My Field Training Officer, or FTO, Adam James, scowled at the traffic ahead of us. His grip tightened on the steering wheel and he muttered, “Shoulda taken State Street.”

I smiled at Officer James, then looked out my passenger-side window and up at the Wells Fargo Center, the tallest building in Salt Lake City. I imagined standing on the topmost ledge of that skyscraper, like a superhero surveying the city he must keep safe. My grin widened. I found myself grinning a lot. If anyone ever saw a cop perpetually grinning, he probably wasn’t crazy, just a newbie, like I was, still on probation, not yet jaded, every moment a rush. Just putting on my badge in the morning exhilarated me.

My FTO pointed at something ahead. “That guy’s probably a pedophile.” I flinched, looked, and followed his line of sight to a man waddling across the street at the intersection ahead: forty-something, built like Buddha, but with a scraggly mop of black hair and a bushy mustache. His too-short jean shorts seemed moments from splitting up his flabby white legs.

“You can’t really know just by looking,” I said. My FTO grunted. “Man, my pedophile radar is bleeping like crazy. Wait and see, Moutsos. Five years bein’ a cop and you’ll see someone and just know what crime they committed–or are thinking about committing. Of course, you have to prove everything, and all that. Can’t just profile. I mean, you could see a sign in the air above some dude’s head, clear as day, that says, ‘I beat my wife in a rage this morning,’ but you can’t just tackle the guy and take him to jail. Proof. Always need proof. Articulate, the more the better. Nothing worse than arresting someone you know is guilty and he gets cut loose by the DA because there’s not enough proof, or you lose in court, or whatever.”

I frowned and thought: No, I’d stop him before he hurt his wife. Somehow. Naive. Officer James continued. “You can’t just go and start surveillance on somebody’s house just because he looks suspicious. Always stay within policy and procedures. You have to be able to articulate everything you do. Anyway, Moutsos, you got some questions?”

“Dozens,” I said, and considered where to start. There were hundreds of different types of calls I could find myself on and I needed to pass off several before I could be on my own. “How about handling a barricaded subject?”

Officer James turned right onto 100 South. He nodded at my probation handbook on the floor between my feet. “Look it up. We’ll discuss it.” I snatched my book and searched the glossary. “Found it,” I said.“Barricaded Subject. A barricaded subject can be defined as a person or persons in a location that provides a means of spatial separation that assists them in avoiding apprehension from law enforcement. In short, a barricaded subject is in a position that inhibits law enforcement from easily taking them into custody after they have committed a crime.”

James nodded and opened his mouth, but a triple-beep emergency came across our radio from Dispatch. A man with a gun, inside his apartment, refused to surrender to Adult Probation and Parole. James cursed. “That’s a block or two away,” I said. James nodded and spoke into his mic. “Dispatch, this is car 84, we’re a minute or less away and responding.” Our car accelerated. James grunted, glanced my way, then straight ahead. “How’s that for irony? A freaking barricaded subject.”

James yanked our car into an apartment complex parking lot, maybe sixteen units. The old, yellowing brick structures looked like they should’ve , everything run down. I spotted no Salt Lake City PD cars. We were the first to arrive. James parked and we shoved out of our car. “There,” James said, pointing to a white number 12, the “2” hanging askew.

We’d only taken a few steps when two middle-aged men with Adult Parole and Probation badges turned the corner. The taller AP&P agent held up a hand in greeting. He reminded me of a plump Macaulay Culkin.

“What do we got?” James asked. “The usual,” the taller agent said. “Mr. Carl Freddy broke probation. We came to pick him up and he’s refusing. Says he’s armed and won’t go back to prison. His front door is one flight up. There’s a window on the other side, but I don’t see him jumping out. He’s not the athletic type. Besides, he probably wouldn’t fit through it.”

“We’re pretty sure he’s alone,” the shorter agent said as he shook my hand.I hoped he didn’t notice how my hands shook with excitement and fear. You shouldn’t be afraid as a cop, right? But I was. I’d never been in this type of situation. Barricaded and armed. I gritted my teeth and told myself to focus.Be professional.

