Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Police Shooting

I've been struggling with finishing a story for the second installment of our series, and couldn't figure out why I was having such a time with it. I think the answer is that this story involves the shooting of a police officer. I need to tell this story in a way that is appropriate for a young audience without glossing over its serious nature.

To some, a police officer represents the current regime. If one has a problem with our society, our country, or our government, he might see the police as an occupying army, a symbol of the enforced status quo. Or, if one is simply a criminal and determined to get what he wants without earning it, he may see the patrol officer as a barrier in the way of ill-gotten gains, no more valuable than a padlock. Either way, a cop is just a badge with shoes.

An officer has another side, too. These people have chosen a profession serving the public, often because they have an aspect of their personality that calls them to improve other people's lives. Cops fundamentally want to improve life for citizens.

No point being too idealistic about it, of course. Officers settle into their jobs and lose that focus edge, just as the rest of us settle into our everyday lives. I like subbing in high schools because I think teens are at a cool age, at the beginning of their adult lives. That doesn't mean that when the hundredth kid wants to go potty in the middle of a lecture, I don't get annoyed. Of course I do. Cops get frustrated helping people whose problems seem almost entirely of their own creation.

Officers also have private lives. The person at the heart of the story I'm working on is a blend of two officers who have been shot on duty. I've met one of them. He's a family man trying to provide money and societal safety for his wife and young son. When I think about someone shooting him because he closed down a drug house, I get furious. Although he was "just wounded", that shooting had a profound effect on his life. It nearly cost him his faith, his career, and his marriage. Re-stablizing himself took all his skills.

Couple years later, the same cop killed a man to save a fellow officer. This time, he left police work. Taking a life is a soul-draining responsibility. Cops don't just shoot up the place then go out for a beer.

Before I took Bill's criminal investigation class and met real cops, I wrote mysteries without much regard for the actual awfulness of murder. Cops in my stories created corpses without qualms. Cops were wounded without consequence. Dead bodies littered the pages without feeling real. They weren't real; they were just dead words printed on dead trees. I think I'm starting to get it now. I've met these people who place themselves in dangerous situations that would have me cowering under the sofa. I also see them marrying, having children, hosting exchange students, having the grandkids over for Christmas. There's a real person behind the badge, and I think that makes their actions that much more heroic.

Now I have to write the story of this police shooting using vocabulary and imagery appropriate for younger readers without making the shooting seem trivial. I have to show them the horror without horrifying them.  I want them to see the person wearing the shoes, standing behind the badge.