Hope and perspective. It’s something we can all use a little of.

I thought about that as news reports poured in after the Dallas police shootings, and waited for the inevitable wedge to be driven between the police and the black community by



the talking heads in the media. After some prayer and pondering, it led me away from the place we are be tempted to go — the extremes.

The extremes are where we find ourselves when we start to believe that police officers really don’t like minorities, or that minorities are always on the take. Extremes are where we find ourselves when we believe whatever MSNBC says or bow to the fear foisted on us by some talk show hosts. So I thought it would be a good time to reprint a story I wrote a few years back; one that comes from an experience I had as a young detective.

I had been a detective for about five years when I was assigned a particularly brutal armed robbery. A female manager had been pistol whipped, threatened and locked in a cooler. The suspect was an ex-employee who lived in a rough part of Detroit. For the next few weeks my partner and I perused the streets, interviewing, investigating. It didn’t take people long to figure out who we were. We were white, and most of them were black. And it wasn’t long before I let that cynicism melt into something worse, but it was easy to see how it could happen for some.

One day, during the investigation, I returned to the police station in Novi to realize I had lost my police ID. I recalled having placed my flak vest over my shirt and tie before approaching a dangerous house earlier. So, I assumed my neck badge had fallen off in the street. I panicked, certain that one of those thieves with which the city was undoubtedly enveloped had taken it and was, at that very moment, pulling off armed robberies with MY badge. Talk about cynicism; talk about fear. Immediately, I prayed to St. Anthony, a saint with whom I’ve grown familiar.

I didn’t think my prayer would be answered. Then I received a call from an older woman. Her son had found my badge in the street and brought it home. I figured it was a “set-up.” No one would have been that honest, especially to a white cop. Quietly, I told my partner I was headed back to Detroit. I gave him the address and made him swear to tell no one; that if I wasn’t back in an hour, to come looking for me.

I drove to this woman’s house, preparing for the ambush that would inevitably come. When I got there, I edged toward the door and knocked. A voice from inside invited me in. I’m not sure it registered at first, but there was a large cross in the foyer and a Bible wide open on a lamp stand beneath it. I looked toward the living room and was greeted by an older black woman, heavy-set and bed-ridden. She smiled at me. Then she invited me in and proceeded to tell me how much she appreciated the police. She thanked me for my service and told me she thanked God for “people like me” so willing to put ourselves in harm’s way for the good of others.

I was dumbfounded, waiting for the punch line. There was none. Instead, she asked me for a hug as her teenage son stood by her side. Then she handed me my badge. I didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I was supposed to be the one to do the saving, yet she “saved” me. I gave her that hug, and then my heart sank. It sank because I looked at the indigence in which she lived and was embarrassed I could let hopelessness overwhelm me with all that I have. She had so little, yet she gave to me.

As I drove home I teared up, perhaps because I recognized God in her, someone that was supposed to see Him in me.

Kudos to us when we can turn off the news long enough to recognize that the African-American community doesn’t hate all police. And kudos to us when we can deflect the media baiting and not assume every white cop that uses force on a black man is a racist. In the end, our Catholic faith should prompt us to find the truth, however buried it might be. But that might take turning off the TV once in a while and grasping a few more hands.

Paul Stuligross is director of campus ministry at Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Preparatory and is a former police officer.