01/29/2025
"This is me at 21 years old. This is the day I graduated from the Detroit police academy at 4:00pm, went home and took a couple hour nap, woke up at 9:30 that night and reported to my first tour of duty at the 12th Precinct for midnight shift. Look at that smile on my face. I couldn't have been more excited, more proud. Armed with my dad's badge that he wore for 25 years on my chest, one of my mom's sergeant stripe patches in my pocket, my lucky $2.00 bill tucked into my bulletproof vest, a gun I was barely old enough to purchase bullets for on my hip and enough naive courage for a small army, I headed out the door...my mom snapped this photo on my way.
The next 17 years would bring plenty of shed blood, black eyes, torn ligaments, stab wounds, stitches, funerals, a head injury, permanent and irreparable nerve damage, 5 ruptured discs, some charming PTSD and depression issues and a whole lot of heartache. They brought missed Christmases with my family, my absence from friends' birthday get-togethers, pricey concert tickets that were forfeited at the last minute because of a late call and many sleepless nights.
I've laid in wet grass on the freeway for three hours watching a team of burglars and orchestrating their apprehension, I've dodged gunfire while running down a dark alley in the middle of the night chasing a shooting suspect, I've argued with women who were too scared to leave their abusive husbands until they realized they had to or they would end up dead. I've peeled a dead, burned baby from the front of my uniform shirt, I've felt the pride of putting handcuffs on a serial ra**st and I've cried on the chest of and kissed the cheek of my dead friend, coworker and academy classmate even though it was covered in his own dried blood and didn't even look like him from all the bullet holes. I know what a bullet sounds like when it's whizzing past your ear, a few inches away, I know what the sound of a Mother's shrilling scream is like when she finds out her so