I Like Cops, part 1: TO ALL THE SQUIRRELS I'VE LOVED BEFORE

I've never been on a scene like that before.

I suppose it was only a matter of time. Events like those are kind of like waiting for a bus... sooner or later, you know one is going to come along.

When I really think about it, I suppose I have to acknowledge that there are certain situations that will, surely, come to pass in my professional life.

I know that, sooner or later, I'm going to come across a severed head.

I have no doubt that, eventually, I'll have to deal with a crispy-critter (the euphemism for a person who either died in a fire, or died and then was set on fire- accidentally or intentionally) .

I'm certain a drowning is on my horizon.

And there's no way I can avoid an auto-erotic asphyxiation... they happen WAY more often than people realize.

Some milestones have already come and gone, including the "Asphyxiation-by-Helium" death (remember when you were a kid and inhaled the helium from balloons so you could talk like a munchkin... and your Mom made you stop because it was "bad for you"? Well, turns out she was right) the "Guy Dropped Dead of a Heart-Attack at the Gym" death (When they tell you to check with your doctor before starting any work-out routine, they mean it) and most recently.... the "Suicide-by-Cop" death... officially known as the "Officer Involved Shooting"... I just had my first one.

It really wasn't as interesting as one would think

It's not like there was a lot for me to do. By the time I got to the scene of the whole debacle, every available officer in a 3-county-radius had arrived and was standing around trying to look serious and important. The entire residential neighborhood where the shooting had occurred was taped off. The event took place on a Sunday so EVERYONE in the little suburban cul de sac was home and setting up deck chairs in order to watch the whole tragedy unfold before them while they reclined on their front porches and sucked down beer. News vans were piled up on top of each other with cameramen and stern-faced reporters straining for a glimpse of the body or an idle sound byte uttered by a careless officer or detective... ANYTHING that would make THEIR news report the one that people would watch.

I just kind of stood there, wondering exactly what my role in the whole episode was supposed to be. After all, it's my job to collect the body for an autopsy and pull together the pertinent information by which the pathologists can determine cause and manner of death. In this case, there was no question what the cause of death was... I mean, about 300 eye-witnesses (and their i-phones) could attest to the fact that they guy had taken a single shot to the chest. So as far as I could tell, my work was done. But everyone and their supervisor had to show up and help oversee the investigation as to whether or not the death could have been avoided... and until THAT question was answered, the stiff and I weren't going anywhere.

We had to wait about 5 hours. The details of the scene investigation were profoundly tedious so I won't describe them. The circumstances aren't particularly unusual, so I won't divulge them. Suffice to say that the officer truly had no other choice than to shoot this guy... and the guy knew that, heck, the guy counted on it. What's more, the "Major-Crimes Detectives" came to that conclusion and told me to get the body out of there ASAP just as the disaster relief team was arriving with pizza and coffee... so I didn't get any.

All levity aside...

The whole incident was truly heart-breaking. There was no real redemptive angle from which to view it. As crass as I may seem at times, I try to see where something true or decent or hopeful can come from a death. It makes my job bearable and keeps me nominally sane. But this event was nothing but complicated, stressful and sad for everyone.

Naturally, the decedent had a slew of problems which prompted the whole "Suicide-by-Cop" event, and I couldn't really attest to his character. But I noticed, as we were doing the official "walk-though" of his residence, he had recently painted a picture of a windmill in a field at sunset. It was a really good painting and it hurt my heart a little to see it.

The officer who actually pulled the trigger was not someone I knew well. But I recognized his name when I heard it, and I remembered that he was a super-nice guy who had been really helpful on a couple of my cases. And along with my empathy for the decedent's family, I couldn't help but feel terrible for Deputy *name omitted*. I couldn't imagine how he felt. Moreover, I couldn't imagine that moment that he must have experienced... that moment when he thought to himself, "Crap, I'm going to have to shoot this guy"....

Later on, I made the tragic mistake of checking out the local news online, where an incredibly brief and altogether un-enlightening article basically stated that a local officer had shot and killed a man... and no further information had been released.

