The author killed a suspect when he was 23 and has been thinking, working, and writing about it ever since.
This book presents a cop's eye view of the role deadly force plays in their lives, what it’s like to carry a gun with authority to shoot, from wanting to be a law enforcement officer to the aftermath of shootings. The stories are incredible, for example the SWAT team member who has only one shot at a killer holding two kids and their mother as human shields.
This book also delves into all the stories of subsequent bad press, bad anxieties, bad dreams, remorse, and fit-for-duty charades with counselors (“I had to tell them I was ok to keep my job, but I wasn’t”). The result sheds light on one of the most intriguing, controversial, and little understood aspects of the American experience. But most of all it is a deeply moving, compulsively readable piece of literary art.
