‘Spirit of the Badge’ – Book Review
Author presents true stories of divine intervention

by KT

Book Review:
Spirit of the Badge – 60 True Police Stories of Divine Guidance, Miracles & Intuition
Author: Ingrid P. Dean
Topaz Heart Publishing, L.L.C.

www.spiritofthebadge.com
ISBN: 978-0-982084-0-9

Spirit of the Badge is a wonderful read for anyone. Author Detective Sergeant Ingrid P. Dean has served with the Michigan State Police for nearly 20 years. Her specialties include road patrol, polygraph, forensic art (see illustrations in book), and major crime investigation. Dean is also an artist, musician, private pilot and certified Basic SCUBA Diver.

Dean prefaces this work by saying, in part, “I believe that our goal as a human race is to share a greater sense of belonging together and to realize that we are all interrelated.” Far from a philosophical view, her comment states the point of this book and its inhabitants. The public usually sees unrealistic representations of police and law enforcement employees on TV and in motion pictures. It is this writer’s experience, and that of many others, that when police are involved in a headline-making event, the actual scene is relatively quiet – the more quiet, often the more tense. Things happen very fast and not everyone around the area, sometimes including the victim, even knows what happened until someone tells them.

In Administration of Justice classes at Portland Community College Cascade Campus, students were told that an officer’s most valuable weapon is his (her) voice. Unless you have the right training and experience, this concept and practice may defy widely-held presumptions about cops.

Spirit of the Badge, much like the limited police ride-alongs offered to the public, is a “must-read.” Whether you believe in a spiritual life on either side of the veil, these short stories are a fascinating look at police work. These are the words of the human beings who live and work in a world in between mainstream culture and non-verbal gut-based knowledge.

In an otherwise ordinary traffic stop of a driver who had run through a red light, the officer informs us that he had an intuitive sense not to stop very close to the other car. As he got out of his patrol car, the officer was greeted by shots from an Intra-tech 9mm Uzi-style weapon. “Everything happened so fast, he fired at least three shots before I realized we were under fire.” The developing situation caused the officer to exit his vehicle, even under fire. He says, “As I started to leave the car, everything went into slow motion. I saw a golden light fill the car and heard a voice say, ‘Don’t worry. You’re going to come out of this fine. You won’t be hurt.’” Even though his inexperienced partner had fled, he says, “...spiritually I had the best backup in the world.”

There is no discussion in these stories about religion, relative studies of faith, belief versus science. These officers are just telling what happened to them: “Just the facts, m’am,” as the police car was filled with light and an angelic voice spoke words of reassurance.

Some narratives are in a poem form. In one case, an officer had cited a speeder who then accused her of committing a crime against him. The poem goes on to say “...Where the driver of a Camaro had sheered off a power pole...blood in gouts (sic) was flowing from a deep arterial gash.” The officer called for aid and put pressure on the bleed until help arrived. It turns out she had saved the life of the young man who was previously “attacking” her for giving him a speeding ticket. This was on Christmas Day. Her wise father, a 30-year police veteran, tells her “...don’t eat the prune with the pit...or the pit will choke you and bitterness will make you old.”

This book is packed with a wide variety of stories, all of them true of course. Rather than try to quote them, the best thing here is to describe the collection overall. It probably took a lot of courage for these officers to tell some of these stories, for fear of being perceived as “soft,” or irrational and unscientific. Some stories are just a vignette in the life of a cop. Anyone who reads The Spirit of the Badge will be changed by it, even if only by a small measure. No doubt, there are many more such stories that wouldn’t fit into this one book.

This writer would like to personally thank the officers who came to the aid of a roommate in a house we shared in Northeast Portland. This event and more such may never see print and the issue of the open back doors of the locked house has never been resolved.

But...that’s another story.