The opening chapter of my new novel, Crisis Shot, involves a controversial police-involved shooting. My main character is thrust into a dangerous, scary situation and has to make a life-and-death decision in a moment of crisis.
Tess O’Rourke was on track to become the first female police chief in Long Beach, California. But after the incident, as the story evolves and a blogger with an anti-police agenda gets involved, Tess faces an outpouring of anger and blame. Truth is truth, but people’s preconceived ideas can color any situation.
When I was a patrol officer, back in the 1990s, we didn’t have body cameras or dash cams. There were times when I wished that we did. People—at least many of those committing crimes—lie. And most of the time we dealt with subjects who had no interest in being truthful about anything.
One time I was accused of beating someone with a nightstick. Not only did I not ever beat anyone with my nightstick, but—I hate to say it—I often left my car without my nightstick. I would take it out of the ring in order to sit comfortably and forget to grab it when I got out on a call, especially if there was a true emergency. In this instance, a witness who saw me without the stick saved me.
In another incident, a male officer and friend was accused of rape. He was on the cutting edge back then; he’d taken to carrying a small voice recorder in his shirt pocket. He recorded the woman taunting him, saying that if he didn’t let her go, she would tell internal affairs that he raped her. When he got the complaint, he played the recording and saved his job. And this was not an isolated incident.
It happened to a lot of guys I knew who were good, proactive cops.
Today, a lot of agencies have dash cams, and many organizations are moving to body cameras for officers. But as much as I wanted them years ago, I wonder if they are the be-all, end-all problem solver I thought they’d be.
It’s dangerous when people don’t have all the facts. They see only a portion of a film clip from a body camera; then a judgment is made. When an officer screams, “Show me your hands!” the camera can’t zoom in on the hands to show what has the officer agitated. It can’t broadcast what is going through the officer’s mind at the time he pulls the trigger. In the dark, what is that in the man’s hand?
A gun? A knife? A phone?
Our legal system is based on the presumption of innocence. A person arrested is innocent until proven guilty. When something controversial pops up in the news about a police incident, I always try to put myself in the officer’s shoes. I’m not sure people realize how quickly bad things can happen, how short of an instant an officer has to react. In a shooting incident, we’re not required to wait and get shot first; we must assess the situation quickly and decide to shoot or don’t shoot in the blink of an eye.
When I was in uniform, after squad meeting as we’d head out to our cars, we’d say to one another, “Stay safe.” The common desire for the night was that we’d return to the station at end of watch alive and well. That’s why I give cops the benefit of the doubt. They don’t start a shift wanting to shoot someone; they start a shift wanting to complete it and go home to their family when it ends.
In Crisis Shot, Tess fears for her life and pulls the trigger. But when the smoke clears and news spreads that the incident involved an unarmed teenager, people accuse her of making the wrong decision for the wrong reasons. In the court of public opinion, she’s considered, at best, incompetent, and at worst, a cold-blooded killer. In the eyes of the law, however, she was following protocol and her actions were justified.
Cases like these always remind me to pray for police officers. The job is never easy or simply black-and-white. These men and women put on the uniform day after day and bravely stare danger in the face. The least we can do is pray for them and respect the law.
Can you think of a time when you jumped to a conclusion and later learned you were wrong? How did you respond?
Leave a comment for a chance to win Crisis Shot. Winner announced in the next Weekend Edition.
Tess O’Rourke dreams of becoming the first female chief of police in Long Beach, California. As commander of the East Division, she is well on her way . . . until the night she responds to an officer-needs-assistance call and fatally shoots an unarmed teenager. Despite being cleared of wrongdoing by a grand jury, Tess is so hounded by the public that she takes a job in Oregon to escape the bad press.
Winning over the residents of Rogue’s Hollow might be more difficult than adjusting to her new role as police chief in the small, backwater town. Especially when her closest friend, the pastor’s wife, goes missing and the woman’s cousin is found shot. Tess finds an ally in sheriff’s deputy Steve Logan, but as they track down Rogue’s Hollow’s first murderer, she worries that she’s breaking one of her rules and getting too close to him.
Janice Cantore is a retired Long Beach police officer who now writes suspense novels to keep readers engrossed and leave them inspired. Her twenty-two years of experience on the force lend authenticity to her stories. She has penned nine novels: the Cold Case Justice series, the Pacific Coast Justice series, Critical Pursuit, and Visible Threat. Crisis Shot is the first in the Line of Duty series. She also writes a blog about police work.
Maybe it’s macabre, but I think real crime stories are a gold mine for fictional story ideas. I get a lot of ideas from current events and from true crime programs like Cold Case Files and Forensic Files.
In my Cold Case Justice series (Drawing Fire, Burning Proof, and Catching Heat), I drew not only from true crime programs, but also from the FBI official website: www.FBI.gov. Real life is a treasure trove of ideas for fictional crimes and criminals.
