This one is long and a bit morbid but it changed my path in life.
Way back when I first started working a civilian clerical job at a police department, I went on a ride along with an officer (normal for new employees to see the city and get to know each other). It was a job I got because I needed a job during the crash, not because I really wanted to work in law enforcement. I didn't even really like cops, I had been a "punk rock" teenager.
At like 2 am, I am getting tired and thinking of telling him I am done riding along for the night, it had been pretty uneventful. Then we hear radio traffic of a 911 call of rape just occurred, woman escaped and ran from the van where the guy had been assaulting her. She's hiding among cars in the parking lot and thinks the guy is out looking for her. She doesn't really know where she is and is hysterical. Dispatchers triangulate the cell phone to a shitty bunch of tire and car repair shops about a mile or so away.
Now it's kinda risky and probably against policy to bring a civilian (22 year old naïve one to boot) on a potentially dangerous call like that-- but it was night shift and there just wasn't anyone else as close as we were. Officer looks at me and says "Stay in the car, duck down if you see things get crazy, and remember what I told you about how to work the radio if you need help." And off we roll at Mach speed. Radio updates that the female is hiding behind cars and sees the guy going back towards his van, yelling for her all the while. She said he had a knife in there that he had used during the rape.
We roll up to the alley and immediately see this out of place old Astro type van parked way at the end (it was a lot/alley full of mostly work type trucks and equipment related to auto shops, not really public parking). We can see a guy with his back to us, digging inside in the open sliding door of the van. Officer jumps out and starts yelling at the guy at while holding him at gunpoint. I catch movement to my right and through the passenger window, I see the woman. She's crouched next to a truck directly to my right, staring straight at me and waving frantically. We hadn't seen her while driving up since it was so dark, but the police lights were now illuminating her. She was naked from the waste down and crying. She crawls towards me like she's going try to get into the police car, but I wave her back and make a shushing sign, mouthing "wait, wait!" She hides again. The officer now has the guy on the ground and is sitting on his back, maybe about 20 yards away.
Another police car roars up behind ours with two officers, one who runs up to my side of the car. I open the passenger door and he says "you okay?" and all I can do is point at the poor half naked girl crouching on the ground about 15 feet away. He helps her walk back to his car while I watch. She has blood running down her thighs. It's 50 degrees outside, she's shaking like she's having a seizure but I think it's the cold and the adrenaline.
The whole thing lasted maybe 20 seconds between when we drove up and the second car of officers arrived. Turns out the guy and girl were acquaintances who had been at a bar nearby and he offered her a ride home, despite also being drunk. He drove her to an alley and raped her while threatening her with a box cutter instead. She ran out of the car half naked with his cell phone when he was putting his pants back on, he was too drunk to move fast enough to catch her. I've never been so angry at humans but so happy that we got there so fast to stop anything else from going down. I never saw either of those people again, I wonder if he was convicted. Probably not. Later the officer I rode with just said to me "This is what it's like in real life."
Anyway. I've never forgotten that girl's face as she looked at me, hiding by a truck tire, while listening to the officer yelling, the sirens and the radio screech in my ear. I thought about it every time I drove down that street for 3 years. I've worked in law enforcement for almost 7 years in different capacities and am at a different agency now. I don't think I could do anything else.