Nothing good happens after 11 p.m. As a general rule, if it’s nighttime, you should be sleeping. I mean, I would. Why people are out running around at all hours of the night is still a mystery to me. Can I get an Amen?
Shortly after 4 a.m. when the cobwebs are freshly formed on the minds of just about every midnight officer, a call came in for a guy in dark clothing walking down the middle of one of the main roads in the city. The caller was concerned that this man would get hit by a car or cause an accident. As luck would have it, the walking dead chose my route to be awake in, instead of, oh, I don’t know, sleeping in his own bed.
Thousand Yard Stare
My neighboring sector car arrived first. He was ahead of me, and because the road sloped downward in front of me, I could see both my partner’s cruiser and the guy walking in the distance. My partner came over the radio that he had told the guy to stop but he blew right past him with no indication he intended to listen.
The guy was dressed in dark clothing, hands in his jacket pockets, with his hood up. He moved with the pace of an Olympic speed walker (yes, that’s a real thing) and the intellectual absence of a zombie. He had the classic thousand-yard-stare as he plodded forward as if completely oblivious to the world around him. There was nothing intimidating about his stature. He was skinny and not that tall, but the look in his eyes was something else.
This Bites
I parked my cruiser in the middle of the two lane road and got out as my partner jogged after the guy and grabbed onto one of his arms,and in that moment, the fight was on. I promptly joined in and we wrestled the guy to the ground. He was strong — stronger, certainly, than he looked. The fact that it was two-on-one, that we had given him command after command, and that we were now pig piled on top of him, all had no effect. That’s when the biting began. I decided if our defensive tactics didn’t work, that I would just bite him. He’d never see that coming.
Just kidding.
He started biting us — like a hungry zombie. I could feel his hot, moist breath just before he bit the fingers on my left hand. Instinctively I jerked my hand away and lost some skin in the process. As soon as I pulled my hand away he went for my partner’s lower leg. During the fray my partner was able to get one handcuff on the guy’s left wrist, but we could not get his other hand behind his back to completely handcuff him. I had his other arm and I also was able to get one handcuff on. Rolling around in the middle of the street, struggling, and fighting, we could not get his guy handcuffed and we were sucking wind and almost completely out of energy.
Batter Up
We weren’t issued Tasers at the time, so out came the batons. We had done what we could and it was time to step up to the plate before this guy ate us for breakfast. I started hitting him on the back of his lower legs as hard as I could. And so did my partner, but our situation did not improve, and it only made us more tired. In fact, the guy never even made a sound. Not an Ouch, not a curse, nothing.
The whole encounter was eerily quiet — aside from us yelling at him, of course. By this point we were completely spent, and back-up had not yet arrived. We had him turtled beneath us, with his head and knees bent under him, and his curved back up in the air as we fought to get his hands behind his back. His left arm was up and bent at the elbow so his hand was behind his head. His right arm, however, was down, bent at the elbow with his hand by his lower back. We were able to bring each open end of the handcuffs together near his shoulder blades, connecting them in an almost figure-8-like shape. Not exactly what they taught us in the Academy, but it was the best we could do.
First and Only
Once we got them connected, we slumped on top of him trying to catch our breath and keep him contained. While we waited for the Paddy Wagon, I distinctly remember looking down at the guy’s hands and watching him rub his thumbs and forefingers together, like he was making the universal sign for money. The whole time the only noise he ever made was the sound of his primal, guttural breathing. Very eerie. The Wagon finally arrived and with the help of a couple more guys we were able to get him handcuffed properly and transported to the station where he continued to fight.
When the adrenaline wore off and dawn finally ended the night of the living dead, my shoulder felt like I had just pitched a bunch of fastballs with no warm-up. I had given each swing everything I had and he didn’t even feel it. He was the first and only person I have ever hit with a baton.
Sometimes in life we try things that don’t work out. Stuff comes at us, things happen, and we do our best with the tools that we have, but we just end up exhausted lying in a heap waiting for someone to rescue us. That can be true in our personal lives as well as in our work lives — hopefully minus the zombies. So what do we do about it?
1. Options = Power
The more options you have, the more power you have. That night on the street I had my officer presence, my voice, my brain, my partner, and a duty belt that would make Batman jealous. I had various options to choose from within the boundaries set by the context of my encounter. However, not every option was a good option, and some options are just off the table. For example, I couldn’t just shoot the guy, that would have gone too far, and I couldn’t stand there and reason with him, that wouldn’t have gone far enough. I had to make choices that were legal and moral to bring the situation to the safest possible conclusion. Even though it didn’t go very well and it got a little messy, we got the job done with some help in the end. The more options that you have with your given situation minimizes the chances of painting yourself into a corner, getting hurt, or doing something drastic that you’ll regret.
2. Call for Backup
Somewhere in the middle of the fray we asked for more units and the Wagon. We knew that what we were doing was not working and that we would need help. I think most would agree that calling for backup was a smart thing to do. But when it comes to asking for help in our personal lives, we balk, procrastinate, or just pretend that everything is fine and never ask for the help that we need. For some reason we think that asking for help is a sign of weakness or incompetence. Sure, there are things that we ought to be able to handle on our own, but there are plenty more that no one should face alone. Calling for backup or asking for help should occur the moment we know we’re going to need it. Waiting too long means that help might not be able to arrive in time to have any kind of positive impact. Never asking for it simply guarantees it.
3. Never Give Up
Our mental and physical capacities are interrelated, connected, but not always equal. We might start out in amazing physical condition, get earlobes deep in something, and then become physically exhausted but still maintain a positive mindset. Or we might encounter a challenge that is really no problem for us physically, but mentally we fall apart. It’s important to remember that when we become exhausted — no matter what our body or our emotions are telling us — that we decide to never give up.
As police officers we bring a gun to every fight and losing that fight is not an option. It’s imperative to our survival that we never give up, that we keep fighting until we win or until help arrives. Your life might feel like a mess right now — mine has been very overwhelming as of late — but we have to find a way to win. Doubt and fear will always be knocking at the door of our hearts and minds, but no matter what we are feeling we can choose to keep at it, to find a way to win. If we can just hold on, not quit, ask for help, and continue to explore and develop our options, we will come out better for it on the other side.
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- How are you at finding and utilizing options?
- When’s the last time you didn’t ask for help, but should have?
- What is your mindset when things don’t go as planned?
- What personal zombies are you facing right now?
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