“Just another one of those things I’m going to carry around forever I guess,” says a Police Officer in a painful yet a heartwarming story.

images 2( My Blogger Friends, this story of a Police Officer that I read touched me so much that I decided to share it with you. After reading this heart wrenching account you will, I am sure, appreciate what a Police Officer goes through on a routine day at work. Some memories, some incidents get etched in the memory and always come to haunt him/her long after they are over. We must share the pains of Police officers since they are human beings just like us. And we must appreciate and acknowledge what a Police Officer witnesses in a moment, we may not witness in our lifetime. Lets support them in every way and pray for the safety and security of our Protectors.)

“You know why red lipstick makes my heart race?”  (self.ProtectAndServe) submitted * by hoodcop 

“It was shift change. I was going home. It had been a long shift and I was looking forward to the comfort of my bed. It was a hot night and sticky. I just feel gross. I can feel my undershirt clinging to my body underneath my body armor and I’m ready to peel all of it off. My sub station has its own set of gas pumps with a set of trash cans. It’s an end of shift ritual that everyone fuels up and cleans out their patrol cars so that the next guy doesn’t have to start his shift off dealing with your mess and filling up the tank. Some slugs don’t do it, as it isn’t an official rule, but what can you do? I was pumping the last drop of gas into my tank when the emergency tone on my radio goes off. Not good. All of my shift mates are at the sub loading up their personal vehicles to go home, and the day shift guys haven’t quite made it out of the parking lot yet. The emergency tone ends and the dispatcher crackles over the air. She broadcasts a shooting in progress at 6 AM. The shooting is damn near at the furthest point from the sub in the furthest district from the sub. More bad news. Several other officers and I at the pumps stare at each other for a second, not wanting to believe it. There is no way that the day shift guys are going to be able to sign on and make it to that call fast enough. I snap out of it and hop back in my patrol car. Somebody has to make that scene, and even though it isn’t even close to my normal section, I don’t exactly see other officers falling over themselves to head that way. I tell dispatch to assign me and I burn rubber out of the sub. Few things are as fun as running balls out Code 3 to a call like that. Few things are more terrifying than running balls out Code 3 to a call like that in morning traffic as every Joe Schmoe is just trying to make it to work. As I hit the on ramp to the highway, my pulse is rising. I start to breathe deliberately and slowly to control it. Need to keep that heart rate down. No one is getting the f***k out of my way. When did people in America forget that all you have to do is pull over to the side of the road? I get it. When I’m going 90 or a 100 or a 110 down the highway, my siren doesn’t make it past my push bar, but what about the huge blinky lights filling up the rear view mirror? I remember pushing my Crown Vic to the point that the steering started to get a little… floaty. Not good. Slow down. Breathe. I let off the accelerator a little. It takes me probably 7 to 10 maddening minutes fighting through traffic to get there. As I round the corner into the neighborhood, I see flashing police lights in front of a house ahead. OK. One of my partners has made it there already. He must’ve been dragging his feet getting back to the sub to have been close enough to the call to beat me there. I pull up and hop out. What is that f***king noise? Oh yeah, turn off your siren moron. I jog the 10 feet back to my patrol car and switch it off. With the siren off, I can suddenly hear hysterical screaming from the backyard of the house. “My baby! My baby! Please help him! Jesus! My baby!” I jog down the driveway and squeeze past a silver sedan. “Chevy Malibu” my mind notes. Cop brains do that, noting details in the heat of the moment just in case they’re important later. When I get around the car I’m in a dimly lit back yard. I see my partner straddling a kid, 12 or 13 years old. My partner is young himself. He’s in his early 20s and a hard charger, just a few months out of the academy. Probably also explains why he got there first. My partner is doing chest compressions. Everytime I see somebody doing CPR the song “Staying Alive” pops into my head. We were taught to do the compressions to the rhythm of the song. “Ah ah ah ah, staying alive, staying alive, ah ah ah ah, staying alive.” CPR and that song are permanently linked in my brain. I look at that mom. She’s in her early 30s, hispanic, wearing a white tank top and covered