“Norwegian police don’t even carry guns. What do you really know about it?”
Sigrid leans over the tabletop and speaks in a hushed voice:
“One month ago my partner and I were taking point on an assault at a summer cabin in the woods backed up by our own emergency response team called the Beredskapstroppen. They were under my command. Unlike Roy, I stopped my car more than thirty meters from that cabin when someone came out with a knife and ran directly toward me. And in that time I called halt twice before pulling the trigger because it was my sworn obligation as well as my tactical training to defuse the situation rather than intensify it with the use of deadly force. But he didn’t halt and so I put two nine-millimeter slugs into that young man’s chest because while we do not normally carry guns, we do in fact know how to use them and sometimes we do. But not often. Norwegian police kill civilians in fatal shootings about once every decade. In America? No one even knows. You have no national database on police-involved shootings. You literally don’t count the number of people your police kill. And as a community you barely ask questions about it. You think that’s civilized?”
“There is a war on the police out there, Sigrid. America is an armed country and we have hardened criminals. Personally, I’m in favor of gun control because I think the opposite of gun control is gun out-of-control and that seems wildly irresponsible. However, all that’s immaterial because . . . there are lots and lots of guns out there. Which means we’re sworn to serve and protect in a gun-rich environment that makes our jobs scarier. And we’re legitimately scared. Anybody would be.”
Sigrid sits back in her booth and crosses her arms. She’s had this conversation before. And usually with people who simply do not understand numbers.
“I’m assuming you studied criminology?” she says.
“I studied divinity.”
“Divinity?”
“Yes. I have a master’s degree in divinity from Loyola. I wrote my thesis on something called Accommodation Theory. Every religion, when it spreads out, has to reach some kind of accommodation with whatever’s there already, otherwise it won’t really stick. The question is how that works and what makes it work or not. Interesting stuff. I focused on the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity.”
“How do you go from studying ancient Rome to being a cop?”
“You run for office and win. It seemed like it would be fun, and I got tired of using my knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew to help name pharmaceutical products, which was the job I had previously. And it was fun being sheriff—that is, until you showed up.”
“You named pharmaceutical products?”
“I got fired.”
“Why?”
“I was getting punchy because most of the products aren’t meant to cure you but make you dependent on the treatment, and that seemed wrong. So I ran my big mouth and gave them a name they didn’t like.”
“Which was what?”
“Puratoxin.”
“There is no war on the police in America,” she says. “I recently read an article on this. While we don’t know how many citizens are killed by the police, we do know how many cops have been killed by criminals. For one thing, the overall number of murdered officers has been dropping in a nice flattening curve since the 1970s. In fact, the last time there really was a war on the police was in the 1920s during Prohibition. What’s also interesting is that since the 1970s there has been a growing number of officers. It’s almost double what it was then. That means, if you do the math, that the absolute number has dropped and the relative number has plummeted. It is barely more risky today to be a police officer in America than it is to be a citizen in most big cities. Oh, and the crime rate has been going down too. America is safer than ever. But according to the media, the country is doomed. The fact is, Irving, the war on the police is a fabricated lie supported by a misperception. That fabricated lie is complicit in the murder of Jeffrey, because it planted a false idea in the head of the cop with the gun. It’s that same idea that puts my brother at risk.”
“I’m sorry about the kid too. I know the family. I’ve been to their house. They are so destroyed that their pastor, Fred Green, doesn’t even want . . . Never mind. Look, this is not your fight. Why are you so angry about it?”
Irv’s left hand rests on the table. It is a strong hand, like her father’s. He has long fingers with no obvious bruises or scars. The veins run prominently across the back of his hand, and his forearms are muscular and yet they seem gentle; hands that are not inclined to violence. Hands that once raised a daughter and patted her bottom and carried her to sleep.
Why is she so angry about it?
“I’ve stood in that moment between Jeffrey and Roy,” says Sigrid. “It wasn’t the same, but it was close enough that I can see it vividly. Despite being cleared by my department, I am not convinced that I needed to kill Burim because I’m not sure he was really planning to hurt me. I’m not even sure he was conscious at all. The men inside were hardened criminals, and that went as it had to. But outside, on the grass, in front of my car, I could have done more. I could have looked with different eyes. I could have seen more. I could have understood it differently. And if I had, I could have saved his life rather than ended it. I’m no Roy Carman. I’m not guilty of the racially motivated murder of a child. But I’m responsible. I just can’t figure out for what. I don’t think I ever learned a vocabulary for it. In any language. It's possible,” she says,
