Yep. It's a dangerous job. Most of the Canadian cops I have met in my life were pretty decent people, and I know they work under a lot of stress. It's like military service, you are on the front line when on duty.

For awhile I was trading emails with a retired American police chief in Pennsylvania. He had bought some model kits from me on Ebay, and we got talking about this and that. He was stationed in a small town, and was the local chief for many years. He said he was lucky in that he never had to shoot anyone, and was only shot at once. He said it's not something you ever want to experience again. The bullet (from a rifle) missed him by inches. The man who fired it was persuaded to surrender a few minutes later. He had lost it for some reason, as people sometimes do...domestic dispute or something. According to my friend, domestic disputes tended to be the most dangerous and unpredictable situations to go into. People can get pretty wild when they're on their home turf.

- LH