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When my dad came home from work, he pulled his Volkswagen into the driveway. When he saw I could balance myself on the bike, he was so excited he nearly leapt out of the car while it was still moving.

Things took a turn when Chris, the six-year-old bully on our block, came by. Like any kid, when he saw me pedaling my bike, he wanted to ride it. When no one else was around, he pushed me off and slid onto the vinyl seat, then glided away as if that golden beauty had been his all along.

Wiping the tears from my cheeks, I walked into the garage, where my dad was tidying up the shelves. Between frantic breaths and gulps, I pleaded my case.

Now remember, my dad wasn’t the type to say, “Let’s go talk to his mommy and daddy.” No, he told me plainly, “Go hurt him, and he won’t take the bike again.” Grabbing a yellow Wiffle Ball bat, he led me outside and told me what to do.

Following his instructions, I crouched behind the cool cinder-block wall, bat at the ready in my tiny, shaking hands.

“When he rides by, you hit him with it,” my dad said, then went back to his tinkering in the garage.

Along came Chris, unaware that he was about to reenact a scene from Tom and Jerry with me. As the nose of my bike and the kid’s smirking face appeared from behind the wall, I swung with all my might. Clunk! The bat made contact and clotheslined Chris right off the back. His head banged on the street, knocking the wind out of him. I’d never heard such wailing.

I picked up my bike, climbed on, and didn’t stop to watch Chris run back to his house.

I’d learned one thing. The bat was my justice.

My dad’s job was no ordinary nine-to-five. Most officers were assigned to a division, or precinct, under the four bureaus—West, South, Central, or Valley. Within those four bureaus, there were eighteen geographic divisions, and each officer was usually assigned to one. My dad was assigned to Metro Division, which worked the entire city and ran the K-9, Equestrian, and SWAT Units, the last of which he played a key role in revitalizing.

My dad’s was a high-risk occupation, and there were days I worried about him. One of those days was May 17, 1974. At eleven years old, I watched the live televised events unfold as my dad’s team converged on the residence at 1466 East 54th Street, where six members of the Symbionese Liberation Army were holed up and firing shots outside. With every angle change, I searched for my dad, but the TV cameras were in the front. He was in the backyard, where most of the bullets were flying. When he came home the next day, he didn’t make a big deal about it at all.

The one day I thought I’d lost my dad came when he told me he’d be up in a helicopter, running training insertions and extractions with the rest of the SWAT team up in Saugus Canyon, about thirty miles north of Los Angeles. That afternoon, the news reported an LAPD helicopter crash in Saugus Canyon and the death of one SWAT member and horrible burn injuries for several more.

My mother, sister, and I anxiously waited in the living room for a phone call or some kind of word from my dad or his department. I was never as relieved at the sight of his unmarked police car as I was that day.

As fate would have it, a high-ranking commander had come up for the training and my dad had given him his seat in the helicopter. The commander was decapitated as the helicopter crashed just over a hill.

My dad raced toward the blaze of twisted metal and saw many of his colleagues on fire. He picked up SWAT member Rick Kelbaugh and placed him in the back of his car to drive him to the nearest hospital.

Rick was in shock. “You gotta cool me off,” he mumbled from the backseat.

My dad stopped to search for a hose. When he trickled water over Rick’s head, his skin started to roll off like crepe paper. Rick would spend many months in the Sherman Oaks Burn Center.

Sometimes my dad was called away for what seemed like days on end, which made the time we did have together more precious than anything.

There was a five-year span when we had season tickets for the