Dave Foulk Internet Flyer

That was the case Tuesday afternoon when - for the second time in my career- I listened as news came that officer Norman Rickman was wounded. The first time was in 2001, and I was only a block away when a man shot him during a traffic stop. I rolled up the grass median on Papermill Road..and had to quickly back up because I was dangerously close to the line of fire. Officer Rickman survived the .40 caliber wound and returned to service.

Yesterday afternoon, Rickman was responding to a burglar alarm. He had no reason to suspect it was different that most of the other 17,000 burglar calls in the city during a typical year. Only one half of one percent of them turn out to be actual break-ins. But this was one of those rare, and in this case, deadly exceptions. Somebody shot Officer Rickman. More than once.

It is a testament to his physical endurance that he survived the first attack. I hope and pray he has the same outcome for this one.

I have been close to at least two gun battles that I immediately recall. Although I am a gun owner and have fired everything from a .22 pistol to submachine guns, they are still frightening because it’s not you holding the firearm. And in the case of the bad guy, it isn’t even somebody who cares whether you are shot or not.

There was a time on Westview Avenue in Atlanta when a Fulton County Marshall was shot to death. I had to crouch behind a squad car as the lawman’s body sprawled in the street only feet away. And the other time was when Norman Rickman was wounded on Papermill Road. Those two were the scariest for me.

Then there were times when I was working the desk, and only heard the radio calls:

The call from an Atlanta policeman who found his partner mortally wounded in a graveyard during a foot chase of a suspect.

Yells for help from a female officer after she had shot to death a sixteen year old car thief, who had just shot her partner in the face and killed him during a routine traffic stop.

Calls of “officer down” after a motorcycle patrolman died when somebody backed out of a driveway into his path during a chase for a suspect.

And there were other times when law officers were hurt in the line-of-duty, mostly car crashes, when I was working and heard the initial calls for help.

You can’t be a street reporter for a number of years without gaining an appreciation of what these folks have to put-up with on a daily basis, and the danger than can pop up like a rattlesnake, fangs ready to inject death.
In the news business (at least for us old-timers), the police scanner was one of the basic tools of the trade. It sits on the desk, blinking away most days with routine calls and reports of car crashes.

Then there are other times, when the audio from the speaker seems to travel right down to your gut.

And yesterday, it happened again.

Get well Norman Rickman.