This week is National Police Appreciation Week, a time to honor the hundreds of decent cops doing great work in the city, instead of dwelling on the few trigger-happy, force-heavy, arguably racist ones who have dominated the last year’s worth of headlines (because being good at your job is never breaking news). These are the stories of the cops we have loved.

The Cop Who Saved My Ass

A lot of cops aren’t great to homeless people like me—either they hassle us or they ignore us. But last summer, one cop probably saved me from getting my ass kicked. I was panhandling on the downtown waterfront and had made about $20. It was in a baseball cap in front of me, but my legs were around it so nobody could snatch it (and also because my right knee is pretty messed up). I saw these thug-looking kids, three of them, eyeing the money. The sun was setting, and they kept getting closer and closer. I wanted to get up but I was afraid to—I knew these kids were going to mess with me if I moved. Then this bike cop rolled up. I don’t know if he was watching or what, but he pulled between me and the guys. Then the cop helped me stand up. He asked where I was going and if he could walk with me. So I said, “Sure.” He walked with me to get a burger, and we talked about the weather and seagulls and guns. The kids didn’t follow us. It was a really good thing that cop did, a really kind gesture. I don’t know his name, but I’ll always appreciate it. JERRY

The Cops Outside the Club

I promote shows at the Crocodile in Belltown, where there’s a significant amount of open-air drug dealing and violence. We have two beat cops—one’s a little guy and the other’s this massive dude, like 300 pounds or a robust 280. I think he used to be a Husky football player. They’re always walking around, talking to people on the street, joking with business owners. About a year and a half ago, we saw a drug deal go bad outside of the Crocodile. And as we watched, these two beat cops went tearing after the dealer, chasing him down the middle of Second Avenue, right through traffic, on foot. Not only was it a hoot to watch, they caught the guy.

When we have good cops on the beat, Belltown is safer. These guys make a huge difference in the neighborhood. Huge. KERRI HARROP

The Cop Who Saw Me Drinking

It was a fine evening in May of 2002—that spring was a warm one, if such a thing is imaginable. A companion and I strolled down East Pine Street, enjoying a cold beer in a cavalier manner less than half a block from the Capitol Hill precinct police station. The voice of the law interrupted the strolling. It came from within a police cruiser, stopped at the light a mere stone’s throw away. The officer issued a surprising directive: to chug the beer. I complied to the best of my immediate ability, then moved toward a nearby recycling bin. “Don’t wimp out on me!” the officer commanded. I followed orders, then disposed of my container properly while exchanging pleasantries with the officer. His parting words (and his only warning): “Remember—throwing away beer is a crime.” If we cannot do away with Seattle Municipal Code 12A.24.025, it is a delight to find an officer who recognizes the inanity of disallowing responsible adults to responsibly consume alcohol in public on a beautiful May evening—and one who is willing to disregard the law in favor of a greater universal moral code. BETHANY JEAN CLEMENT

The Cop in My Rearview Mirror

I’m driving west on Highway 16 in Tacoma, middle lane, music up, arm halfway out the window, passing the giant red Target target on a sunny afternoon. I notice a cop behind me, so I check my speed: a little fast. I slow down—he drives closer. I start to feel that familiar feeling I get at the border or the DMV, that I am guilty of something I have not done. I tense up. I turn down the music but not too much. I’m not turning it all the way off! I haven’t done anything wrong! Or have I? The police car pulls into the left lane and sidles up next to me. I don’t look over at first, but he stays there, stalking me. I am terrified. I get up the gumption to look over, and he is looking at me. Defeated, I switch off the music. I’m grimly ready for whatever punishment is coming my way when I hear, like the principal’s voice on a loudspeaker, the flat, serious words “PLEASE. TURN OFF YOUR BLINKER.” JEN GRAVES

The Cop Who Caught the Guy

Two years ago, my house on south Beacon Hill was robbed of everything of value.

The first responding officer was straight-up with us: These things don’t often get solved. He gave us the contact info for the community patrol officer and sat with us a bit, talking about the next steps in the case.

