Into the Kill Zone

by David Klinger

  The fact that I killed a guy doesn’t bother me. The fact that I had to look at him bothers me, and the fact that a life is gone because of something I had to do bothers me. I don’t regret killing him, which I guess is kind of a contradiction of terms, but I do regret having to take a life. It’s just the fact that I was raised in a Christian home. I was a good kid. I have pretty strong religious beliefs, and I believe in the death penalty, too. I think you deserve the punishment that fits the crime, and I believe if he intended to take our lives then he deserved to be shot. But you know, it just tears me up that I took a life.

  • • •

  My boyfriend was working the same shift, so after I gave my statement, I went home with him to my house. I remember him holding me and me crying. I was so mad at the guy I shot for putting me in that situation. So mad and I cried. He held me. I remember it being a hard cry. I remember it being a rip-out-your-guts-type cry, like when you were a kid and you just cry over something that has just devastated you. I mean devastated. It was like that. It was like a go-back-to-childhood-type thing. It was really nice to have my boyfriend there because he was able to comfort me. I don’t remember ever being comforted like that other than when I was a child and going to my mom’s arms when I was crying because I got hurt. That was the type of comfort he gave, and that’s the type of cry it was.

  I never wanted to shoot anybody, but I was also upset that he didn’t die, because I thought that I didn’t do my job. I shot the guy and he didn’t die. I didn’t do my job; my shots weren’t good enough. Three out of six hit him, not all of ’em. On the other hand, the other part of me, the human part, the person who wants to do good for everybody and wants everything to be OK for everybody, is glad that he survived. I sometimes wonder if he had died if it would be harder on me emotionally. So I think that maybe the fact that he lived is a little bit of a saving grace, that it might have been harder on me if he died. Now, on the other hand, the guy is a mental, and if he goes off of his meds again and shoots and kills another person, I’ll be devastated. Absolutely devastated.

  • • •

  I was in four shootings in my first two years on the job. The last two involved the same fourteen-year-old kid. In the first one, he pointed a .357 at me during a foot chase, but my shots missed him. Then, a few months later, he tried to run me and my partner down on this traffic stop. We shot the hell out of the car but didn’t hit anybody.

  I got to wishing I’d killed the kid that second time. I thought, “This is ridiculous, he did it to me once, then he turned around and did it to me again.” What are the chances of something like that happening? I didn’t want to get involved in anything like that again. It was terrible. I wouldn’t want anybody to have to go through it. Just the idea of going in and doing the shooting and handling the paperwork and all the stuff that happened after the last one—I didn’t want to deal with all that crap again. It’s not like it is on Cops, where you get to see the chase and that’s it. On TV, you don’t get to see the reports, and you don’t have to see the commander grilling the guy; you don’t have to see the court testimony; you don’t have to see the defense lawyer making his client out to be the best person in the world while you’re just a big lump of shit that just likes to fire at people.

  Coming back-to-back-to-back-to-back like that, I thought, “Man, what am I doing?” I wasn’t quite sure that I wanted a job where people were always pointing guns at me and trying to kill me all the time. Plus, after the fourth shooting, it just got to the point where I was tired of being asked all the questions; I was tired of the Monday-morning quarterbacking; I was tired of the way that I was treated, the accusations that I was trigger-happy. I was out there trying to do my job; I had guns pointed at me; I had been run over by a car; I wasn’t just looking to shoot.

  I got tired of being in that position, and after a while I just finally thought, “Hey, there’s got to be something better.” I really started to think about being on the night watch, started to think about being up in the north end, started thinking about being a big-city policeman in general. I wanted to see if I could try to go with a federal agency, but I knew I needed at least three years on in the city before I could do that. That really started making me wonder if I’d made a bad decision on the career choice.

  I knew that I needed at least almost two more years on the job before I could even attempt to go federal, and I knew that it would be beneficial if I had some type of investigative experience in order to do that, so I looked into getting into detectives. While I was waiting for a transfer, it was brought to my attention that since I had been in multiple shootings within a short amount of time, I was going to be watched a little bit more closely than the next guy. So I knew that I had to mind my p’s and q’s while I was on patrol.

