Marty
07-09-2008, 10:13 AM
A policeman's heroism nearly gets lost in red tape - Three years after a shootout, and a year of doubt, Trevor Jackson is called a hero.(link) (http://www.ocregister.com/articles/jackson-police-officers-2087650-hours-wasn)
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>
Amid the uproar, the LAPD created a new rule. Police wouldn't be allowed to fire at people in moving vehicles unless something other than the vehicle itself posed a threat. But nobody had been trained on the implications of the new rule.
So when a pair of gunmen tried to wage a small war against the LAPD, they were able to fire barrage after close-range barrage at officers who had to wait for permission to shoot back.
After the shooting, Jackson had been taken back to the station, debriefed and read his rights. Around midday he was hustled back out to the scene to wait another eight hours in the sun, suffering the weariness of an adrenaline hangover. His ringing ears and enforced isolation forced him inward, thinking less about the shootout and its possible consequences than about his family at home in Huntington Beach, his daughter and his wife, six months pregnant with another.
"We're out here (working) in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, and the people you care most about aren't even going to know something happened," Jackson said later.
Was it worth it, this work life that kept him away from the rest of his life so much?[/b]
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>
Amid the uproar, the LAPD created a new rule. Police wouldn't be allowed to fire at people in moving vehicles unless something other than the vehicle itself posed a threat. But nobody had been trained on the implications of the new rule.
So when a pair of gunmen tried to wage a small war against the LAPD, they were able to fire barrage after close-range barrage at officers who had to wait for permission to shoot back.
After the shooting, Jackson had been taken back to the station, debriefed and read his rights. Around midday he was hustled back out to the scene to wait another eight hours in the sun, suffering the weariness of an adrenaline hangover. His ringing ears and enforced isolation forced him inward, thinking less about the shootout and its possible consequences than about his family at home in Huntington Beach, his daughter and his wife, six months pregnant with another.
"We're out here (working) in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, and the people you care most about aren't even going to know something happened," Jackson said later.
Was it worth it, this work life that kept him away from the rest of his life so much?[/b]