Miracle in Los Angeles

A few years ago I was smitten by a book by Squire Rushnell, When God Winks At You. The small book was a collection of remarkable stories of what might be called "coincidences" by people who don't believe there is a God who guides our lives. The rest of us would call them miracles. The book impressed me so much I enthused over it and purchased a number of copies to give to friends, earning a spot on Facebook as a "friend" of Squire's.

I have had inexplicable events in my own life, times when I was certain God was directing things: take, for instance, when my son was shot by an illegal.

Rick was in the LAPD. It was just after Christmas in 1982. It was not uncommon for drunks to greet the New Year by firing guns in the air (a senseless act no matter how you slice it). Some states have passed laws to make this illegal, because a cop in a black and white hears shots fired, has to investigate the source, and doesn't know till he arrives on the scene what he is about to get into. In Rick's case, for the space of 50 seconds his life hung in the balance.

That's all it was --fifty seconds from the time he called in on his radio, arrived on the scene, he was lying on the ground with a bullet in his head! He had located the gunshots source for sure! The thing that made him mad was that his shirt was brand new (cops buy their own). It was the first time he'd worn it and it was getting dirty covered with his blood! He decided to get back into the fray, started to get up, thought better of it and lay down again.

As he told it, after he called in his location and saw this weaving drunk with a semi-automatic rifle under a spotlight outside a ladies' garment factory near USC, he left the car, called in English and Spanish to put down the gun, ducked behind a stone wall about 80 feet from the perp. What he didn't see were two other guys lurking in the dark, equally drunk and equally armed.

His mistake was peeking over the wall, instead of putting his hat on a pole and lifting it up, to see if the perpetrator had obeyed. He was met with a bullet in the face! It all happened so quickly. The bullet entered the bridge of his nose 50 seconds after he'd left the security of the black and white! (Timing records were kept by the car's equipment and the tape in the P.D.)
Why hadn't the bullet continued through his head to exit the back of his skull? That would have been the norm, spattering his brains on the wall and sidewalk. It hadn't happened!

Rick was the senior in the car and knew his rookie partner was following protocol and continuing the gun battle as prescribed. He also knew he was hit in the head but not where and he was very much aware his new shirt was getting dirty. He heard sirens in the background and realized his rescuers were going by, so as he stifled the impulse to get up, he laid back down on the cold dirty sidewalk and called again on his belt radio. Rescuers found him lying on the cold dirty sidewalk. Even in California, winter sidewalks are too cold for comfort.

On the way to the hospital he heard for the first time about the 3 illegals. The two he hadn't seen were in the dark outside the spotlight's rays. One of them armed with a hand gun shot him, catching in the face. They were supposed to be guards, paid by the factory owner for the 25 females who lived and slept in the building where they sewed all day. I explain this because of what happened later.

In the hospital the medics and cops discussed the miraculous course of the bullet. One doctor laughed, "Now he has three sinus cavities." Very funny. The puzzle to all was the impossibility of the gun's carrying fully loaded projectiles. But the bullets did carry the normal amount of fire power. Why then had the bullet not just gone straight through from the front and out the back?

Susan, Rick's girl, and I heard the discussion. We were sitting in the hall listening to the talk around us from the men posted to guard the door-- information I could have lived without forever. When an officer is shot, no one is off duty even at shift change, until the perpetrators are apprehended and secured, and guards are posted at the hospital in the event of pursuit by the offenders.

A squad car had immediately been dispatched to pick me up and bring me from home in Orange County to the hospital. In a short time the efficiency of the system landed me outside his door in the middle of the night while we waited for the decision as to what went next with the victim, now a patient, on whom nothing could be done until the stabilization of his body's system to deal with this unexpected intrusion of a piece of lead in his head, shattering his left cheek bone on its way. The bullet stopped at the brain pan, not penetrating it, which is so thin, how could it not?

It was nearly 6 am when my niece and her husband brought me home Sunday morning. My phone rang shortly after. Radio news were already airing the story. An old friend on the line, wanted details, saying prayer chains were beginning for Rick's survival. I told him prayers were not needed, what was needed were paeans of praise! For those 50 seconds Rick's life had been in the balance. He survived. What can one say except praise the Lord for that?

Eventually Sunday evening his body stabilized and the bullet removed. Recovery could begin.

His cousin, my niece and her husband, returned with a camera to record what a face looks like after a bullet! It isn't a pretty picture, let me tell you.

Even then illegals received all the protection a government could give, especially in Los Angeles. The story, told by the LA Times, as if Rick was hit by a stray or ricochet bullet and as if it was all a big joke, and instead of the attempted murder it was. Nothing was made of the miracle.

A week later, on the next Sunday morning, my company hosted a long-scheduled industry breakfast on the Queen Mary. Based on the Times' story one of my customers learned I was the mother of the police officer who was shot, sat at his table, filled with mirth. He laughed in my face at the "cop who was shot in the nose!"

The end of the story, however, was none of the above.

A few days after the shooting my mother and I drove up to the hospital where we found Rick surrounded by buddies from LAPD. It was a noisy conclave, as they laughed and talked, calling him "the miracle cop." (A title he bore for the next few years until he was forced to retire because of severe mysterious head pains, possibly caused by bruising of the brain.) Perhaps they were feeling relief, it wasn't they in the bed who had been bleeding on a dirty sidewalk!

Momma and I never did reach his side. We stood in the doorway, catching glimpses of him thru the forest of blue legs and bodies. We could, however, hear his voice loudly bragging he was going to get rich. He was going to sue the factory owner who illegally hired these illegals and illegally armed them making the whole event possible. (Nothing was ever done to that person, by the way.)

Mother and I looked at each other, then turned and left. He didn't see us or know we had been there. It took an hour to return to Orange County and drop Momma at her place and then get home. I called Rick to let him know he had not been forgotten, we had been there.

We chatted about how he was getting along, and then I said, "Rick, I heard so much about greed and gold, and not a word about gratitude. Don't you realize you are alive today because of God performing a miracle?" There was a moment's silence. "Thanks, mom," he said as we hung up.

The end of the story I heard later. He called Susan who came and took him to his house in a an LA suburb. On that Sunday I was at my company breakfast, he went to his nearest church. At the altar call he went forward to tell his story and give his thanks and cry a little bit. Then he could come home and recuperate in peace. Life wasn't easy for a long time, but he was alive.

A few months later he and Susan married. Today both their girls are in college. Since then many more "cops" have died in the service of their community. Sometimes they do get the sympathy of their neighbors and friends. Eric had received one card of condolence from one Angeleno. He was really touched and impressed a stranger would thank him.

Sometimes the press and the faces which read the news on TV do tell the truth about the police or armed forces' circumstances, but all this happened just before the infamous event of the 6'3" 275 pound Rodney King episode in which only selected portions of the video were played endlessly to brainwash viewers to stir up sympathy for the violation of King's "civil rights" while the facts were played down. Few victims get that kind of coverage unless it can be built into a case against the status quo.

King continued his defiance of law and order for years, even after receiving all kinds of accolades not extended to the lady cop who tried to arrest him, whom he resisted until the males came to her aid. The left used it to bring down a very good Chief of Police, Gates, and to put all police everywhere in disrepute. They are still doing it. The war against God and country is continues.