moments that create change (23 of 41 and counting)


On a cold Sunday morning in New York's deeply lamented Borough of The Bronx an illegal Jamaican immigrant I had never met before and had had no argument with up until that moment hit me with a two-by-four in my left knee. Hard. In doing so he destroyed what was left of the already damaged cartilage and tore through both my anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments.

Though after that point I really couldn't walk he didn't get away. As I fell I managed to grab his leg. I dragged him to the ground pulled myself up onto him, and using one of my pairs of handcuffs as brass knuckles, I beat his face in until it was barely recognizable as human.

That was my last day on the street as a New York City Police Officer. After going through a day long surgery and a full year of physical therapy I turned in my shield, sold my guns and the little cottage on City Island, packed up myself and my four-year-old son, and fled west to an unknown port on the eastern shores of Lake Michigan that I had visited a few times with friends from college. If anyone asked how I had gotten there I would simply answer, "by car."

© 2004-2005 by Ira Socol_____________________________

Comments

Richard Lawrence Cohen said…
That comment by agent 95 was actually by me -- agent 95 is my son and I didn't realize I was signed into his blog.
12:18 PM, July 29, 2005
Brenda Clews said…
I think was is most remarkable about this horrific tale is that he left the life in which such things could happen, and did happen all the time, entirely. Conscience can be a nightmare, though, and that travels with...

The brevity of the tale, and the way such a pivotal point encompasses an entire Weltanschauung is stunning.

xo
9:07 PM, July 29, 2005
Anonymous said…
Yah, what Brenda said.

It's almost haiku.
12:31 PM, July 30, 2005
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