In my 10 years I've responded to probably thousands of car crashes and road accidents. Most are very minor, or even if they look bad have no injuries or minor injuries only. Cars are designed to basically fall apart to absorb impacts and they do their job well. But, sometimes it doesn't matter speed, seatbelt use, or other factors cause it to be a fatal accident. Probably the worst crash I've responded to, for me at least, involved two pedestrians, a mother and her (I think) 6 year old daughter, maybe 5. The car driver was actually doing everything right (for once). He was going about the speed limit (45mph), had the right of way, everything. Unfortunately, this dumb drunk b**ch had decided at about 10pm or 11pm that she wasn't drunk enough. So, she takes her small child with her to the gas station to get a 40, then proceeded to lead the child across the street into oncoming traffic because she was so drunk she just couldn't process it. The daughter, trusting her mother completely, stepped out into the road with the mom. Mom sustained a minor injury, broken leg I think. The little girl was killed. Knocked about 30 feet through the air, and landed in the roadway. I feel lucky that I wasn't the first officer on scene. Two of our guys left work early that night to go home and decompress. I'll always remember this crash. Seeing that little girl laid out on the road with EMS, Fire, and police surrounding her trying their best to help. There were a lot of tears from first responders. I've probably never seen so many crying at a scene in public before, or since.

Everyone knows why we all become cops: Drive fast and shoot s*it, right?
Well that's not the real story, at least for all the cops I know. But, I'd be lying if I said driving fast wasn't fun. When a "hot" call comes out we all want to be their first to help and do what we can to catch a bad guy.
But once you're on scene you often spend the next several hours maintaining the crime scene for detectives if it's a homicide or serious shooting.
Where I work the vast majority of our homicides are gang and drug related, even if "officially" we don't label them gang related (makes the city look bad).
The movies and TV shows that depict cops overcome with emotion at the sight of a shooting victim are largely fictitious. I've been on dozens of homicides and I've yet to see any officer cry, or even be really concerned honestly. It's harsh but true, generally these victims are a result of their lifestyle choices to be in a gang or other criminal enterprise and we consider it the cost of doing business.
It's not that we're shallow, we just can't get emotional because someone was a gang member who robbed people and they got taken out by a rival.
Crime scene management is a serious and difficult job, though. Family and friends often want to see the victim. We try to be compassionate to these people, it's not their fault their son sold drugs or robbed people. But, sometimes we've got to be hard with them and threaten to arrest them if they keep trying to cross the barrier. It doesn't make them like us, but it ensures the sanctity of evidence and helps us to try and find a suspect and successfully arrest them.

Heroin overdoses are a huge problem. I think we've had about 300 in my city and like 40-60 fatal overdoses.

Narcan is a great tool and also part of the problem, though. Users aren't as careful about the doses they're taking as they used to be because they know they'll be saved by Narcan. And, even more frustrating after they're resuscitated they most often refuse to go to the hospital. Why?

Well, Narcan wears off after a while. Then they get high off the heroin still in their system.

I don't know what the solution is, but I've long since stopped feeling any sympathy for an addict who has plenty of resources and tools to help them and refuses. I'd rather we devoted those resources and money to helping actual innocents, like kids who need EpiPens, or diabetics, or cancer patients.

It's callous and people often say users are people to, and that's true, but when you're given multiple chances to get help and refuse at a certain point I feel like you reap what you sow.

We had one guy overdose almost every day for two weeks before finally dying. We had a pregnant woman overdose then get mad when we took out involuntary commitment papers on her to try and help keep her unborn child safe. I feel bad for the family members, but I don't feel bad for the users anymore.

DWI/DUIs (terminology varies on what state or country you're in probably) are some of the most frustrating investigations we do in my department. Don't get me wrong, getting a drunk off the road is ALWAYS worth it. But, it's frustrating because the law gives drunks so many protections. I can arrest someone with a kilo of cocaine and do less paperwork. DWIs take forever from the initial stop, Standardized Field Sobriety Tests (SFSTs), to the breathalyzer test (it's often hard to find a certified chemical analyst to run the machine at my department).