The next day while cleaning up, I discovered some broken glass under the bed, with blood, so I called the nonemergency line and within an hour, another officer arrived. He apologized for being late—something that blew my mind—and told my wife and me he had come from a robbery just like ours down the street. He thought they had a lead.

A few days later, a detective knocked on my door with some follow-up questions about the robbery. He also had the kid who robbed my place in the fucking van right in front of my house. We ended up getting back some of our CDs and DVDs. I’ve never had good experiences with cops, but these guys were really professional—they stayed in touch afterward and let us know how things were coming. And really, that’s the best you can ask for when you’ve been robbed, cops who are sensitive enough to make your shitty experience slightly better. BRIAN McGUIGAN

The Cop at the Party

It was New Year’s Eve, and the theme of the party was Mexico. I bought 25 bags of different kinds of tortilla chips and poured them into round green tub and called it Chip Mountain. Hours into the party and unbeknownst to me, an inebriated friend dumped Chip Mountain out my sixth-floor window. I live at the intersection of two major arterials, and considering the holiday, the streets were covered in cops, including two of them standing a few feet from where the dozen-or-so-bags’ worth of chips landed. When the cops looked up at the source of the avalanche of chips, they saw something even more distressing coming out of the windows of my apartment: fireworks. For a brief, beautiful, unforgettable moment, the party was awash in bright-white cop lights beaming up from the street, and then, like thunder, came that God-is-speaking-to-you megaphone voice. I stepped out into the hallway to greet them—a talkative lesbian (I’m guessing) and a shy short guy (both very pleasant). They asked if I knew that guests were dumping things out my window and shooting explosives at pedestrians. I said I didn’t. I was not lying. The amazing thing is they believed me. We had a sincere conversation about public safety, I assured them I would speak to my guests about refraining from six-story projectiles and blowing up passersby, they said they understood that celebrations could get a little too celebratory on nights like tonight, and turned on their heels and left. CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE

The Cop in New York City

I was in the back of his squad car, crying. Not far away, my then boyfriend was in the back of an ambulance, bleeding, on his way to the emergency room.

“It’s okay,” the cop told me. “We’re going to find the guy.”

We had been walking together down Sixth Avenue south of Chelsea when some guy—young, menacing, mad about something—walked past us and, without saying a word, punched my boyfriend in the back of the head as hard he could.

Maybe it was a gay-bashing. Maybe it was something else. It was hard to tell. The guy just kept on walking.

We needed help. The guy had been wearing a ring that gouged the back of my boyfriend’s head, and now there was blood everywhere. All over my boyfriend’s neck, his shirt, my hands. It was terrifying.

I held it together long enough to get my boyfriend into an ambulance. But once I was in the back of the cop car looking for the guy who attacked my boyfriend, I lost it.

I felt embarrassed. I was blubbering about something that was probably, in the scheme of what he’d seen, relatively minor. Also: I was blubbering—like, really blubbering—and the cop was a big, beefy, commutes-in-from-Long-Island type.

He was a total pro, though. He helped me calm down enough to describe the guy’s clothes, height, and—this is the part I remembered most clearly, because it was so ridiculous—the guy’s row of gold-capped teeth. The cop got on the radio, and pretty soon, as promised, they got him. We drove over to a brick apartment building wall the guy was being held against, and the cop got out of the squad car and stood next to me, protective-like.

“That him?” the cop asked.

“Yes, officer,” I said. “Thank you so much.” ELI SANDERS

The Cop Who Didn’t Shoot Me

“Shit!” I yelled as the flashing lights appeared in my rearview mirror, just days after getting my driver’s license. Had I run a red light? Was I speeding? Maybe. I was too nervous to be sure. So I pulled to the curb and anxiously waited for the officer to approach.

And waited.

After what seemed like minutes, I rolled down the window and stuck my head out to see what was happening. It was then that the officer, crouching behind the door of his patrol car, swung his revolver toward me, screaming: “Freeze… drop your guns!”

Oh. That.

