What I see: A big booted foot about to step on a banana peel
What I feel: I was reminded of a saying of my elders about their badly behaving peers, and why their peers' bad behavior was so foolish.
It seemed that time and crime flowed around Tinyville, VA in 2020 – Major Ironwood Hamilton had come home in 2019, become the town's police captain, and established that Tinyville was not the place to be a criminal by 2020.
“What choice did I have?” he said about it. “We are a three-man squad here – prevention is the only method that works for the long-term!”
(And, in the short-term, Capt. Hamilton had cleaned out the county's biggest criminals who happened to roll through Tinyville or county on the weekends when he did county duty in such a way that the criminal element knew to try some place else.)
Day after day, week after week, Capt. Hamilton and Lieutenants O'Reilly and Duncan were often seen in the streets of Tinyville, all masked up and talking with all the essential people at work, getting to know them and giving them community support whenever they could.
Capt. Hamilton had come from both Special Forces and Judge Advocate General in the U.S. Army, and this unusual course of military career allowed him to both profile and build a case all at the same time against people he knew were heading toward criminal activity.
“But that also means that I am in the position and have the moral responsibility to head off what I can,” he said. “Most people are not doing crime because they love it. Most people are doing crime where entitlement and deprivation meet. I work to address the root before it sends up the fruit.”
Case in point: Thomas Shanks was at the hardware store, minding his own business and planning his next when a shadow fell over him. He was terrified when he turned around and saw Capt. Ironwood Hamilton right behind him, a file folder in his hand.
“Good,” Capt. Hamilton said. “I caught you a day in advance, Mr. Shanks, before you went back to your high-ticket robbing ways.”
“How did you –?” Mr. Shanks said.
“Forget about that; just know I that know. You have a much bigger problem, Mr. Shanks. You have one foot in the grave and the other about to be on a banana peel. I know about the medical bills you need to pay for.”
“There's a law against getting into people's medical records, Capt. Hamilton – what if I jail you first?”
“We'll come back to that, Mr. Shanks – what I've come to ask you is, would you need to go back to crime if there were another way to pay those bills?”
Mr. Shanks blinked.
“What?”
“I said, what if there were another way to pay your bills without you going back to crime?”
“What – that's impossible!”
“No, it's actually not,” Capt. Hamilton said as he pulled some paperwork out of his file. “Have a look at this, Mr. Shanks.”
Mr. Shanks's hand trembled as he reached out for the paperwork, and then his whole body began to tremble as he looked …
“Wait … Lofton Dynast Hospital is hosting medical research and needs applicants and will pay for my treatment?”
“We already know you were going to have to get some high-end treatment to have a chance at survival, and we also know that most of the available treatments are not going to work. This is how you get that higher-level treatment, Mr. Shanks, for free.”
Mr. Shanks stood in utter confusion.
“I'm a felon. You're a policeman, and before that an officer and a gentleman. You just saved my life! Why? People like us aren't supposed to care about each other!”
“You're a human being, and so am I. I have a wife and children like you do, Mr. Shanks, so I know you need to be here for yours and would do anything to prolong your life that you can. I would kill for mine if I felt I had no other choice, so you going back to robbery is something I understand – except that if you do that, you'll be dead in six months, and if you can't get the treatment you really need, you still only have two or so years. One foot in the grave – but if you will listen to me, and not step on the banana peel by going back to crime, you can make it.”
“I need help filling out the application – I never even finished high school – but I need to have a chance at life too! I'm trying to do right, but it's not getting me or my family anywhere!”
“But it will today, Mr. Shanks, if you will, and I'll help you.”
One week later, Mr. Shanks came literally running into the police station.
“I got into the study, Capt. Hamilton – I start treatment next week and they are paying for all of it like you said! It worked! Thank you so much!”
Capt. Hamilton smiled and handed Mr. Shanks a briefcase when all the rejoicing was done.
“When I graduated high school, one of the gifts I was given was a briefcase, because I was the droppingest young man when it came to homework, transcripts, and such.”
“Wait … is that how you got my medical records?”
“Correct, Mr. Shanks. You were in despair coming from the hospital and did not know that you had dropped your records, and as I picked them up to return them to you, I could not help but see the pages that were visible. Your records are in the briefcase now.”
“And so you went out of your way … thank you, Capt. Hamilton. I'm not going to waste this second chance at life – thank you!”
“One less criminal, one more citizen with enough help and hope to be a proper member of society again, one more generational crime cycle stopped: check,” Capt. Hamilton said to his lieutenants as he closed the Shanks case file for good.