I disagree with some of you, so you must be wrong!

I grew up as a child being told if I ever got lost or in trouble, find a Police Man and he would take care of you. In my young mind, Police Officers became larger than life, supermen, if you will. I always looked at them with awe, and was inspired at an early age to become one when I became a grown-up. This feeling that the Police were there to serve and protect me stuck in my brain for most of my childhood.

As I grew up, I began to realize that these men were just like you and me, for the most part. They have their own flaws and imperfections. A scant few (2%?) might not be fit for the job. As I met more and more Police Officers after my adolescence, I began to see just what hero’s they were. They’ve pulled me out of wrecked cars, made efforts to resolve thefts, and they were there to comfort me in times of need.

Then it hit me. These men and women were, in fact, Heroes, in their own way. Up here in the northland, the Minneapolis Police motto is, “To Protect with Courage, To Serve with Compassion”. It’s written on the doors of every police cruiser in the city. And it takes a special kind of person to live up to this. Patrolman Norem is that kind of a special person. He protected this suicidal man, even fighting to keep him alive against his own will. His compassion won over any other consideration for his safety.

This is what it means to be a Police Officer.

A small part of me is still that little child that was in awe of Police Officers. I remember many years ago when they would stop and give us stickers and reflectors for our bicycles, and if you were really hurting, they would pass out a teddy bear or two. I half-way expect to get a sticker or something while I bike around the city today.

Today, a Police Officer that doesn’t “Protect with Courage and Serve With Compassion”, is not a real Police Officer.


H&K-Guy

quote:

Originally posted by S600MBUSA:

quote:

Originally posted by stickman428:
My idea of a hero is not somone who gets stabbed in the eye while saving human garbage.

He disregarded his own safety to prevent innocents from being hurt by that human garbage's selfish act. After all those injuries, the surgeries, the pain, he could have medically retired and just taken a check. Instead he did everything he could to return to duty as a patrolman and even showed up at his National Guard training two months after he was stabbed, eventually deploying to Kuwait for 8 months.

Opinions obviously differ, but that's a hero in my book.

Yep, saving the guy didn't show who he was. His road to recovery did.

The officer is a courageous fellow, to be sure. I would have turned the nut loose when I saw the knife in his hand.

Great story.

How do you/we ever thank a man sufficiently for this kind of bravery and dedication??

Thank you officer!

P

Just had a thought. That guy was going to jump onto a busy highway. The officer may have saved several lives!

quote:

Originally posted by S600MBUSA:
[Q
He disregarded his own safety to prevent innocents from being hurt by that human garbage's selfish act. After all those injuries, the surgeries, the pain, he could have medically retired and just taken a check. Instead he did everything he could to return to duty as a patrolman and even showed up at his National Guard training two months after he was stabbed, eventually deploying to Kuwait for 8 months.

Opinions obviously differ, but that's a hero in my book.

Trust me that check ain't what you think it is...and getting hurt for some other asshole who wants to hurt himself ain't worth it either.

Call me hateful or warped; make fun of me and tell me I'm not a "real" cop, but until you've had to fight someone who thinks "meh, I'll fight with this cop while he's trying to help me", you don't know shit.

After being a cop, I'm in the "if you are gonna punch your ticket, you go right ahead" camp. Just don't hurt anyone else.

I guess he would have been even more heroic if he'd let the suicider kill him, huh? I'm trying to follow the logic.

And all the police officers who would have not taken this shit from the suicider- those who would have backed off or shot the SOB or in some way reacted differently- they're not heroes at all. They're...what? If we're calling this guy a hero because of what he did, how do we label the cops who would have acted differently? I think we can agree that the majority of police officers would not allow themselves to be stabbed repeatedly. Again, just trying to follow the logic.

Shall we label them as cowards, or perhaps as heroic, but less so compared to this police officer? Which hairs shall we split when we're throwing around terms that have lost all meaning due to their overuse, such as 'hero'?

Lets be honest. Its better for the police department, and media, to label this cop a "hero", then it is to tell the truth, which is cop put himself in danger, against his training, and then didn't apply proper force when faced with a deadly threat, again, against his training.

If option A is to save some scumbag that is stabbing you in the face, then I would recommend to ALL cops in America, to take option B. Throw that asshole off the bridge, or perhaps use the tools on the your belt to effectively defend yourself.

Some people just dont need saving. Suicidal people WILL kill themselves, on their own terms. Period.

The guy was certainly focused, dedicated, and committed. He showed this as much in his recovery as he did in saving the individual who didn't want to be saved.

I would be interested to see what happens to the individual who attempted suicide. Whether he tries again and is successful or whether this rodeo causes him to rethink his permanent solution to whatever temporary problem was harshing his buzz.

This scenario may be the ultimate example of the eternal dichotomy of LE:
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
Some people just dont need saving. Suicidal people WILL kill themselves, on their own terms. Period.

To articulate what I think we all know that hasn't yet been stated here; just because someone is trying to commit suicide doesn't necessarily mean they're a scumbag or otherwise unworthy of attempts to save them. Many of us know people, maybe even love people, who've tried to kill themselves in the past. What's relevant about the scenario in the OP is that the jumper attacked a cop.

Had the officer climbed out on a ledge to talk the jumper down, thus putting himself at risk, and the jumper taken the officer's hand and followed him to safety, the cop would be a hero, and the jumper wouldn't be a worthless scumbag.

quote:

Originally posted by TBH:
Just had a thought. That guy was going to jump onto a busy highway. The officer may have saved several lives!

This is the crux of the story for me. There were a lot of folks in danger here, the suicidal dude the least of them in my book.

Hero gets thrown about so much it's losing it's impact with me. I don't know what was going through the officer's mind at the time.

There was a similar situation, minus the stabbing,several years ago in NYC iirc. In that instance the officer grabbed a jumper and held on even though the weight of the jumper was dragging the officer over the precipice as well. Others were able to get to the officer and pull them both back up. When asked why he didn't let go when it looked like he was going to die too, the officer sincerely said, "I was too scared. I don't know how I would have dealt with dropping him to save myself so I just held on." The guy seemed to honestly feel that not letting go was an act of personal cowardice, one that would have hurt his family, not heroism.

That feeling is often heard from MOH recipients. Most did what they did because they were scared shitless, whether for themselves or someone else.

I would've let go at the first sign of the knife, maybe I'd try to swing him out of the line of traffic.

We had a jumper last summer. I didn't get there first but two other guys did. I went down under the bridge to the freeway and blocked the lane of traffic.

Some guy pulled up in his pickup and was trying to back under the kid, I told him, you're only going to damage your truck and maybe break the kids legs. Don't do that to your truck. If he falls, he'll fall, hopefully my officer will land on top of him.