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I represent every officer in every city and town all over Canada and the U.S.A.
You may know me as the cop who gave you the ticket last summer, but I am also the guy who lives down the street from you. Someday I will be a parent, and I will share the same hopes, ambitions, and dreams that you now have for your children. Or maybe I already am. I will also share with you the feelings of shame, guilt and disappointment when my boy or girl gets into trouble.
The scene is a long stretch of highway with a sharp curve at one end. It has been raining, and the road is slick. A car traveling in excess of 75 mph misses the curve and plows into an embankment where it becomes airborne and strikes a tree. At this point, two of the three young passengers are hurled from the vehicle, one into the tree, the other into the roadway where the car lands on him, snuffing his life out like a discarded cigarette on the asphalt. He is the lucky one.
The girl thrown into the tree has her neck broken, and even though she was voted queen of the senior prom and most likely to succeed, she will now spend the next 60 years in a wheelchair.
When I arrive, the car has come to rest on its top, the broken wheels have stopped spinning. Smoke and steam pour out of the engine. An eerie calm has now settled over the scene, and it appears deserted except for one lone traveler who called it in. He is sick to his stomach and leaning on the patrol car for support.
The driver is conscious, but is in shock and unable to free himself from under the bent steering wheel. His face will be scarred by the deep cuts from the broken glass. These cuts will heal but the inside won't. The third passenger has almost stopped bleeding from an artery in his arm, cut by the broken bone end protruding from his forearm just below the elbow. His breath comes in gasps as he tries desperately to suck air past his blood-filled airway.
He is unable to speak and his eyes bulge and fix on me pleadingly, as his only means of communication, telling me that he is terrified and wants me to help. I feel a pang of guilt and recognize him as the boy I let off with a warning the other night for an open container of alcohol in his car. Maybe if I had cited him then he wouldn't be here now. Who knows? I don't.
He dies soundlessly in my arms, his pale blue eyes staring vacantly as if trying to see the future that he will never have.
I am sick with anger and frustration with parents and leaders who think a little bit of alcohol won't hurt anything. I am filled with contempt for people who propose lowering the drinking age because "they will get booze anyway, so why not make it legal?" I am frustrated with laws; court rulings and other legal maneuverings that restrict my ability to do my job in preventing this kind of tragedy...
The ambulance begins the job of scraping up and removing the dead and injured. I stand by as hot tears mingle with rain and drip down my cheeks. I would give anything to know who furnished those young people with that alcohol.
Yes, I am angry; and sick at heart with trying to do my job and being tagged the bad guy. I pray to God that I might have to never face another parent in the middle of the night and say your young son or daughter has been killed in a car accident. You ask me how this happened? It happened because a young person stoned out of his mind couldn't handle two tons of hurtling death at 75 miles an hour. It happened because an adult, trying to be a good guy, bought for or sold to some minor, a case of beer. It happened because you as a parent were not concerned about minors and alcohol abuse and would rather blame me for harassing them when I was only trying to prevent this kind of tragedy.
originally taken from Emma-Lynes, by Emma Cannady/The Coastland Times, June 24, 2001
You may know me as the cop who gave you the ticket last summer, but I am also the guy who lives down the street from you. Someday I will be a parent, and I will share the same hopes, ambitions, and dreams that you now have for your children. Or maybe I already am. I will also share with you the feelings of shame, guilt and disappointment when my boy or girl gets into trouble.
The scene is a long stretch of highway with a sharp curve at one end. It has been raining, and the road is slick. A car traveling in excess of 75 mph misses the curve and plows into an embankment where it becomes airborne and strikes a tree. At this point, two of the three young passengers are hurled from the vehicle, one into the tree, the other into the roadway where the car lands on him, snuffing his life out like a discarded cigarette on the asphalt. He is the lucky one.
The girl thrown into the tree has her neck broken, and even though she was voted queen of the senior prom and most likely to succeed, she will now spend the next 60 years in a wheelchair.
When I arrive, the car has come to rest on its top, the broken wheels have stopped spinning. Smoke and steam pour out of the engine. An eerie calm has now settled over the scene, and it appears deserted except for one lone traveler who called it in. He is sick to his stomach and leaning on the patrol car for support.
The driver is conscious, but is in shock and unable to free himself from under the bent steering wheel. His face will be scarred by the deep cuts from the broken glass. These cuts will heal but the inside won't. The third passenger has almost stopped bleeding from an artery in his arm, cut by the broken bone end protruding from his forearm just below the elbow. His breath comes in gasps as he tries desperately to suck air past his blood-filled airway.
He is unable to speak and his eyes bulge and fix on me pleadingly, as his only means of communication, telling me that he is terrified and wants me to help. I feel a pang of guilt and recognize him as the boy I let off with a warning the other night for an open container of alcohol in his car. Maybe if I had cited him then he wouldn't be here now. Who knows? I don't.
He dies soundlessly in my arms, his pale blue eyes staring vacantly as if trying to see the future that he will never have.
I am sick with anger and frustration with parents and leaders who think a little bit of alcohol won't hurt anything. I am filled with contempt for people who propose lowering the drinking age because "they will get booze anyway, so why not make it legal?" I am frustrated with laws; court rulings and other legal maneuverings that restrict my ability to do my job in preventing this kind of tragedy...
The ambulance begins the job of scraping up and removing the dead and injured. I stand by as hot tears mingle with rain and drip down my cheeks. I would give anything to know who furnished those young people with that alcohol.
Yes, I am angry; and sick at heart with trying to do my job and being tagged the bad guy. I pray to God that I might have to never face another parent in the middle of the night and say your young son or daughter has been killed in a car accident. You ask me how this happened? It happened because a young person stoned out of his mind couldn't handle two tons of hurtling death at 75 miles an hour. It happened because an adult, trying to be a good guy, bought for or sold to some minor, a case of beer. It happened because you as a parent were not concerned about minors and alcohol abuse and would rather blame me for harassing them when I was only trying to prevent this kind of tragedy.
originally taken from Emma-Lynes, by Emma Cannady/The Coastland Times, June 24, 2001
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