Sometimes We Lose

So there I was…


…it had been one of those nights.  We had a shooting in which the victim’s 
friends loaded him up into a pick-up and started driving to the hospital.  
Hmm….or did they?  From where they were coming from and which way they were 
going, the nearest hospital would have been on Ft. Carson (about fifteen 
minutes down the road, away from town).  Since they were not in the military 
they wouldn’t be let onto Ft. Carson, anyway.  It seems someone was lying.


Here’s a clue, everyone.  If one of your friends gets shot call 911 and have 
an ambulance come.  They’ll get there fast and start giving medical aid 
immediately and also while en route to the hospital.  There won’t be any 
driving through town with blood leaking out of new holes, and going the 
wrong direction.


Anyway, some officers spotted the truck while en route to the shooting call 
(how do you miss a dead guy’s feet sticking up out of a truck bed?) and 
stopped it.  The ambulance met them there, but he was DRT ­ dead right 
there.  I didn’t do much on that case, but I was tied up for a number of 
hours babysitting a critical witness.


Much of the night had gone the same way ­ robbery, stabbing, shooting ­ 
yeah, we’re sorry it took us so long to tell your neighbors to turn their 
stereo down.  Anyway, about 0400 things started to quiet down.  I was 
actually driving around for about ten minutes without being sent to a call.  
I wasn’t fooled, though.  Nothing was quiet; it was just reaching the 
boiling point.  You know how just before it rains you can feel the rain 
clouds trying to burst, but you can’t see any rain yet?  That’s exactly what 
it felt like.


Then it came.  Whenever the dispatcher sends me somewhere, it takes about 
five seconds for the computer in my car to catch up.  So while she’s in the 
process of dispatching me on the radio my screen remains blank.  I always 
know it’s bad, though, when she sends a whole bunch of cars at once and airs 
their call signs really fast.


“3A78, 3A48, 3A18, 3A28, 3A58….”  Oh crap, what now?


Another shooting.  This was, of course, in one of our gangbanger craphole 
apartment complexes.  There were a few of us who arrived simultaneously and 
started looking for the victim, who was reported to be down in the parking 
lot.  Another officer spotted him and I pulled in behind him.


There was a crowd of about fifteen people in the lot, all jumping, 
screaming, and bemoaning the fact their friend was dead.  Of course, NONE of 
them was doing anything to help him, like applying pressure to the wounds or 
performing CPR.  They just ran around like chickens with their heads cut 
off, and destroying my trace evidence in the process.


I quickly scanned the crowd for anyone who may have been the shooter.  
Besides the victim’s friends all acting the fool, there were two or three 
gangbanger types out on the fringes.  They weren’t all excited like the 
others, but had that suspicious look about them ­ you know, the shifty eyes, 
doing the “lookie loo” to see who’s watching, etc.  Everything about them 
made me fear them.  For Pete’s sake, they were standing next to a man who 
had just been shot and watching his friends go nuts about it, but they were 
barely reacting to it.  I would have thought they were the suspects except 
for the fact the victim’s friends didn’t seem to mind they were there.


Another cop, who recently came back to patrol from being a homicide 
detective, checked the victim’s pulse.  By then, more cops were joining us 
and I was able to turn my attention to the victim, rather than the crowd.  
The officer said there was no pulse.  I had grabbed my CPR mask when I got 
out of the cruiser, so I told him, “Let’s do CPR.”


I inserted the mouthpiece into the victim, tilted his head back, “looked, 
listened, and felt” for breath like I had been taught.  Nope, nothing.  His 
eyes were open and rolled back, and starting to glaze over.  I could also 
see three bullet holes in his torso, and they weren’t bleeding (which means 
the heart wasn’t pumping blood).  I later found out there was another bullet 
in the back of his head, but I never detected it because there was no blood. 
  It didn’t look good for him at all, but we’re the police; we have to try.  
Besides, we had gotten there very fast; perhaps there was still a chance if 
we could keep blood going to his organs.


I gave the first rescue breath, and I could feel blood gurgling in his 
lungs.  It was like when you blow through a straw that’s in a glass of 
water.  Then I knew there was no chance.  I looked up at the other cop, who 
was doing the chest compressions, and said, “You know we’re doing this for 
show, right?”


“Yeah, I know.”


What would people have said if we stood around and didn’t do anything?  It 
would have been unprofessional and irresponsible ­ we’re not doctors, so we 
try when we can.  Let a doctor decide when to give up.


While we were working on him, his friends were attacking us.  Yeah, really.  
It happens every time I go to a shooting with that group of people ­ they 
attack us when we’re trying to help their friend.  About seven cops fought 
off ten of the fifteen or so who where there so we could try to save their 
friend.  The other five didn’t bother us.  I don’t know why they do it; I’ve 
just grown to accept it.


Within a few minutes, the paramedics arrived and took over, leaving two more 
cops to fight off the crowd.  They hooked him up to their equipment, and 
almost immediately one of them got on the phone.  I know what that means ­ 
he’s calling a doctor to ask permission to cease lifesaving efforts.  A few 
minutes later, the equipment was off and packed up in the wagon again.


That guy marked the sixth time I’ve given CPR, and he was the first to die.  
I guess we all have to lose eventually.


I don’t feel sorry for the guy, really.  He was a dirtbag, and he was killed 
by another dirtbag.  What did he die for?  I guess he talked smack better 
than the guy who killed him, and that made the suspect angry.  Yep, that’s 
what I said ­ this whole thing was over smack talking in the parking lot.  
What senseless crap.  What a waste of life.  Oh well, he decided to lead the 
banger lifestyle; he had to have known it would end like that.


His friends made me even angrier.  Not only had they attacked me while I was 
trying to save their friend, they started accusing us of “not doing anything 
to catch the bad guys” after the paramedics left and we taped off the crime 
scene.


You know what?  Real life isn’t like CSI ­ we don’t solve a murder in under 
an hour.  A real crime scene takes literally hours to process, photograph, 
collect trace evidence, etc.  Add that to the fact there had been two other 
homicides that night, and there were not any crime scene personnel left to 
process this scene.  They had finished the first one, but were still working 
the second one (the pick-up story…which essentially created two crime scenes 
because they moved the victim ­ the original scene and the pick-up).


So no, we weren’t doing anything but waiting, and securing what evidence was 
left after everyone trampled all over it.  Really, do you want a bunch of 
untrained cops to do something that takes years of schooling to learn how to 
do?  No, that’s why we have cops to do one thing, and crime scene techs to 
process crime scenes.


The vultures arrived at some point into all this ­ that would be the news 
media, for those of you who didn’t guess.  Of course they have to get shots 
of the dead guy, cops fighting witnesses and taping off the crime scene, 
etc.  I found it hilarious when one of the victim’s friends got sick of them 
and attacked a cameraman.  That didn’t make it to the news, but I got a 
laugh out of it (internally; I would never laugh at a murder scene because 
the vultures would get that on tape and make me look bad on TV ­ a cop 
laughing at a murder scene, how horrible!!!).


So this went on for a number of hours.  When day shift came on duty they 
relieved us and took over the scene security.  The crime scene guys hadn’t 
arrived yet, so I don’t even know how long it took them.  If I had to guess, 
I’d say that guy stayed right there in the parking lot until about four or 
five that afternoon.


Doom on him.