Creating a Realistic Protagonist
The character of Brinna Caruso (Critical Pursuit, Visible Threat) came to me after reading an article about a twenty-year-old cold case.
The article, “Miracle Rescue,” told the story of a six-year-old girl who was abducted, raped, and left in the desert to die. She was found by a sheriff’s search helicopter, shackled to a railroad tie at the entrance to a mine shaft. The story was an anniversary piece; it had been twenty years since the little girl was rescued. The perpetrator was never caught.
What impressed me about the story was the profile of the now-adult victim. The woman had not let the tragically cruel event define her or destroy her life. She was living on the East Coast and was in college studying law and planning on becoming a prosecutor. She refused to be a victim; she was a survivor.
My character, K-9 Officer Brinna Caruso, was born after I read that article. I wanted her to be a strong, sure adult in spite of tragedy in her past. She went through the toughest thing imaginable at a young age, similar to the real-life story, and grew up strong and focused because of it. In the book Critical Pursuit she’s earned the nickname “Kid Crusader” because she fights to protect youngsters.
Shaping a Struggling Victim
In my latest book, Burning Proof, Detective Abby Hart and PI Luke Murphy help solve a cold case involving a young woman who, ten years previous, was abducted from a bus stop and raped. She barely escaped with her life.
The idea was drawn from a true-crime cold case episode of a predator stalking young girls in the San Diego area. He killed two women, if I remember right, and abducted a third, but she was able to free herself from the trunk of his car and was rescued.
Despite a good description of the attacker, the case went cold, largely because the suspect moved out of state. It was only solved several years later when the bad guy was caught back east doing the same thing: abducting women, raping them, then killing and dumping the bodies. Once caught, he confessed to the killings in California and to kidnapping the one who got away.
Molly, my victim in Burning Proof, was the one who got away. Ten years later, the case is cold, and she is struggling with PTSD . . . and the fact that her attacker was never caught.
The villain in this book stopped committing crimes for a different reason than the real-life bad guy. He shipped out to Iraq right after Molly got away, working as a truck driver for a civilian contractor. While in Iraq, he is involved in a crash that paralyzes him from the waist down.
It’s up to Abby and Luke to put the pieces together and figure out who perpetrated Molly’s kidnapping.
Crafting a Formidable Villain
The bad guy in Catching Heat, which will release in September, was drawn from a couple of different sources. The first was the story of John List. In 1971 he killed his whole family—wife, mother, and three kids—then disappeared. Nearly twenty years later, after a broadcast of America’s Most Wanted, this killer was apprehended living in a different state, married to another woman under a different name. He eventually died in prison.
The second incident was another family massacre, this time in Florida in 2001. The suspect, Robert William Fischer, killed his wife and children, set his house on fire, and disappeared. He is still missing and is on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.
Without giving away any spoilers, I played the what-if game and wondered how these men were able to do what they did and disappear to live new lives. This creates a smart villain, one living in plain sight, probably staying just one step ahead of the law in today’s technology-heavy world, with cameras, computers, social media, etc.
Add dedicated law enforcement agents, determined to solve the crime, and you have a good thriller.
Unfortunately, the best thing about crimes and headlines is that there is never a shortage of material.
Just this weekend a house in a small rural community close to me exploded in a blast so strong, windows in nearby houses blew out. The headline the next day was “Somebody was trying to kill us.” The homeowner claims the blast was intentional, and that if he and his wife had been home, they’d be dead.
Oh, now to dig into this story and play the what-if game.
Do you writers ever get story ideas ripped from the headlines? I'd love to hear about it!
Janice Cantore is a police officer turned writer. She retired from the Long Beach Police Department, Long Beach California after 22 years, 16 in uniform, 6 as a non-career employee. Janice worked a variety of assignments, patrol, administration, juvenile investigations and training. During the course of her career in uniform, Janice found that faith was indispensable to every aspect of the job and published articles on faith at work, one for a quarterly newspaper called "Cop and Christ", and another for the monthly magazine "Today's Christian Woman."
Janice writes suspense novels designed to keep you engrossed and leave you inspired.She is currently writing romantic suspense for Tyndale House, and her most recent release is Burning Proof.
Burning Proof
After months of investigating the brutal homicide of a young girl, Detective Abby Hart finally has the evidence she needs. But when the arrest goes terribly wrong, Abby begins to doubt her future as a police officer. As she wrestles with conflicting emotions, old questions about the fire that took her parents’ lives come back to haunt her.
“There is proof.” PI Luke Murphy can’t stop thinking about what Abby’s former partner, Asa Foster, mumbled just before he died. When he uncovers a clue to the murder of Abby’s parents and his uncle, he’s reluctant to tell Abby, despite his growing feelings for the beautiful detective.
A decade-old abduction case brings Luke and Abby together, but will his secret tear them apart?
Janice is offering a terrific giveaway today! Three commenters will win a copy of Burning Proof, and one additional commenter will win a Janice Cantore book of choice. Winners announced in the Weekend Edition!