  I started to try to avoid situations where I might have to shoot. The last two shooting incidents started at Lacy Park and Washington when people flagged me down to tell me about something suspicious, so if I was at a busy intersection and somebody tried to flag me down, I’d tend to just wave and keep driving. I was very, very cautious on the calls that I went on. So I pretty much got lazy, but I was very, very safe when I did go out there. I always wore my vest. I usually would have a second gun. I was prepared to do what I had to do if faced with another situation like the others, but I would do things a lot more safely. I also decided that if another situation came up, I’d let the guy next to me do the shooting. I would be very hesitant to do the shooting again.

  After I spent some time in detectives, I came over here to K-9. It turns out that I found a niche doing something that I really like over here with the dog, and luckily I’m still a policeman. I love being a policeman, but I don’t enjoy a lot of the B.S. interactions that are involved with it. I haven’t had a shooting in about ten years now, but my attitude about things so far as trying to avoid confrontations really hasn’t changed.

  • • •

  I had my psych eval on Monday, and after that I had to go into work for a few hours here and there over the next few days, but the rest of that first week I spent most of my time with my friends and my family. I felt really good that whole time. I had this sense of elation, a happiness to be alive. Being around my father and my son and my wife and my friends, I was just elated to be alive because looking back at how close it was, I could have died. So I was just happier than shit.

  Then, the Friday after my shooting, I was sitting with the rest of the guys, waiting to go do a warrant, when I got this page from communications, saying, “Your father’s work called, and they’re trying to get ahold of you. He didn’t show up for work.” I thought that something was wrong because my dad’s a perfectionist who never missed a day of work in his life. That Sunday before, he had been over at my house talking to my wife about how depressed he was about my mom having died the year before from cancer. My wife had told me that he was really depressed about that, and it was hitting him really hard, so when I got the page, I started thinking, “Shit, I hope he didn’t kill himself.” I really didn’t think he would do that, but I thought it was possible because I knew he was really depressed about my mom’s death. He had always said that when he dies, he hopes it’s quick. Then, after seeing my mom suffer through eight months, dying slowing, he’d said, “When I go, I want it to be lights-out, and I’m gone. Quick and painless.”

  Because I was worried about him, I called down to the division where he lived and said, “Hey, go to the house. I give you permission to force entry. I know my dad wouldn’t have a problem with that.” He was the kind of guy that would always throw barbecues during Super Bowl and Thanksgiving, have a bunch of cops over there, so everybody pretty much knew him. So they forced entry into the house, and his car was there in the garage. His wallet was there. I said, “Go into the closet; there’s a shotgun; I know he owns one shotgun. Make sure that shotgun’s still there.”

  “Yeah the shotgun’s in there with one box of rounds.”

  “OK, describe the house to me.”
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  “Well, his jewelry’s all here, rings are laying around and his watch and stuff.”

  I said, “Son of a bitch! He always takes that shit off when he runs,” because my dad was a big runner. He ran all the time, ran circles around everybody. Then I said, “Shit! Shit!” and started thinking, “God, where could he be? Where could he be?”

  He had a girlfriend at the time, but when we tracked her down, she didn’t know where he was. So I called communications, and I said, “Hey I need you to do this for me. Did we have any John Does yesterday anywhere in Northern Division?” The operator started looking, and I was thinking, “God, please say no, please say no, please say no.” Then she said, “Yeah we did. We had one on Coldwater”—which is the next street over from my dad’s house—and I thought, “Oh, fuck! Here we go.”

  I said, “Give me a description,” and she said, “Older white male. Graying, thinning hair. Early fifties.” I was thinking, “Fuck, that’s gotta be him.” So I asked, “What was he wearing?” She said, “Jogging shorts, a shirt, and shoes.” So I said, “Where did the body go?” And she said, “Well, he was transported for a heart attack, and they didn’t revive him, so he’s at the coroner’s office now.” I said, “All right, give me the number for the coroner’s office.”

