I'm very late to the party setting up a personal website and a blog. Seeing a ton of great content around Eleventy, I figured I'd give it a try. So far I have to say the I'm impressed. My hope is that I can write about a ton of different things: stuff I'm interested in, experiences, technology, etc. I figured I'd start off with an experience I wrote about recently. One of the first jobs I had was as a police officer with the Baltimore County Police Department. The six years I spent there as a sworn officer and then detective really honed who I am today as a person. I joined the department when I was 21 years old - it really made me grow up quickly.
The radio was hopping that night. I was a “floater” – no permanent post car, switching areas in the precinct on an almost daily basis as officers took vacations, became ill or injured, or simply for manpower assistance. The loudspeaker sprung to life again - “322, I have no other units in service, start up for a cardiac arrest. 67-year-old female.” I keyed up the mic and responded enroute. “I’m pretty far away from this call – eh, medics will be there before I arrive,” I re-assured myself as my right hand reached down for the switchbox. The lights and rotating clamshell mirrors from the TJ Hooker era lightbar sprung to life, illuminating everything around me in a wash of right-to left, left-to-right blue and red colors. The siren above my head was deafening – my habit was to use the slow sine wave high/low sound while weaving through traffic, while using the faster chirping at intersections. I flashed the high beams and honked the horn at recalcitrant or oblivious drivers, cursing as I sped past them. Alternating my gaze between the windows and the paper street map book that was my constant companion, I figured out where to go. The street was dark, with the front porch lights of the brick rowhomes providing the only light. Parked cars were jam packed on both sides of the street. To my surprise, a single small fire department pickup truck came into view. “Ok what’s going on?” I thought to myself as I quickly shut off the car and grabbed my medical bag from the front passenger floor.
I raced up the concrete stairs of the home, my car keys jingling on my holder of my gun belt. There was no time for decorum – I grabbed the screen door and launched myself into the house. To the right of the staircase in front of me were people with their hands over their mouths. Their expressions were a mix of shock, disbelief and grief as they stared at the floor in front of them. My eyes darted to where they gazed and there, on the floor, was an adult woman unconscious on her back. A single fireman had just started chest compressions. I dropped the bag and jumped to his side – “You take breaths and I’ll take compressions,” I forcefully said. The two of us immediately sprang into action, our first responder training kicking in. “One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, four one-thousand, blow one-thousand,” I repeated, compressing the woman’s chest, pausing to allow the fireman to administer breaths. For the first few rounds of CPR, no pulse, no respiration. We continued, determined to keep the rounds of resuscitation going until we received help.
After several rounds of compressions, the fireman exclaimed, “I’ve got a pulse!” We backed off, watching the woman’s chest rise and fall. We continued to check her pulse and to our delight, it kept pulsing without our intervention. Strobe lights began illuminating the room we were in, followed by the squeaking of the screen door. A female paramedic knelt by my side and let me know that she was assuming care. We backed off and stood up, watching as a team of medics administered oxygen and IVs. I was so focused on helping this woman that I had failed to notice that Sol, my sergeant, had entered the house. He was standing quietly by the staircase, watching what we had just done.
Medics loaded the woman onto the stretcher and started for the ambulance. Sol and I followed down the porch stairs. “Follow the ambulance to the hospital and no matter what happens, write a report,” he said. I assured him that I would, but I thought to myself, “Why am I writing a report for a medical call? We never write reports for this.” After the short ride to the hospital, I tried to go to the Emergency Room where the woman was taken, but the hospital staff advised that I needed to go to the waiting room. I sat in a chair, opened my metal clipboard, removed a blank Crime Report form and began jotting down the details of what just occurred. As I penned away, pressing hard enough so that the carbon copy paper duplicated my handwriting onto the attached yellow sheet, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see the female paramedic by my side again. “Officer, come with me,” she said in a somber tone, a grim look on her face. As I stood and followed, I tried to process what was happening. Why is she so somber? Did the woman not make it? A knot began forming in my stomach and I felt sad as we walked down the hallway into the Emergency Room. As we rounded the corner, I got my answer.
The woman was reclining in the bed, a regular oxygen mask over her face. She was breathing on her own and was semi-conscious. Her heart rate monitor was showing a good rhythm. The paramedic’s face went from grim to a happy grin. “You and that fireman literally saved this lady’s life,” she said. “You should be very proud right now.” I beamed with joy – I had performed CPR on people before, but they were too far gone to save. This was the first time that I was able to use my training to bring a human being back from death. If someone could describe watching me walk out of the hospital, I’m sure their description would have included the fact that my feet weren’t touching the ground.
When I arrived at work the following day, a message was waiting for me. The woman’s family asked if I could come by the hospital and visit. I gladly obliged. The woman was fully conscious and in a regular room for observation. She and her family gave me hugs of appreciation and a wonderful card thanking me for saving her life. I told them that it was my honor to be able to use my training to truly help someone in their time of need. We chatted for a bit longer and I wished them well as I left. Out of all of my calls for service, cases I’ve investigated and arrests that I’ve made, this was the best day of my career. I still get emotional when I relive that day. In the process, I learned a life lesson about good management skills and what follow through means to your direct reports.
