The suicide machine churns on...

As long as there are people on earth, suicide will be a reality...

I was on my was to a suicide attempt call. We respond to a lot of these. The call comes in initially for an ambulance, usually from a family member or a friend, but we have to make sure things are safe at the scene before E.M.S can enter. Suicidal people often don't want to go alone. Supposedly this woman had cut herself. I didn't imagine it was anything serious, as nine times out of ten it seems to be over dramatized and when you get there you find someone who has scratched the top of their arm to gain attention from their family. I had never been to this house before and that concerned me. This was possibly going to be a new set of players. I would adapt to the situation as it unfolded though.
It didn't take me long to get there and I passed the area the ambulance was standing by at before I pulled into the driveway. It was a neat little home with a well coifed yard. There was a large wooden deck leading to the front door. Several people, all older than me were standing on the porch. As I pulled into the driveway they all ran to my car. All they would say over and over is "She's in the kitchen, she's in the kitchen." They were frantic but I did manage to get one of them to answer the most pressing question on my mind. "Does she still have the knife?" They told me she did. I went into the house and saw a women in her late fifties standing in the kitchen staring blankly at a wall. I could only see her face as she was very short. "Are you alright?" I asked. No response. It was as if this woman was made of stone. She did not speak nor did she move. She wasn't even blinking. My skin began to break out in goosebumps just looking at the face of this woman. I wasn't sure where she was but I could tell she wasn't in this house anymore.
I began to slowly walk towards her and around the counter so I could get a better view of her hands. I didn't want her to snap to, holding a butcher knife and go crazy on me. It was hot that day. I was sweating under my vest, due to the heat and my nervousness. As I rounded the corner I saw that she did indeed still have the knife, and it was a large butcher knife, but it wasn't in her hand, I stood for a split second marveling over what I was seeing.
The knife was stuck all the way up to the handle in the center of her chest. "Hey lady." I said. "You need some help....Are you going to let me help you?" No response just that blank stare. I walked closer and touched her arm hoping that would snap her out of whatever daze she was in. I was really wishing for backup at that moment but knew they wouldn't be there for several more minutes. I was beginning to wonder if she hadn't been stabbed by someone else, and whether or not that someone might be creeping up on me from some other room. I couldn't imagine someone doing that to themselves. It looked as though the knife had actually gone through the bone in the center of her chest. I wondered how badly she was bleeding internally. I knew time was of the essence and I certainly didn't want this woman dying in front of me. The moment my arm made contact with hers, she jerked violently and looked at me. She then looked down quizzically at the knife handle protruding from her chest with an expression on her face that said, how did that get there? She then looked at me holding her head at an angle seeming to ask if I knew.
There was a kitchen chair next to us. "Why don't you sit down here and wait for E.M.S. with me ma'am." She turned her gaze slowly to see the chair. I stepped back and began to move the chair for her. She reached for the handle of the knife. "No!" I said "You need to..." Before I could finish my sentence she had pulled the knife back out of her chest and dropped it on the floor. It landed in a small pool of blood on the tile. Satisfied with what she had just done she came to me and sat down on the chair, going back into her dazed state. I secured the knife in a plastic bag, and radioed for E.M.S. To get there fast. I told them what happened and they began treating the wound, secured her to a gurney and transported her to the hospital. My backup arrived as the ambulance was leaving and we interviewed the family. The woman had been diagnosed as schizophrenic, and was in early stages of alzheimers disease. She hadn't taken her medication in several months and the family had moved her in so they could take care of her. The woman's daughter said she was in the bedroom making the woman's bed. When she finished she went into the kitchen and saw her mother with the knife against her chest. She said she became fearful and called 911, just as the woman had stabbed herself.
I followed up on this and talked to her treating physician to tie up loose ends and make sure the angle of the knifes entry supported a suicide attempt. He said it did and that the woman had, amazingly enough, missed every vital organ in the chest cavity, and would be released in the next few days. I never saw this woman or her family again.