Despite the fact that the "article" was completely uninformative and generic, people felt justified in posting up a storm of crazy comments. Some claimed that the officer was a dirty bastard who ought to be strung up. Others claimed that there would be a huge cover up conspiracy and any witnesses who tried to come forward with information would probably "disappear". In general, the assumption was made that the officer had gunned down the decedent in a fit of demonic cruelty while the decedent had been going door to door, passing out kittens and collecting donations for UNICEF or something. The truth never occurred to anyone... that this nut-job had been drunkenly waving a loaded assault rifle around on a temperate Sunday afternoon while small children played in their back-yards throughout the neighborhood. And the idea that a swarm of dark-clothed, goverment "cleaners" came through and sanitized the entire event was just ludicrous. The scene had been anything but hurriedly hushed-up. If nothing else, it had been deplorably boring and widely publicized. Everyone was afraid of screwing something up so EVERY detail of EVERY policy and procedure had been meticulously followed. Besides, the neighbors had watched the whole investigation from their front lawns. One of them even let me park in their driveway.

It made me sad. The chasm between the police and the civillians they're supposed to serve is tragically vast. And the fact is this: police are people. A lot of them are good, some of them are bad... just like any population... for example... a population of coffee shop poets... or a population of social-action protesters. A lot of them are good... some of them are bad. And if you don't believe me, let me tell you about some of the coffee shop poets or social-action protesters I've come across in my life...

There has been a lot of bad press. From the Rodney King beatings to the Occupy Movement, police forces have really (often deservedly) been lambasted for unnecessary force and brutality. And on a personal level, I know plenty of people who believe law enforcement officers are all power-drunk sociopaths with an open license to maim and kill. On occassion, that's true. As a paramedic, I was sometimes witness to some really deplorable behavior on the part of cops and I'm not proud to say that I turned a blind eye in the interest of maintaining good inter-agency relations. I once made out with a police officer with whom I was UTTERLY smitten but he totally blew me off afterwards. I've had more officers than I can count completely wuss-out on me when the time came to move a decomposing body.

But the fact remains,

I like cops...

The biggest problem is, people only hear about cops when they either assault someone, kill someone, or get killed themselves. Consequently, the majority of the populace is under the impression that all cops do is kill and die.

oh, wait... more specifically the impression is that all cops do is eat doughnuts, pull people over for speeding, kill and die.

In response to these misconceptions... and to remind people that when it comes to the law enforcement agencies around the country, they hear more about the exceptions than the rule... I humbly interrupt our previous series, "Can't Buy Me Love" and instead, offer up the following stories:

I LIKE COPS: Part 1

TO ALL THE SQUIRRELS I'VE LOVED BEFORE

-I was on the scene of a death the other day. The police had called me there because it seemed the decedent had crushed up all the pills in her medicine cabinet and then every last particle of those tablets had gone up her nose via a McDonald's straw. Another day, another overdose... It's a living.

After going through our scene investigation and drawing some blood samples for toxicology, there wasn't much more for us to do but wait. That's one of the more unfortunate facts of the job, I spend a lot of time waiting. I wait for funeral homes, I wait for chaplains, I wait for detectives, I wait for supervisors, I wait for phone calls. And usually, when I'm waiting, I'm doing that waiting in the home of a complete stranger who is somewhere nearby... assuming room temperature. Furthermore, when I'm waiting, there's always a police officer waiting with me.

It's during these intervals that I really get to know the local police. And I can tell you this: Cops are absolute, incurable snoops... and so am I. Technically, police aren't allowed to search a home without the consent of the legal occupants, probable cause, or a warrant. However, state law gives me permission to gain entrance to any area in which a death has occurred and effectively toss the place for any items or information that will assist in determining cause and manner of death. In short, if anyone in such a scenario has an open license to do anything they want, I do. And I use it.

Furthermore, my authority to freely snoop through someone's home extends to any officers who are assisting me in my duties. So when we're stuck waiting for whatever we happen to be waiting for in a given situation, the cops and I do what any overly curious public servants would do... we look around.

