by Mark Johnson
I remember thinking, at this range I can’t miss, but even if I hit him there’s a good chance it’ll go clean through him and hit some ol’ granny or toddler behind him, and I really don’t want to kill him, he’s just a scared kid, what a helluva note to retire on, but I sure as hell am not gonna let him shoot me, or anybody else, and I start to squeeze the trigger.
Then I guess he has an epiphany or divine intervention or loses his nerve, because he drops to his knees and places the gun on the asphalt next to him. I charge, screaming, “Get on the ground!” and scoop up his weapon, stuff it in my belt, and put a boot between his shoulder blades. Holding my gun at the back of his head, about knee high, I radio for backup.
I know there’s all kinds of backup within a block’s radius of my location, but now the crowd starts to converge in around me, and they’re on his side. They’re mostly kids yelling at me, just boys and girls his own age, but I have no doubt some of them are armed just like the one on the ground had been, and I rip his gun back out of my belt and with both hands filled I sweep the crowd around me, keeping my foot on the kid’s back, screaming, “Get back or I’ll shoot!” They stop advancing, to my relief, but they don’t retreat.
Then the cavalry arrives. Literally. Mounted cops on horseback gallop through the crowd and herd them away from me. Others on foot and in cars arrive and form a perimeter. They cuff my prisoner, and Sammy from my precinct takes the kid’s gun from me, saying, “Mark fucking Eastwood! These punks picked the wrong corner today!” and a sergeant gingerly puts his hand on my gun hand, and says, “You can holster up and step off him now, Mark.” They hustle my prisoner off to a paddy wagon.
I take a deep breath and a Sammy offers me a smoke, which I take without a thought. The others are getting witness statements, gathering up spent .45 casings in the street from the shooter’s weapon, and doing reports for two people whose parked cars have shattered windows and bullet holes. Paramedics are called for an elderly female who thinks she may have been shot, but it turns out she only has abrasions from being knocked to the ground by the fleeing crowd. The shooter’s target never stopped running, never looked back. I’m told to go sit in my car, chill out, and write a narrative of the event, then turn it in to the mobile Command Unit, a couple blocks away.
A half hour later, I go to turn in my paperwork and inquire about the shooter. The commander informs me that the on-call detective has already interrogated the fifteen-year-old shooter and he’s been taken to Strickland juvie for discharging a firearm in the city limits, and no pistol permit. Both misdemeanors. I’m enraged. I tell the captain that I’ve just witnessed probably the most horrifying fifteen seconds in my decade of policing, and it wasn’t any fucking misdemeanor.
“You don’t have a victim,” he shrugs. “Your victim never stopped running. Without a victim its nu’n but misdemeanor Discharging and No Permit.”
I storm out of the Command trailer and drive with lights and siren to Strickland where I demand to interview the shooter. I read him his rights and he refuses to talk. He’s full of cool attitude and nonchalance.
“Fine, you don’t hafta talk, that’s your right,” I say. “But you’re in custody, and you do gotta listen.” I move in close, get right up in his face. “Do you realize how close I came to putting a bullet in you?” He betrays no emotion and looks away from me. “You came within a second of meeting Jesus, kid. I started to squeeze the trigger!” His eyes widen, and he faces me. “I’m old enough to be your granddaddy, and I’m fixin’ to retire, and the thought of having killed you coulda really fucked up my retirement. That pisses me off!
“And you mighta not been the only dead person at the parade today. You coulda killed any number of grandmas and babies in that crowd, not to mention the kid you were shooting at. There’s nothing any kid coulda done to you that’s worth all that bloodshed.”
My face is so close to him and I’m so furious I see little flecks of my saliva on his cheeks. He’s more wide eyed now than he was when I had him at gunpoint. I back off and take a breath.
He starts to tell me about how he just did it in “self-defense,” that the kid he was shooting at had shot and wounded his homeboy a few weeks ago at the movies, in an argument over a girl, and had been threatening them all on the Internet since then. I tell him that changes things, but he’s gotta tell me who the kid is, and he says he only knows him by “Money,” and he hangs in the “Bricks” (1010 Baltimore).
I head back to the precinct, get on Facebook, and find a little punk who calls himself Fat Money Goldmouth, whose page says he’s from the B’mo Bricks and sports numerous selfies posing with stacks of Benjamins and guns. Cross-checking with his Facebook friends leads me to the real name of the sixteen-year-old jackrabbit who dodged a .45 round in his back. His rap sheet’s three pages long, and I recall him as a suspect in several unsolved burglaries a year or so ago. By contrast, my shooter’s never been in trouble with the law, although you wouldn’t guess it from his Facebook page, where he calls himself D’thuggin Brown and strikes a menacing pose with a sneer and an AR-15 assault rifle. Both boys’ Facebook poses include lurid snapshots with their little teenage girlfriends who are dressed like hookers, sticking out their barely covered booties and boobies, licking their gangsta boys’ tattooed pectorals. They don’t even have driver’s licenses yet, these kids. They all still live at home with their mamas and attend high school. Where the hell are their parents, I wonder. To say nothing of their pastors, coaches, scoutmasters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, anybody with an ounce of moral fiber and sense of responsibility for these young savages, these feral kids.
