May 12, 2026 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Our American Stories listener Jeff Shaw never planned on becoming a police officer. After drifting through jobs, flying lessons, and uncertainty about his future, a conversation at a restaurant changed the course of his life. Shaw shares why he decided to become a police officer, what he witnessed during 24 years in law enforcement, the emotional toll officers carry home with them, and why he eventually decided to write about it all in his book, Who I Am: The Man Behind the Badge.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we're back with our American stories. Up next, we're
hearing from a listener and the author of Who I Am,
The Man Behind the Badge. Jeff Shaw was a police
officer in South Florida for twenty four years, and he's
here to share some stories about his time in the
line of duty and all that comes with it.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Here's Jeff.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
In high school, I got my first regular job. I
started out as a busboy for a restaurant. I was
called ranch House Restaurants, kind of a combination between a
Denny's and Texas Roadhouse. I worked for them on and
off until I was twenty six years old. Eventually I
became a cook and then I was made manager. During
(00:55):
those years. In fact, right after high school, I started
taking flying less. I went to Opa Waca Airport and
I stepped inside Assessina one fifty with the instructor and
that was my first flight ever in an airplane, and
I was flying it. I eventually got my license, my
private pilot license in July of nineteen seventy two, and
(01:18):
I thought, okay, I'm on my way.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
I'm going to be a pilot.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
And about that same time, Vietnam was winding down and
thousands and thousands of pilots and mechanics were all coming
back from the war and looking for jobs with the airlines.
So I pretty much didn't have a chance at that,
you know, me with my fifty hours of flight time
(01:42):
and a little Cessna, I was competing with these pilots
with thousands of hours and complex jets. So I had
to look elsewhere. And one night, while I was at
ranch house cooking, I was sitting at the counter. I
remember it was a slow night. I was sitting with
a friend of mine who was a highly police sergeant,
(02:04):
and I think I must have mentioned my unhappiness with
my career and he said, Jeff, you should go down
a city hall and put an application in to be
a police officer. He said, they're giving a test sometime
in the summer. So I remember thinking being in law
enforcement was probably the last thing I had thought of doing.
(02:26):
Usually I was like in the wrong end of law enforcement.
I was one of those kids, you know, you look
in the rearview mirror and see a police officer behind you,
you start panicking. It was mid nineteen seventy and I
had hair like bon Jovi. It just didn't I had
never thought of, you know, being a cop. But I
thought about it, and I one day I went down
(02:47):
to City Hall and I walked into the personnel department
and I remember asking the lady behind the desk for
an application, and she looked at me right in the
eye and she said, son, you can come back for
an application when you get a haircut.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
And I knew she was serious, so I walked out.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I was pretty upset and remember driving home thinking, Okay,
I got to find something else, you know, I don't
want to work here. But over the next day or two,
I found myself at a barbershop getting a regular haircut.
I went back to City Hall, walked into that same office.
(03:29):
It's a different woman this time, and she gave me
an application. I filled it out, and a week or
two later, I got a letter from the city saying
that my application had been accepted and I would be
notified when the test was being given. And eventually I
did get that notification. So I bought a study guide
(03:52):
for law enforcement to be a police officer, and I
studied that for probably the month between receiving leaving that
letter in the actual test, and I thought I was
pretty prepared until I pulled into the parking lot. The
parking lot was packed, and I walked in the door
(04:13):
and I saw two to three hundred other applicants milling
around getting ready to take the test. So, you know,
I didn't really do well in school, so I thought
this is not going to be easy.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
But I sat down. They gave me my number two pencil.
They gave me a.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Thick packet which was the test, and they said, all right,
everybody start. I think we had a three hour maximum,
and so I started filling out all those little bubbles,
and I remember it was each question had five answers,
you know, and the last two were all of the
above or none of the above, so you couldn't really
(04:53):
guess too well. And about an hour and twenty minutes later,
I think it was, I was finished, and nobody had
stood up to give their test resultant.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
So I thought, oh man, I must have rushed through this.
I've blown it.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
So I spent another half hour just going through the
test again, looking at my answers, and by that time
other people were getting up to and I handed my
test in and I drove home. I wasn't real optimistic,
you know, I was trying to think positive but I
didn't have the greatest success taking tests in high school.
But within the first month, maybe two weeks, I got
(05:33):
a letter saying that congratulations, I had come out number
seventy one on the list. Didn't tell me how many
other people were behind me, but I was number seventy one.
What I didn't know was how long it would take
to get to number seventy one. And a year went by,
and I think I was working at ranch House that
(05:54):
entire year, and I had almost given up hope when
I got a letter saying, congratulations, You've been hired as
a probationary police trainee and I was to report to
city Hall the following week. I went through a process
that entire week of signing papers, going to different offices.
(06:14):
I had to go to the city's doctor and have
a physical. I was a little worried about that because
I was six foot tall and I weighed one hundred
and thirty five pounds.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
I thought I would be too skinny, but I passed that.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I had to pick up my uniforms from a police
supply products place. I had to get my gun. I
had to buy my own handcuffs. The city supplied my
leather belt the shoes, and just about everything else. So
that weekend I put it all on. I put the
light blue shirt on, put the pants on. I stood
(06:48):
in front of the mirror and just looked at myself.
I had worn a boy Scout uniform years before, and
so it wasn't a far stretch from wearing that boy
Scout uniform, but it meant a whole lot more responsibility.