“All right,” James said. “We got it from here.” I followed James through the main entrance, a squeaky gate with more rust than white paint and up the first flight of stairs to the second floor. Muffled yelling leaked through the edges of Freddy’s door. James touched my shoulder. I flinched. James nodded to the apartment to the right. “First thing first. Keep everyone safe. See if anyone is home and evacuate them in case this turns ugly. I’ll go left.”

I nodded and crept to the right. I peeled my fingers off the grip of myGlock 17 and knocked softly. The situation felt surreal, more like a training scenario than reality. I kept glancing at Freddy’s door, half expecting him to come out with guns blazing. Part of me wanted to run; part of me wanted to whoop like an excited teenager.

A scruffy, twenty-something Hispanic male peeked out of his apartment.“We have a problem next door,” I said. The man’s eyes jerked towards Freddy’s apartment, then back to me. He barked a nervous laugh. “Yeah, man. No kidding.” “For your safety, we need you to evacuate. Stay a safe distance away until this is resolved.”

He nodded and hurried past me. A woman pushed her two young boys ahead of her and down the stairs. The youngest boy, maybe four, whimpered, his big eyes pulling everything in.James nodded to Freddy’s door. The man inside ranted, something about it not being fair.

Officer James and I evacuated the apartments above and below Freddy’s, as well. We then took up positions on either side of his door, James to the right, me left. James gripped his holstered gun and knocked with his free hand. “Mr. Freddy. Mr. Freddy, this is Officer James with the Salt Lake City PoliceDepartment. We’d like you to come out and talk to us.” Freddy yelled, his voice much closer. “I got a shotgun. I got one. Okay. I’m not going to prison!”

“Mr. Freddy, please, we–” “I’ll end it,” Freddy screamed. “I’ll end it all! I will!” I’d never heard a voice strangled by so much raw emotion. Could we even reason with someone who owned a voice like that? “Mr. Freddy, please calm down. Let’s talk about–” Something crashed inside the apartment followed by a wild scream. James keyed his mic. He stepped back. “Dispatch, this is Officer James.”A female voice said, “Go ahead, James.” “We’re at the Freddy address. He’s irate, threatening to kill himself. I want you to try to get him on the phone, find a number for him, see if you can calm him down that way.”

“Copy, Officer James. We have his contact info and will call.” “Great,” James said. “If you get through, transfer the call to my cell.” I cocked my head. Sirens. Getting closer. Our backup. James pointed to the apartment to the left of Freddy’s. “Go inside. See if you can hear through the wall, figure out where he is in his apartment.”I nodded.

James’ cell phone buzzed and he picked up. “Hello, is this Carl Freddy?” I crept inside the Hispanic male’s apartment, following the wall they shared, past the living room with a single sofa and into the kitchen and dining area.For a moment, all I heard was my own breathing, then a man’s voice, muffled. Freddy. I thought, If he knew I was here, he could blast right through that thin wall with his shotgun. I shoved the thought aside and focused. I turned my radio down and slowed my breathing.

“I did it,” Freddy said, nearly shouting. “I did it. I couldn’t help it. You know? I should’ve gotten rid of my computer, just threw it away.” His voice trembled. “Yeah, that’s why AP&P wanted me. They know what’s on my computer. They know about the child porn. What? No!” I realized Freddy was talking to someone on his phone. Silence for a few seconds, then a scream. I flinched again.

“It’s over! It’s over! I can either go back to prison or kill myself. Those are my options. You don’t have any other options. I know you don’t. No, I won’t listen. You…What? Who wants to talk to me?” Freddy sobbed. I winced. “Hey,” someone whispered. “Moutsos.” James stood in the doorway, waving me over. As I hurried to him, in a low voice, he said, “I gave the phone to the negotiators. SWAT is below.”