It was 1980. Dressed as Arab terrorists for a skit in a high school show, we’d made a last-minute burger run—in character—my comrades-in-fake-arms shooting their cap guns and starter pistols out the windows as I white-knuckled my way through traffic. Stupid fucking teenagers.

“But they’re only toys…” my friend Philip half-giggled, oblivious to the danger, as he extended a particularly ludicrous prop out his window, a flimsy plastic caricature of a tommy gun held together with a piece of silver duct tape. “Drop ’em!” the officer repeated threateningly, swinging his very real weapon in Philip’s direction. We carefully complied, slowing sliding our ridiculous arsenal of toys and cardboard cutouts onto the pavement, as the absurd reality of the situation slowly dawned on the officer.

Holstering his gun with an audible sigh, you could see a mixture of relief and embarrassment cross the officer’s face as he muttered something into his microphone. The excited radio chatter suddenly ceased. There was a long pause, followed by a disappointed “Oh.”

Nowadays, such an incident would likely end in suicide-by-cop. If we had been shot, the cop would have been excused. But thanks to the composure and common sense of the officer, we all walked away with nothing but a stern warning and a story to tell. GOLDY

The Cop Who Is All About Being Nice

If someone calls 911 for a non­emergency—say, a neighbor’s outdoor cigar smoking is drifting over the fence and polluting their life—chances are the complaint will be forwarded to Seattle police sergeant Paul Gracy. An affable 31-year-veteran of the Seattle Police Department (SPD), he runs the West Precinct Community Police Team.

“We are the friendly face of SPD,” intones Gracy in his West Precinct office on Eighth Avenue and Virginia Street.

A typical day for his team? Driving cold-weather vans around to hand out food and socks, and give free rides to shelters. Or visiting with school children. Or calling the Seattle Department of Transportation on behalf of a neighbor to report bad lighting or a crumbling sidewalk. Or linking mentally ill people up with the appropriate services. “It doesn’t matter which population we’re dealing with, it takes multiple contacts to build trust,” Gracy explains. “But every positive encounter helps build our good reputation.”

This sort of function—building a good rapport with residents—is exactly what SPD needs more of to combat the public’s negative associations with less-friendly cops. “A lot of interactions people have stem from public fights, robberies, being pulled over, generally the bad stuff,” he says. “It’d be nice if everyone liked us. But when you arrest people, a certain level of dislike comes with the territory, so the most honorable thing we can do is be as nice as humanly possible in the face of anything that’s thrown our way. It’s a simple thing—being nice. But it reminds people we’re here to help, not just police.” CIENNA MADRID

79 replies on “Cops We Have Loved”

  1. Oh, Officer Benny, how many nasty handcuff fantasies did you inspire? He used to cruise by my bus stop at 5:15 every weeknight, grinning big and making googlie eyes. He stopped one evening to warn me to be careful, since the #43 stop was next to a notorious dive bar. If I hadn’t had a boyfriend at the time, Officer Benny and I would have been “going downtown” together.

  2. Don’t forget Lt. John Hayes, who helped bring donuts and social services to the assorted down-and-out people who hung out around Deano’s on Madison, selling drugs and themselves.

    His GOTS program moved to 23rd & Union when Deano’s/Club Chocolate City closed and the “business” (though not the actual people) moved to that intersection.

  3. I can’t be the only one disappointed that this did not actually contain any “I hooked up with a hot cop” stories after seeing the illustration!

  4. The Cops Who Checked on a Delinquent

    I was the props mistress for a high school production of Fame and had to stay late to finish some pieces the night before Opening. Around 1:30 in the morning two police officers walked through the loading dock onto the stage of our theater and asked for me. The stage manager said I was probably in the production room, but could they hold down a board while they were there. They complied as he nailed something together, then went to find me washing paintbrushes.
    As I heard them say my name, my stomach dropped and I expected to hear about something horrible that happened at home. One of the officers told me my dad called in because he hadn’t heard from me all day and was worried. I apologized as I went to call home and they laughed as they walked away.

