

Nothing bad will happen tonight, and I will not join the other ​3,251 officers ​lost their lives​ have

been killed​ in the last 19 years. ​3,251. I don’t know how to feel about that number. It’s too

many. Far too many.

The idea of the day it becomes 3,252 makes me sick inside. ​Not me. But that’s not a promise

you can always keep.

Dear Diary,

“So in case somebody says something about it in school today…”

Whenever my mom says those words to me on the way to school, I know something really

bad happened. Today it was a shooting in New Haven. A Yale officer and a Hamden officer

were involved in a shooting, and a woman was shot in the hip. Mom stressed that fact to

me, insisting that she’d been shot once in the hip; not in the head, not five times, just once.

My mind flashes back to yesterday, when​ her phone was screaming ​with calls from her

coworkers as she ranted about how it was being blown all out of proportion and how the

woman had only been shot once. The officers thought the people in the car had been

involved in a robbery, and that the man in the car had a gun. That’s why they fired. That

made sense to me.​ There are bad people on the streets, and bad people do bad things. And

sometimes, the good guys in blue need to take the bad guys down. Sometimes, a police officer is

forced to shoot someone. There is not always another option, and while officers are trained to

aim and fire non fatal shots, the stress and speed of the situation does not always allow for that

factor to be included. ​The aftermath of a bullet fired from an officer’s gun stretches far beyond
the person who was shot and the officer that shot him. The effect extends to the rest of that

Police Department, the surrounding PD’s, the officer’s family, the family of the wounded person,

and ​The downside to that is​ the media, which spreads the shooting even further to overly

opinionated people who choose to protest something they don’t know anything about. The

protestors don’t know how heavy that uniform is to wear. The protestors only care about the

person who was shot, the supposed ‘victim’. They don’t care to see things from the officer’s

point of view. No one ever shows a shooting aftermath from an officer’s point of view. They

don’t see how it impacts them.​ In a survey conducted by the National Institute of Justice, they

determined that after an OIS (Officer Involved Shooting),​ ​I bet they don’t know that ​40% of

officers experience anxiety after a shooting,​ 34% had fear of legal and administrative problems

and 18% experience a fear for their safety ​In addition, “officers who felt a lack of support from

their colleagues and supervisors or that aspects of the investigation into the shooting were unfair

or unprofessional reported more severe and longer-lasting negative reactions following the

shooting,”​ (Klinger, NIJ Journal Issue No. 253). I wonder how much of that anxiety is related to

a fear for their safety.​ I know Mom is scared. She said she’s afraid to leave her cruiser,

afraid to do her job. She said that the Yale officer involved, Pollock, is on administrative

leave. Apparently, ​after a shooting, officers are often given paid administrative leave. “Paid

administrative leave for employees who are under investigation by their employers for policy,

rule, or regulation violations and even criminal acts is common practice ​Private companies and

public agencies have found this a convenient action to take when the facts of the incident are not

obvious and outright firing of the employee is not yet justified​.​…​ The employee continues to

receive his or her salary while the agency investigates to determine whether there are grounds to
fire the employee” (Larson, Porter, Kelso and Guffey). This leave is supposed to help the officer

psychologically recover while also investigating the incident to see if the officer can be

considered justified in their actions. ​It doesn’t seem fair that officers are trained to do their

jobs a certain way, and yet when they do that job, people fire them for it.

Dear Dairy,

The aftermath of the Yale-Hamden shooting is only getting worse. Things aren’t good. I

remember when Uncle Tommy was involved in a shooting in Massachusetts. He was placed

on administrative leave too, but he kept his job because he had been in the right to shoot a

man named​ ​My uncle, a chief of police in Massachusetts, was involved in an OIS a few years

ago. He was placed on administrative leave after shooting a man named​ Nicholas Foster. “Foster

had stabbed his 28-year-old wife and another man inside an apartment at 150 Cable Ave just

before 1 p.m. on May 15. Attempting to flee the area, Foster was confronted by local police

officers, who were forced to shoot and kill him.” (Rogers, Newburyport News).

