Police Are Trained to Fear
As a former cop, I know why so many carry out their work with an “us versus them” mentality
In 2000, I was a rookie patrol cop in the Baltimore Police Department. Everything I’d learned from six months in the police academy and another month of field training was still fresh in my head. I fancied myself as a squared-away, polished-looking crime fighter at the top of my game when I had my first real-life foot chase.
I remember the call very clearly. It was toward the end of my 4 p.m. to midnight shift on a warm summer night. I was dispatched as a backup unit to a report from a repair shop owner observing a man breaking into cars and rummaging through them. As I parked my car on York Road a few feet north of the shop, I could see the silhouette of a man in the driver’s seat of a Dodge Neon. He had no idea I was behind him. Another marked patrol car pulled up south of the shop, and he did notice that one. He jumped out of the Neon and ran straight at me. He was looking back at the other patrol car as he ran, and when he looked forward, I was almost on top of him.
My adrenaline was in control, and my training had me thinking that this would be where I would get shot.
