The Academy ended up being one of the most interesting things I’ve ever done. The class of twenty learned about crime scenes, drugs, and mental health issues that required intervention. We visited the county jail and saw the dissection room and cadaver drawers in the county morgue. We learned to shoot a Glock handgun. When it kicked, I would have reeled back and cracked my skull if a burly officer had not caught me just in time.
The Academy greatly influenced my thoughts about law enforcement, but a tactical workshop one Saturday afternoon changed my perception of myself. While roleplaying an officer, each person in my class was sent, one-by-one, up a hill to a house where the owner had called 9-1-1 about an intruder. Full of confidence, I set off with my laser gun, which shot dots of light, and I thought, I’ll take care of the situation. No problem. But as I climbed higher up the hill through fog and wind, I felt more and more alone—and scared. No one would have heard me if I yelled for help. Though I knew that this errand was make believe, I started to tremble with genuine fear.
When I reached the house, I intended to look into the windows and see what I was up against. But before I had the chance, a man ran out from behind the house, waving a gun and screaming, “I’m going to kill you!” Terrified, I froze. My heart felt like it was going to pound out of my chest and run back down the hill.
The man kept yelling and coming at me. When he was just a few feet away, I gathered my wits enough to shoot—two red dots of light straight to his heart. If they’d been bullets, he’d have fallen, dead, at my feet, and I was shocked. I, a confirmed pacifist who shooed flies out the window instead of swatting them, had killed a human being! Adrenaline had overridden my moral principles and self-image.
Later when the class reconvened, we learned that every single one of us had shot to kill and save ourselves. But to our astonishment, we also learned that the man who’d run from behind the house had been the homeowner, not the intruder. He’d not been yelling, “I’m going to kill you,” but, rather, “Thank God you’re here.” And the gun we’d all seen him wave at us had been a flashlight. Adrenaline and fear had clouded our perception, and all we’d thought of was survival.
This experience made a huge impression on me. I understood that even I could shoot to kill, and that real-life officers sometimes have only a split second to decide whether or not to defend themselves. If they make a mistake, they can end up dead—or sent to prison.
After that workshop I knew I had a splendid idea for a story, and the future of Officer Andrea Brady, my main character, would depend on whether or not she decided to shoot. As she faces every cop’s worst nightmare, she goes through tremendous emotional upheaval—guilt, blame, and self-doubt. Of course, she has Justice, her German shepherd K-9 partner, to accompany her on the road to healing. To write about him, I drew on my experiences with the six German shepherds I’ve been lucky enough to claim for family all my life.