I didn’t know he killed him.

I just remember Dad telling me that Foster had a machete. ​I did not know most of the details

of this situation while it was ongoing, but I remember the reaction my family had.

I remember everyone talking in whispers about the incident, hugging my uncle, thankful he was

still alive.

I remember that he didn’t want to talk about the shooting. But at least my uncle was

cleared from it.​ They thought he might lose his job. But fortunately, he and the other officer

involved were cleared of all charges. ““Based upon a thorough investigation of the facts
surrounding the shooting and the case law pertaining to the use of force to defend oneself or

another, it is determined that the officers reasonably believed​“Foster posed an immediate threat

of killing or seriously injuring them or others. The officers therefore bear no criminal

responsibility for shooting Foster,” Blodgett wrote” (Rogers, Newburyport News). It is difficult

for an officer to judge whether pulling the trigger is right in the moment that it happens. ​I

wonder if my uncle still thinks he was in the right, or if he wishes Foster was still alive, just

in jail.

Dear Diary,

My mom once had a close call with a man in New Haven, and she nearly pulled the trigger.​ It

had been a standoff, both of them staring at each other,​ ​guns in hand on a dark street. In

my mind, it looks like something right out of a movie. ​When I asked what she was thinking in

the moment​ they stared at each other​, she was honest. “I’m going to kill you first.” Regardless

of how officers are trained, at the end of the day, it comes down to a standoff of who will be hurt

first, and the cop mindset is to stop the other person before anyone else is injured. ​Some days I

wonder how different my family’s lives would be if my mom had fired. Or worse; if the

other guy had.

Dear Diary,

A policeman, according to Paul Harvey,

“must make instant decisions which would require months for a lawyer. But if he hurries,

he’s careless; If he’s deliberate, he’s lazy. He must be first to an accident, infallible with
 a diagnosis. He must be able to start breathing, stop bleeding, tie splints and above all, be

sure the victim goes home without a limp. The police officer must know every gun, draw

on the run, and hit where it doesn’t hurt. He must be able to whip two men twice his size

and half his age without damaging his uniform and without being ‘brutal.’ If you hit him,

he’s a coward. If he hits you, he’s a bully.” (Harvey, Policeman).

Mom showed me that speech, and it’s entirely accurate.​ It is a lose-lose situation for a police

officer.

Dear Diary,

Students at Yale are protesting again. But this time they’re protesting their own officers.

They’re ​ ​If they shoot, they’re in the wrong. If they don’t, their own life is endangered. And no

matter which option the officer chooses, the public will see it as wrong and ridicule them. For

instance, there was a recent shooting between a Hamden and a Yale cop. It was a complicated

case and a woman was shot in the hip. But now both officers are being blamed for the incident

and publicly shamed. Students at Yale University are currently protesting, and ​“calling for the

firing of Pollock, who fired his gun in last week’s incident. They also want the restriction of Yale

patrol grounds to a more reasonable campus area, and the disarming of all officers at the

university” (Lambert, New Haven Register). Pollock, the Yale officer involved, feared for his

life, and shots were being fired at him. It is in his training to fire back, and for that, they want

him to be fired. ​This shooting has sent the Yale PD into a spiral. ​Officers, including my mother,

are now fearing for their lives.​ How is that fair?​ ​I don’t think the Yale students realize what
their officers do for them. Their protesting made me angry, made me want to start a

protest of my own, but Mom had a calmer, simpler response.

“Fine,” She said. “Then when you get robbed or held at gunpoint, don’t call us.”

She has a point. If Yale students hate their officers so much, then why should the officers

bother to help them? But they still will, because that’s what police officers do. They help

you, even when you protest against them.

Dear Diary,

The YPD was ​even​ vandalized. ​Somebody spray-painted the name Stephanie right on the

sign of the department. Stephanie was the girl who was shot in the Yale-Hamden shooting.

