Book Excerpt: "I'll be OK, but I'm shot" from S.W.A.T.: Blue Knights in Black Armor

SWAT Officer with Lt. Dan Marcou

Ed Note: Enjoy the following selection of real-life inspired fiction from the novel  S.W.A.T.: Blue Knights in Black Armor by Lt. Dan Marcou, which is presented by permission of the author and his publisher. In related news, we'd like to welcome Dan Marcou to the PoliceOne roster or writers; Dan will be writing articles and tips related to SWAT techniques and training. PoliceOne will continue to provide excerpts from this and other works — officer-authored fiction, autobiographies, analysis, etc. — from the ever-expanding PoliceOne library. If you missed the first installment of this series of excerpts, you can check that out here.

“One last item,” said Compton, just before ending line-up the night after the SWAT physical test of Maddy Brown. “You noticed I have put individual packets of Kleenex on each table in the line-up room. Feel free to take one. I have received a complaint from day shift that someone on night shift is using the side of the driver’s seat as a depository for… their nasal discharge, aka: boogers, snot, dried post nasal drip. Whoever is doing this, cease and desist and use the aforementioned Kleenex.” Then Compton warned ominously, “Do not make me resort to DNA testing to determine the perpetrator.”

Stanley Brockman picked up the Kleenex and tossed it in his duty bag and looked self consciously around the room.

“Be careful out there!” said Compton after closing the line-up book.

“Bad guys better be careful,” thought McCarthy.

“Bad guys better be careful,” thought Madison Brown.

Then the shuffle started immediately after as the night shift officers packed up to hit the streets of La Claire. “Stay Safe, Stay Strong, and Stay Positive!” added Compton. “Hold it!”

Everyone stopped. Compton had something important to say by the tone of his voice, and when Compton spoke, everyone listened. “Speaking of strong, one of your own showed one of the strongest SWAT team entry level performances I have ever seen. Let’s hear it for our newest member of the La Claire Police Department SWAT Team, Maddy Brown!”

Every member of the shift set down their gear and clapped for Maddy. Stanley Brockman continued drinking his coffee with one hand and clapped with his other hand. Stanley was able to flap his fingers down against his palm with one hand and make a loud clapping sound one-handed. It was an awe-inspiring feat to behold in itself.

Maddy suddenly looked like a shy school girl. She acknowledged the attention with a smile and a curtsey, which was executed with the grace of a prima-ballerina. It amazed every cop in the room. It was the first time anyone had ever acknowledged acceptance onto the SWAT team with a curtsey.

“Fuckin’ A!” proclaimed Carpenter.

“How profound,” commented Compton. “Did you say that when your wife gave birth to the twins?”

“Fuckin’ A!” answered Carpenter sounding shocked.

“When you locked the squad keys in the car last week?” asked Dooley.

“Fuckin’ A!” again replied Carpenter sounding disgusted..

“How bout when you got shot?” asked Brockman.

“Fuckin’ A!” said Carpenter this time holding his chest and grimacing.

“How about when you caught Baby Jane in an alley last week going down on that seventy-five-year-old man for $25?” asked McCarthy.

“Fuckin’ A!” said Carpenter, cocking his head and sounding puzzled motioning with his fingers indicating the length was about two inches.

“Carpenter, once again, you have proved to be the master of ‘Fuckin’-A-Manship.’ I believe you now own the word. No one has accomplished more with one word and a letter since Chef Boyardee cooked up his first pot of Spaghetti O’s,” said Compton.

“Fuckin’ A, sir!” responded Carpenter in his most humbled and thankful tone. Gary Carpenter had truly mastered the language of “Fuckin’ A” like few before him and quite probably no one after.

“How about you all hit the street and start earning your exorbitant wages protecting your adoring public?” offered Compton.

Maddy had shot out ahead, appreciative, but also embarrassed by the attention. With her squad check completed, she called in, “259.”

“259 go ahead,” answered the dispatcher.

“259, I’m 10-41 (beginning tour of duty) in car thirty-three on beat two,” Maddy said, and then she hung up the mic and expertly steered off the ramp into medium traffic. She pulled up to a red light just one block from the police department and saw a large male shuffling across the street. She could not see his eyes because he was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and the hood was pulled up. He had an old-style boom box on his shoulder with the speaker up against his ear. The music was loud for the late hour.

“Looks like the grim reaper likes rap music,” thought Maddy.

