This is kind of relevant, but regardless it's a good read about what the everyday Philadelphia Officer goes through.
You wake up early, out to shovel your car out, because cops don't get a snow day. You drive unplowed roads, arrive at the district, and watch your wet, cold, miserable coworkers glance a quick smile because they're getting done. You finish roll call, joke with your sarge, and head to the yard to get in your car. There's an inch of water on the floor from the boots of the last guy getting in and out. The windows are snow covered, and you have to clean off the car getting snow in your hair, and your night is starting cold and wet....with 8 hours of the same ahead. You don't get a snow day. You have to kiss the kids goodbye, wishing you had become a teacher, wishing you had become "non-essential personnel". You start rolling the streets...barely salted, hardly plowed, and you struggle to get a patrol car with 200,000 miles up hills. Every complainant is screaming as you arrive because it "took you long enough." You finish your eight, cold and wet, and pull back into the lot. You have to clean your car off...again....and dig yourself out...again. You drive the same awful streets home, and pull up to your snow covered driveway. You have to dig your driveway out, pull your car in, and start your walkway. All your neighbors are cleared and dug out, because, you know...snow days. As you dig, your phone dings...and dings again....and rings...and then dings.....and that? That is never good.
It isn't good.
There's messages from your sister, your friend, your girl. Missed call from mom. Everyone wants to know if you're okay....why?
Because someone, someone just like you, is not. A guy who walked into Valor Hall, just like you, is clinging to life. A guy who was sworn in, and given a badge, and an assignment, just like you, is in the hands of a doctor, and more so, the hands of a higher being, because some dirtbag pulled a trigger. The news is broadcasting the scene, and it's controlled chaos....fellow officers, guys you know, your old partner, man and women in a blue shirt and a badge, JUST LIKE YOU, are doing exactly what you always do....their job.
Somewhere, a mom is about to find out her son has died. A wife, maybe, and some kids, possibly, are about to have their world destroyed. They're about to join an elite group no one wants to claim membership to...the widows and children of a fallen hero. The Commish is about to make a statement, the mayor, too, both with the tears and snot of a crying family on their chests.
In the next few days? We will get to know a hero, a man who went out in the cold, and the snow, and the misery of a city that doesn't respect him, a man who didn't get to come home, all for doing his job. And 7000 of us lost a brother. 22nd and Lehigh has now become hallowed ground.
Rest in Peace, Brother. Thank You for your service.
Officer Joseph Mason, Philadelphia PD.