  5. The cop who hangs out at the Wallingford food bank keeps things nice and peaceful among the sometimes unruly crowd of desperate people.

  6. Well, once the DOJ reads these lighthearted chestnuts I’m sure it’ll be all, “Well gosh, gee, did WE make a mistake! Carry on SPD!”

  7. king county officer sherman ewing, who drowned back in 1993, was the nicest cop i ever knew. he used to come in to the pizza restaurant where i worked after his shift most nights. the kids who hung around making trouble always gave him a hard time and thought he was a prick, but he was just doing his best to help them stay on track. those shitheads rejoiced when they heard that he died, and i gave them hell for it. he was a good man and a good cop, and him dying was a great loss, for sure. RIP, officer sherman.

  8. Every cop I’ve ever chatted with in Seattle has been really nice. My favorite two encounters in the city were:

    1. Westlake. Some protest or another was going on and there were a TON of cops out. A *TON*. There were like 5 protestors. I asked one, “Whats gonig on? Seems a bit lopsided.” He laughed and mentioned it was an anarchist protest and some had smashed stuff up the week before, so they wanted to do a show of force. 40 feet away, one ararchist is screaming something about arresting all pigs. The cop I was talking to mentioned that the screamer actually was a nice guy and pleasantly chatted with him in the past. Reminded me of that only Looney Tunes where the Coyote and Sheepdog check in daily on a time clock to kill each other, then go out for beers and family events.

    2. I got pulled over once for a barely-expired out of state license tag on Elliot. The cop asks for the docs, and I explain I had forgotten to update it–it was right after we moved back. He goes away, to look at the rare of the car, and hands me the paperwork back. “That bumper sticker,” he says. “Where’d you get it?”

    “Which one?” I had two. A “BNL” one for Barenaked Ladies and one that said “REPUBLICANS FOR VOLDEMOORT“.

    “The Voldemoort one. I really, really need that bumper sticker,” he answered. I told him, he got reallty giddy happy, said good night, and sped off to another call. Voldemoort spared me a ticket I guess.

    My favorite all-time though is when I was maybe 14, 16, our home was across the street from a junior high school that just got a lot of nice new trees and shrubs that week. It was summer, hot out, window open, late at night on Saturday, and I was wide awake reading–maybe 2am, 3am. I saw a car drive across the school lawn. It was a big Sam Raimi type classic. Guy hops out, and starts tugging shrubberies out of the ground, shoving them in the backseat and trunk. I casually reach over, dial 911, and tell them. The lady says, “Hang on one moment.” Hold music.

    I hear sirens. The guy stands bolt upright like a groundhog–the sirens are REALLY CLOSE. I’m laughing my ass off now as she comes back on the line. “I saw your address,” she says, cackling. “Do you see the officers?”

    “Yes,” I say. The dumbass was on the other side of the cafeteria, ripping up the bushes, from where SEVEN police cars were parked, the guys outside eating their shift lunch. Two blocked him driving across the lawn, and the others just casually walked over the maybe . I heard one of the cops shout “Nice night for gardening” and the guy just yelled back “Fuck me!” She and I were dying laughing on the phone over this.

    It sucked living across from my junior high when I went there, but that right there was worth the headache. Funniest cop thing I ever saw in my life.

  10. My girlfriend was walking downtown, and sensed that she was being followed by a sketchy-looking, possibly-drunk-and/or-homeless guy, who was mumbling incoherently.

    Even as she picked up the pace of her walk, this guy managed to keep up and follow her for a few blocks, until she had to stop at a crosswalk sign. Little did he know that two bike cops were following him as well. Just as this fellow was about to grope her, the cops -in one synchronized motion- jumped off their bikes and tackled the dude. I wish I could have been there to see it. Thank you, anonymous bike cops.