Maddy rolled her window down as the man crossed the street in the cross walk. She could see both of his hands as he slowly made his way across the street, but she could not see his eyes. If only she could see his eyes. They say, “The eyes are the window to the soul.” If Maddy could have seen his eyes, she would have known she was in danger. She would have seen the eyes of a mentally ill man who had been repeatedly placed on mental holds by the police and repeatedly released. Tyrone Baxter was, according to the other residents at the Salvation Army Shelter, “one crazy motherfucker.”

To the officers that dealt with him and put psychiatric holds on him for being dangerous, he was an “EDP” (Emotionally Disturbed Person), or a 10-96 (emotionally disturbed person), or to Stanley Brockman, “one crazy motherfucker.”

Stanley Brockman was the officer who had put the last mental hold on Tyrone Baxter because he came into the La Claire Police Department and emptied his bladder into a garbage receptacle in front of Stanley’s beloved Sandy. Then Baxter said nothing but, “I need to kill someone.” Brockman gave Tyrone a ride to the La Claire General Hospital Psyche Ward. A mental health professional released him within seventy-two hours because he was, “not a proper subject for treatment.” Baxter still faced charges for urinating at the front desk of the police department, so he was taken to court, where he stood mute with his eyes cast downward in apparent submission. The judge released him on a signature bond on a charge of disorderly conduct. The judge could not see Tyrone’s eyes or he might have reacted differently.

The answer to the question, “Is Tyrone a dangerous man?” could be found in Tyrone’s eyes. In many cases, cops did not have to ask one hundred questions to determine if a man was a “subject for treatment;” they only had to see the eyes. If only Maddy could see his eyes. Maddy canted her head to get a look at the face of the strange man with the boom box. When he reached the midway point of the cross walk, Tyrone suddenly veered right at Maddy and ran to the driver’s side window, which had just opened. He brought the boom box down off his shoulder and slammed it into Maddy’s face repeatedly until she leaned to her right side to avoid the blows.

Tyrone then smashed the broken and bloodied boom box to the pavement and pulled a Smith and Wesson .357 magnum. He fired six rounds at the officer, striking her four times, and swung open the door of the squad. Two startled college students, who witnessed the sudden unprovoked assault, later said Baxter’s eyes were wide and they could see the whites all the way around. One of the students shuddered as he related, “The man growled like,” then he swallowed hard and continued, “an animal was caged inside of him.”

Tyrone pushed Maddy’s body over in the seat and jumped behind the wheel of the car. He slammed the squad car door and accelerated away from the intersection loudly squealing the tires.

“God it hurts,” thought Maddy. Then she remembered her instructor in a survival class she had recently taken, “If you feel pain, you are alive. If you are shot, you will survive. Most people shot do survive. If you believe you will survive, your odds of survival are much better. Believe it! You will finish the fight, and you will survive.” The instructor made her repeat the words while she punched a bag and while she ran with the class. She said it over and over again. Her instructor’s voice called to her as she bled onto her clipboard holding her notebook on which she had moments before written the words, “Be careful out there, you are going home after this shift.” She looked at the clipboard, and lying on top of her notes was her medal. The medal her father had given her. She whispered, “Saint Michael, patron saint of police officers, give me strength.”

She had been mentally and physically prepared for this moment by the example of her father. She had been mentally and physically prepared for this moment by the words of her trainer. They called to her as she bled onto the seat of the car. She moved a little at first and discovered she could move. “If you are shot, finish the fight. You will survive!” shouted her instructor. “Get-up-and-finish-the-fight,” he ordered emphatically.

Tyrone was literally, “going nowhere fast.” The squad was heading nowhere at a speed of 80-85-90 mph and climbing. Tyrone had intended to go to the La Claire Police Department and empty his weapon instead of his bladder tonight, but he came across a target of opportunity and just reacted. Now he would drive. There was no purpose to his sudden road trip. There, certainly, was no reason for the impromptu late night drive by this man who was “not a proper subject for treatment.”

Officer Madison Brown managed to maneuver her Glock out of her holster. She saw Tyrone was not paying any attention to her. She now could see his eyes, and she knew, in fact, that he was not paying attention to anything at all. Maddy could see the blur of lights in the window and knew they were traveling very fast. There would be a terrible crash one way or the other, and she decided the car would crash now rather than later. She aimed as best as she could, considering the fact that she was lying crumpled on a car seat with multiple gunshot wounds in her vest and in her body. The crazy man was tearing through the city. He had to be stopped. “Bam! Bam!”

She thought, later, she fired once, but she had fired twice. Officers at the scene would later say there was one bullet wound, so she must have missed once, since two empty cartridges from her weapon were found on the floor of the crumpled squad. How could anyone blame her for missing once, considering the circumstances? The autopsy would later reveal that Tyrone Baxter died instantly from two bullets fired into his right temple.

