A Big Piece of Concrete & A Platform

As a 15+ law enforcement veteran I've seen my share of tragedy. In 1994 I watched as a man jumped from a building and died. The following year I responded to a domestic violence call and heard screams from the living room. I entered the house to see a man holding a knife. He turned towards me and as I began to put pressure on the trigger of my gun he dropped the knife.

In 1996, I helped carry Officer Dick Hobson to an ambulance after he had been shot. He died the next morning. All of those incidents, unfortunately, happen in this profession and while those and more are my scars, every person that wears the badge has their own.

Last week something happened that was about as strange as I have seen. It wasn't a man with a knife or gun. It wasn't a fight or a pursuit.


What you are looking at is a large piece of concrete that fell from the ceiling and hit a car parked in the parking lot that I park at each day. What was interesting about this is I was standing just a few feet away when it happened. In fact there was glass all around me. It happened fast, real fast. I heard an explosion long before I figured out what happened.


It was the perfect platform. I went into my office and called out each of the officers that work for me and walked them over to the car. I explained what happened and how fragile life was. I hoped my talk made an impact on them in matters of eternity. One officer came up to me later in the day. The professing Atheist accused me of preaching to them. I thanked him for the encouragement.