Honor a Living Public Safety Hero

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Adoro who blogs at Adoro Te Devote has asked me and others who didn't necessarily participate in the Meme circulated in the blogosphere honoring all the dead of the 9-11 tragedy, to honor a living Public Safety Professional as a Living 9-11 Hero. See her nominee and the criteria here.

If you haven't been tagged by Adoro, please feel free to nominate someone if you feel that they meet the criteria. They don't have to have been in New York, Washington or Shanksville to be eligible. Public Safety Heroes are in every community of the country.

I regularly correspond with someone who is my Law Enforcement Hero. I wouldn't call him modest so I'll let you be the judge as I'm going to let him speak for himself. His biggest fault in life and it's something he's proud of is that he doesn't believe in capital letters when he types. (I've removed identifying information relating to these real law enforcement cases).

1. last friday we went out to arrest this guy who had been molesting this boy for six years. this guy has a constant yard sale at his place, so my detectives set up the deal where i drove out there in my explorer, in ratty civilian clothes, and try to lure this guy out of his house. they would be down the road. well, it worked so nicely, and i hooked him up, first hands on arrest i've had in years. the guy looked to be a nice guy, but i knew what he did, so ____ 'em. he's looking at a lot of time, but not as long as the kid he victimized.

2. in the book "the choirboys" by joseph wambaugh, an old cop states there only three things a person has to have in order to be a successful police officer, and they are common sense, compassion, and a sense of humor. in any other career field you can get along without one, two, or all of those traits, but a police officer has to have all three in order to be successful. the main thing about those three traits is that they cannot be taught, you either have them or you don't. i mentioned this to all of the young officers who came onto the department over the years. whether it touched a vein with them i don't know, but i just knew i had to tell them.

3. about five years ago i had an unusual thing happened. it lasted for a year. about every other month i would get an envelope sent through the mail and it would contain detailed maps and information concerning the narcotics traffic in the ______ county area. i would get it to ______ county officers and they went nuts about the information i'd given them. i can only assume it was some crook i'd dealt with who was paying me back for treating him fairly. i never found out who it was.

4. the best thing happened on wednesday, however. i had some ______ media in my office when i received a phone call from ___ _____. his kid was the one who decapitated his ______ in ___. ___ called from ______ to ask me how i was doing. i developed a relationship with him during the investigation and he just called to see if i was doing all right. it was the most amazing call i've received in 23 years of law enforcement. his kid goes on trial next month and this guy is concerned with me.

Who is this Law Enforcement Hero? Well, I may be prejudiced but I think you'd agree that a cop who thinks like he does is a darn fine cop. I even love him. Cuz he's my brother, Rick!

But I don't think he's alone. All departments have cops like him. Otherwise, law and order would have broken down many years ago.

Thanks Rick for being such a great cop and being such a great husband, dad, grandpa and brother. Thanks, Adoro, for making me say something that I should have said long ago.