Knowing the victim’s name, I track him down. He doesn’t wanna talk to the police, but I tell his mama and she makes him. They both thank me for saving his life. I secure his promise to testify and his written statement. As a result, the DA adds attempted murder to the shooter’s charges. D’thuggin eventually pleads guilty and, as a juvenile offender with no previous record, gets sent off to state school, but he’ll be back in time for the fall semester at his old high school if he behaves himself at Mount Meigs.
Epilogue
Time passes, seasons change. Things move slow and easy like the lazy waters of the bayous, with nothing much a bother but the ’skeeters. Parents neglect kids, kids shoot other kids; men rape, perverts molest; cops chase robbers and shoot shooters. The wheels of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small. All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.
Like hell.
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, a time to die . . . a time to kill, and a time to heal. Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.
Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Another half-second squeeze and I’da got me that teardrop from Tat Town.
But I say unto you Resist not evil; whosoever shall smite thee on thy cheek, turn to him the other also. Recompense to no man evil for evil. For it is written, Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. Love thine enemy, feed him if he hunger, give him drink if he thirst.
Not always.
For the Officer is God’s servant. The power of the Law is no empty phrase. He beareth not the sword in vain. He is the minister of God, the revenger to execute wrath, divinely appointed to inflict God’s punishment on evil doers.
Yeah.
But what about the wars and fightings among you? Can’t you see that they arise from conflicting passions within yourselves? You crave, you’re jealous, envious, and in your exasperated frustration, you lust and kill. You are like adulterers, you only want to satisfy your own desires, and thereby become the enemy of God.
And the Lord visits the sins of the fathers on the children and the children’s children unto the third and fourth generation.
So I turned my mind to understand, to inve
stigate and to search out wisdom, and the scheme of things, and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the madness of folly.
And yea, even as the fruit of fornicators’ loins, he the inflicter of wrath upon distant tribes, and she an adulterer possessed of concupiscence, yet I do good works, only to find the works barren, naught but vanity. I find mine own self ill equipped to resist the sins of the father. What I resist, persists. So I resist not, only to be consumed by them.
Therefore then did I gird my loins and take up the sword, did I receive divine appointment to execute wrath upon the heads of evildoers. And I found it good, I found it satisfying, nay I found it thrilling to wreak holy vengeance upon man, yet did I grow troubled by the evil within mine own heart and I feared that which I did know would dwell therein unto the end of my days.
For that which has been is what will be and that which is done is what will be done, and there is no remembrance of former things, nor any remembrance of things to come. I learneth not, and like the dog who returns to his own vomit, so this fool repeats his own folly.
But if the truth be known by its fruits, doth not the sweet pear Pete and the tangerine Kate (to say nothing of sober decades, of heartfelt almsgiving, and of righteous vengeance visited by mine own hand upon evildoers) count for something? Yea, though the more I seek the truth the more vexed do I become. Wisdom eludes me. Is redemption an illusion? And so the song of the honky tonk doth ever and anon speak anew to me: I’d rather have a bottle in fronta me than a frontal lobotomy. Whiskey river, take my mind, I beseech thee.
False gods, idols, and mine own head speak in tongues to me, vexing me. But this I do know: verily, when I am disturbed, the problem is within me, and I am powerless to fix the problem because it is me. I am the least, the lost, the most, the ghost. The walking, talking paradox. The vanity of vanities. Alone, I fight that which I cannot change, am blind to that which I can change, and fail even to know the difference.
But finally, what does the Lord require of me, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with Him? Let not my heart be troubled, nor let it be hardened. By grace alone am I saved, not works, lest I boast. (And Lord knows I boast, in my heart of hearts.)
And so on I trudge, the Road of Happy Destiny.
I ran into ol’ Tom McCall at the courthouse after word was out about my thirty-days’ notice to the department. We were both going down, and at the ground floor we walked together to the gun lockers to retrieve our sidearms.
“True what I heard about you?” he asked.
“Yeah, Lieutenant. It’s been a good run, but it’s time.”
“I didn’t believe it when I heard. You know how rumors fly around here. I figured for sure this one was crap, because I know what the job means to you. Give any thought to comin’ to the County?”
I shrugged, wondering how he knew what the job meant to me. “I just, you know . . . it feels like I’ve lived about eight of my nine lives, and I’m a little long in the tooth for this line of work.”
McCall shook my hand and squeezed hard and looked right into my eyes and held his gaze, all of which I found a little unsettling, even after all these years. The man’s a legend, after all.
“How old are you?” he asked, for the second time in twelve years.
“Sixty-two.” I paused a beat, just like last time. Then, “You?”
He smiled, perhaps remembering. “Not far behind you.”
“Haven’t you had your fill yet of being shot at, and shot, and . . . ?”
He looked away and shook his head slowly. “Not yet, I guess, not quite yet. But I get it, I understand. Hate it though, that you’re . . . you’ll be leavin’ a hole.”
“Thanks, LT,” I mumbled, averting my eyes.
As he turned and strode off, he said, “Ever need anything, call me. MCSO Narcotics.”