There were so many different classes, We have so many
(07:09):
different instructors. Almost every day though. We had a class
of defensive tactics. We had driver training, we had weeks
of constitutional law, state law, traffic laws. We had people
coming in giving classes on domestic violence. Everything that we
were supposed to learn in twenty six weeks. So I
(07:33):
was about three weeks into the academy when my training
advisor was right in front of me.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
It was Sergeant ye I remember.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I had skated through all the inspections. His nose is
probably four inches away from mine, and he's looking right
at my eyes, but I don't look at his eyes.
And I could feel his hands touching my belt buckle,
and he said, kadets Shaw, you have a fingerprint on
your belt buckle. What do you think of that? And
(08:01):
I'm thinking to myself, there's no way there was a
fingerprint on my belt buckle. You just put that there.
But of course I say, I'm sorry, sir, and he
backs up and he says, give me ten push ups.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
So I did my duty. I got down, I gave my.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Ten push ups, and I'm I was probably good for
another month or two. Then we started learning to march.
You know, it was right face forward march, about face
left face, you know, class halt. And we looked terrible
the first several weeks. But I could tell there was
a great amount of peer pressure between the classes to
(08:40):
look good. He could really tell the senior classes looked
really sharp. But I always wondered, why do police officers
have to march? You know, all my life had seen
police officers out on the street or in stations or
on TV and on the news, and you never see
him march, and you never see him in formations.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
It just doesn't happen.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
So why would so much importance put it into us
looking sharp in those units marching?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
And you've been listening to Jeffshaw tell his story about
becoming a law enforcement officer, and by the way, his
story is everyone's story. Who's in law enforcement in this
great country, our neighbor's story, our friends, our family members,
because that's who staffs are. Eight hundred thousand plus state, local,
and federal law enforcement agencies. It's us, we the people,
(09:31):
a civilian law enforcement agency, a civilian military too.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
What a beautiful idea, what a beautiful story.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
When we come back, what happens next in Jeff Shaw's
transition from sort of rocker hippie restaurant worker to wearing
a badge and all the responsibilities.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
That carry with it.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
More of Jeffshaw's story here on our American Story, and
we returned to our American stories and to Jeff Shaw's
(10:13):
story telling us about his time in the police academy.
Here he is to tell us about some of the
first calls he responded to and how they affected him.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
So right after graduation, the very next assignment is riding
with a field training officer. It's part of your normal training.
It's usually three months, but I only got two months
because there was a big criminal trial that was coming
to an end. It was the McDuffie case, and all
(10:45):
the departments on South Florida were on edge because we
were expecting civil unrest. And during this time in nineteen eighty,
the Columbian Cowboys were very active in South Florida, a
lot of homice related to the drug trafficking. So our
department canceled my last month of my writing assignment and
(11:08):
put me out on my own. So I remember that
first night I was transferred to midnights. You know, I
had no seniority and the only openings were available on midnight,
so that's where the rookies went. So they gave me
my car key, and I walked out, found my car
and I remember getting into the car and I'm in
(11:30):
a patrol car and I'm going out on the street.
I have nobody to ask questions to, nobody to guide me,
nobody tell me to stop, don't go down there. I'm
on my own. So I'm driving around. It's very quiet.
I'm waiting for that first call to go out, you know, anticipation.
I kept playing with the radio knob, you know, wondering
(11:52):
if maybe I accidentally turned my volume down too low
and I can't hear. And they've been calling me and
I'm not answering. And every time, of course, my vollerting
was fine. So I'm driving around and all of a sudden,
the alert tone comes on, so I'm thinking, oh, finally something's.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Going to happen. I'll be I'm going to be able
to do something. And then of.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Course she says my number, whatever this is, it's going
to be my call, and I'm like, oh my god,
I asked her too much here. Then she says, the
signal is a three thirty, and in our code, a
three point thirty is an emergency shooting, which means either
it's in progress or somebody has definitely been shot. My
(12:34):
very first call.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Is going to be a shooting.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
And she gives the address of the Sionira Bar, and
I am looking at the Cyanira Bar through my windshield.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
That's how close I was.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
The drug cartels are known to habit this place, so
I'm already going pretty fast. I didn't even have time
to put my blue light. So and I'm in the
parking lot. People are pouring out of the bar and
I'm standing with my door open. I'm trying to use
the door as a shield, and I remember that split
second of wondering if I would hear the bullet before
(13:06):
it hit me, and fear leaves you when that adrenaline
rush hits you. My training just took over, so I
can hear my backup as getting closer. Now I can
hear a siren, and through the corner of my eye,
like my peripherial vision, I can see somebody lying down
inside the bar. The lights are on, the door is open,
and I can see him lying in there. He's not moving.
(13:28):
I keep my gun on all of them. I'm trying
to watch them. I'm trying to watch the door itself,
and I start edging my way over to the door.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
One of them.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
People in the crowd finally spoke English and told me
that the subjects had fled. So I go inside the
bar and I look at the first guy, the one
I saw down, and I know that he's dead and
there's nothing I can do to him. But there's another
guy next to him, and this guy looks better, and
now my backup's in the bar. He's looking around also,
(14:00):
So I kneeled down next to the second guy, and
although he's not moving, his eyes are looking at me.