Once I finished the report I handed it to Sol for approval. He told me that he asked me to write it because he’d be putting me in for an award for saving the woman’s life. I was proud to be recognized - helping others was the primary goal for me becoming a police officer. But weeks later, there was no mention of the award. On a particularly busy evening shift, the duty desk chimed in on the radio and asked me to call the station urgently. I double-checked to make sure that it indeed needed to be immediate. These were the days before cell phones. I pulled into a bar parking lot and ran to the pay phone. I recited the bleached-out phone number behind the dirty plastic window over the police radio to the station. A few moments later, the phone rang. When I picked up the worn plastic receiver, Sol was on the line. I asked him what was going on. “I just wanted to let you know that I am still putting you in for the award,” he said. I began fuming – was he not paying any attention to the radio? This was more urgent than responding to serious calls? I asked him if that was the only thing he needed to talk to me about and he replied yes. “Sol, I don’t have time for this now. I gotta go,” I snippily responded as I hung up the receiver. In the end, Sol never put the paperwork in for the award.
I applied for and was accepted into the 82nd recruit class of the Baltimore County Police Department in June of 1989 at the ripe age of 21. What followed was a grueling six-month mix of classwork, first responder medical training, physical training, emergency driving and firearms training. Instructors pushed our small class to the brink of emotional and physical exhaustion. Some recruits couldn’t handle the intense pressure and dropped out. Those of us that had the tenacity to stick it out soon learned another life lesson – teamwork is the only way to thrive, both in the Academy and on the streets. We’d spend early mornings lint-roller brushing each other’s navy-blue uniforms, shining patent leather shoes and doing final inspections of each person, top to bottom, to ensure that everything was perfect. One person deemed out of uniform or acting unbecoming of a recruit would spell doom for all of us. The punishment - running laps around the school grounds in formation, in those patent leather shoes, long pants and bulky, uncomfortable bullet-proof vests in the sweltering summer sun.
Graduation soon came into focus in December. We traded in our navy blues for the full uniform of an officer - white shirts with police patches, gray pants with black piping, fully outfitted gun belts, gray hats with silver shields and silver badges above our breast pockets. The commencement speech at our ceremony was given by the Chief Justice of the County Circuit Court. Of the many things he shared with us that evening, one piece of advice stood out to me. As a judge, he can use recesses to think about a case, sometimes for days if necessary. We wouldn’t be entitled to the same benefit – we’d have to think fast and make split-second decisions daily. The most important tool in our arsenal, he said, is our brain. Use that before any tool on our gun belt and we’d be okay. That advice would become another life lesson for me – think carefully before acting, even if there wasn’t much time.
Scripted black and white scenarios and instructions in the Academy soon transformed into real life calls for service tinged with gray areas. Interactions with citizens of all stripes (and levels ofintoxication or mental illness) in a hard-knocks part of the county required innovative thinking. Listening to people, reading their body language and empathizing with them were skills I honed with time. Brushing off the name calling, threats and scorn required supreme patience. Remaining calm and rational while responding to emergency calls became a life-saving trait. Being in a rank-and-file organization taught me when to handle things myself and when to reach out to supervisors for assistance. Tenacity and resolve to successfully finish tough cases resulted in me being asked to handle more of them.
After three years of patrol, an opportunity opened for a detective position with the Crime Analysis Unit. The unit’s mission was to analyze serious crimes, derive patterns from them and disseminate those patterns to the appropriate units inside the police department. I applied for and was chosen to take the position. I soon learned that the software being used in the unit was primitive. Having programmed PCs since 1982, I took on the challenge of rewriting the software to be compatible with networks, generate better reporting and best of all, interface with GIS applications to produce heat maps of crime on our new color plotter. Detectives in other units along with department leadership soon took notice of the valuable information we provided to them. Other police departments also took notice and before long, I was loaned to different police departments to setup their Crime Analysis Units with my software and IT expertise. I learned that writing thoughtfully designed software that provides value will get you noticed. Little did I know that this would also be the precursor of a big career change for me.
An upcoming symposium of Crime Analysts from across the region brought with it an invitation for me to demonstrate my software during a session. A representative from a private company approached me afterwards. “Ever thought about leaving the police department?” he queried with a grin. “Make me an offer,” I quipped back. We exchanged phone numbers and he called a week later with a lackluster offer. I declined the offer, but he called back soon after, asking if I could make myself available for a trip to Naval Air Station Lakehurst in New Jersey, the location of the Hindenburg disaster. Yukie, the CEO of the company, wanted to meet me there to offer me a deal I couldn’t refuse. I met Yukie in a large hangar filled with military helicopters. His company was installing GIS systems in them that would enable crews to avoid the DMZ on the North & South Korean border. After giving me a tour of a Bell Huey helicopter, Yukie did indeed make me an offer I couldn’t refuse - I was hooked. I resigned from the police department, handed in my gun and badge and entered the world of full-time software development.
In 2015, years after I left the police department, Harvard graduate and MacArthur fellow Bryan Stevenson said during an interview,
"We don't need police officers who see themselves as warriors. We need police officers who see themselves as guardians and parts of the community. You can't police a community that you're not a part of."
That quote made quite an impression on me. In law enforcement, I was a guardian for the equitable treatment of citizens and the fair dispensing of justice. In some special cases, I was a guardian for peoples’ very lives. I never saw myself as a warrior – I wasn’t overly interested in weapons and offensive tactics. Instead, I tried to use critical thinking and good verbal skills to resolve issues.
Over the last 27 years, my definition of guardian has only expanded as a member of the software development community. I want to make sure people are doing ok in this new world of COVID and remote work. It’s important for me that everyone who works with me is treated equitably and fairly, whether it’s salaries, career advancement or the environment of their workplace. Listening skills are something I’ve cultivated over decades – it’s important that people feel heard and respected. People who are doing great work should be recognized for it and it’s my credo to make sure that it happens. Failure is a chance to learn - punishment for failure needs to be guarded against. I feel that it’s important to both teach and to learn, so I’m both a mentor and mentee in my current company.