Cop dedicates book to 9-11

Jen Lawson

Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2004 | 11:26 a.m.

Having a gun pointed at you can change your life.

Metro Police Sgt. Randy Sutton realized that in November 1989 when he got into a shootout with a man who said God had appeared to him and appointed him "the ultimate Ninja warrior."

Armed with a gun and bayonet and in full Ninja dress, the man began shooting a gun in the parking lot of Bonanza High School. A dance was taking place inside the school.

Sutton and other officers arrived and the man turned his gun on him and fired. He missed. Sutton tried to shoot back, but his gun jammed.

He managed to get his gun unstuck and fired until his gun was empty. The man was killed; no one else was hurt in the shootout.

"That night I shouldn't have survived, but I did," Sutton said. "You search for the meaning of why you didn't die and in that search you try to accomplish something to make your life worthwhile."

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Sutton, 47, said it "crystallized in my mind that 'True Blue' was my project. It made me realize that was one of the reasons why I was left here."

"True Blue: Police Stories by Those Who Have Lived Them" is a compilation of 53 stories from retired and current police officers from all over the country with 100 percent of the proceeds going to families of the law enforcement officers killed on 9-11, the publisher and author note throughout the book.

The 263-page book was released Feb. 1 by St. Martin's Press.

Sutton saw a chance to show "who we really are to those we are sworn to protect and perhaps one another," he wrote in the preface of the book.

He wanted to create an understanding, he said in a recent interview, and "the only way I could do that was through the written word."

In January 2002, Sutton, who is assigned to Metro's training bureau, approached Cassie Wells, an editor of Metro's magazine, Training Wheel, with his idea for the book. He gave her some of the stories he wrote, and she agreed to be his editor.

A few months later a law enforcement magazine ran an article on Sutton's project.

"I asked for stories written by (the officers) themselves about any incident that affected them," he said.

Before long the stories began pouring in, hundreds of them. Some were tragic, some were poignant, some were "slice of life" tales of a day on the beat.

Ray Majeski, retired from the police department in Sitka, Alaska, wrote about a woman he met 20 years ago while working as a police officer in California. She was enduring regular beatings by her husband and Majeski told her to divorce him.

Within days, she had filed for divorce and eventually moved away. Years later, the woman called Majeski on the day she graduated from college. She thanked him for encouraging her to return to school.

Reached by phone in Alaska, Majeski said a former supervisor remembered his well-written crime reports -- he wrote in normal language instead of police jargon -- and encouraged him to send Sutton a story.

He chose to write about the abused woman because "being privileged to be a part of changing anyone's life is something I am truly proud of. ... This young lady, all she needed was a little support and she took the ball and ran with it."

The stories in the book run the gamut.

Ron Corbin, a former pilot with the Los Angeles Police Department, contributed a letter to the widow of his partner, who died in a helicopter crash 1976. The crash left Corbin with burns on 70 percent of his body. Corbin now has a civilian position with Metro.

Retired Chicago cop Ricky D. Cooper writes about investigating the rape of a baby and how the brutality haunted him, even though police officers are supposed to have "hearts in barbed wire."

Sgt. Robert Banks of the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Office in California describes how he convinced a mentally unstable man that he had gotten rid of invisible aliens that had taken over his attic.

Officer Justin Paquette of the Atkinson, N.H., police department delivers a humorous account of the night he had to shoot a deer who had been hit by a car. He shot the deer 27 times.

Eleven stories about the 9-11 terrorist attacks are packaged together in a special section called "Ground Zero."

"What I was surprised about was the openness," Sutton said. " I knew the feelings were there but I didn't know I could reach in and get them."

He submitted a manuscript of his book to St. Martin's Press and a year ago, he got a call giving his book the green light. Sutton said he was stunned at his good fortune.

"The fact that it was going to be a reality was an amazing feeling," he said.

Sutton's fellow Metro officers were supportive, he said, and Sheriff Bill Young wrote a blurb for the book jacket.

Sutton included a story he wrote about a 1-month old baby who was shot in the face in 1998 during a drive-by shooting.

A patrol sergeant at the time, Sutton came upon the scene moments after the shooting. He resuscitated her while a fellow officer raced to the nearest hospital. The baby survived and is now 5 years old.

This call affected him than any other during his 24-year career in law enforcement, he said.

Sutton realized if he hadn't survived the shootout in 1989, he said "chances are that little girl wouldn't have survived either."

Sutton and several officers who contributed stories to the book will be signing copies of the book at two Border's bookstores, March 6 at 2190 N. Rainbow Blvd. and March 13 at 2323 S. Decatur Blvd. Both book signings are at noon.