They're tracking me. So I said to.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Him, I've got you. You're going to be okay.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
So as I'm talking to him and I put my
hand on his throat, I can feel his pulse. It's
not real strong, and I see his pupils dilate and
he stops breathing. Seconds later, the pulse stops. I'm seeing God,
the guy just died on me.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
But I stood back up.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
By now there are dozens of police cars outside, two
or three different fire rescue trucks. The supervisors are starting
to arrive. News trucks are arriving with their little camera things,
and the parking lot of this strip mall is just
full a sea of blue lights, all flashing, red lights flashing,
And it's my call, and I'm like, I'm not ready
(14:51):
for this. You know, I've handled simple burglary reports. I
had to work the rest of the shift, which is
another eight hours. But when I was driving home, I
was thinking of all those things, like kneeling down next
to the man, you know, feeling him die right there,
My hand was on him as he died, and those
other thoughts. Was a good guy, did he have a family.
(15:12):
Lots of thoughts like that, And I had very similar
thoughts with a lot of my victims, which is probably
not a healthy thing.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
So that was one of my very first.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Calls mass shooting, and that entire scene I can picture
right now. My wife and I were in the process
of adopting a girl from Columbia. This particular day, they
had just finally assigned a girl to us, you know,
we had waited two years and we finally got her
(15:43):
picture and it was a cute little Spanish girl, you know, short,
dark hair. It was so exciting for us. We had
to leave in like two weeks ago to Columbia and
get her. So that night I was trying to catch
up on reports and more off and then not before
I could finish a call and write the report, the
dispatcher would ask us to clear because she had another
(16:06):
important call. So it was started with the alert tone,
that long tone. The call was again another shooting a
three point thirty. So I'm driving as fast as I
can and I'm looking at these townhouses. Then I see
the man standing in the front yard and he's waving
at me. So I hit the brakes and slide up
(16:29):
into his front yard. And as I'm doing so, the
dispatcher comes on the air and says to change the
call to a suicide. So I run inside the house
as fast as I can, and the first thing I
see is a young girl sitting on the couch. Her
head is back and she's looking up at the ceiling.
And laying on the floor next to this girl's feet
(16:52):
is a black thirty eight caliber revolver. I touch her neck,
there's no pulse. So I sat next to her, you know,
and got on the radio and told the dispatchers that
the girl was Our code is forty five, which means dead,
and I requested a detective to respond, and the father
(17:17):
went back outside, and I was alone in the kitchen
with a mom, and she handed me a note. She
didn't say anything. She did speak a little English, but
she never really spoke to me. And I read the note,
and the first part of the note was I accepted
you as my mother and father, and that was all
(17:38):
I can remember. And I learned later that this was
her aunt and uncle, and her parents were actually in Cuba,
and she had come to the United States and was
staying with.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Her aunt and uncle. And I remember thinking.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
How painful that had to be for this woman and
this man. And she told me that what had happened
was that she had started seeing this boy that she
didn't approve of, and prohibited her from seeing the boy anymore.
And they had gone out to the store for just
a few minutes, and you know, I just remember looking
(18:18):
to this young Spanish girl and for somehow that linked
to my picture of my daughter. And I remember going
home that night and that was like all I could
think of.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
And what storytelling you're hearing from Jeff Shaw. The things
that are law enforcement officers have to see, and what
they have to live with, and how in the end
they're humans and they start to associate one thing with another,
in this particular case, seeing that Hispanic girl and thinking
about his little girl and wondering how these things can happen.
(18:56):
And that first night, a three point thirty an emergency
shooting at this say, on our bar, and imagine walking
into this place on your first call, seeing a dead
body holding the hands of another wounded victim, only to
have that person die while you're holding their hands. He said,
I can still see the scene in that bar. Now
we can too, Jeff.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
When we come back, more of Jeff Shaw's story, A
life in law enforcement, his book Who I Am the
Man Behind the Badge. His story continues here on our
American Stories, And we're back with our American Stories and
(19:41):
with Jeff Shaw telling us about his time serving as
a police officer and all the emotions and experiences.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
That come with it. Let's return to Jeff with the
rest of his story.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
I was on I want to say, ten years when
I finally learned why officers had learned to march.
Speaker 4 (20:08):
My friend Emilio became a motorcycle officer and that was
his dream.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
And one day I was off duty with my day off,
and he was patrolling the zone I normally worked, and
they asked him if he could handle a suspicious person call,
and he said, of course, And Amelio followed one of
them inside of them all and the guy was able
(20:37):
to pull Amelio's gun and shot him six times, and
Emilio died immediately.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
So that was the first big funeral I went to.
There were.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Probably five hundred motorcycle officers from as far away as
Las Vegas. I can remember the helicopters flying over. I
remember standing at attention for probably forty five minutes as
that line of motorcycles drove past us, following the hearse,
(21:21):
seeing the doors opening, the casket coming down, you know,
straighted in the American flag, and somebody brings two thousand
officers to attention and to salute the flag, and it
was just an amazing sounds hearing that all those officers
(21:43):
coming to attention and then saluting. And then Amelio's wife
came out. She came down the steps with her kids,
which were little, and I remember all the officers around
me sobbing. You could hear them shuddering and just crying
(22:04):
while all of them were at perfect attention. And then
everybody kind of marched away and it was it.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
Was really cool. Yeah, that was the feeling.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
I felt like, you know, we were part of something
and there was a lot of pride in trying.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
To get it just right. You know.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
It felt like we were showing the grace that this
officer deserved. I think that's one of the things that
bonds police officers together. You're part of something, and when
one of you bleeds, we all feel it. I think
(22:49):
as a patrol officer, and not just me, but most
patrol officers in South Florida.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
We see so much death.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
It's not unusual to handle one or two deaths a week.