They both entered Tyrone’s troubled brain through the same hole.

Tyrone immediately slumped forward and then to the left, falling against the driver’s door.

Maddy said to God and herself loudly, “God, dead man driving!” She braced herself for the crash and recited quickly, “Hail Mary full of grace the lord is with you. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of the womb,” the car hit a curb and went air born. “Jesus!” Crash!

The car stopped as suddenly as it started, and Maddy could not tell which pain she felt was from the smashing of the car, the gunshot wounds, or the beating with the radio. She could hear her instructor again wake her out of her stupor, “If you are shot, you will survive. Return fire, reload if needed, radio your condition and location.”

She covered Baxter while grabbing the mic, and she breathed slowly in through her nose and out through her mouth, “God it hurts!” she cried out loud just before she keyed the mic. She felt where it hurt, and one of the bullets had struck and fractured her left clavicle. She put pressure on the wound with the side of the hand that was holding the mic. She consciously regained her composure, and all who heard the transmission would never forget it.

McCarthy would tell his wife later, “She was so calm. You would have thought she was calling in a parking complaint.”

The report was simple, but revealing. “259.”

“259 go ahead,” answered dispatch.

“259. I’ll be OK, but I’ve been shot,” said Maddy in a voice as smooth as hot chocolate in Wisconsin in January. Maddy had just called in “10-41,” four minutes earlier. This had been a short shift for Officer Madison Brown.

Four days later, two bullets were removed from Maddy in two separate surgeries. Two had been stopped by her vest. Maddy was lying comfortably sedated but awake and alert and surrounded by every member of the La Claire Police Department SWAT Team. They had all come up in uniform. All eyes were on Maddy.

Compton spoke, “We brought you this.” He set a box wrapped in pink gift paper and a dark pink bow with a ballerina figurine on it, doing a curtsey.

“Can you please open it for me?” she asked as she pointed at her left arm and shoulder, heavily casted, tightly wrapped, and awkwardly slung.

Compton opened the package and inside was her black tactical uniform and helmet. On the left breast was the La Claire patch badge, and on the right above the pocket was the name, “Brown.”

Compton said, “Get better quickly. We are saving a spot for you on the team. You can start as a negotiator until you are at full speed, and then we will get you back on the tactical team… that is, if you want.”

“I’m coming back,” she said with the same determination that got her weapon out of her holster four days earlier.

“These are for you from all of us,” said McCarthy, setting a plant on the desk next to the window of her private hospital room.

Young Officer Shep came along and brought his camera. The entire team huddled around, behind, and in front of Maddy’s bed for a La Claire Police Department SWAT Team picture. Maddy wore her helmet and her tactical blouse was laid over her badly bruised and abused chest.

“Say Cheese Heads!” said Shep when the camera was focused.

“Cheese Heads!” said the whole team, including its newest member Tactical Officer Maddy Brown.

“Thank you so much. I am coming back,” repeated Maddy. Then something caught her attention on the television, as the team members shuffled out of the pose. “Can someone turn that up, please?”

Carpenter found the controls and was able to bring the volume up.

The familiar face on the television reported, “Good evening, America. I am Diane Lambheart of Prime Time Special. Tonight we are going to have a panel of experts discuss the recent rash of police shootings involving white police and African American men. In just the last four days, four African American males were shot and killed in American cities by American police. The shootings took place in Dallas, Texas; New York, New York; Los Angeles, California; and La Claire, Wisconsin. Our panel of experts will be discussing whether racism played a role in these police shootings. The first panelist is the honorable Reverend…”

Carpenter turned off the television.

Maddy had gotten quiet. She still stared at the set as if Diane Lambheart was still bleating on, or possibly listening to the honorable Reverend Who-Gives-a-Shit explaining to America that race somehow had something to do with her shooting a man who had “not been a proper subject for treatment.”

It was quiet for a long time in the room. Maddy lay there rubbing the bruised area right above her heart, where one of the rounds had been stopped by her vest. A tear welled up in her eye as she stared at the blank television screen.

Compton said quietly, “Madison Brown, you are a great cop. You have the heart of a lion. You are our hero.”

What else could she be. She was her father’s daughter.

Dan Marcou, retired as a highly decorated police lieutenant and SWAT Commander with 33 as a police officer. He is a nationally recognized police trainer in many police disciplines and is a Master Trainer in the State of Wisconsin. He has authored two novels The Calling: The Making of a Veteran Cop and S.W.A.T. Blue Knights in Black Armor available at Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com. Visit his website or reach him via email at marcoudj@charter.net .