DISPATCHER: Units 25, 14, [inaudible]
on [inaudible] to [inaudible]
My name is Clarence Hudson and my life changed
forever on October 23, 2012.
We like to say that when people need help, they call 911,
but when a police officer needs help,
they call the Emergency Service Unit.
It's an elite unit and you always work with a partner.
His official name is police officer Arthur Lopez.
We all called him Artie.
He had a great smile, a little short--
'bout like 5' 4", 5' 5"--
but just a great guy with a great personality.
There's nothing you can say bad about Artie.
And anybody that's ever met him or worked with him,
they'll tell you that.
He always had a smile.
He could joke around with you, which is great,
because at a 12-hour day, you have to go
back and forth with each other.
And he picked up the job very quickly.
He was an asset to the job, had everything right on the ball.
When we first paired up, he was 28 years old.
I was 49.
But the age disparity didn't really show itself.
If you wanted a partner, he would be the model one.
And as a partner, he always had your back.
Probably the two most dangerous situations that we ended up
responding to is a domestic incident--
going into somebody's house--
and a traffic stop.
Sometimes it goes according to quote, unquote "plan,"
and sometimes they can escalate into something deadly.
On October 23, 2012, I was the operator driver that day
and he was the recorder.
And as we're driving there, he goes,
we got a leaving the scene of an auto accident.
And we got on the Parkway to go and follow
and pull the car over.
And, you know, have the guy come back.
And say, hey, listen, you hit the car.
You have to exchange information.
And we got up to the car, but he was refusing to stop.
We were just thinking that maybe, just, the guy was crazy.
But then the individual stopped.
And he got out of his car.
And at that point, Artie jumped out of the vehicle
to confront the guy.
And I had to put the ESU truck into park.
But in that brief second or two of time, he shot him.
His last words were, I've been shot.
And then Artie collapsed in the street.
And then the subject fled.
He went up the road and he killed somebody else,
to take their car.
And there were questions like, well,
why didn't you run after the guy and try and shoot him?
As a guy who was an EMT, I needed
to take care of my partner who was laying in the street
and get help.
I will tell you without a doubt, it was the longest
maybe four minutes of my life.
The medic did everything he could.
And I remember I asking him, do you have a rhythm?
Do you have a heartbeat?
He said, no.
But I figured that Artie was a young, strong guy, that they
would be able to help him.
And then they took me to the hospital that he was at.
Then at some point in time, they said, he didn't make it.
And I was sitting there, and I heard his mother.
And she broke down when she saw her only son.
I went out to talk to his father and his mother
and both of them, in their own grief, they both said, it's not
your fault. We don't blame you.
You lose a partner, it's just devastating.
I still blame myself, to some degree.
But I will say, this is where the police
department was really good.
Everybody offered support.
Clarence, how are you doing?
Are you OK?
Is there anything you need?
Because you know, you can talk to people.
There's a fair amount of police that believe that if you have
an issue and you go to get help, there's
some old-fashioned attitudes that say, oh, you're weak.
Tough it out, go have a drink.
But sometimes you need to sit down and talk about it.
And it's not a weakness to sit down with a professional.
When you see police officers who commit suicide now,
you wish that they would talk more and say
what's going on with them.
Because I do think that with the proper help and guidance, some
of that could be prevented.
I think about him every day.
And it's something that you have to learn to deal with.
And talking to other officers who've
had similar traumatic experiences,
you realize that there are some things in this world you
just can't change or prevent.
And at some point, you kinda come to the realization
that you did the best that you could do.
[music playing]