And if you think of like I did twenty four years,
fifty two weeks a year, that's a lot of death.
You know, they're never pleasant, it's not like that person
in the casket.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
At the funeral home. And usually the family is there.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
They're grieving, they're crying somehow, they all look at you
for an answer, like you're going to somehow cure them
of this grief, or you're going to bring their loved
one back.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
So you have to deal with that and you take
all that home with you.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
I retired in two thousand and three, and it was
much worse for me the first few years after I retired,
all these memories. I would sit in a chair by
myself and I would start reliving them, and you know,
I would get very quiet. My wife could tell what
was happening, and I think she would make attempts at
(24:02):
getting me out of it. But you know a lot
of times there was no way to get out of it.
You know, you just have to work through it. But
somebody had mentioned that, you know, maybe writing these things
down will be cathartic for you.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
It maybe help you get over them. Putting them on.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Paper, you can like file them away mentally and physically.
First people to read some of the stories said, yeh,
this sounds like a police report. You got to humanize it.
Some personal opinions, some emotions, so I had to learn
how to do that. I started speaking with other authors,
going to writing events, joining writing clubs. You know, it
(24:40):
took me probably twelve years to finish where I thought
it was finished enough to try and publish, and I
worked with an editor to you know, get it nice
and neat. Then I had it published and that was
in twenty twenty. It sold really well. I've got so
many positive reviews from not just police officers, but families
(25:02):
of police officers, you know, women saying, now I know
what my husband comes home within his head.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
You know, he comes home very quiet.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Enough've always wondered why, and now I know, and I've
gotten a lot of them like that, like thank you
so much.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
My father was a police officer. I always wondered why
he was.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
So quiet, and I got so many positive things out
of that that I think that helps me deal with.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
My own anxieties.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
You know, like it was worth it bringing up all
those old memories I thought was going to destroy me,
but writing them down and then hearing all those positive
responses made it all worthwhile. And now I feel like
I'm a better person for it, because all this time
you just feel like you're immune like you're superhuman, you
(25:53):
wear a bulletproof best, you have a badge, and you
think that you're invulnerable, and then you find out you're not.
My daughter, I think she called this helicopter parents or
something like that, and I think, you know, I probably was.
(26:16):
I wanted to tell her that I've seen things that
she hasn't, and then I was trying to protect her
from those things. And that was one of the primary
motivators in me writing my memoir. Was kind of an
apology to my kids for being that strict parent. When
(26:37):
their friend's father said, yes, you can spend the night
over there, and I said no, Maybe they would understand
when I told my daughter that I don't really trust
this guy.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
I wish you wouldn't see him.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
I wanted her to see why I didn't trust him,
to see some of the people I've dealt with, and
to understand what's out there. And an apology for my
friend because I know I'm different than some of the
friends that I've made since I've retired. You know, I
want to be a better husband, and so that book
(27:10):
really it started out as one thing and led to another.
So many people just drive down the highway and see
an officer on the side and think, damn, he's running radar.
He's probably going to give me a ticket. Or they
do get pulled over and they're upset with the officer
because they are getting a ticket, and I just wanted
(27:31):
to see. You don't know where that officer just came from.
Did he just come from a suicide and he's trying
to get over that. Maybe he might not be the
most pleasant person at the moment. Or he's just come
from a traffic fatality caused by somebody doing ninety miles
(27:51):
an hour on the turnpipe, and he's had to pick
up dead bodies, and maybe he had to do a
death notification and he doesn't want to see that anymore.
So he is writing you a ticket for speeding. Maybe
that's why he's doing it, not because he feels like
he wants to punish you, you know, And to be honest,
you know, when I was working the road, I hated
(28:13):
writing tickets, you know, going to court. You know, I
work midnights and I'd have to be in court at
eight am for somebody contesting a speeding ticket. So I
never really enjoyed writing tickets, but I wrote them when
I thought it was going to do somebody some good.
It might slow this guy down, it might save somebody's life.
(28:34):
You know, you see the police car parked in the
dunkin Donuts and you think, oh, that lazy officer. You know,
my tax money is going to waste. That lazy officer's
in there having coffee and relaxing. Well, you don't know
where he's just been. Or maybe he was forced to
work a double shift and he's having trouble staying awake,
Or maybe he couldn't sleep the night before because of
(28:55):
nightmares and he's having that coffee to try and stay awake,
or maybe he's trying to catch up on those reports
and he's not having coffee at all. You know, give
that officer a break. Next time you see that officer
in the donut shop, instead of thinking ill against him,
you know, think of the positive good that he's done,
(29:15):
the things that he's kept you from seeing.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
And A terrific job on the production by Madison Derricott
and a special thanks to Jeff Shawf for sharing with
us all of us, the story of his experience as
an officer and in the end, the experience of so
many others and eight hundred thousand or so plus serve
in the line of duty and in the line of danger,
(29:38):
and they do it willingly, and they do it knowingly
for us so that we don't have to see those things.
As he just said, And what a story he told
about his friend Emilio. We're crying in the studio listening
to it. And then of course him just getting to
writing the book and how it ultimately freed him from
a lot of the demons, a lot of the memories.
