Back to the city, back to my life

Life on the road can be so much simpler than life at home. There are so many things you just don’t worry about. On the road, you live life in the moment. All that concerns you is your immediate surroundings, your only responsibilities are what you brought with you. For a week, I didn’t pay any attention to the news, hardly looked at Facebook and wasn’t even that concerned with what was going on back home. I was only five states away but it might as well have been another planet.

That all ended yesterday. Much of our rush to get back was so I could do my CityPages route on Wednesday. Another 8 hours of driving around felt like nothing after the past few days. While driving I was listening to Minnesota Public Radio, catching up on what had been going on in the world. Apparently there have been a number of shootings in the Twin Cities lately.

One story struck me particularly hard. A St. Paul police canine officer was stabbed to death by a fugitive rape suspect. The suspect was later shot and killed by the police. That’s what happens. Police dogs are considered police officers just like there human companions. When you kill a cop you typically wind up dead. I have a feeling this alleged rapist knew what he was doing. I don’t think he wanted to face the consequences of his prior actions and wanted to die. I imagine one of the greatest challenges a police officer will ever face is having to assist another human being in committing suicide.

The dog’s name was Kody. his handler is officer Dave Longbehn. I didn’t know why that name sounded familiar and then it dawned on me. Longbehn was the officer that shot and killed my nephew nearly three years ago. My heart sank, not because I bare any resentment towards the officer, but because I feel a connection to him and he had just suffered a tremendous loss. I felt the same way when I learned the name of the person who killed my nephew. I felt empathy towards him. The choices my nephew had made in life were going to lead to him being killed. I don’t see any other way it could turn out. He was a cop killer and he decided that he was never going back to prison. He couldn’t escape so he was going to die.

Someone was going to shoot him. It didn’t have to be officer Longbehn but it was. He was the person my nephew chose to pull the trigger. For this reason, I will forever feel a deep affinity for officer Longbehn and I grieve along with him, the loss of Kody.

Officer Dave Longbehn & Kody – StarTribune