From One End of Law Enforcement to the Other: Becoming a Police Officer

Animal back with our American stories next were hearing from a listener, and the author of who I am the man behind the badge. Jeff Shaw was a police officer in South Florida 24 years is here to share some stories about his time in the line of duty. All that comes with peers. Jeff in high school I got my first regular job. I started out as a bus boy for a restaurant called ranch house restaurants kind of combination between identities and Texas roadhouse.

I work for them on and off until I was 26 years old. Eventually I became a cooking then I was made manager. During those years. In fact out right after high school I started taking flying lessons. I went to Opa Locka Airport in I stepped inside a Cessna 150 with the instructor and that was my first flight ever in an airplane and I was flying. I eventually got my license. My private pilot license in July 1972, and I thought okay I'm on my way.

I'm going to be pilot and about that same time Vietnam was winding down and thousands and thousands of pilots and mechanics were all coming back from the war and looking for jobs with the airlines so I pretty much didn't have a chance at that. You know me with my 50 hours of flight time and a little Cessna I was competing with these pilots with thousands of hours and complex objects.

So I had to look elsewhere and one night while I was at ranch house cooking. I was sitting at the counter was. I remember was a slow night and I was sitting with a friend of mine is a highly police sergeant and I think I must've mentioned my unhappiness with my career and he said Jackie should go down to City Hall and put an application into be a police officer sister giving a test sometime in the summer so I I remember thinking up being a law enforcement is probably the last thing I had thought of doing. Usually I would like in the wrong end of law enforcement of one of those kids you know you look in the rearview mirror and see a police officer behind he started panicking. It was mid 1970 and I had hair like Bon Jovi just didn't I'd had never thought of being of being a cop, but I thought about at night. One day I went down to City Hall. I walked into the personnel department and I remember asking the lady behind the desk for an application and she looked me right in the outline. She said son you can come back for an application when you get a haircut and I knew she was serious. So I walked out I was pretty upset and member driving home thinking okay I got it find something else I want to work here but over the next day or two. I found myself in a barbershop getting regular haircut. I went back to City Hall, walked into that same office to different woman this time and she gave me an application I filled it out and a week or two later I got a letter from the city saying that to my application had been accepted and I would be notified when the test was being given and eventually I did get that notification so I bought a study guide for law enforcement to be a police officer I study that for probably the month between receiving that letter and the actual test. I thought I was.

I was pretty prepared. Until I pulled into the parking lot parking lot was packed and I walked in the door and I saw 2 to 300 other applicants milling around getting ready to take the test, so I didn't really do well in school, so I thought this is not easy, but I sat down they gave me my number two pencil behaving packet, which was the test and they said all right. Everybody start.

I think we have three hour maximum.

And so I started filling out all those little bottles I remember was each question had five answers, you know, in the last two were all of the above, or none of the above so he could really guess too well in about an hour and 20 minutes later.

I think it was I was finished and I nobody had stood up to give their test results and so I thought man I must've rushed through this bloated, so I spent another half hour just going through the test again looking at my answers and by that time, other people getting up to hand in my test and I drove home. I wasn't real optimistic and I was trying to think positive, but I didn't have the greatest success taking test in high school, but within the first month, maybe two weeks I got a letter saying that, congratulations.

I had come out number 71 on the list didn't tell me how many other people were behind me but I was number 71 what I did know was how long it would take to get the number 71 in a year went by and I think I was working at ranch house an entire year and had almost given up hope when I got a letter saying congratulations you've been hired as a probationary police training and I was to report to City Hall the following week I went through a process that entire week of signing papers going to different offices. I had to go to the city's doctor and have a physical little worried about that because I was 6 foot tall and I weighed hundred 35 pounds thought it would be too skinny, but I pass that I had to pick up my uniforms from police supply products placed had to get my gun ahead by my own handcuffs city supplied my leather belt.

The shoes and just about everything else. So that weekend I put it all on light blue shirt on pants on ice didn't friend the mayor just looked at myself had worn a Boy Scout uniform years before so it wasn't a far stretch from wearing a Boy Scout uniform, but it meant a whole lot more responsibility.

There were so many different classes we have so many different instructors almost every day that we had a class of defensive tactics. We had driver training we had weeks of constitutional law, state law traffic laws. We had people coming in giving classes on domestic violence everything that we were supposed to learn in 26 weeks so I was about three weeks into the Academy. When my training advisor was right in front of me was Sgt.

