Why I Admire Iowa Cops for Pulling Their Guns on a Doctor Going to Work

When I was about 7 years old or so, I remember, a Cleveland police officer was shot in the line of duty and killed. Even at that age, I knew enough to feel lucky: My dad was a Cleveland cop, and he wasn't the one who lost his life.

In those days, I had a before-school ritual that would last months at a time. Whenever my dad was working the 3-to-11 shift, I'd wake up, clamber down the stairs and peek into my father's bedroom to make sure he was there, alive.

See, he would leave for work before I got home from school, and I'd be in bed by the time he returned. And after that poor soul behind the shield lost his life, I knew it to be true that sometimes cops don't come home, that sometimes random cops aren't in bed when their kids go off to school.

As West Des Moines Patch reported earlier this week, police from across the Des Moines metro area stopped — and pulled their guns on — a West Des Moines physician as she responded to an early morning emergency call.

The doctor was angry. She reportedly called them a name we don't print on this site. Some commenters on the story made snide remarks about the police officers involved.

And I learned something from that. I learned that some people will never know what it's like to be a cop. Some people will never know what it's like to be the 7-year-old son of a police officer, a kid who got through the death of another cop by having faith that his father was strong and careful and smart enough not to do anything stupid. Still, I had to check each morning.

Here's a stupid cop: Chasing a car speeding away from them at bar-closing time and then, when the driver finally stops, not pulling their guns until they know they're in no danger. Of all the people who speed away from cops, how many of them turn out to be doctors heading to an emergency? How many of them will do anything, including taking a shot at an officer, to get away?

My dad's dead now. He went young, but naturally. And he was always in bed when I peeked in.

And that's why I don't just see as blameless those officers who chased that doctor and pulled their guns. It's why I admire them. They were strong and careful and smart enough to make sure that if any kid was peeking in their bedroom the next morning to make sure they had made it home, they were there.

Todd Richissin is Patch's regional editor for Iowa.