in tattoos. She’s also losing her mind. Literally rolling around on the ground screaming hysterically. You know those videos from the wars of the Muslim mothers wailing and screaming over the bodies of their dead sons? Like that. I look back to the kid. He is clean cut, has short hair, no ink. He is wearing basketball shorts and no shirt. I definitely didn’t immediately think “gang member” or “criminal.” Mom snaps me out of it by grabbing me. I turn to look back at her and she’s yelling in my face and falling on me. “Do something! Help him! Please Jesus help him!” “Ma’am. My partner is doing what he can. The ambulance is on the way. They’ll be here any second.” I noticed that her lips were red. Bright red. I guess mom really wanted to complete the chola look. She lets go of me and goes towards my partner, screaming. I grab her by the waist and pull her away. She kicks her legs and flails. “Stop! You’re not helping! If you want to help your son you have to calm down! Tell me what the f***k happened!” Well that didn’t help. A couple of paramedics come trotting into the backyard and relieve my partner. They start working on the kid and we find out that he’s been shot 2 or 3 times in the back. We have to drag mom into the front yard because she won’t stay away from the paramedics. As we pass the Malibu, I notice that the back window has a few bullet holes. A few camera crews got to the scene wicked fast. They have police scanners and there isn’t much going on at the time of the morning, so the street already has a couple of news vans. As they’re setting up their cameras to shoot, mom is writhing in the front yard hysterically. It was surreall. Myself and a couple of other officers are just standing in a circle around this lady while she is in the throes of hysteria. Still not having any story about what happened, I notice that the front door to the house is ajar. I knock and call out police. No answer. I step into the dimly lit living room. Nobody else is in the house. I can tell. I hear a chime and look down at the coffee table. The kid’s iPhone is laying there. A text message pops up on the screen. The sender has a cutesy girl’s name, and the text reads, “(name of victim) I think I love you. I want to try having sex.” Weird. I shake it off and walk back outside. Somebody is getting the story from the mom. She had just come home from a party, and her son had walked out into the driveway to help her carry things into the house. A dark colored SUV pulled up at the end of the driveway and a young black male jumped out of the passenger seat. “F***k you Mexicans!” he yelled before he started letting off rounds. The mom and the son ran towards the back yard, away from the hail of bullets. That’s why the son got hit in the back. I see my partner, the one who was doing CPR a few minutes ago, standing a little ways down the sidewalk. He is breathing hard and sweaty. CPR is hard work. I walk up to him. “What the f***k man? I mean, what the f***k happened?” “I just got here dude. I heard the yelling in the back and I ran back there. I saw the kid. I started doing chest compressions and I told the mom to give him breaths. Blood was coming out of his mouth man.” Red lips. Damn. What kind of asshole am I? That wasn’t lipstick on mom. It was her son’s blood. She was trying to breathe life back into her kid and got his blood all over her mouth. The kid died. There were many hours of CSI combing the scene and taking panoramic videos and 3-D scans. By the end of it all I was just exhausted and kind of delirious. We found out later that the kid’s older brother was a gang banger. He had gotten into a fist fight at his high school with a member of a rival gang over a girl. The kid that he beat up came to the house looking for a little street justice. He must’ve seen the 13 year old in the driveway and thought it was the older brother. Damn stupid way for a 13 year old to die. Damn stupid reason for mom to get those red lips. Sometimes when I see girls with red lipstick I go back to that moment. Mom is hanging on me, screaming for mercy and begging for her baby’s life. Just another one of those things I’m going to carry around forever I guess.”


© Samina Iqbal. 2015


About saminaiqbal27



  1. Patty B says:

    thank you for sharing this – we need to reminded over and over again what our police officers go through and how it effects them. It was heartbreaking to say the least especially for the mom.


  2. Reblogged this on ' Ace Chat News ' and commented:
    Thanks for visiting and liking Ace World News and hope you will give it a try and reblogged this great post.


  3. Drive-by shootings in Miami are so frequent they often do not make the evening news or morning paper. My family members have survived five. Thanks visit my blog.


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