  I still didn’t know it was him for sure, but I was already starting to get in a big panic, and then I went into that dreamscape again, like I did at the shooting, where I thought, “This isn’t fucking happening. I’m gonna wake up any second now.” So I started getting that fuzzy, dreamy feeling again, and then I called the coroner’s office. I said, “Look, my dad didn’t show up for work. He’s missing. I checked with Northern Division, and they said they had a John Doe. Do you have the guy there?” The guy gave the description, and he gave it so distinctly I just knew it was my dad.

  I was in the canine trailers at the time. I remember walking out, and when my lieutenant approached me, I just started bawling. I said, “I’m gonna have to leave. I can’t do the mission, I’m gonna have to leave. My dad’s missing, and I think he’s at the coroner’s office, and I’ve got to go to try to identify the body.” Lieutenant Norris said, “Hey, fuck the mission. I ain’t going either. I’ll drive you over there.” So he drove me over there. The coroner showed me the pictures, and sure enough, it was my dad.

  We had a lot of close friends on the street where my dad lived, so I went over to his house and started letting everybody know what happened. As I was doing that, I started thinking, “Fuck! I killed somebody and this is my payback.” That’s what I thought. “I killed that guy last week and this is my payback. I took a life; now somebody’s taking somebody I care about.” I remember thinking that over and over and over again, even when I got home. I told my wife what I was thinking, and she said, “No, that’s not the case.” And I said, “Yeah, I know. But I just can’t get the thought out of my mind.” Then I started reverting back to the shooting again and getting pissed at this guy I killed again, saying in my mind to the guy, “You fucking put me in this situation, and now my dad’s gone because of it.”

  The next day, I got a call from the counselor who handles the officer-involved shootings. She’s a psychologist, a really sweet lady, and I told her what I was thinking and that it was really bothering me. She asked me, “Are you religious?” I said, “Yeah, I’m very religious. I’m a Christian. I’m not a Bible-thumper, but I have my beliefs.” She said, “Well, if you have your belief in God, you know we don’t have a vengeful God. God wouldn’t do that. It just happened.”

  Then a couple of days after that, my wife and I were talking to this pastor about coming to this church near where we live. I told him about the shooting, my dad’s death, about all that had been going on in our lives recently. He quoted something out of the Bible about how God makes allocations for police officers, and then he said, “You need to understand that there are those people out there that have to protect the flock, and that’s what you do.” Then he said, “Do you understand the difference between killing and murder? The Bible says ‘Thou shall not kill,’ but that’s misinterpreted. What the Bible really means is ‘Thou shall not murder.’ Murder’s premeditated. What you do as a police officer to survive and protect everybody else is not murder. Yes, you killed somebody, but it wasn’t murder. There’s a big difference in God’s eyes.”

  As soon as he said that, holy shit, man, it was like it was gone. That was probably five days after my dad passed away, and as soon as that pastor deciphered the difference between killing and murder and pointed out that there are allocations in the Bible for people like soldiers and police officers and that there are people that have to do ugly things so the rest of us can lead normal lives, every stress from that shooting was gone. It was just an incredible rush of relief, especially with the religious words, because I believe in God; I believe in certain things and I believe you shouldn’t kill. Then, when I heard the difference between killing and murdering and the interpretation of the Bible, that really was a big relief to me.

  Then I started replaying everything about when my mom passed away and the way my dad led his life. He missed my mom so much, and he and I had no unfinished business. There was nothing we wanted to say but didn’t, and I was at peace with that. He was a big drinker and he was a big partyer, always the life of the party. He loved to run, he wanted to go quick, and that’s how he died. He went out for a run, he was in his cooldown, and he just totally blacked out.