And by the way, you can pick up Who I
Am the Man Behind the Badge on Amazon dot Com
(30:01):
or any place you buy your book. The story of
Jeffshaw a great listeners story and a beautiful police officers story.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Here on our American Stories
And we're back with our American stories. Up next, we're
hearing from a listener and the author of Who I Am,
The Man Behind the Badge. Jeff Shaw was a police
officer in South Florida for twenty four years, and he's
here to share some stories about his time in the
line of duty and all that comes with it.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Here's Jeff.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
In high school, I got my first regular job. I
started out as a busboy for a restaurant. I was
called ranch House Restaurants, kind of a combination between a
Denny's and Texas Roadhouse. I worked for them on and
off until I was twenty six years old. Eventually I
became a cook and then I was made manager. During
(00:55):
those years. In fact, right after high school, I started
taking flying less. I went to Opa Waca Airport and
I stepped inside Assessina one fifty with the instructor and
that was my first flight ever in an airplane, and
I was flying it. I eventually got my license, my
private pilot license in July of nineteen seventy two, and
(01:18):
I thought, okay, I'm on my way.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
I'm going to be a pilot.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
And about that same time, Vietnam was winding down and
thousands and thousands of pilots and mechanics were all coming
back from the war and looking for jobs with the airlines.
So I pretty much didn't have a chance at that,
you know, me with my fifty hours of flight time
(01:42):
and a little Cessna, I was competing with these pilots
with thousands of hours and complex jets. So I had
to look elsewhere. And one night, while I was at
ranch house cooking, I was sitting at the counter. I
remember it was a slow night. I was sitting with
a friend of mine who was a highly police sergeant,
(02:04):
and I think I must have mentioned my unhappiness with
my career and he said, Jeff, you should go down
a city hall and put an application in to be
a police officer. He said, they're giving a test sometime
in the summer. So I remember thinking being in law
enforcement was probably the last thing I had thought of doing.
(02:26):
Usually I was like in the wrong end of law enforcement.
I was one of those kids, you know, you look
in the rearview mirror and see a police officer behind you,
you start panicking. It was mid nineteen seventy and I
had hair like bon Jovi. It just didn't I had
never thought of, you know, being a cop. But I
thought about it, and I one day I went down
(02:47):
to City Hall and I walked into the personnel department
and I remember asking the lady behind the desk for
an application, and she looked at me right in the
eye and she said, son, you can come back for
an application when you get a haircut.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
And I knew she was serious, so I walked out.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I was pretty upset and remember driving home thinking, Okay,
I got to find something else, you know, I don't
want to work here. But over the next day or two,
I found myself at a barbershop getting a regular haircut.
I went back to City Hall, walked into that same office.
(03:29):
It's a different woman this time, and she gave me
an application. I filled it out, and a week or
two later, I got a letter from the city saying
that my application had been accepted and I would be
notified when the test was being given. And eventually I
did get that notification. So I bought a study guide
(03:52):
for law enforcement to be a police officer, and I
studied that for probably the month between receiving leaving that
letter in the actual test, and I thought I was
pretty prepared until I pulled into the parking lot. The
parking lot was packed, and I walked in the door
(04:13):
and I saw two to three hundred other applicants milling
around getting ready to take the test. So, you know,
I didn't really do well in school, so I thought
this is not going to be easy.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
But I sat down. They gave me my number two pencil.
They gave me a.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Thick packet which was the test, and they said, all right,
everybody start. I think we had a three hour maximum,
and so I started filling out all those little bubbles,
and I remember it was each question had five answers,
you know, and the last two were all of the
above or none of the above, so you couldn't really
(04:53):
guess too well. And about an hour and twenty minutes later,
I think it was, I was finished, and nobody had
stood up to give their test resultant.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
So I thought, oh man, I must have rushed through this.
I've blown it.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
So I spent another half hour just going through the
test again, looking at my answers, and by that time
other people were getting up to and I handed my
test in and I drove home. I wasn't real optimistic,
you know, I was trying to think positive but I
didn't have the greatest success taking tests in high school.
But within the first month, maybe two weeks, I got
(05:33):
a letter saying that congratulations, I had come out number
seventy one on the list. Didn't tell me how many
other people were behind me, but I was number seventy one.
What I didn't know was how long it would take
to get to number seventy one. And a year went by,
and I think I was working at ranch House that
(05:54):
entire year, and I had almost given up hope when
I got a letter saying, congratulations, You've been hired as
a probationary police trainee and I was to report to
city Hall the following week. I went through a process
that entire week of signing papers, going to different offices.
(06:14):
I had to go to the city's doctor and have
a physical. I was a little worried about that because
I was six foot tall and I weighed one hundred
and thirty five pounds.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
I thought I would be too skinny, but I passed that.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
I had to pick up my uniforms from a police
supply products place. I had to get my gun. I
had to buy my own handcuffs. The city supplied my
leather belt the shoes, and just about everything else. So
that weekend I put it all on. I put the
light blue shirt on, put the pants on. I stood
(06:48):
in front of the mirror and just looked at myself.
I had worn a boy Scout uniform years before, and
so it wasn't a far stretch from wearing that boy
Scout uniform, but it meant a whole lot more responsibility.