This situation was no different. Or should I say, this situation was a little different, in that the decedent was a hoarder and seemed to have a particular affection for old pill bottles and squirrel parephernalia. We had found medication bottles from up to10 years earlier, stuffed with practically anything you could imagine; safety pins, loose change, q-tips, razor blades. And squirrels decorated virtually every available surface of her home. She had posters, calendars, figurines, coffee cups, plush animals. To top it all off, (literally) the entire residence was coated in a thick, downy layer of dust. Every item had a soft, furry layer of filth blanketing it which broke loose and floated to the ground whenever the arrangement of kitch was disturbed. Which is perhaps why it took me a while to spot the actual squirrel.

"Oh my GOD!" I squealed to the officer "look at that!"

"WHAT?" he snapped to attention, alarmed. He had been sifting through a pile of battered, bodice-ripper romance novels and whirled around with one of them in his hand like he was ready to pommel someone to death with his autographed copy of "A Pirate's Passion".

"Over there! On the entertainment center!" In my excitement, I scrambled over a 5 foot tall stack of newspapers, vaulted the coffee table and scaled a mountain of dirty clothes before getting close enough to snatch the item off of the television. "Look!" I crowed to the officer, "look, look, look!"

It was a squirrel... a REAL one... kind of. The squirrel had been taxidermied and posed in a stance of snarling menace. It bore it's little plastic teeth and crouched low with it's crumbling, moth-eaten tail held aloft.

"Holy shit," the officer gasped in awe, THAT is AWESOME!" He pulled out his camera. "Dude, let me take a picture of you with it!"

What followed was a half-hour long photo shoot, featuring myself and the officer taking turns snapping pictures of one another, posing with the stuffed squirrel. He got one of me holding it up, game-show style, with my hands in a graceful flourish... kind of a : "...and behind door number 3, we have a LOVELY example of modern taxidermy with all the precicious flair of your favorite furry friend! The common squirrel!" On the other hand, I got one of him, nose to nose with the squirrel and an expression of un-blinking challenge on his face as he stared the squirrel down: "... ya think yer tough, big man... huh? Do ya?"

In the end, we agreed that the squirrel needed to be shared with everyone else, so the officer posed the little animal on the back of the couch so it would be the first thing the transport guys saw when they walked into the apartment.

It scared the crap out of them.

And because it's too short to make up an entry on it's own:

THE ROADSIDE RANGER

-I was on the scene of a death the other day and while we were waiting for the funeral home to show up and collect the body, the officer and I started talking about motorcycles. He told me about his Harley, and I mentioned that my 650cc crotch-rocket had a dead battery. The following day he paged me and offered to come by with his portable battery and give my bike a jump. As we were pulling the seat off my bike to connect the cables, he mentioned that he kept the portable battery in the trunk of his patrol car and usually jumped about 5 or 6 cars a day.

"It's just that a dead battery is such a small problem..." he shrugged. "And a tow truck will charge folks $50 just to come out and jump their car. I'd rather do it myself than have to deal with someone getting creamed by a car because they're hanging around on the side of the road, talking on their cell phone or wondering what to do."

Stay tuned for more nice stories about good cops... I have many.

Can't Buy Me Love

So, I'm going to let you in on a pretty significant little secret...

... one that movie-makers and reality TV producers have done their best to keep under wraps ever since the very first Disney cartoon princess pirouetted off a movie screen and into our collective psyche for all eternity... happily ever after, if you will.

Well, the fact is... you won't. There is no happily ever after. I should know.

I'm a newlywed...

... and it sucks

A LOT.

Maybe not everyone has had the same experience I have. Hell, maybe my husband's experience has been completely different from mine. All I know is that I feel the same way about marriage as a friend of mine felt about medical school. He had just ripened and fallen off the graduation tree and was looking for a downhill roll into residency. I had been trolling the streets for the broken and dying in an ambulance for two years and was thinking of upping my stats and going for the big "MD" myself.

"Chris..." I remember asking him, "What would you say if I told you that I was thinking of going to medical school?" I was fully expecting him to give the arched spine of my ego a luxurious little stroke like the eager kitten that I was. So many people had told me that I was too smart to be on an ambulance and should really go to medical school, I never imagined Chris would say anything contrary to that popular opinion.

"Well," he said, scrunching his eyebrows together and pausing to look up from his applications. "I would say that if you can think of anything else you want to do with your life, do that instead."

