In my years in policing, I often witnessed behind the scenes acts of quiet kindness, decency and comradery performed by police officers. Following are two such incidents, several years apart, that showed a dimension of police compassion and a personal side of officers that the public rarely sees.
First Incident
When I was a major in the Miami-Dade Police Department, there was a time I was assigned to command the department’s special operations bureau. It was an organizational element of the large department that was the umbrella for 14 units including the SWAT Teams, Aviation Unit, Marine Patrol, Special Events, Mounted Patrol, Canine Unit, Bomb Squad and seven others.
As an animal lover, I took an early interest in the Canine Unit which included 16 dogs and a tight-knit cadre of expert officers and supervisors. The unit had tracking dogs, drug and bomb sniffing dogs, and an amazing blood hound, each paired with a highly trained officer referred to as a handler. A dog and a handler together were referred to as a canine team and in Miami-Dade they remained active 24 hours a day.
One female officer in the group, Sue (not her real name), stood out insofar as she handled two dogs. She had amazing love and enthusiasm for dogs, and she was a humble individual universally popular and admired among her Canine Unit and all Special Patrol Bureau peers. One day Sue was off duty on a road trip with her husband, when she began to experience rapid onset of a serious medical condition known as Guillain-Barre syndrome. It caused the mussels throughout her body to rapidly shut down. At first the fear was she would not be able to breathe. Her husband rushed her to a Miami hospital where she would remain, in a mostly paralyzed state, for months of treatment and therapy.
Sue’s condition was heartbreaking. While she was confined to the hospital, she deeply missed her dogs, which weren’t permitted into the hospital to visit. She also sorely missed her canine brothers and sisters. Likewise, the canine unit members missed Sue, and their hearts went out to her. In a private show of unity and love, the entire canine unit arranged a special tribute to lift Sue’s spirits.
One evening, just after sunset, in a surprise tribute prearranged with Sue’s husband and hospital staff, all 16 canine officers with their dogs and vehicles lined up in a parking lot visible from Sue’s hospital window. With their blue lights lighting the night, each officer stood at attention next to their police vehicles with their dogs at their sides. As Sue’s husband and nurse positioned her and told her to look out the window, as each officer saluted her with the dogs looking on. They too knew she was up there. It was a heart-wrenching moment of solidarity and from that night on, Sue’s condition began to improve dramatically. Before long she was discharged from the hospital able to walk on her own. Sue couldn’t return to full duty, but she was always an honored welcome visitor at the Special Patrol Bureau headquarters.
Second Incident
When I first became chief of the Marietta Police Department, I was not yet familiar with all of the officers and detectives. However, I saw something happen that affirmed my faith in my new department. The detective unit had investigated a horrible death of a small child who had been brutally abused and eventually died. With both parents in jail and no known relatives there was no money to bury the child. It was an unspeakably demented child abuse case, and the detectives were deeply affected by what had happened to the defenseless child victim.
All of the detectives came together and contributed personal funds to pay the full cost of a proper burial and headstone for the child. When it was time for the burial, all of the detectives and some of their spouses assembled over the grave in a Marietta cemetery. Although none was a clergyman or accustomed to speaking over a funeral, the detectives prayed together and said what needed to be said to lay the poor child to rest and eternal peace. In their own way, the detectives brought decorum and dignity to a situation that otherwise may have gone completely unnoticed.
Learning about this sad situation and the human decency of the detectives, I was deeply impressed that I had been chosen to head a police department that had a lot of heart and soul. While none of the detectives ever sought any recognition for their acts of kindness, I was sure the Lord knew what they had done.
In my years in policing, I saw numerous examples of police officers showing their hearts and souls, with no fanfare. This is the DNA of true public servants who were called to do a job without knowing one day it would expose more about their basic goodness than they about knew about themselves. They were exactly where God had planted them at that point in their lives.
Dan Flynn, a retired veteran law enforcement officer, served as chief of both the Savannah and Marietta police departments.