There were so many different classes, We have so many
(07:09):
different instructors. Almost every day though. We had a class
of defensive tactics. We had driver training, we had weeks
of constitutional law, state law, traffic laws. We had people
coming in giving classes on domestic violence. Everything that we
were supposed to learn in twenty six weeks. So I
(07:33):
was about three weeks into the academy when my training
advisor was right in front of me.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
It was Sergeant ye I remember.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I had skated through all the inspections. His nose is
probably four inches away from mine, and he's looking right
at my eyes, but I don't look at his eyes.
And I could feel his hands touching my belt buckle,
and he said, kadets Shaw, you have a fingerprint on
your belt buckle. What do you think of that? And
(08:01):
I'm thinking to myself, there's no way there was a
fingerprint on my belt buckle. You just put that there.
But of course I say, I'm sorry, sir, and he
backs up and he says, give me ten push ups.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
So I did my duty. I got down, I gave my.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Ten push ups, and I'm I was probably good for
another month or two. Then we started learning to march.
You know, it was right face forward march, about face
left face, you know, class halt. And we looked terrible
the first several weeks. But I could tell there was
a great amount of peer pressure between the classes to
(08:40):
look good. He could really tell the senior classes looked
really sharp. But I always wondered, why do police officers
have to march? You know, all my life had seen
police officers out on the street or in stations or
on TV and on the news, and you never see
him march, and you never see him in formations.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
It just doesn't happen.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
So why would so much importance put it into us
looking sharp in those units marching?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
And you've been listening to Jeffshaw tell his story about
becoming a law enforcement officer, and by the way, his
story is everyone's story. Who's in law enforcement in this
great country, our neighbor's story, our friends, our family members,
because that's who staffs are. Eight hundred thousand plus state, local,
and federal law enforcement agencies. It's us, we the people,
(09:31):
a civilian law enforcement agency, a civilian military too.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
What a beautiful idea, what a beautiful story.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
When we come back, what happens next in Jeff Shaw's
transition from sort of rocker hippie restaurant worker to wearing
a badge and all the responsibilities.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
That carry with it.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
More of Jeffshaw's story here on our American Story, and
we returned to our American stories and to Jeff Shaw's
(10:13):
story telling us about his time in the police academy.
Here he is to tell us about some of the
first calls he responded to and how they affected him.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
So right after graduation, the very next assignment is riding
with a field training officer. It's part of your normal training.
It's usually three months, but I only got two months
because there was a big criminal trial that was coming
to an end. It was the McDuffie case, and all
(10:45):
the departments on South Florida were on edge because we
were expecting civil unrest. And during this time in nineteen eighty,
the Columbian Cowboys were very active in South Florida, a
lot of homice related to the drug trafficking. So our
department canceled my last month of my writing assignment and
(11:08):
put me out on my own. So I remember that
first night I was transferred to midnights. You know, I
had no seniority and the only openings were available on midnight,
so that's where the rookies went. So they gave me
my car key, and I walked out, found my car
and I remember getting into the car and I'm in
(11:30):
a patrol car and I'm going out on the street.
I have nobody to ask questions to, nobody to guide me,
nobody tell me to stop, don't go down there. I'm
on my own. So I'm driving around. It's very quiet.
I'm waiting for that first call to go out, you know, anticipation.
I kept playing with the radio knob, you know, wondering
(11:52):
if maybe I accidentally turned my volume down too low
and I can't hear. And they've been calling me and
I'm not answering. And every time, of course, my vollerting
was fine. So I'm driving around and all of a sudden,
the alert tone comes on, so I'm thinking, oh, finally something's.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Going to happen. I'll be I'm going to be able
to do something. And then of.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Course she says my number, whatever this is, it's going
to be my call, and I'm like, oh my god,
I asked her too much here. Then she says, the
signal is a three thirty, and in our code, a
three point thirty is an emergency shooting, which means either
it's in progress or somebody has definitely been shot. My
(12:34):
very first call.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Is going to be a shooting.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
And she gives the address of the Sionira Bar, and
I am looking at the Cyanira Bar through my windshield.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
That's how close I was.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
The drug cartels are known to habit this place, so
I'm already going pretty fast. I didn't even have time
to put my blue light. So and I'm in the
parking lot. People are pouring out of the bar and
I'm standing with my door open. I'm trying to use
the door as a shield, and I remember that split
second of wondering if I would hear the bullet before
(13:06):
it hit me, and fear leaves you when that adrenaline
rush hits you. My training just took over, so I
can hear my backup as getting closer. Now I can
hear a siren, and through the corner of my eye,
like my peripherial vision, I can see somebody lying down
inside the bar. The lights are on, the door is open,
and I can see him lying in there. He's not moving.
(13:28):
I keep my gun on all of them. I'm trying
to watch them. I'm trying to watch the door itself,
and I start edging my way over to the door.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
One of them.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
People in the crowd finally spoke English and told me
that the subjects had fled. So I go inside the
bar and I look at the first guy, the one
I saw down, and I know that he's dead and
there's nothing I can do to him. But there's another
guy next to him, and this guy looks better, and
now my backup's in the bar. He's looking around also,
(14:00):
So I kneeled down next to the second guy, and
although he's not moving, his eyes are looking at me.