  11. A summer or two ago, I found an iPhone lying abandoned in the parking lot behind my dad’s apartment. Nearly all its data had been cleared, but upon calling a number that it listed as having been registered to, I reached a young man who informed me that his place had been burglarized. (He’d been intending to sell his phone, which was why the data was wiped from it.) I met up with him at the local police station and gave my statement to a few cops, who were friendly and professional. After giving them the details of where I found the phone, and my reference to a few neighbors who’d told me they’d seen the guy who dropped it, I went about my business.
    Apparently they caught the guy, who had also burglarized a few other residences and attempted to rape a young woman. It felt good to see the cops getting things done. Thanks, Evanston Police!

  12. At a New Years Eve party I had – eh hem… 1999 – one of the “guests” decided to set off a PVC pipe bomb. Not the Unibomber kind but more like the basic make.your.ears.bleed sort. I was told someone was setting off a bomb and I ran out to the driveway to find wires leading into the street to a small cylinder device and those wires were just touching the car battery of a Toyota Pickup and… KABOOOOOM! No sooner were the cops coming around the corner and as they got out of the car my best friend started running and one of the officers yelled “STOP!” He stopped and walked back and the officer asked “why the hell are you running” to which he replied, “habit”. The cop could barely keep a straight face as I apologized for the behavior of my guests and promised to keep it down. He left us alone with a grin on his face and just told us to chill out. Whew!

  14. Deep and profound thanks:

    To the cop who decided that a man with a shopping bag full of laptops in Pike Place seemed suspicious, one of which was mine that had been fingered out of the coat room during a work meeting.

    To the detective who turned on my laptop, found a copy of my resume, and called me before the meeting had even ended.

  15. Two cops, doing a police-beat sort of thing outside of my boyfriend’s apartment building on broadway, the year I moved here (1998) inquired about the music coming from the rooftop. They asked: was there a party going on? Why, I asked, was there a complaint? No, just curious. I invited them up. They were so cool. They didn’t accept any drinks, but still seemed to have a good time (not in an off-the-clock sort of fashion). Party lights, pretty girls and dancing guys… fun for all. Wish I’d gotten their names.

  16. Hooray for pandering! This is totally gonna make up for all the inaccurate, fictional, outrageously biased nonsense you guys have written about SPD.

  17. Thanks to the cop who didn’t charge me with a DUI after I drunkenly totaled my truck. I’ve been sober since. 16 years.

  18. I was driving up from Olympia during rush hour on an extremely rainy day, driving fast lane when I had a blow-out in my rear tire. I swerved and nearly hit the center median, and only barely was able to maintain control of my car. I was panicking, not sure how I was going to get my car over three lanes of traffic when I see flashing lights and hear the magic words, “Pull over the side, I’ll stop traffic.” He stops traffic, and I am able to hobble my poor car over to the side. He follows me and I expect a lecture about something, not sure what, I was so freaked out. He just motions me to open my trunk, and without a single word, proceeds to CHANGE MY TIRE in pouring rain alongside the freeway. I was so grateful, and always share this story when people try to tell me that the police are mean and corrupt.

  19. Personal anecdotes don’t begin to absolve the police for being a violent institution that has been on the wrong side of every historic struggle for decent lives. Each individual cop loses his swell personality or humanity when he puts on the blood-stained badge. Fuck them all. All cops are bastards.

  20. Power corrupts, but altruism and service to others purifies. It’s nice to read stories of the other side of that spectrum.

  21. And then there was the ballard cop who pulled my young girlfriend over for “taking a corner poorly” and subjected her to a breathalizer through her rolled down window at his crotch level. This was 1992 and even the girls in the car with her were to scared to protest.

  22. Steve Leonard is my officer of the decade. He was the officer who responded to the shots fired March 26th 2006, ‘the capitol hill massacre’. A medal doesn’t even begin to describe what I, and about 90% of my friends, owe this guy. His quick response, his words meant more that day than he will ever know. Thank you Steve, thank you.

  23. In 2001, back in my young, radical, and idealistic days, I was in an immigration reform protest walking down some downtown street (I think it was 2nd Avenue, but it was a decade ago, and I can’t remember). The idea was to march from Capitol Hill down to the then-INS detention facility in the International District. We had our share of anti-authority cheers, many of them vulgar, many of them not at all police-friendly.