It was the most brutal advice I've ever gotten. His bare-faced honesty let all the helium out of the romanticized fairy-tale that I had envisioned. He made me face the truth: That becoming a doctor is a long, hard and expensive fucking path and unless you are absolutely bone-deep certain that it's what you're meant do... you might want to pursue some other options.

I did exactly that... and became a medical examiner, a job that suits me far better than practicing medicine ever would have for a myriad of reasons. For starters, I can't STAND living patients. They talk too much.

I think many people view marriage the same way that I viewed medical school: From the outside, looking in. It sure looks appealing and fulfilling. It sure has been touted as being a great thing to do. and if mass media and all the literature from "Modern Bride" magazine can be believed, marriage is the pinnacle of the human existence and should absolutely result in blissful contentment for the rest of your life... the same way that medical school should result in huge paychecks and infallible professional respect for the rest of your life.

The truth is, love is an angry bear that's just woken up from hibernation. Marriage is inviting that bear into your house to snack on your guts.

(Apparently, being a doctor isn't all it's cracked up to be either. But that's not my story to tell.)

Don't get me wrong, I adore my husband and I know we are going to live together until we either die... or kill each other. I don't regret marrying him and I feel about our relationship the way aspiring doctors should feel about medical school... I am absolutely bone-deep certain that this is what we were meant to do... but that doesn't mean it's fun.

Take, for example, the incident that I now refer to as "Vacuum-gate".

My husband and I had just moved from a 1 bedroom apartment to a 2 bedroom apartment. We agreed that we needed a new vacuum and my husband went out and purchased one. When he returned from this quest, I remember thinking the vacuum he had selected looked more like the Death-Star and asked my husband how much it cost. When he told me that it was a $400 vacuum that he'd gotten for $300, I almost swallowed my tongue. I wanted to say something akin to "DEAR SWEET CHRIST!!! Are you OUT of your fucking MIND?"

Instead I said, "Ummmm... that seems like a LOT for a vacuum.."

At least that's what I thought I said.

But judging from his reaction, I'm pretty sure in his mind, it sounded a lot like, "DEAR SWEET CHRIST!!! Are you OUT of your fucking MIND?"

What followed was a three-day ordeal that wasn't really about vacuums at all, but more about control, the balance of power, what does money mean to each of us and do I have any faith at all in my husband's ability to make a good decision.

It was perhaps the most miserable three days of my life, filled with tension and angst and clipped words snarled through grinding teeth. I was so overwrought with the conflict that it began seeping into my workday. I would roll into the scene of a death and as soon as the lead police officer was done giving me the details surrounding the incident, I would respond with, "Um... okay... yeah. That's all really interesting. Dude, tell me something. How much do you think is a reasonable amount to spend on a vacuum?"

(Just for the record, the officers of Oswald county generally agree that $100 is an acceptable price.)

Fortunately, Vacuum-gate was handled and filed away as an amusing newly-wed anecdote. But, like so many other mishaps, that little glitch (along with a few dozen others) was marital armageddon to me for a brief period of time. And if I wasn't absolutely dedicated to staying married to my husband, that incident (along with a few dozen others) could have easily been the straw that broke this camel's back.

Love is hard.

Marriage is harder.

And like virtually every difficult (but worthwhile) endeavor that exists, people think that they can take short cuts in love and marriage. They think they can get the "Cliff's Notes" version and just cram the night before the test. They think they can hire someone else to write the essays. They think they can skip the gym and just get liposuction. They think they can fake it... or worse... they think they can buy it.

They can't.

Bad things happen when people try to buy love... or buy a passing imitation of love. Purchased love is a scratchy, ill-fitting knock-off with fraying seams and a ragged hem. It might look good for a night or two, but a "love-ish" relationship brought about by money is never going to last. The construction quality is for shit. In fact, I offer up this little equation that I worked out to further convey my meaning.