I remember I had skated through all the inspections. His nose is probably 4 inches away from mine is looking right at my eyes but I don't look in his eyes and I could feel his hands touching my belt buckle and he said that Shaw have a fingerprint on your belt buckle, what you think of that and I'm thinking to myself, there is no way there was a fingerprint on my belt buckle.

You just put that there, but of course I say I'm sorry sir, and he backs up. He says give me 10 push-ups. So I did my duty. I got down I gave my 10 push-ups and I'm I was probably good for another month or two.

Then we started learning to march in his right face forward March about face {class halt and we look terrible. The first several weeks, but I could tell there was a great amount of peer pressure between the classes to look good could really tell the senior classes looked really sharp but I always wondered why do police officers have to March. You know all my life had seen police officers out on the street stations are on TV on the news and you never see them marching you never see human formations just doesn't happen. So why was so much importance put it into us looking sharp in those units marching in you been listening to Jeff Shaw tell his story about becoming a law enforcement officer. By the way his story is everyone story was in law enforcement in this great country. Our neighbors story our friends or family members present to staffs or 800,000+ state, local and federal law enforcement agencies. It's us. We the people are civilian law enforcement agency a civilian military to a beautiful idea, but a beautiful storm when we come back.

What happens next in Jeff Shaw's transition from rocker hippie restaurant worker wearing a badge and all the responsibility to carry with more gestural story here on our American story, and we returned to our American stories.

Enter Jeff Shaw's story telling us about his time policing Theory is to tell us about some of the first cause he responded to and how they affected him so right after graduation. The very next assignment is writing with the field training officer.

It's part of your normal training ist two months because there was a big criminal trial that was coming to an end. It was the McDuffie case and all the departments on South Florida were on edge because we were expecting civil unrest and during this time in 1980 the Colombian Cowboys were very active in South Florida. Lot of homicides related to the drug trafficking so our department canceled my last month of my writing assignment and put me out on my own so I remember that first night I was transferred to midnights it. I had no seniority and the only openings were available on midnight, so that's where rookies with so they gave me my khaki and I walked out found my car and I remember getting in the car and I'm in a patrol car and I'm going out on the street. I have nobody to ask questions to nobody to guide me. Nobody tell me that stop don't go down there, I'm on my own. So I'm driving around. It's very quiet and waiting for that first call to go out in anticipation.

I kept playing with the radio knob, you know, wondering if maybe I accidentally turned my volume down to low and I can't hear that been calling me and I cannot answer. And every time a course mark my volume was fine some driving around and always in the alert tone comes on something else.

Finally, something's going to happen. I'll be up to be able to do something and then of course she says my number whatever this is, it's going to be my call and I'm like oh my God I asked her too much or they she says the signal is a 330 and in our code 330 is an emergency, shooting, which means either it's in progress or somebody has definitely been shot.

My very first call is going to be a shooting and she gives the address of the sayonara bar and I am looking at the sayonara bar through my windshield. That's how close I was the drug cartels are known to have been displaced so I'm already going pretty fast. I didn't have time to put my blue lights on and I'm in the parking lot people are pouring out of the bar and am standing with my door open.

I'm trying to use the doors a shield and I remember that split-second wondering if I would hear the bullet before it hit me in fear leaves you when that adrenaline rush hits you. My training just took over so I can hear my backup is getting closer now I can hear a siren into the corner of my eye, like my peripheral vision I can see somebody lying down inside the bar. The lights are on. The doors open. I can see him lying in their is not moving.

I keep my gun on all of them are trying to watch them on trying to watch the door itself and I start edging my way over to the door.

One of them. People in the crowd finally spoke English and told me that the subjects had led so I go inside the bar, and I look at the first guy that what I saw down I know that he's dead and there's nothing I can do to. But there's another guy next to him. This guy looks better now. My backups in the bar he's looking around. Also so I kneeled down next to the second guy although is not moving his eyes are looking at me their tracking me so I said to him, I've got you. You're going to be okay.

So as I'm talking to him and I put my hand on his throat. I can feel his pulse not real strong, and I see his pupils dilate and he stopped breathing. Second later the pulse stops feeding the guy just died on me but I stood back up by now.