They're tracking me. So I said to.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Him, I've got you. You're going to be okay.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
So as I'm talking to him and I put my
hand on his throat, I can feel his pulse. It's
not real strong, and I see his pupils dilate and
he stops breathing. Seconds later, the pulse stops. I'm seeing God,
the guy just died on me.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
But I stood back up.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
By now there are dozens of police cars outside, two
or three different fire rescue trucks. The supervisors are starting
to arrive. News trucks are arriving with their little camera things,
and the parking lot of this strip mall is just
full a sea of blue lights, all flashing, red lights flashing,
And it's my call, and I'm like, I'm not ready
(14:51):
for this. You know, I've handled simple burglary reports. I
had to work the rest of the shift, which is
another eight hours. But when I was driving home, I
was thinking of all those things, like kneeling down next
to the man, you know, feeling him die right there,
My hand was on him as he died, and those
other thoughts. Was a good guy, did he have a family.
(15:12):
Lots of thoughts like that, And I had very similar
thoughts with a lot of my victims, which is probably
not a healthy thing.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
So that was one of my very first.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Calls mass shooting, and that entire scene I can picture
right now. My wife and I were in the process
of adopting a girl from Columbia. This particular day, they
had just finally assigned a girl to us, you know,
we had waited two years and we finally got her
(15:43):
picture and it was a cute little Spanish girl, you know, short,
dark hair. It was so exciting for us. We had
to leave in like two weeks ago to Columbia and
get her. So that night I was trying to catch
up on reports and more off and then not before
I could finish a call and write the report, the
dispatcher would ask us to clear because she had another
(16:06):
important call. So it was started with the alert tone,
that long tone. The call was again another shooting a
three point thirty. So I'm driving as fast as I
can and I'm looking at these townhouses. Then I see
the man standing in the front yard and he's waving
at me. So I hit the brakes and slide up
(16:29):
into his front yard. And as I'm doing so, the
dispatcher comes on the air and says to change the
call to a suicide. So I run inside the house
as fast as I can, and the first thing I
see is a young girl sitting on the couch. Her
head is back and she's looking up at the ceiling.
And laying on the floor next to this girl's feet
(16:52):
is a black thirty eight caliber revolver. I touch her neck,
there's no pulse. So I sat next to her, you know,
and got on the radio and told the dispatchers that
the girl was Our code is forty five, which means dead,
and I requested a detective to respond, and the father
(17:17):
went back outside, and I was alone in the kitchen
with a mom, and she handed me a note. She
didn't say anything. She did speak a little English, but
she never really spoke to me. And I read the note,
and the first part of the note was I accepted
you as my mother and father, and that was all
(17:38):
I can remember. And I learned later that this was
her aunt and uncle, and her parents were actually in Cuba,
and she had come to the United States and was
staying with.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Her aunt and uncle. And I remember thinking.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
How painful that had to be for this woman and
this man. And she told me that what had happened
was that she had started seeing this boy that she
didn't approve of, and prohibited her from seeing the boy anymore.
And they had gone out to the store for just
a few minutes, and you know, I just remember looking
(18:18):
to this young Spanish girl and for somehow that linked
to my picture of my daughter. And I remember going
home that night and that was like all I could
think of.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
And what storytelling you're hearing from Jeff Shaw. The things
that are law enforcement officers have to see, and what
they have to live with, and how in the end
they're humans and they start to associate one thing with another,
in this particular case, seeing that Hispanic girl and thinking
about his little girl and wondering how these things can happen.
(18:56):
And that first night, a three point thirty an emergency
shooting at this say, on our bar, and imagine walking
into this place on your first call, seeing a dead
body holding the hands of another wounded victim, only to
have that person die while you're holding their hands. He said,
I can still see the scene in that bar. Now
we can too, Jeff.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
When we come back, more of Jeff Shaw's story, A
life in law enforcement, his book Who I Am the
Man Behind the Badge. His story continues here on our
American Stories, And we're back with our American Stories and
(19:41):
with Jeff Shaw telling us about his time serving as
a police officer and all the emotions and experiences.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
That come with it. Let's return to Jeff with the
rest of his story.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
I was on I want to say, ten years when
I finally learned why officers had learned to march.
Speaker 4 (20:08):
My friend Emilio became a motorcycle officer and that was
his dream.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
And one day I was off duty with my day off,
and he was patrolling the zone I normally worked, and
they asked him if he could handle a suspicious person call,
and he said, of course, And Amelio followed one of
them inside of them all and the guy was able
(20:37):
to pull Amelio's gun and shot him six times, and
Emilio died immediately.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
So that was the first big funeral I went to.
There were.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Probably five hundred motorcycle officers from as far away as
Las Vegas. I can remember the helicopters flying over. I
remember standing at attention for probably forty five minutes as
that line of motorcycles drove past us, following the hearse,
(21:21):
seeing the doors opening, the casket coming down, you know,
straighted in the American flag, and somebody brings two thousand
officers to attention and to salute the flag, and it
was just an amazing sounds hearing that all those officers
(21:43):
coming to attention and then saluting. And then Amelio's wife
came out. She came down the steps with her kids,
which were little, and I remember all the officers around
me sobbing. You could hear them shuddering and just crying
(22:04):
while all of them were at perfect attention. And then
everybody kind of marched away and it was it.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
Was really cool. Yeah, that was the feeling.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
I felt like, you know, we were part of something
and there was a lot of pride in trying.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
To get it just right. You know.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
It felt like we were showing the grace that this
officer deserved. I think that's one of the things that
bonds police officers together. You're part of something, and when
one of you bleeds, we all feel it. I think
(22:49):
as a patrol officer, and not just me, but most
patrol officers in South Florida.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
We see so much death.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
It's not unusual to handle one or two deaths a week.