  After I broke it down, I said to myself, “You know what? He was fed up with what was going on at work. He was missing my mom so much. It was actually a good thing that it happened. He went exactly how he wanted to go.” I was totally at peace with it after that, and I have been ever since. I think it’s unfortunate that my dad’s dead because my son is missing out on a great grandfather, but I’m at peace with it. I’m at peace with the shooting too. I didn’t have any problems with the shooting at all those first few days, until that thing with my dad happened, and I started thinking, “Shit, I did this terrible thing and now my dad paid for it.” That’s what I was thinking at the time, but now I know that’s not the case. It’s just not the case.

  • • •

  Being involved in shootings was the main reason I left SWAT after almost ten years. It’s kind of hard to explain, but every time I’ve been involved in a shooting—whether I fired the shots or one of the other guys did—I feel, for lack of a better term, like a machine. I don’t mean to sound melodramatic, but it’s just do the job, shoot the guy, get it over with.

  When I’m involved in a situation where a decision about shooting has to be made, it’s just perceive the threat and react. What’s in his hand, what’s not? Does he have a gun? It’s just like a machine. I just go in there and do what I’m trained to do. I just do it, and if the guy’s got a gun and he’s threatening me or someone else, I’m going to shoot him. When I’m in those situations, I don’t even think twice about it. If there is that threat, I’m going to cap ’em. And that’s what bothers me: I can do it so easily. I just seem to myself to be too cold when it happens. That’s it. I don’t know how else to explain it. It just seems too cold, too calculating, too easy.

  I was in two situations where I shot people. Then we had two others recently where I was the SWAT commander when other officers killed people. In the first of those other two, this barricaded suspect shot one of my guys, and one of my other officers killed him in the exchange of gunfire. It really pissed me off that the suspect had shot one of my guys, so that one didn’t bother me too much, but a few months after that, I gave the order to one of our snipers to shoot this guy who was holding his kid hostage at knifepoint. He had a knife to his son’s throat, threatening to kill him, so I told the sniper to take him out. I don’t know why, but that one really bothered me.

  I was just getting pretty tired of killing people and being around people getting killed and being responsible for shooting people and killing people. When I went home after we shot the guy holding the kid, I went
to my wife and told her, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” I mean, I loved my job, but I hated what it made me do sometimes.

  Then I started having dreams about my eleven-year-old boy dying, recurring nightmares with different scenarios. I’d have dreams about him falling off of things, getting hit by cars, just different stuff. They’d wake me up at two or three o’clock in the morning, and I couldn’t go back to sleep.

  About a year after we killed the guy who was holding his son hostage, I decided I needed to get out of SWAT. It was really hard because I helped start the team here and I loved the job. I loved the guys. I loved SWAT. But on top of the nightmares, I had basically gotten to the point where I had started hating the world. I needed to get back to where I liked people again. So I went back to patrol. Pretty soon after I left SWAT, my attitude about people started to improve, and the nightmares about my son started going away. I don’t get them anymore, but I still miss SWAT. It’s hard, because I know I could go back if I just said the word. In fact, not too long ago, I was at a meeting with the major, and he told me he wanted me to go back over to SWAT. We talked about it, but I turned him down. I really want to come back in, but I know I can’t right now—not and maintain my sanity.

  • • •

  Over the years, I’ve put on a lot of officer survival training where I talk about the situation where I got shot. The PD even made a training tape where we reenacted the shooting. So I can look at what happened with a sense of detachment, but I have also had times where I’ve been extremely upset about it.

  The night I got shot, I was trying to kill the guy who was trying to kill me. I was doing everything possible to get an edge on him, and I’ve had some moments where the anger I felt that night comes back. Probably the biggest one came about ten years after the shooting when I was working as a sergeant in the Western Division. I was working a narcotics detail over there, teamed up with a guy named Vick Ancent, when we went to do an investigation over at the old St. Matthews Hotel. We were up on the roof, about ten stories up, looking around. There were needles up there, all kinds of other paraphernalia strewn around, and we were looking down into center-court windows of some of the rooms because we’d seen people shoot up right next to their windows before.