I’ve spent my entire adult life as a police officer. I left for the Army and the military police 29 days after I turned 18. After six years as a military police officer I left the service to become a police officer in Plainsboro, which I have been doing 25 years now.
I didn’t know I was cut out for the job until I faced a moment in the military my first tour of duty in Germany in which an individual threatened us with a baseball bat and without hesitation I tackled him and we handcuffed him. It was at that moment that I thought I might be pretty good at this job and I might want to make it a career. So I did, extending my tour in Germany once and then re-enlisting for three years.
I took a deep breath after six years, got out, and set my mind to getting hired as a police officer. It took me 10 months from the time I got out until I was hired. Over 1,000 people applied for the job in Plainsboro when I got hired — three of us made it. I felt good about my choice about my career and the path my life was heading down.
But I soon realized if you are not careful, if you don’t watch out for yourself, this is a career that can eat you up from the inside. It can make you a very jaded, cynical, bitter person. Obviously Plainsboro isn’t big city; it’s a moderate size town in New Jersey. We have roughly 27,000 residents, but a daytime population approaching three times that amount. We have an extremely busy highway running through our town and we have our share of calls that can be a challenge.
Since I have been on the job I have been involved in investigations ranging from murder, huge thefts, robbery, rape, child abuse, attempted murder, and suicides and deaths. I’ve been kicked, punched, slapped, spit at, thrown up on, ignored, called every name in the book, been told I was good for nothing, a pawn for the government, and a few times people have told me that they wish I would get shot. Through it all we try to maintain an air of professionalism. We remain impartial and render assistance when it’s needed and always run toward the danger when everyone else is running from it.
I worked at Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks; I’ve spent countless hours away from my family. I’ve missed Christmas, and Easter, birthdays, baseball, and softball games. I’ve tucked my kids into bed over the phone or kissed them goodnight long after they’ve asleep.
I have seen devastation beyond belief. I’ve seen the anguish of a mother and father after I’ve told them their child had died in an accident. I’ve watched people draw their last breath. I’ve worked frantically to try to save someone only to see my efforts were in vain. I’ve seen women abused only to go back with their abuser time and again and no amount of talking can convince her that he will never change.
I am not painting Plainsboro as a horrible place but these are the facts of things that happen in a 25-year career. You pay your police to handle these things so you don’t have to. Plainsboro is a fantastic place to live and work, it is safe, but there is a police department for a reason.
I have worked with the greatest bunch of people you’ll ever want to know, where at times I’ve spent more time with them than my own family. I see heroes daily on my job and sometimes I see the worst mankind has to offer. After a while you question yourself. Why am I doing this? What good is this doing anyone? Who really appreciates us?
You can’t help but feel this way; did I become a police officer because I wanted to make a difference in the world? You tell yourself that is why you became a police officer; maybe at the beginning you really even believed that. But the further and further you get into the job that becomes a distant memory. You aren’t changing anyone’s life; no one cares about what you do. And then it happened.a moment that validated my entire career, so insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but monumental to this one person and it really shows you that you can touch a life.
On a Sunday morning at 7 a.m., I was at McDonalds. There were only a few cops in the store and a man walked in. As I was placing my order I felt he was staring at me. I looked at him and he kept staring at me. I didn’t recognize him. I had no clue who he was. He walked over to me with a huge smile on his face and said “Officer Potts, you don’t remember me, do you?” I didn’t and told him so.
He said, “1997, you arrested me for DWI, I fell asleep behind the wheel of my car while driving in a parking lot.” I vaguely remembered, after so many years you tend to forget old cases.
As he filled in the details it became clearer to me. I remembered that this individual blamed me for ruining his life that night in 1997. That he was going to lose his job, his family, and his apartment. That I was the biggest piece of trash ever and that he hoped I died. I remembered he was filthy drunk, very combative, and full of hate.
As I stood there in the McDonalds fully expecting to be told what a horrible person I was, this man stuck out his hand to shake mine, said “thank you,” and told me that he has been sober since that night in 1997.
He said that if I had not arrested him that night and spoken to him about getting help for his addiction he would be dead today. He was up early on a Sunday morning because he was on his way to an AA meeting and that his life could not be better today because of me. Needless to say I was a bit floored. He was someone whom I had arrested 12 years earlier and I spoke to him about getting help and he listened.
All those years in law enforcement, self doubt creeping in about my career choice, burn-out a definite probability, and then this — an insignificant moment in a career of a police officer. A moment that neither harmed the world nor made it better as a whole, but a significant moment for this one man, a moment that changed this man’s life and the lives of everyone he knows and who loves him. The lives of all the people he speaks to at his AA meetings and the lives he’s changing by his example.
The pebble dropped in the pond, the ever-expanding circles it creates until it reaches the shore of someone else’s life. As I stood in McDonalds I realized it had come full circle back to my shore. A life I had touched so many years ago had come back to touch mine, and erased all the self doubt that I felt. I can retire knowing, for sure, I changed at least one life.
I retire effective July 1. Thank you Plainsboro Township. Goodbye.
Editor’s Note: Potts already has an encore career lined up. He writes: “I’m a stand up comedian and have been doing it for a couple of years now. I am the house MC and general manager of Sarcasm Comedy Club in Cherry Hill. I plan on pursuing that as well as writing. I do voiceover work and have done radio in the past, which I plan on getting back into. I’ve been lucky enough to work in many of the better known clubs (Catch a Rising Star, Stress Factory, Helium, LOL). I’ve opened for Gilbert Gottfried, Don Jamieson, Joe Materesse, Dennis Blair, Jimmy Graham, and Uncle Floyd. First, however, I want to take a couple of weeks to decompress, spend time with my family, and let it all sink in.
