Let's Get It On!_ The Making of MMA and Its Ultimate Referee - Big John Mccarthy [34]
She passed her written tests and then her orals. During the physicals, she had to scale a six-foot wall, and I thought for sure she’d hit her limit here. But she scaled that wall and all the other obstacles placed in front of her. What had taken me a year and a half to accomplish, she got done in three months. She got her letter of assignment to the academy’s class starting in November of 1990.
At the academy, I thought Elaine might buckle with all of the running or self-defense classes. She wasn’t an athlete, and she’d be the first to tell you she wasn’t that coordinated.
I also thought she’d miss our children, Ron and Britney, who were now being taken care of by a nanny at home.
Another thing I thought would change her mind was being yelled at. The training officers got in your face and broke you down, then built you back up the way they wanted. Once again, Elaine proved me wrong and handled it all.
In June of 1991, she graduated and reported to Hollywood for her year’s probation. Although I’d never wanted my wife to become a police officer, I was extremely proud of her accomplishment. It was one of the best things she ever did for herself. It helped her understand a lot about what I did, and it changed her views on the world and people just as it had changed mine.
However, I didn’t want Elaine going out on duty thinking the techniques she’d learned for subduing suspects would work against just anybody, because chances were they wouldn’t. What I knew she had going for her was that she was incredibly bright and would listen. I needed her to understand that her greatest asset as an officer wouldn’t be a choke hold; it would be her mind.
At first she thought I was belittling her. “I could use a choke if I had to,” she said.
“Well, come over here and choke me then,” I said.
She couldn’t.
I hadn’t asked her do it to prove her wrong, but I needed her to know that just because an academy instructor had taught her something and a classmate had tapped when she’d put a choke on him didn’t mean she could do it effectively to anyone.
“Don’t believe the crap they told you about physically controlling people. What you really need is the ability to realize you can’t handle every situation on your own. There’s nothing wrong with asking for help.” Then I taught her to watch the body language of a suspect and told her to get on the radio and call for backup if she saw any warning signs.
As she went out on patrol in Hollywood and began to see the sad and sickening situations I’d been exposed to a few years earlier, she began to understand the gravity of it all. It wasn’t an easy time for me either. I was afraid for her.
Every time I was in Hollywood, I’d have one ear to my CRASH radio and the other to Hollywood’s frequency. She’d get a call, and I’d go spy on her. That was the only way I could make sure she was safe on the job.
Elaine was a police officer for the next three years and patrolled the streets for about a year and half of them. Those were years I really had to stay on my toes, and what monumental years they’d be for me.
Posing for a picture in Hollywood, California
Visiting my dad when he worked for the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Gaithersburg, Maryland
THE RIOTS
A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.
—George Moore
I suspect you can recall where you were on September 11, 2001, when two commercial airliners crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City. Your life and how you looked at it may have changed after that day. Maybe you reevaluated your priorities. Drastic events can lead to dramatic change.
For me, one of those life-altering events happened on April 29, 1992, when four LAPD officers were acquitted of the charges brought against them for the beating of Rodney King. Nearly fourteen months before, in