My favorite DWI arrest involved a concerned citizen calling about a vehicle weaving all over the roadway. I managed to catch up and made an independent observation of their driving (pretty damn bad...) before initiating a stop because it firmly establishes reasonable suspicion (the threshold for a traffic stop, actually I had probable cause at this point which is a higher standard for arrest) and made it so my case wasn't reliant on a citizen coming to court.

The driver road the curb and even hit a mailbox with their mirror before stopping. When I walked up I asked where they were coming from, after explaining I stopped them for their poor driving skills.

They were coming from the Dollar General. At 4 am. I happened to know they closed at 10 pm.

The driver absolutely reeked of beer. It was almost painfully strong. So, I get her out of the car and immediately she urinated on herself. And didn't notice. Me and every other officer on scene (at this point about four cuz we'd all been trying to catch up to this car before she killed someone) noticed because it was winter and get pants began steaming in the cold.

I asked if she'd had anything to drink or any medicine tonight and she said no. She was wobbling as she stood barely able to stand up. I asked "so, you're telling me this right now is your normal condition? This is just how you are?"

We began some tests, the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN), One Leg Stand, and Walk and Turn.

The walk and turn was a bust. She was all over the place unable to keep a straight line or count right. But, the one leg stand was even better. She started to slowly raise one foot. I noticed her leaning forward dangerously and said "just put the foot down I don't want you to fall," but it was too late.

She leaned slowly forward. Slowly. Gradually she bent, placed both hands on the ground. Continued tipping until her forehead was on the ground. Then she fell over onto her side and slowly got back up. At that point we took her to jail and she was given an opportunity to do the breathalyzer (I forget her results off the top of my head).

While at the jail she continued to urinate on herself so much (without even realizing it), that her pants and shoes were soaked. She was leaving footprints on the floor. I'm sure the jailers loved having to clean that up.

It's surprising the number of people who SAY they know their rights but they really don't.

People think that until they're under arrest they're free to go. They think the house is sacrosanct and we can't enter without a warrant, ever.

At the end of the day, if I've got probable cause to believe there's a victim in need of assistance in your house I can come in.

An officer I work with responded to a fight call a while ago. He heard the fight inside, knocked, announced his presence, knocked again. Nothing. Finally, he kicked the door open and he and another officer go upstairs to find two adult brothers in an all-out brawl. Both were arrested for assault and in my state, since they're family it's domestic so they couldn't be released until they saw a judge the next day.

Luckily, the family understood why we broke down their door and they were actually thankful we did so we could stop the fight before someone got really hurt.

It's important to know your rights. But make sure you know the actual rights not what some street lawyer or Facebook lawyer tells you.

Tasers are an amazing tool. They prevent injuries to offenders and officers by quickly stopping violent resistance.

They are not a magic tool that makes a deadly weapon in the hands of a suspect suddenly not deadly. If someone's armed with a gun, I'm pulling a gun. If someone's armed with a knife, I'm pulling a gun.

The reason is that a Taser only has a 21 foot range. And at maximum range odds of hitting a moving target aren't optimum. If you miss you turn it off, remove a cartridge, load another, turn back on, aim, and fire. If someone's coming at you with a knife, well, you're pretty much fucked. You're most likely getting cut. How bad depends on luck at that point.

Now, if there are multiple officers and one wants to go less lethal and use a Taser that's great, but I actually have a friend who thinks the legal expectation should be that I allow myself to get stabbed before using lethal force.

I have used a Taser multiple times. It's highly effective. The great thing is, the bigger and more muscular the offender the BETTER it works because all those muscles get hit with electricity and lock up.

Outside a club years ago some drunk guys were arguing and threatening each other. It got the point where to prevent violence we had to arrest one for intoxicated and disruptive behavior.

Now, I'm average sized. I grabbed the guys wrist and it was probably the size of my forearm. He pulled away, not really aggressively but almost like a bull would turn to see what was biting him if a fly landed on him. I went with him. At that point a squad mate hit him with the Taser. We were really close, which usually means the Taser probes won't get much spread and more spread = more disruption of the muscles due to the electrical charge.

However, as luck would have it the guy had one hand up. So, one probe hit his left nipple. The other his right pinky.

Down went the giant.

I've never seen a grown man cry so much in my life. Not from the pain really, he was just drunk. The Taser definitely prevented injuries to officers. If we'd had to fight that guy at least one of us would have been sent to the hospital.