Love + Money = Death

I offer up these cautionary tales as proof:

CAN'T BUY ME LOVE: Part I

I couldn't tell you what time of night it was when I got the call. It was the dead of night and I had been woken out of a deep sleep. I was told that I was going to a gun-shot wound to the head, but dispatch didn't feel much like elaborating. Nor did dispatch feel like giving me directions, but that was no problem since I'm pretty sure the scene had to have been visible from outer-space. With the spotlights from 6 police cars directed towards the front door and every interior light on, the house was lit up like the Las Vegas strip. What struck me as strange, though, was the fact that not a soul was in sight when I arrived. I parked my "death-mobile" in front of the modest, split-level home, hauled all of my equipment out of the front seat and approached the wide-open front door with more than just a little trepidation. Inside I could hear a woman screaming frantically in a language which was decidedly NOT English, but I couldn't actually SEE a single living person. I did, however, see the dead person as I poked my head in the front door and called out a cautious "Hello?" Before me was a typical suburban-home front-foyer, with all the expected decor and visual pleasantries. But as I glanced up the stairway to the second floor, I noted the feet of a dead body... poking out from the upstairs hallway. .

"Ummm.... HELLO?" I called out again, marvelling at the complete lack of scene security. I could be ANYONE walking in here... I thought to myself as I listened to the unbroken stream of caterwauling that floated up from somewhere within the house. I could just walk in here and start stealing the candlesticks, or taking pictures of the dead guy or...

"Medical examiner!" I yelled, after briefly considering calling out "Cat-burglar!" or "Nosey media!" as either one of those identifiers could have easily gotten me shot.

"Oh, HEY!"

An officer had wandered out of the up-stairs bedroom where our dead guy was laying. He waved cheerfully at me (the officer, not the dead guy) joined me in the front hall and filled me in on the evening's details.

"Guy's 58 years old," the officer said, gesturing to the feet at the top of the stairs. "Looks like a self-inflicted gunshot-wound to the head. Wife saw the whole thing. We're checking trajectory and all to make sure she didn't actually shoot him. But it all looks pretty straight-forward as far as who pulled the trigger. We're just having a tough time with her. She doesn't speak any English."

As though on cue, the steady cries from the back of the house crescendoed to a near inhuman, super-sonic pitch and I was pretty sure that dogs' heads were exploding throughout the neighborhood.

"Okay," I said "Well, I think I'm going to let you guys finish up your deal first. I'll go see if I can get anywhere with the wife."

He shrugged.

"Good luck."

I found the wife in a small living room toward the back of the house. She was cowering in a corner of a large couch and clutching a cat who squirmed in a grumpy fashion and appeared to be barely tolerating her grip. The woman's eyes bulged with terror and shed a steady flow of tears as she gasped out phrase after phrase of...

"Chinese."

This one word was growled by the clearly annoyed deputy who stood nearby with a pen and pad of paper in hand. I glanced around the room and spotted two other Asian gentlemen who seemed to be clad in only pajamas and running shoes. The deputy explained that the young lady had moved into the home 11 month prior. She had married our decedent "fresh off the boat" so to speak, and had been attempting to adjust to newlywed life since then... newlywed life with a complete stranger...

...who didn't speak a lick of Chinese.

And in case you missed this little fact earlier, the traumatized young lady on the couch didn't speak a lick of English.

"Wait, wait," I said to the deputy. "You mean to say, she ONLY speaks Chinese and our dead guy ONLY spoke English?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Well... okay then. Um, wow."

The young lady's entire interview was being carried out with the loosely-termed "help" of the two other men in the room who only spoke marginally more English than she did. Furthermore, the deputy asking the questions obviously didn't have a lot of experience with people for whom English was a second language.  His aggravation was evident.  The muscles around his jawline stood out in stark relief as he snapped question after question at the two gentlemen who struggled to understand. Then struggled even more in the attempt to translate the woman's howls into a cohesive, English sentence. Near as anyone could tell, the wife had been attempting to learn English with nightly classes, but her progress had done little to relieve the stress in the household. It appeared both husband and wife had underestimated how truly difficult a mail-order marriage would be. Instead of wedded bliss and unquestioning adoration, the husband had found himself alone in his house with a shy, nervous, wall-flower of a girl who needed assistance with even the most basic activities.  And who knows what she thought of him, but by virtue of the fact that he had killed himself rather than try to find a different, better option, I couldn't imagine he was too easy to live with either.