The Basement

The Basement

The world is like a tall building. One layer atop another. There are no stairs, but there is a single elevator that sits in an empty marble tiled lobby. The majority of people live on the first few floors. They go about their lives oblivious to the basement. They know there are a select few that live in the penthouses above them. They break their backs trying to work their way into one of the penthouses. The people that live in the penthouses are vaguely aware of the basement and the people who reside there. They see the basement dwellers as poor creatures who need to be helped, but they never venture into the hellish depths of the basement.
The people in the basement are evil creatures who feed on each other. They were born in its' acrid oily depths, and for them the only way to get to the penthouse is to kill its' owner and take it. These loathsome creatures live on a diet of drugs and alcohol. Occasionally they will persuade the youth of the people on the other floors to meet them in the lobby. They will introduce these young people to a life of mind altering substances and crime, then drag them back to the basement where they will remain. Sometimes they make it back to the floors they came from long enough to eat and steal from the people that care about them. The people who toil in their back breaking jobs. The parents hearts break as they watch their children self destruct and die.
There are a few of us who have a key to the elevator that grants us access from the top to the bottom. The elevator, it sometimes seems, is the only thing in the building that isn't broken. I imagine it's that way because it is a heartless piece of machinery who's only purpose in existing is to transport people.
I have gone from the first floor to the penthouse when I am called to do so. As you ride the elevator you can hear the whining of the pulleys and the steady drone of its mechanical engine. Most of the time it is drowned out by the silent screams and shattering of lives as it passes between floors.
As I traverse the levels going up I am certain of only one thing. Whoever I talk to and whatever their situation I will find the solution by going into the basement.
After a while you get to know the basement down to its every darkened corner. You know its inhabitants by name and you know where they hide. I know that every trip to the basement brings resolution to someone. I know that to protect the rest of the people in the building you often have to remove the dangerous creature from the sub-level, taking them out of the building entirely and locking them in a cage.
Some of us die in the basement while trying to help the people in the building, but when one is killed thirty more go down and light the whole place up. After we get our man, we will grieve, at least, until we to succumb to the basement.

All the murderers I know

All the murderers I know

I was recently reflecting on how many murderers I have known and dealt with before they murdered someone. I can't remember the number I came up with but it was more than I can count on one hand. There are a couple that stand out in my mind though. One was a young man who's family I had dealt with many times. I used to arrest this guys dad all the time. I was always catching him driving drunk or with a revoked license. A few times I caught him passed out in his car at the side of the road with his marijuana and pipes either sitting in his lap or in the passenger seat. I remember I used to tell him he was going to wreck and kill himself or someone else, but he never seemed to believe me. He ended up driving a motorcycle while he was drunk wearing a bicycle helmet and wrecked. The accident paralyzed him from the neck down and he now lives in a health care facility. I saw him and his wife at the mall one day when I was off and stopped to talk to him. Before I left he became teary eyed and told me that he wished he had listened to me all those times. Anyway, back to his son. I used to have fatherly talks with him when I would deal with him. He had been arrested a few times for breaking into homes and stealing things. I used to talk to him about going to college and moving away from the area. I really hoped as young as he was he would do it, he always acted like he wanted to. I remember one time he was accused by one of his criminal buddies of shooting up their house. I caught up with him shortly after taking the report (I could find no shell casings or see anything that had actually been shot at the scene). I stopped his truck and saw a pistol lying in the passenger seat, I removed and unloaded the weapon, then checked to make sure it wasn't stolen. I talked to him about the incident and that he was being investigated. I told him to sell the gun before he killed somebody or himself. He assured me that wasn't going to happen. He kept out of trouble for several months and then he, his mother and one of his friends murdered a man, stuffed his body into the man's car and drove it just over our county line into the adjoining county.
All three were convicted of the murder. The irony is that the victim hadn't been shot, but rather had been beaten to death with a set of golf clubs. I wonder what the scene was like. How they could beat him repeatedly while he screamed in agony. Blood spewing out onto everything with every swing of the club, until finally the frenzy was over and the man lie dead. The three of them sitting down to figure out what to do with the body. One of them actually driving the car with the body in it to the spot where they left it to be found. Then going on about their lives the next day as if nothing had happened.
There is another that springs to mind also. I had arrested a drunk man one night who was in the road threatening people. He cussed at me, urinated on himself and the back seat of my car. A very nasty man. I charged him with disorderly conduct. He served eighteen days in the jail pre-trial and at court the judge gave him time served and let him go. He left the courthouse, went to a house that was in the same area I had arrested him at and murdered an elderly man in his home. The suspect fled the area and it took several weeks to find him and bring him to justice. There are more, but these two seem to jump to mind for some reason I can't explain. Sometimes I think about these guys while I am on night shift stopping cars or patrolling high crime areas and I wonder if that car I'm about to stop for not having a tag light is being driven by someone transporting the body of a person they have just murdered and I get nervous for a moment. It all passes.