Free Let’s Get It On! by Big John McCarthy, Bas Rutten Loretta Hunt, Bas Rutten

discover the alarm had been set off by the wind. Then there were very serious calls, for rape or child abuse, for example. Some calls I’d never forget, no matter how hard I tried. Some people are capable of the unthinkable at any given moment, hurting their friends, wives, husbands, even their own children. You never know when someone is going to snap.
    Thankfully, not all of my calls were tragic. Some were quite comical, in fact. On one occasion, we were called to a domestic dispute. An old couple who had been together about forty years thought it was time to part ways.
    My training officer listened to each side’s complaints, then calmly slipped his badge off his chest and placed it in his open, outstretched hand. Remember, his job was to keep the peace—no more, no less. As serious as a minister on Sunday, he said, “You both really don’t want to be together anymore. Do I have that right?”
    “Yes, sir, I’m tired of her. She’s just a nasty woman,” the old man said.
    “He’s a son of a bitch,” his wife said.
    “Well, all right,” my partner said. “Put your hands on my badge. By the powers vested in me by the state of California and the city of Los Angeles, you are hereby divorced from one another.”
    The couple looked at my partner.
    “So I’m not married to her anymore?” the old man asked.
    “Nope, not anymore,” the officer said. “You feel better?”
    “Goddamn right I do. I’m a free man.”
    As my partner and I left the house, I saw the old man beam.
    “Did they really believe that?” I asked.
    “Hell, yes, they believed it,” my partner said, “and they’re gonna be making love tomorrow anyway, so it really doesn’t matter.”
    Some calls defied logic. Sometimes survival trumped everything else.
    On Thanksgiving, we were sent to a family dispute and arrived to survey the father sitting at the dinner table with a fork stuck in his hand and his son shot dead in the chair across from him. It turned out the son had been mad at his father for taking the piece of turkey he wanted, and this was the end result.
    Because of what we saw as officers every day, we all had to gain a sense of humor about things. Otherwise, the scenes would drive us crazy. I don’t want to say we became desensitized. There were sobering images we’d never get over seeing again and again, but we made light of things to get through the days.
     
    I learned how to be an officer when I started working patrol in the divisions. At first, I struggled to fit in with the realities of being on the force. The LAPD wasn’t quite what I’d imagined, and I have to admit I was disappointed after my first month. I’d grown up around my dad and his fellow officers within the Metropolitan Division of SWAT, a unique breed. They were honorable brothers who worked together and backed each other up.
    The first training officer I worked with outside the academy had been at a desk job in the communications department fourteen years before he’d been bumped back to patrol. Most officers didn’t like the communications department because it was so boring, but this guy liked sitting at his desk and not having to do anything. He was scared to death to work in Southwest Division. On our first burglary call, I had to enter the building myself because he was too frightened. When he got to know me a little better, I became his protection.
    As a child I’d watched my dad and his coworkers and listened intently to all their stories. I’d seen their gratification when they’d put away somebody who was a threat to the rest of society. In the beginning, that was missing for me. But in my third month of probation, I was moved to the morning watch, 11:30 p.m. to 7:45 a.m, and my view of police work completely changed. Leonard Mora, Nick Savala, Ron Barker, Tommy McMullen, and Carlos Velasquez hit the street and made a difference.
     
    By now, I’d noticed there seemed to be three types of officers.
    The first type were ticket writers or