And if you think of like I did twenty four years,
fifty two weeks a year, that's a lot of death.
You know, they're never pleasant, it's not like that person
in the casket.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
At the funeral home. And usually the family is there.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
They're grieving, they're crying somehow, they all look at you
for an answer, like you're going to somehow cure them
of this grief, or you're going to bring their loved
one back.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
So you have to deal with that and you take
all that home with you.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
I retired in two thousand and three, and it was
much worse for me the first few years after I retired,
all these memories. I would sit in a chair by
myself and I would start reliving them, and you know,
I would get very quiet. My wife could tell what
was happening, and I think she would make attempts at
(24:02):
getting me out of it. But you know a lot
of times there was no way to get out of it.
You know, you just have to work through it. But
somebody had mentioned that, you know, maybe writing these things
down will be cathartic for you.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
It maybe help you get over them. Putting them on.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Paper, you can like file them away mentally and physically.
First people to read some of the stories said, yeh,
this sounds like a police report. You got to humanize it.
Some personal opinions, some emotions, so I had to learn
how to do that. I started speaking with other authors,
going to writing events, joining writing clubs. You know, it
(24:40):
took me probably twelve years to finish where I thought
it was finished enough to try and publish, and I
worked with an editor to you know, get it nice
and neat. Then I had it published and that was
in twenty twenty. It sold really well. I've got so
many positive reviews from not just police officers, but families
(25:02):
of police officers, you know, women saying, now I know
what my husband comes home within his head.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
You know, he comes home very quiet.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Enough've always wondered why, and now I know, and I've
gotten a lot of them like that, like thank you
so much.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
My father was a police officer. I always wondered why
he was.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
So quiet, and I got so many positive things out
of that that I think that helps me deal with.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
My own anxieties.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
You know, like it was worth it bringing up all
those old memories I thought was going to destroy me,
but writing them down and then hearing all those positive
responses made it all worthwhile. And now I feel like
I'm a better person for it, because all this time
you just feel like you're immune like you're superhuman, you
(25:53):
wear a bulletproof best, you have a badge, and you
think that you're invulnerable, and then you find out you're not.
My daughter, I think she called this helicopter parents or
something like that, and I think, you know, I probably was.
(26:16):
I wanted to tell her that I've seen things that
she hasn't, and then I was trying to protect her
from those things. And that was one of the primary
motivators in me writing my memoir. Was kind of an
apology to my kids for being that strict parent. When
(26:37):
their friend's father said, yes, you can spend the night
over there, and I said no, Maybe they would understand
when I told my daughter that I don't really trust
this guy.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
I wish you wouldn't see him.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
I wanted her to see why I didn't trust him,
to see some of the people I've dealt with, and
to understand what's out there. And an apology for my
friend because I know I'm different than some of the
friends that I've made since I've retired. You know, I
want to be a better husband, and so that book
(27:10):
really it started out as one thing and led to another.
So many people just drive down the highway and see
an officer on the side and think, damn, he's running radar.
He's probably going to give me a ticket. Or they
do get pulled over and they're upset with the officer
because they are getting a ticket, and I just wanted
(27:31):
to see. You don't know where that officer just came from.
Did he just come from a suicide and he's trying
to get over that. Maybe he might not be the
most pleasant person at the moment. Or he's just come
from a traffic fatality caused by somebody doing ninety miles
(27:51):
an hour on the turnpipe, and he's had to pick
up dead bodies, and maybe he had to do a
death notification and he doesn't want to see that anymore.
So he is writing you a ticket for speeding. Maybe
that's why he's doing it, not because he feels like
he wants to punish you, you know, And to be honest,
you know, when I was working the road, I hated
(28:13):
writing tickets, you know, going to court. You know, I
work midnights and I'd have to be in court at
eight am for somebody contesting a speeding ticket. So I
never really enjoyed writing tickets, but I wrote them when
I thought it was going to do somebody some good.
It might slow this guy down, it might save somebody's life.
(28:34):
You know, you see the police car parked in the
dunkin Donuts and you think, oh, that lazy officer. You know,
my tax money is going to waste. That lazy officer's
in there having coffee and relaxing. Well, you don't know
where he's just been. Or maybe he was forced to
work a double shift and he's having trouble staying awake,
Or maybe he couldn't sleep the night before because of
(28:55):
nightmares and he's having that coffee to try and stay awake,
or maybe he's trying to catch up on those reports
and he's not having coffee at all. You know, give
that officer a break. Next time you see that officer
in the donut shop, instead of thinking ill against him,
you know, think of the positive good that he's done,
(29:15):
the things that he's kept you from seeing.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
And A terrific job on the production by Madison Derricott
and a special thanks to Jeff Shawf for sharing with
us all of us, the story of his experience as
an officer and in the end, the experience of so
many others and eight hundred thousand or so plus serve
in the line of duty and in the line of danger,
(29:38):
and they do it willingly, and they do it knowingly
for us so that we don't have to see those things.
As he just said, And what a story he told
about his friend Emilio. We're crying in the studio listening
to it. And then of course him just getting to
writing the book and how it ultimately freed him from
a lot of the demons, a lot of the memories.
And by the way, you can pick up Who I
Am the Man Behind the Badge on Amazon dot Com
(30:01):
or any place you buy your book. The story of
Jeffshaw a great listeners story and a beautiful police officers story.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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