    And yet, we were flanked by Seattle police, guarding the protest as it went through the streets. Along the sides were a few bike cops. I distinctly remember one of them at points ringing his bike bell in line with our cheers, and smiling at us.

    It left a distinct impression on my 19-year-old know-it-all brain–that the cops were people, too.

    I’m now in Toronto, and just a few days ago, I was walking home from work to my apartment in the Village (the gayest gaybourhood in North America). Six giant bears, all Toronto Police officers, in uniform, were standing at Church and Maitland. Two of them were waving rainbow flags, and all of them invited me to stop and have barbecue, a fundraiser for the Toronto Police LGBT Youth Bursary.

  24. Oh! And one more:

    All my thanks to the Tampa police officer(s) whose name(s) I’ll never know, who finally arrested my brother for DUI. It was his fifth time getting caught, but the first time he wasn’t able to talk his way out of it.

    He’s been clean since. The 10 days in jail really scared the shit out of him and got him to get help. It’s altogether possible my brother would be in dead right now had you “just let him off with a warning”.

  26. I’d like to thank the Madison, WI police officers who refused to arrest protestors occupying the WI capitol this Winter/Spring. My favorite story comes from a friend of mine who was staying overnight in the capitol. One of our esteemed Republican state senators comes in early in the morning, escorted by two officers; a group of people, including my friend, is camping out in front of his office, blocking the door. Mr. Senator is already visibly unhappy with the situation, and, upon being unable to enter his office, he begins shouting at the protestors to get the fuck out of his way, go home, etc. After they don’t listen to him, he turns to one of the officers and insists she arrest the protestors. She looks at him, gives a short laugh, and says simply, “No.”

    I’d also like to thank the Milwaukee police officer who arrested the woman who bumped and pushed me with her SUV because she wanted to make a right turn and I was crossing the street, in a crosswalk, with a walk signal, during a protest (which was, admittedly, slowing down traffic, though not stopping it). The funny bit was how angry she was with the cop; apparently she was under the impression that it’s okay for her to hit pedestrians with her car if they’re in her way when she has somewhere to be.

  27. I used to provide night time street health care to women who did street prostitution in downtown Toronto. Wendy Leaver was someone who believed in protecting the women and men who worked downtown, even if their jobs weren’t legal. She took reports in professionally, she let us know descriptions of bad johns, she treated people with respect.

  29. I suspected I was pregnant and it was confirmed when I did this stupid-ass hormone-addled thing: screamed at two South Philly contractors that they weren’t allowed to dump construction waste in the apartment complex dumpster across the street. I kept yelling as I called 911, and the officers who showed up were so respectful and patient – both with me and with the contractors as they called up the complex owner, their boss (ahem, my mistake), who had told them to go ahead and use the dumpster.

    The female cop told me that it was great to be a good neighbor and aware of what was happening on my street, but that challenging two large guys to their faces was potentially not in my best interest. I hear you, ma’am, and thank you.

  30. It was nice seeing all the Police Pipe Band members in Fremont last night, drinking pitchers of hard cider at the Red Door.

    Thanks to the cop who showed up when that drunk guy broke in my front door at 2 am. Very professional.

  31. I would like to extend my thanks to the empathetic SPD officer who gave me a written warning and his sincere congratulations on my very-visible pregnancy (instead of a well-deserved speeding ticket) when he pulled me over on Lake City Way a couple of weeks ago.

  32. I’m HORRIBLE at remembering to renew my tabs. I have gotten at least 5 tickets for it. This is tiny, but meant a lot to me. I was at the Dr’s office and my appt went long, so my meter expired. I walked out to my car, and sure enough, there was a parking cop writing a ticket for the car in front of me. When I got to my car, it hadn’t been ticketed yet, thankfully, but the officer turned to me and said, “Hey, I noticed your tabs are expired. There’s a tab renewal place two blocks up that is still open for another half hour, so you can fix that right now if you have time.” I thanked her profusely for the reminder and directions, and especially for not ticketing me for it. You bet your butt that I went directy there. I really appreciated the helpful attitude from a parking cop.