There are dozens of police cars outside to three different fire rescue trucks. The supervisors are starting to arrive. News trucks arriving with their little camera things in the parking lot of the strip mall is just full see a blue lights flashing red lights flashing and it's my calling on like hunger. I'm not ready for this. There I've handled simple burglary reports had to work the rest of the shift which is another eight hours, but when I was driving home I was thinking of all the things like kneeling down next to the man you know, feeling him die right there. My hand was on the mess he died in those other thoughts was a good guy did have a family lots of thoughts like that and I had some very similar thoughts with a lot of my victim, which is probably not a healthy thing. So that was little Mike, my very first calls mass shooting and that entire scene I can picture right now my wife and I were in the process of adopting a girl from Columbia. This particular day they had just finally assigned a girl to us that we had waited two years and that we finally got her picture in it was a cute little Spanish girl no short dark hair. It was so exciting for us. We had to leave in like two weeks ago Colombian gutter so that night I was trying to catch up on reports and more often than not. Before I could finish a call and write the report, the dispatch would ask us to clear because she had another important call, so it was the started with the alert tone and that long tone. The call was again another shooting 330 Psalm driving as fast as I can and I'm looking at these townhouses.

Then I see the man standing in the front yard and he's waving at me so I hit the brakes and slide up into his front yard and is I'm doing so the dispatcher comes on the air and says to change the call to suicide.

So I run inside the house as fast as I can and the first thing I see is a young girl sitting on the couch, her head is back and she's looking up at the ceiling and letting on the floor next to this girl's feet is a black 38 caliber revolver. I touch her neck. There's no pulse.

So I sat next to her. You know, got on the radio and told the dispatchers that the girl was our code is 45, which means that and I requested Detective to respond and the father went back outside and I was alone in the kitchen with her mom.

She handed me a note.

She didn't say anything.

She did speak a little English, but she never really spoke to me and I read the note and the first part of the note was I accepted you as my mother and father and that was all I can remember that I learned later that this was her aunt and uncle limit her parents were actually in Cuba and she had come to the United States and was staying with her aunt and uncle and I remember thinking how painful that had to be for this woman. This man, and she told me that what happened was that she had started seeing this boy that she didn't approve of and prohibit her from seeing the boy anymore and had gone out to the store for just a few minutes and you know I just remember looking this young Spanish girl and for somehow that that linked to my picture of my daughter and I remember going home that night and I was like all I could think of, and what storytelling your hearing Jeff Shaw things in our law enforcement officers have to see what they have to live with and how in the end, there are humans and they start to associate one thing with another. This particular casing that Hispanic girl and thinking about his little girl and wondering how these things can happen in the first night at 330 emergency shooting at the scienter bar.

Imagine walking into this place in your first call thing a dead body holding the hands of another wounded victim going to have that person die while you're holding their hands. He said I can still see the scene in that bar we can to come back for Jeff Shaw's story life and law enforcement. His book why am man behind the band's story continues here in our American stories stories and with Jim shown telling us about his time serving as a police officer all the emotions and experiences that come with it to return to Jeff with the rest of his eye was on.

I want to say 10 years when I finally learned white officers had learned to march my friend Emilio became a motorcycle officer and that was his dream and one day will I was off duty is my day off and he was patrolling the zone.

I normally work and they asked him if he could handle a suspicious person call and he said of course and Emilio followed one of them inside a mall and the guy was able to pull Emilio's gun and shot him talks and Emilio died immediately so that was the first funeral I went there were probably 500 motorcycle officers from as far away as Las Vegas. I can remember the helicopters flying over remember standing at attention for probably 45 minutes is not line of motorcycles drove past us following the first seeing doors opening the casket coming down straight to the American flag and somebody brings 2000 officers to attention and to salute the flag and it was just an amazing sound hearing that all those officers coming to attention and then saluting and then Emilio's wife, she came down the steps with her kids, which were looked and I remember all the officers around Aesop could hear them shattering the scope while all of them were at perfect attention and then everybody kind of marched away. It was it was really cool. That was the feeling I felt like we were part of something and there was a lot of pride in trying to get it just right, you know, it felt like we were showing the grace that this officer deserved.

I think that's one of the things that bonds police officers together, you're part of something and when one of you believe we all feel and I think I say patrol officer and not just me but most patrol officers in South Florida. We see so much death. It's not unusual to handle one or two deaths a week. If you think of like I did 24 years 52 weeks a year. That's a lot of death.