A deep, distant thumping reached my ears. I cocked my head. “Is that a helicopter?” James scowled, listened, waved my question away, and said, “Come on.” I followed my trainer down the stairs. SWAT members in black and armed like a military assault force jogged past us. A helicopter thumped and whirred overhead. It wasn’t law enforcement. It was KSL’s Chopper 5. Local news.

James led me to Sergeant Grow, who was leaning in and conversing with Lieutenant Vanscoy. Sergeant Grow noticed us, nodded, and raised his voice to be heard over the helicopter. “You two, on perimeter, there and there.” The lieutenant said, “Somebody get that chopper away. I can’t hear my own radio.”

I headed for the north side of the apartment complex. I had a good view of the rear of the apartments and found the back window AP&P had mentioned.Time crawled. I kept thinking that something should be happening. The negotiators must be having a lovely conversation with–Boof!

I flinched, dropped my center of gravity, and had my gun part way out of the holster. Shotgun. He had a shotgun, right? The noise had to be a shotgun. Was someone shot? The suspect? An officer? I stepped towards the apartment, then halted. There was nothing I could do. Just wait. My nerves seemed to spark inside my body; my muscles felt stretched and desperate for release. Action. Any action. I wanted to help, but held my position.  Nothing on the radio.

Three SWAT members jogged around the corner. They halted belowFreddy’s rear window and one raised a round mirror on an extendable pole. He peeked inside from a safer position, below and to the side. My radio crackled. A male voice said, “Suspect is down. Appears to be a self-inflicted wound to the head. Secure the scene and get medical inside.”

The suspect was down, not an officer. I closed my eyes and exhaled a long breath. Not the best outcome, but better than a dead comrade. An ambulance that had been waiting on the street pulled forward and disappeared around the front of the apartment complex. No, not the best outcome.

The man made his choice, I thought. He made a lot of wrong choices.Somewhere, somehow, he got into child porn. How does someone even do that? I wondered if I should be glad this pedophile was gone from the world, but I lacked the emotional energy to rejoice. I held only a hollow nausea in my gut with an underlying sense of relief.

A few minutes later, Mr. Freddy was pronounced dead. Personnel trickled off the scene. “Officer Moutsos,” Officer James said through my radio.“Go ahead.” “You’re done with perimeter. Meet me at the front of the apartment.”“Copy.” I shuffled around to the front of the building and ducked under the yellow and black tape that marked the area as a crime scene.James nodded in greeting, then jerked a thumb in the direction of Freddy’s open front door. “It’ll be a good experience to check out the crime scene. You good with that?” I nodded. At the threshold, I hesitated. Suddenly conflicted, I was apprehensive yet curious. A dead body waited in there. Just go, I told myself. Don’t be a wuss.

I entered the sparsely furnished apartment and heard music drifting out of a room from the hall ahead. I frowned, recognizing the song. It belonged to a Christian band called MercyMe. The song was “I Can Only Imagine.” I passed the kitchen and into the hall. Bathroom on one side, bedroom on the other. I smelled Freddy first: the sharp tang of urine mixed with the coppery reek of blood and a hint of burnt hair.Grimacing, I stepped inside the bedroom and arrived in what seemed another world. The body lay slumped on its belly beside the bed’s footboard. As I blinked at what remained of the head, which wasn’t much, MercyMe sang:

The song repeated, set on a loop by the dead man, playing on a speaker hooked to his phone, which lay beside it on the nightstand. Go to prison or die. He had believed that those were his only options. And the truth is, they were.

But I realized he was already a prisoner, having bound himself with all of his choices, spread across all of his years. Even when he’d been free on the outside, he couldn’t be free on the inside. I’d been taught that laws, on this earth and in the universe, weren’t so much about restricting us, but keeping us free of the greater restrictions that come from the consequences of those broken laws. The laws Freddy broke led him down a path that turned him into the most reprehensible of addicts, the one who craved the flesh of children. Revolting and tragic.

My shoulders sagged. I turned and trudged away, relieved to abandon the pedophilic corpse. The memories of my first dead body, however, were not so easily left behind. What was seen could never be unseen.