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keep doing the blows. Did you pass any businesses?’
    ‘We turned left onto a major road.’
    ‘Okay, the main town road, this is good. Do you remember getting to a blinking light?’
    ‘No, we turned off before we got to a blinking light. There was a big picture of a strawberry.’
    So now I know roughly where they are. I get the ambulance going in that direction and at the same time she’s screaming hysterically doing CPR on an un-breathing infant.
    Finally I figure out where she was and she says, ‘I can see the ambulance!’
    I’m like, ‘Thank God! I’m going to let the line go now ma’am.’
    I got into the cruiser and started to head up that way and as I’m close by, the ambulance got on the air and… and… and all I could hear was a screaming child. So they managed to get the kid back. So…
    (At this point the officer broke down and began to cry)
    It certainly makes up for long nights of bullshit and drunks. You don’t mind getting banged up physically every now and then; it’s just the emotional toll that this job can take on you if you are not careful. It’s awful.
    ****
    Anybody you put cuffs on instantly becomes the toughest guy in the world – ‘I’ll fuck you!’ or ‘I’ll beat your ass!’ – because they know you’re not going to touch them when they’re in handcuffs.
    So we used to have this thing where I’d say to my partner, ‘Hey, he’s got my cuffs on and I need them back.’
    Then we’d take the cuffs off and as soon as the cuffs wereoff we’d say, ‘Okay motherfucker, what are you going to do now motherfucker?’
    They’d always back down.
    ****
    The department has changed its ways a little bit. It’s been up and down over the years but now they’re actually letting us defend ourselves and use some offence. If someone throws a freaking punch at your face, you don’t have to risk trying a twist lock or an evasive move or run back and pull you’re stick out. Now you can block the punch and pop them right in the freaking pie-hole. But not everyone has these skills; everyone wasn’t raised in a bar or everyone doesn’t go to the gym and do the ‘Billy Blanks’ or MMA practice or anything.
    What this job all boils down to, to me – after twenty-two years – is if you’ve got to kick someone’s ass, you’ve got to kick someone’s ass and you can’t let your own ass get kicked because you’ve got too much shit on. If you get knocked out by someone, that person suddenly has a taser and a stick and a gun to fuck up all your friends with. So you can’t lose. We won’t lose and we will survive. I was always told, ‘If you get shot, fight through it.’
    They show all those inspirational officer safety films now but our shit is mostly, simply dealing with staying on top of things. I always say to officers, ‘Kick ass! Kick ass!’
    Being able to defend yourself, being able to protect yourself, that’s important but unfortunately there’re people on the department who couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper sack.
    ****
    I carry a knife. In fact I carry a bunch of knives. I have one just for when I go to the bathroom, because we had an officer once, go to the bathroom and a guy came up behind him and he was on a head and this guy comes in and the next thing you know, BOOM! He jams him in and starts going for his gun. So the officer grabbed his knife, reached back and caught that artery in the guy’s thigh; he sliced it wide open.
    So I carry one knife in my vest, two on my belt and another one on my hip. You’re not going to be good friends with a guy if you use a knife but it’s legal for us to carry them. I also carry two guns, one as a back-up weapon, here inside my shirt. So I carry two guns – and I’ve got another one in the car – four knives and pepper spray. I don’t carry a taser.
    Most of the knives I use can be defensive but also used at scenes, you know? If I need to cut a branch out of the way, I’ve got a knife that saws. But some