A few months after leaving the department, I found myself back in the precinct after Devin O’Malley responded to my cell phone request to pick up a thief I had detained at a bank on Government Street. (There’s a whole other story behind that, but don’t ask. It’s for another day.)
“We knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away for long,” they teased when I walked in.
And then I saw it.
Tacked on the wall above my old desk hung a photocopy of Dirty Harry gripping his .44 magnum, with my face photoshopped over Clint’s. The block letters W W M D were taped above the picture. Though I didn’t inquire as to the meaning, it was cheerfully explained that it stands for “What Would Mark Do.”
But I already knew that. Because I figure things out: I’m a detective.
Additional Reading
Links to news reports of Mobile police officer Steven Green’s death:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-8gWVES6eI
http://blog.al.com/live/2012/02/mobile_police_officer_fatally.html
http://blog.al.com/press-register-commentary/2012/02/death_of_police_officer_remind.html
http://blog.al.com/live/2012/02/mobile_police_identify_officer_2.html
http://blog.al.com/live/2012/02/policeslain_officer_steven_gre.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwJgpTsGfkA
http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/04/justice/alabama-officer-killed/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/04/us-alabama-police-shooting-idUSTRE81301N20120204
http://blog.al.com/live/2012/02/slain_police_officer_remembere.html
“Dodging the Bullet”. Mark Johnson’s damaged Glock and magazine, and the Meritorious Service and Wounded in Service medals from his confrontation with Lawrence Wallace, Jr.
Acknowledgments
Without the help and support of many, this book would never have been written, much less published. Special thanks to Nancy, for sticking by me through a lifetime of changes and challenges, and for serving as my primary proofreader, editor, and advocate, both on and off the page. Pete and Kate, both strong writers and sharp readers, provided criticism from their “millennial” perspective. Volunteer editors Jerry and Kay Friedlander, Tom and Nancy Dziubakowski, Craig and Chris Bogar, Greg and Connie Hetue, Phil Estep, Phil Norris, George Sinclair, Randy Moberg, Paul Kritzer, and especially Ernie Planck, provided encouragement and much constructive criticism.
Special thanks to active LEOs Adam Plantinga and Brian Overstreet, whose close reading and critical commentary kept the story squared-away and 10-8.
Friends and mentors Roy Hoffman and Charles Salzberg, long-published writers whose work I admire, generously shared their extensive experience, professional guidance, contacts, and navigation through the literary landscape.
The steadfast kindness, civility, and patience extended to me by Kent Sorsky and Jaguar Bennett of Quill Driver Books (to say nothing of their risk-taking, for giving me a shot) are much appreciated. Special thanks to Tom Swope, the only English teacher who ever encouraged me to pursue writing, and to editors Bill Crawford and Tom McClanahan of the ProRodeo Sports News and the Colorado Springs Sun, respectively, who actually paid me to write about ropers and bronc riders, freight-hopping hoboes, and long-haul truckers.
Finally, I owe a deep debt to the career law enforcement professionals who went out on a limb to hire me, especially Chief (now Sheriff) Sam Cochran, to the Academy staff and instructors who tortured, tutored, and trained me for the department, to the FTOs who prepared me to go solo on the streets, to the corporals, sergeants, lieutenants, and captains who led me, and to all my brothers and sisters in blue, too many to name, who had my back. They’d prefer to remain anonymous, anyway, but you’re in here, guys, you know who you are. Thanks for all you gave me, and all you continue to give.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Johnson grew up in Luling, Louisiana, and St. Louis, and graduated from the University of Colorado in 1974. Johnson served as campaign and public relations director for Pikes Peak United Way, executive director of United Way of Waukesha County, Wisconsin, and CEO of the United Way of Southwest Alabama.
After working for United Way fo
r over two decades, in 2002 Johnson chucked it all for a badge and a gun and thirteen bucks an hour with the Mobile Police Department. He was fifty.
As a sworn officer—six years in uniformed patrol, six years as a detective—Johnson received numerous Chief’s and Commander’s citations for meritorious arrests, and received the medal for Excellent Police Duty, the Chief’s Unit Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, and the Wounded in Service Medal. He also received a handful of “performance observations” and citizen complaints, usually related to inappropriate radio traffic, car wrecks and demeanor issues.
Johnson and his wife Nancy have been married for forty years; they are the parents of two and the grandparents of five. They live in Fairhope, Alabama.
Index
Adoptees in Search, 128–130, 135–136
Alabama Department of Human Services, 62–63
American Red Cross, 12, 16, 18, 20, 253
Annual Red Cross Heroes Banquet, 11–14
Albuquerque Police Department, 23, 31
contract psychologist, 25–34
exams, 26, 31
Andrews, LT, 184–185
Americans with Disabilities Act, 31
Anderson, Tyrone, 41, 45–46, 51–52, 112, 211
Andrews, Andy, 299
Anger management, 91, 99–105
Arson First degree, 271
Assault, 44–45, 71, 88
Atmore Penitentiary, 227, 230
Badger Recovery Group, 113
Bailey (Officer), 259, 262–263, 277–278
Baltimore Street Baptist, 154