Inexplicable Waste

“There are patterns because we try to find them. A desperate attempt at order because we can't face the terror that it might all be random.”
― Lauren Beukes, The Shining Girls

About fifteen years ago my phone rang. A friend was at work, listening to a nearby agency working a fatal traffic accident. A massive girder on an overpass under construction had fallen on a car, killing an entire family in one shocking moment.

"How random is that?" she asked. "I mean... One second either way and it misses them."

Five law enforcement officers were killed at work this week. Each is tragic, the loss of a favored colleague, a son or daughter - a dad, a mom... A human being with hopes and dreams and ambitions. Someone who had planned to come home and accomplish the mundane chores that string together a life.

Perhaps none have hit people as hard as the twin and inexplicable deaths of Natalie Corona and Chateri Payne. Officer Payne, of Louisiana, had completed her training in November. Officer Corona had been on her own after field training for a few weeks.

Officer Payne was on her way to work, in uniform, when an unknown asshole shot her four times. She was described as an all star, an elegant and happy soul. At this writing no suspect has been named. Indeed, if the agency knows who it is they will wait to spill the beans until their SWAT team is closing in, holding Chateri's cuffs at the ready.

Officer Corona had responded to a motor vehicle accident, that most ordinary of calls. Her organization saw unlimited potential, part of their future as an agency. In a bizarre but not unheard of happenstance some dipshit rode up to her on a bicycle and killed her because - this is not out of the ordinary - he thought the police department was broadcasting "sonic waves" to his brain.

Random? That's our occupation. In the thousands of traffic stops I've made in a career, there had to be (if statistics are to be believed) at least one person who was armed and willing to kill me. For whatever reason, they chose not to try.

That doesn't include the calls we knew were dangerous, that played out that way. Early in our careers another agent and I responded to a domestic with a gun. A woman was able to call 911 and report that her estranged...whatever...was armed and had assaulted her. He took the phone from her, struck her with it and then beat a hasty retreat. Right into our laps. We knew he was armed and handled him appropriately. Yeah. We smashed him into a wall and took his gun away from him.

Those aren't the events that make a normal cop crazy. It's the bizarre randomness we see. It is especially difficult when it is someone going about their business when, out of the blue... A cop at a stoplight, shot for no other reason then they are an officer. It's not unheard of that the knock on the door at home is some jerk who found out this was the home of a cop, and shoots the person who answers. A family driving to the mountains, gone between heartbeats.

What do we do about this?

What can be done. Prepare, be vigilant. Understand that the uniform is designed to makes us visible and identifiable. Be the hard target, try to tip the odds in our favor. And understand, from the very beginning, that sometimes shit happens to good people, for no real reason.