  33. I love OFFICER BENNY @ Garfield. Providing safety & guidance for the nearly 2000 people that enter the school every day. I have seen him check in with kids, urge them to do better, laugh & joke… and give the stern eye. As a Bulldog mom, i feel better knowing he is there with our community.

  34. On my 21st birthday, I was stumbling home when a strange man started following and harassing me-he kept saying things like he “was going to tap that ass whether I liked it or not.” A cop on patrol pulled over and not only questioned the man, but gave me a ride a home. Even though I was obviously highly intoxicated, he just checked my id, wished me a happy birthday, and drove me right to my door.

  35. I’d like to thank the Bellingham cops who were so easy on college kids lifestyle violations (skateboarding down Railroad Ave in traffic at high noon, walking the dog through downtown w/o a leash, skateboarding on WWU campus). Each time you warned me rather than ticketed me, or god forbid searched me, I had felony, although relatively small for pre 9/11 Bellingham, amounts of weed in my backpack. Ranging from 1-4 pounds in per incident. Thanks for letting me skate, no pun intended, I’m a reasonably productive member of society now, and the drug War still sucks-but you know that.

  36. @18 The EXACT same thing happened to me in downtown Seattle a few months ago. I only regret that I was too shaken up to take a moment to get his name so I could send him a muffin basket.

  37. In 2004 I was doing an internship in NYC and was substantially away from home for the first time. I was on my lunch break at a fast food place feeling kind of lost and depressed because I didn’t know anyone. A group of policemen was eating near me and one kept making eyes at me and stuff, which was goofy but really improved my mood. When I got up to leave he actually asked for my number. I didn’t give it to him (I was kinda lame and got embarrassed… plus he probably didn’t realize I was underage at the time) but instead said “Why don’t we all just get back to work?” Everybody laughed. It’s silly but I’ve always remembered that as the day I actually started to like NYC a bit! Thanks for the cheering up, Mr. Officer.

  38. I remember being in a POS VW bug that croaked on the freeway, on an extremely hot afternoon, right after we’d been to the grocery store. This was many, many years ago, and the groceries in that car constituted the better part of a week’s pay for me, and I was freaking out about them spoiling, the frozen food all melting, etc. A State Patrol officer pulled up behind us, and first took me and the groceries home (even helped me carry the bags in), then went back and took my boyfriend to the auto parts store to get the part he needed to restart the car. Neither of us could afford a tow truck, and we were a good 10 miles from home, so that meant a great deal to us. He definitely went above and beyond that day for a couple of broke college kids.

  39. Oh, and I have to give a shout-out to a friend, Officer Parker, at the Southwest Precinct, who uses her art-school skills to do offender identification portraits that have caught at least two very very bad apples.

  40. Thanks to those diligent police officers who patrolled and protected Greenwood during the outbreak of arson that really terrorized a neighborhood. Thank you for listening to us during community meetings, reassuring us, and finally nailing that lunatic!

  41. This thread is making me happy.

    I was wandering around my hometown, walking from home to school, ten years after I graduated. Officers showed up – apparently, there had been a rash of break-ins in the neighborhood, and someone had called me in as suspicious. The responding officers were very professional, and had the decency to be embarrassed about the whole thing; in the end they gave me a ride to the school.

  42. A few years back, I was helped by the Sheriff’s office when I had some identity theft. The deputies who initially responded to my call were helpful, and the detective who worked on my case was very accessible. He gave me his personal cell number in case I ran into more information regarding my case, and he kept me updated as he worked on the case. A couple of months later, the criminals were busted, and it turned out that they had victimized many people.

