Perspective of a peacemaker

In any business, you start at the bottom. Sometimes you cannot rise from the bottom. Sometimes what’s going on where you are, though considered the bottom, is too much fun, so you stay awhile. When I first got into police work, I was assigned the foot posts, pounding a beat alone. It was there I learned about peacemaking.

I was attracted to that life because I liked wearing a uniform, and I thought pinning on a badge, carrying a gun and driving fast cars was very cool. It is. But by starting at the bottom, I learned that to be a good law enforcer, it is best that I first learn to be a good peacemaker. Walking a foot post alone, I could decide what I wanted to be busy with. I could spend my days fighting tough battles, or I could disrupt the evildoers’ activities without breaking a sweat.

One post I maned was a downtown bus terminal. Buses picking up and dropping off busloads of passengers. At peak times there was a crush capacity of humanity in the station. Every imaginable character all at once. But in that sea of faces and figures, the people I was interested in meeting boldly stood out.

Victims and predators. I would be as noticed as possible by where I positioned myself, and I would make eye contact with the potential victims — young women looking lost — before the predators — way older guys ready to help a damsel in distress, who could whisk her away before she knew it. Those guys were obvious, they would be poised beforehand. I would make contact whenever I saw them and then ask endless questions to either unsettle them or make them want to leave.

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