Last night I was shot in the back and killed.

Perhaps I should back up and explain. Last night we were doing simulated traffic stops at the citizen police academy. I pulled over a pickup truck for doing 45 mph in a 25 mph zone. Got his license and registration, and when I went to go run it through the computer, he shot me in the back with a Glock 27.

The sad thing is that I had a sneaky suspicion they were going to try something like that with me; I was looking for a weapon, and I was very aware of what was going on while he was getting the registration out of the glove box. Too bad I didn’t see the gun he had tucked under his knee.

I had a conversation with my wife, The Cactus, via text message:

Me: I died.
Her: I cried.
Me: Did you remarry?
Her: No, I just slept around a lot.
Me: Harlot!!
Her: Corpse!

So, what have I learned? An ordinary traffic stop is damn scary. Just walking up on that truck was an experience and a half. You can’t see a hell of a lot inside a vehicle walking up on it, and there’s a lot that go wrong really quickly. I’m sure I’d have done better with the training the officers get, but there’s still a big window of opportunity for disaster.