Gun Run

It was a crisp clear spring day in the Bronx. I was on patrol with my partner and both of us were fresh out of the academy. We were rookies and had the "save the world attitude". We actually still thought we could make a difference. Suddenly on the radio we heard "respond on a report of 3 Hispanic teens with a gun". Our conversation stopped as we responded, lights and sirens going and my partner driving like he suddenly was a Nascar driver on the last lap of the Indy 500. As we were pulling up I saw 3 Hispanic teens and one of them had a gun pointed towards the ground. We jumped out of the car guns drawn and I yelled "Put the gun on the ground and everyone get down". The one with the gun was trying to say something but I interrupted him and told him to put the gun down again and put his hands up. This time he listened. When the situation was over and I picked up the gun it turned out to be a cigarette lighter. The lighter was about as big as a 22 cal handgun and was black, very realistic. I almost shit my pants. If we would have arrived on scene and this poor schmuck with the lighter gun had turned towards us with the gun pointed at us we would have lit him up. Dead in the middle of the business district on our busiest street in broad daylight. The headlines in the paper would have read "2 White Cops Shoot Hispanic Teen holding Cigarette Lighter" and Al Sharpton would be marching in front of the precinct. We would have been justified if we had shot but we would have to live with that decision. This call proved to me what they had said in the academy. When cops are out on the street we only have a split second to make a decision which could end up completely changing our lives forever. When I go to work I have no idea what's in store over the course of my 8 hour tour. So the next time you see a cop reading the paper or in Dunkin Donuts or doing what you conceive to be nothing cut them some slack and think about this story. You have no idea what he just did or saw.