Okay, this was a while back, back in the day. I was stationed in the Essex Precinct. Now, over in Cockeysville, you get a call, and go to sort it out, you control the situation by saying, “Sir, please, sir, step aside while I do my job,” and the situation is soon resolved.

Most of my beat was black apartment complexes. But mostly, they stole shit, robbed people and shot each other. They would run from a cop. Today it’s a different story, like this guy back in December in Towson. He was told three times by police to leave these people alone and he kept coming back challenging the cops. Now he has to be cuffed. But if the guy is fighting you, you need to knock him on the head a bit so the hands come loose and you can cuff him—and the politicians are all over it. Shit, back in the day, the blackjack would have come out on that joker. The point is, nowadays the black dudes—a certain set of them—think they’re tough, but aren’t and try to fight you like the tough white dudes from the docks and Sparrows Point used to do. But these guys are pussies and are immediately crying injury and suing, where, back in the day, the Polish muscle head would have been, “Oh, well, you got me this time, but it took three of you!”

Anyways, back in the day, in Essex, it was mostly drunk white domestic calls. If the old lady was not messed up too bad, you could leave if she said she was okay. Of course you don’t tell him that. Once I get the call for a domestic I have to go in. But nine times out of ten you’ve got some tough muscle guy in a wife-beater standing at the door drunk telling you everything is okay. I’m like, “Look, pal, this is going to go one of two ways, I talk to her and leave, or you don’t let me talk to her and you leave with me.”

Now you have to get through the door and it might happen right there, fighting some dude in his doorway.

This one time I get this call and this big, lean, tattooed biker guy is standing out front, won’t let me in. He’s saying, “Brother, this is my house and your ass is not coming in. Get the fuck lost!”

Then I see over his shoulder that the old lady—hiding back in the shadows—has two black eyes. Well, today, if she’s got so much as a tear stain—he gets cuffed. But back in the day, brother, you just had to not bust her up. If she looks like that—like this little woman looked—you’ve got to go in.

Now, I know it’s on and I have back up on the way when he takes a swing at me and I duck, trying to get behind him to cuff him, and he’s switch-stepping back trying to re-cock for another swing and accidentally elbows me in the temple. He was just trying to keep me from getting behind him and disaster! Brother, I was in a bad way—could feel myself going out, dizzy, falling. Something he didn’t even intend and I’m going out—felt like Alexis Arguello getting floored by Aaron Pryor.

But I cannot go out.

I have a gun on my hip.

If I go out, I’m dead, she’s dead, and my backup is not walking into a fistfight but into a gunfight. It’s not an option. You have to keep pushing.

Eventually I tripped him up and ended up on top and got the cuffs on him—how I don’t know—but it’s just gotta be. You can’t go out when you’re wearing a gun. Of course, regular people have no idea and these politically correct types, I suppose they want to get us killed in the line of duty and will come for you every time—guaranteed. I’m so glad I’m not a cop now.

-Jack