Roll Down the Window...What did you say?

Good cops drive with their windows partially down. Weather, temperature, precipitation outside is irrelevant. You have to be able to hear. Gang members call out their set; people whistle to get your attention, glass breaking; people mocking you or gun shots. More than one cops has jammed on the brakes, walked up to a thug and said, "What did you say?" Nothing....I didn't think so. Words are important.

A friend of mine was on patrol with his window partially down. As he rolled through the neighborhood he heard the distinct sound of gun fire. It was close. He put it over the radio moving cars into the neighborhood. Two guys pop out of an alley and give him the guilty O’ Crap look. P whips the car around and gets out immediately. Sitting in the car is precarious. It does give you a little more protection, metal is stronger than flesh, but restricts your movement and options. The two pass something between them raising the level of danger. As P exits the car the pair split and walk different directions. This is not good. They have the tactical advantage. They have superior numbers, possibly more and better weaponry and now positional advantage.

P focuses on the man who accepted the exchange and then bladed to see the one behind him. As P breaks leather and brings his gun on target, he yells in a stern command voice to the man to the front. “Police, drop the gun.” P is watches the man behind him out of the corner of his eye. The man hears P’s words and turns toward P. P levels the gun. Its leveled at his chest. P is prepared to shot the threat. P yells again. “Police, drop the gun.” The man’s torso turns. The gun rises as if in super slow motion. P can almost count the millimeters of the gun rise. Paul fires one round and the man goes down as the gun metal makes a sickening sound. It hits the pavement. The man to the rear makes no movement. He hears P’s words, sees the gun and listens.

The man on the ground moves and P moves in to stop him from rearming. P can hear the sirens blazing to his location. The man tries to get up and P pushes him to the ground. The one round gun fight is over. As it turns out P thinks the two drunks were firing rounds at a tree when P heard them. They passed the 40 cal Glock like a hot potato back and forth. The man with the gun evidently did not believe P’s words. He did not listen to instruction. He should have dropped the gun (especially since it was jammed). As it turns out the twisting of the body allowed the round to transverse through his shirt avoiding a direct and probably lethal hit.

Each police shooting undergoes a thorough review. It allows the police to refine their tactics and make sure everything we do is transparent and within law and policy. The review panel felt P should have said, “Police. Don’t move. Instead of, “Police, Drop the gun.” To them, words matter. (I personally believe the drunk would have turned anyway and the officer would have fired.)

Words do mean something. After 30 years of policing I have learned the more important to topic, the more important the words become.

Some teachers of Old Testament law taught there was no resurrection from the dead. Once you die, that’s it your gone. So to trap Jesus they asked him a complex question about the resurrection of the dead. (Luke 20:27-39) Jesus responded by quoting Exodus 3:6 Moses was at the burning bush in the middle of the desert. God told Moses to take off his shoes as the ground was Holy. (God was there.) Then God said, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Abe, Isaac and Jacob came before Moses by hundreds of years. They were dead and gone. But God said, “I am” the God of the founders of the Jewish faith. In other words (remember they count) He is still their GOD. They are alive. There is a resurrection of the dead.

Sometimes the problem is we can understand the plain words spoken. The disciples had this problem. Jesus “opened” their minds to understand, “The Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the 3rd day and repentance and forgiveness of sins. These words are vitally important. There is a resurrection and that by believing in Jesus (His death, burial and resurrection) we can experience the resurrection too.

Jesus! Don’t move…your life depends on it!