Police rookies, recruits believe doing job trumps danger

Joe Brown says he will stick to the same daily routine when he becomes a police officer next month.

He will pray with his wife and 1-year-old son, kiss them both and say he loves them. And then he will walk out the door and try not to think about those who have fallen in the line of duty recently.

“We are all warriors in this job, and every day when we are out on the streets, the possibility exists that we might not come home at night,” said Brown, 40, of McKeesport, who spent 21 years in the Marine Corps and was deployed seven times.

On Wednesday, Brown will graduate from the Allegheny County Police Academy. He says he has job offers from McKeesport and Rankin.

“I definitely think about the idea that I could be sitting in my patrol car at a traffic light and, bam, someone might shoot me, and it’s all over. We know more than ever now that it’s a possibility.”

The reminders are grim for rookies and recruits, and all officers: FBI Special Agent Sam Hicks was killed as he opened a door in Indiana Township. Three Pittsburgh officers were cut down responding to a domestic call in Stanton Heights. Four Lakewood, Wash., officers were fatally shot while working on computers in a coffee shop. On Friday, Penn Hills police Officer Michael Crawshaw was buried five days after a gunman sprayed his cruiser with an assault rifle.

“It just reminds me that you cannot take anything for granted,” said county police Officer Brian Perris of Ross, who graduated from the academy this year. “Nothing is routine in this job, and you must keep these incidents in the back of your mind.”

Nationwide, 117 officers were killed this year, compared with 125 at the same time last year. Forty-seven of this year’s deaths were from gunfire, compared with 38 at this time in 2008, said Kevin Morison, spokesman for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

On average, a law enforcement officer is killed in the line of duty somewhere in the United States every 53 hours. The killings of five officers in the Pittsburgh area in the past 13 months apparently have not deterred applicants for police jobs, which pay a median annual salary of $40,000 in Pennsylvania.

But the shootings nationwide underscore a deeper problem, one expert said.

“As a society, we’ve got to be asking what the hell is going on here,” said Kenneth Cooper, founder of Tactical Handgun Training of New York Inc. and a 22-year veteran of law enforcement and security training.

“What does that say about a society which has people killing cops all the time? They’re being ambushed and executed,” Cooper said. “If police officers aren’t safe, then no one else is either. And that’s a very dangerous thing.”

Police say Crawshaw, 32, of Penn Hills was killed by a gunman who burst into a home and fatally shot a man who owed $500 from a drug deal. Crawshaw responded to the 911 call and was parked two doors away, awaiting backup.

Visiting the shooting scene last week, District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said officers rely on training and instinct and always must be on guard. But, “when you know there are people out there who are looking to ambush you, that’s hard to guard against. It used to be that police officers were off-limits. Apparently, that isn’t the case anymore,” he said.

When Perris started at the academy in January, he knew he had chosen a dangerous profession. During his six-month training, four officers were gunned down in Oakland, Calif., in March and the three Pittsburgh officers died in April.

Yet Perris said he never doubted his decision to switch from a teaching career to one in law enforcement.

“This is what I want, and I think I can make a difference,” said Perris, 23, who like all cadets in the county academy paid his way through training and had to find a department to hire him.

Sanja Smailbegovic, 23, is nearing the end of her training. She has wanted to be a police officer since she was 10. Knowing that some people would target those in uniform only made her more determined.

“I’m putting my life in danger, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take,” said Smailbegovic, of Bellevue. “We need people to do this job. I know the badge might make me a target, but I’ve made peace with that.”

The reality of the danger is one that Trooper Stanford Webb, a Pennsylvania State Police recruiter, doesn’t try to soft-peddle to potential cadets. State police Cpl. Joseph R. Pokorny Jr. died four years ago Saturday after a paroled felon took his gun away and shot him during a struggle in Carnegie.

“I don’t paint a rosy, perfect picture,” Webb said. “It’s dangerous, and you might have to take someone’s life or have your life taken. But the world today is dangerous in general.”

Chris Kowalczyk joined the county police in January and is stationed in South Park. He said he tried to treat the police shootings this year as a learning experience.

Seeing officers from across the nation come to Pittsburgh again for a police funeral is tragic, Kowalczyk said, but it shows the tight-knit world of law enforcement.

“These incidents only end up building the bond and deepening the importance of backing each other up,” said Kowalczyk, 27. “We take care of each other.”

By Jill King Greenwood

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