Mom’s angry about it, and so am I. I know that sign. I know that building and people that

work inside it. How would you like it if somebody vandalized your workplace like that? But

it’s just another thing they put up with. I hold my tongue and Mom bites hers. The officers

bury it down and carry on. I’ve seen the articles people have written against police officers

before. The sad truth is that I think the officers are used to it by now. It could’ve been

worse.

They could’ve spray-painted the word pig.

Dear Diary,

Nothing is better, and I don’t know why I expected it to be. Yale​, and the other​ ​officers, in

addition to being worried for their own sakes, are concerned for Officer Pollock, who is still on

administrative leave. It is a terrifying time to be a police officer. ​and​ ​Even more terrifying than
usual. Did you know ​“more law enforcement officers were shot and killed in the line of duty in

2018 than last year, driving a 12 percent overall increase in the number of officers who died on

the job, ​according to preliminary data from The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial

Fund.” ​” (Chappell, NPR.org)? ​Just another fact that makes me sick.

Dear Diary,

1,165 were killed by police officers last year. 144 officers died themselves. That’s 1,309

people killed in just one year. How many of those deaths were justified? That’s what I want

to know.

Dear Diary,

It is not fair.

It is not fair that police officers have to be afraid to do their own jobs, and it not fair that these

heroes are shunned for doing what needed to be done.

Nor is it fair that people are afraid to call the police for fear that the officer will shoot them.

A police officer will not do that. It is not in their training and it is not how they work. Why

can’t both sides just stop putting fear in the other?​ The terrifying fact is that it is almost better

for an officer to be shot then for them to shoot someone else. It is almost easier to recover from a

bullet wound than to recover from the public backlash they face for firing, ​even if they were in

the right.​ The idea of what happens to an officer after they fire their weapon makes me grateful

that ​my mother​ Mom has never had to.​ and frankly, I hope she never has to. An average police

uniform weighs 25-30 pounds, but the weight of the job is much heavier. ​But now it just seems
like the bad guys are getting closer and closer, and now I’m afraid of every outcome. Part

of me wishes I could go back to ignorance being bliss, and the other part knows that being

aware of what’s going on is better. Maybe that’s part of the cop mindset that my parents

have instilled in me. I know how heavy ​the brick of a police uniform​ is to wear, and it’s a

lot more than just 30 pounds.

 Works Cited

Klinger, David. "Police Responses to Officer-Involved Shootings." ​National

​Institute of Justice,​ no. 253, nij.gov/journals/253/pages/responses.aspx.

Accessed 11 May 2019.

Guffey, James E., et al. "Paid Administrative Leave for Officers Involved in

Shootings: Exploring the Purpose, Cost, and Efficacy." ​Professional Issues

​in Criminal Justice,​ PDF ed., vol. 3, no. 2, 2008.

Rogers, Dave. "Salisbury Officers Cleared in Shooting." ​Newburyport News

[Newburyport], 21 Oct. 2014. ​The Daily News,​ www.newburyportnews.com/news/

local_news/salisbury-officers-cleared-in-shooting/

article_e429fa63-c604-5773-b830-7474bddb71ad.html. Accessed 11 May 2019.

"Policeman - By. Paul Harvey (Tribute to Our Police Officers)." ​YouTube​,

uploaded by Crystal Cross, 12 July 2016, www.youtube.com/

watch?v=KQ1YsyZMaaU. Accessed 11 May 2019.

Lambert, Ben. "Hundreds Rally in New Haven to Protest Police Shooting." ​New

​Haven Register​ [New Haven], 19 Apr. 2019. ​New Haven Register.com​,

www.nhregister.com/news/article/

Yale-identifies-officer-involved-in-Dixwell-13777174.php. Accessed 11 May

2019.

Chappell, Bill. "More Police Officers Died From Gunfire Than Traffic Incidents

In 2018, Report Says." ​NPR.org​, 27 Dec. 2018, www.npr.org/2018/12/27/

680410169/
more-police-officers-died-from-gunfire-than-traffic-incidents-in-2018-report-say.

Accessed 11 May 2019.