You know they're never pleasant.

It's not like that person in the casket funeral home and usually the family is there their grieving there crying somehow they all looked at you for an answer like you're going to somehow cure them of this grief, or you're going to bring their loved one back so you have to deal with that and take all that home with high retired in 2003 and was much worse for me.

The first few years after I retired all these memories I would sit in the chair by myself and I would start reliving them in and I get very quiet. My wife could tell what was happening in. I think she would make attempts at getting me out of it, but in a lot of times there was no way to get out of it. You just have to work through it, but somebody did mention that you may be writing these things down will be cathartic for you maybe help you get over them, put them on paper. You can like file them away, mentally and physically. First people to read from the story suggest this sounds like a police report you humanize some personal opinion. Some emotions so I had to learn how to do that.

I started speaking with other authors going to writing events, joining writing club.

It took me probably 12 years to finish where I thought it was finished enough to try and publish and I work with an editor to know get it nice and neat publishing that was in 2020 is sold really well. I got so many positive reviews from not just police officers, but families of police officers you know women saying.

Now I know what my husband comes home within a set usually comes home very quiet and I've always wondered why now I know you have gotten a lot of them like that.

Thank you so much. My father was a police officer. I always wondered why he was so quiet. I got so many positive things out of that that I think that helps me deal with my own anxieties like it was worth it. Bringing up all those old memories I thought was going to destroy me writing them down and then hearing all those positive responses made it all worthwhile. And now I feel like I'm a better person for because all this time. You just feel like your immune like your superhuman you where the bulletproof vest.

You have a bad and you think that your invulnerable and then you find out you're not my daughter and she called his helicopter parents or something like that and I think you know I probably was I wanted to tell her that I have seen things that she hasn't and that I was trying to protect her from those things and that was one of the primary motivator for me writing my memoir was kind of an apology to my kids for being that strict parent with her friends father said yes you can spend the night over there and I said no. Maybe they would understand.

When I told my daughter that I don't really trust this guy with you wouldn't see him. I wanted her to see why I didn't trust to see some of the people I've dealt with and understand what what's out there and an apology for my friends because I know I'm different than some of the friends that I've made since I retired and I want to be a better husband and so that book really started out as one thing led to another, so many people just drive down the highway and see an officer on the side and think Tammy's look he's running radar is by going to give me a ticket or they do get pulled over and they're upset with Elsa because they are getting a ticket and I just wanted to see you don't know where that officer just came from. Did he just come from the suicide and she's trying to get over that maybe he might not be the most pleasant person at the moment. Or he's just come from the traffic fatality caused by somebody doing 90 miles an hour on the Turnpike and he's had to pick up dead bodies maybe had to do a death notification and she doesn't want to see that anymore so he is writing you a ticket for speeding.

Maybe that's why student, not because he feels like he wants to punish you know and to be honest and when I was working the road. I hated driving tickets going to court you know I work at midnight and not have to be in court at 8 AM for somebody contesting a speeding ticket so so I never really enjoyed writing tickets, but I wrote them when I thought it was going to do somebody some good might slow this guy down might say somebody's life.

You see the police car parked in the Dunkin' Donuts and you think on that lazy officer know my my tax money is going to waste that lazy officers and their having coffee and relaxing when you don't know where he's just been, or maybe he was forced to work a double shift that is having trouble staying awake or maybe couldn't sleep the night before because of nightmares and is having that coffee trying to stay awake. Or maybe he's trying to catch up on those reports is not having coffee at all, you don't get that officer break next time you see that officer in the doughnut shop instead of thinking ill against and you now think of the positive good that he's done the things he's kept you from seeing in a terrific job on the production by Madison to Erika and a special thanks to Jeff Shaw for sharing with us all of us story of his experience as an officer in the in the experience of so many others and 800,000 or so plus serve in the line of and in the line of danger and they do it willingly, and they do it knowingly for us so that we don't have to see those things as each of said what a story he told about his friend Emilio crying in the studio listening and then of course him just getting to writing the book and how it ultimately freed him from a lot of the demons a lot of the memories and by the way, you can pick up who I am the man behind the badge going Amazon.com or any place you buy your book.

The story of Jeff Shaw, a great listener story and a beautiful police officers here in our American story