  43. I,persnaly like to give props to the po-po on broadway walking the beat: after my father passed away(over a year ago),i was left with his belonings,one of his belonings was a GUN(i did not have a gun licence so it was illegal for me to possess one)…anyway,i was sitting up on broadway drinking coffee when i saw two cops walking the beat, so i decided on takeing a chance on asking them what to do with my fathers GUN(i was fucking scared if i told them i have a gun without a licence,they could arrest me,if i did nothing one day i could get busted by the cops and if they get a warrnt to search my pad…)SURPRISNLY…the cops told me where to dispose of the GUN!!! no arrest,no questioning,no harassment whatsoever!!! i am glad that SOME (Unfortunely not all…)cops in this state are nice and i hope to see more… Oh one more thing… i am going to get a gun licence so this NEVER Happens again…just in case… don’t get me wrong, im just trying to be a upstanding cidzen, but who the fuck is these days?

  44. We were 16, and it was a few hours after my best friend had gotten the news that her parents were getting a divorce because her father had had an affair. She was inconsolable, and all she wanted to do was drive around and cry so she wouldn’t have to go home. I wanted to be a good friend, and after she’d declined my carefully worded offer to take over the wheel and started sobbing again, I dropped it. But I was starting to get worried about us getting into an accident, when we got pulled over. Thank you to the officer who noticed her distracted driving despite the fact that she wasn’t speeding or swerving. Thank you again for spending a full 20 minutes being the compassionate authority figure that not only convinced her to let me drive us for the rest of the night, but got her to see what I hadn’t: that right now her life sucked, but it wouldn’t feel like this always, and she should be careful to not sabotage her future just because she was upset.

  45. Our second child did not sleep for longer than an hour or two for the first 6 months of her life. When she was about 5 months old I was nursing her in the girls’ room while my 3 year old ran back and forth between me and my husband in the backyard manning the barbeque. I finally told her to either stay in or go out but quit running back and forth. Fifteen minutes later my husband came in with dinner and I asked where our oldest was. He said she was with me. But she wasn’t with me, I thought she was with him. Long story short, we couldn’t find her. We searched the house, the yard, the street in front of our house and the alley behind our house. She was gone. I called 911 and within minutes there were 2 cops in our house and I could see 4 – 5 cop cars driving around the park across the street. I was panicked. I remember a woman cop telling me they needed to search my entire house and they needed my permission. Of course, do whatever you need to do but you need to find my toddler. Then I remember another cop telling me that what usually happens with kids that young is that they crawl into a small space and fall asleep. For example, she could be here, and he flips up the down comforter on our bed and there she is sound asleep. I had been stand by that bed yelling for her and she never woke up. All I can think now is how we looked to the cops, two crazy, exhausted parents who can’t keep track of their 3 year old. But they were all kind and accepted our thanks and apologies with grace. Thank you for helping us and being so kind with our foolishness. I will never forget.

  46. Another:
    17 this time, and driving a different friend home at 3 AM. She’d gotten fed up with always being the perfect good girl while everyone else had irresponsible fun, so I’d offered to be her safe sober friend (but not DD, it was an overnight party) while she tried drinking for the first time. That plan backfired on me when she insisted on going home after having had way more than we’d agreed on, and a state patrol officer pulled me over on the freeway even though I’d been careful not to speed, and I answered his questions as calmly as I could despite literally trembling with panic –“Did you know your taillight was out? Have you been drinking? How much has your friend had?” He could have given me a minor in possession ticket too (because though I hadn’t had a drop, under Colorado law I was considered a minor, in possession of a minor in possession, fucked up law I know but it’d happened to a couple upperclassmen the year before), but he let me drive off with just a warning about the taillight.

  47. One more:
    We were having a house party. Things were under control, even with a small amount of underage drinking and a large amount of weed smoking and buying happening. Then some rough guys showed up and were trying to start shit, and we were forced to call the cops on our own illegal party. Thank you to the officers who stayed friendly, and efficiently took care of the troublemakers without checking IDs of the few teenagers there or following up on what had to have been a very noticeable smell of marijuana smoke. Thanks SPD. We know a lot of you are good, reasonable people.

  48. Special thanks to the cops who caught me chugging a heffeweizen at Cal Anderson yesterday and simply told me to pour it out, then apologized for having to make me do it.

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