Police Lieutenant Brian Murphy: What I learned

Cal Fussman at Esquire.com offers an interesting piece on a Wisconsin police officer who was shot 15 times and lived to tell what he learned.

It was the most ordinary of Sunday mornings. That's a word you don't want to use in police language — every cop will tell you that. Don't ever come in and say, "Gee, it's quiet." Then dispatch said there'd been a report of possible shots fired at the Sikh temple. Listening on the radio to where everybody else was coming from, I knew I was going to arrive first.

There's a very long driveway that goes in off the main avenue to the temple. My thought was Shut off your lights and siren just before you get there. Pull in quiet. Park sideways, give yourself some cover just in case. We have AR-15's in the squad car. But there was a malfunction with the switch that releases the AR-15. That's Murphy's Law. If I'd had that semiautomatic rifle...

Anyway, when I pull up, I see two guys lying on the ground. There's a ballistic shield in the back of the car. I should've grabbed the shield. But I wasn't thinking that way. When I came upon the men, I went straight to them to see if I could save them. I got within ten feet. Two male subjects, one lying on top of the other. Top subject, his eyes were open. They were fixed. Both guys looked deceased to me. At that point, I thought, I'm gonna try to get that AR-15 out of the car.

As I started, I caught a movement out of the side of my eye. A guy was running in front of the temple. He wasn't Indian. He wasn't Sikh. He had no headgear. He was a white male, wearing a white shirt. He was all inked up, and he had a holster on his right side. I knew that was the guy. No question.

He's running to his truck, which is in the parking lot. I already had my gun out. I raised up, yelled at him to stop. His hand came up. We probably shot at the same time. The distance was thirty to forty yards. I missed. He hit me right in the chin. It felt like a hell of a punch to the face and it ripped up my larynx.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/meaning-of-life-2013/brian-murphy-sikh-temple-shooting-0113?src=nl&mag=esq&list=nl_enl_oth_non_122812_brian-murphy&kw=ist#slide-1