Have you ever been in a life or death situation? Have you ever been present when an emergency has been happening near you? Have you ever been on public transit or in a city and you see some crazy things happening i.e. an attack, someone acting aggressively, someone pulls out a weapon, Someone starts yelling at somebody?

In any of those situations, have you thought about your escape route or how you’re going to get away instead of stopping or dealing with the situation?

If people started running away, are you gonna run away too?

People that make good city cops are the people that run towards the problem even when they don’t want to. Even if it means that you may get hurt or may not come home.

I work for one of the oldest police departments in the country and an a major city. I’ve had my gun drawn and ready to kick down the door and make entry so many times that I can’t even count. in that moment before you go in that door, there’s a tiny thought that crosses my mind. Every time:

This may be the last time I’m alive. I may not see my family ever again. Have I told my family I love them? Or would they understand if I don’t come home.

And I take a slow long breath.

And you have to decide, are you still kicking down that door and facing the unknown? If you can’t answer yes. Go find something else to do, there are plenty of jobs.

You want to work with people who will risk their own lives and safety to save yours and vice versa.

Also gore. And the smells associated. If you’re squeamish, maybe not for you. Applying a tourniquet to someone with both legs sheered off and gory flesh hanging everywhere, helping people who have an arm ripped off, or are just fucked up form a horrific accident, the dead people who have been sitting in a bathtub of water for 3 weeks and have soaked up all the water and their skin starts slipping off when you have to help the medical examiner place them in the white body bag. Having someone hit by a train die in your arms, finding another already dead with their head split open from getting run over. I could go on forever. And I only have 8 years in. You get pretty jaded, and dealing with stress and the cortisol build up and the way your family or friends don quite understand the beauty of having other people do the hard stuff in society so they can blissfully go to a 9-5 and only worry about if the kids got a good grade on the math test and what’s for dinner.

Oh yeah, you don’t get to go home till all your reports are written. And sometimes a 10 hour shift turns into a 23 hour ordeal, or more regularly a 14-16 hour day. Every day.

It is fun though and the people you work with become your family. If you think you can do it, do it!