"She say things are better lately. She try. She try to say 'I love you'

"Okay," I addressed everyone in the room "Since I'm just getting here, can we review what we know so far."

"Right." said the officer. "Okay, so... today, she went to work at a Chinese friend's house where she watches their kids. She spent the whole day there while our guy left to do something else."

"Left to do what?" I asked

"She doesn't know. Anyway, he came to pick her up and took her to her English classes around 7. He left her there until he came to pick her up."

"What did he do while she was in class?"

"She doesn't know. So they come back home and-"

The officer went on to describe how the wife was under the impression everything was normal and went on with getting ready to go to bed (in her separate bedroom). She was in the kitchen, getting some milk when she saw her "husband" standing at the top of the stairs with a gun in his hand. (An image that must have terrified the living-shit out of her since no one in China owns a gun.) He said something to her... a phrase that will forever be lost to history... since he said it in FUCKING ENGLISH. He then proceeded to hold the gun to his temple and blow his brains out... right in front of her.

Pretty much every question that I asked for the rest of the night was uniformly answered with the phrase: "She doesn't know." The wife didn't know if the decedent had any friends. She didn't know if he had kids from previous relationships. She didn't know if he had brothers or sisters, or if his parents were still alive. She had no idea that the decedent even owned a gun. She didn't know if he was on any medications. She didn't know if he had ever attempted suicide in the past or had problems with depression. She didn't even know if they owned their house or rented it. The only information that could be recovered, we found by tossing the home-office and sifting though a mountain of paperwork on the kitchen table. Turns out our decedent was involved in a slew of lawsuits, he was taking antidepressants, and the house was being foreclosed on.

All of this essentially meant that this woman, who didn't speak any English and had the social skills of a 12-year-old, was now responsible for... well... everything. As legal next-of-kin, all of his problems were now hers... to have and to hold from this day forward.

My burning frustration with the language barrier and utter lack of useful facts fizzled out as I began to comprehend the reality of the woman's situation. Her panicked eyes flicked from one stranger to another, her face was a puckered caricature of confusion and fear. She squeezed her cat tighter with each heaving sob. It was painful to watch, but the worst thing about it was the knowledge that, even after having witnessed one of the most grotesque events imaginable, her trauma had only just begun. Soon she would be thrown to the lawyers, the collection agencies and all manner of swindler who wouldn't hesitate to rampage through the decimated landscape of her life until every last penny had been harvested. Who would help her? The two guys who were translating for her were just her employer and his brother. Already they were starting to look anxious and eager to leave. No one wanted any part of this whole mess and the blushing bride was essentially on her own.

I resisted the urge to have the translators tell the woman to catch the first plane back to China and try to forget any of this ever happened. As much as that seemed like her best option, it wasn't my place to offer that kind of advice. Then I resisted the urge to go upstairs and slap the shit out of the corpse on sheer principle, then demand that he explain himself.

Seriously...

My husband and I knew each other for 12 years before we even started dating. I absolutely worship him and I don't mind saying that he was stupid over me for at least 11 of those 12 years. Furthermore, you can say what you want about men and women and how we all speak a different language... but at least my husband and I share an alphabet. Yet even in the presence of all those advantages, there are days that I feel so discouraged over our relationship that I want to shoot myself in the head too. And given the problems that can be generated between 2 English speaking adults with common interests and an unshakable desire to make their relationship succeed, I could not even begin to fathom the tension these two had been living with.

It sounded like hell...  but what did he think was going to happen?

Did this guy think he could beat the system? Did he think he could somehow worm his way around one of the most mysterious and elusive emotions in all of human experience and just.... import it?   Did she think she had been rescued?  Did she think that a quickie marriage to a stranger in the magical land of America would solve all of her problems?


Did they think they'd found a loophole?

Maybe he did. And maybe when he realized that he couldn't manufacture the circumstances that make a loving and fulfilling marriage... he couldn't find a way out of his own scheme.

I guess that's the thing about traps... they look a lot like loopholes. Till they tighten around your neck and the only thing you can think about is how to get out if it.

It's a widely known fact that you can't cheat death, but this guy learned the hard way that you can't cheat love either...

and you sure as hell can't buy it.

Stay tuned for "Can't buy me love: Part II"