This is an excerpt from my memoir, Officer Banfield — the honest story of my years as a corrections and police officer, hitting bottom in alcoholism, and the long road to recovery.
What follows details my time as a police officer and a corrections officer from 2006 to 2009 in the state of South Carolina.
It has been hard to begin narrating this book for you because I'm kind of scared to get this vulnerable with you, to share some of these ugly stories in my life, to share some of these memories that once were very painful for me and to get my truth out there to you knowing that you might judge me and say, "Oh, God. What an awful cop, an awful person!"
Or you might judge the other way and say, "Wow, I can't believe you're still alive. You must be Jesus Christ."
Alright, not maybe that extreme, but you get the idea.
This book is very emotional for me to share this with you. If you enjoy watching shows like cops or listening to law enforcement stories, whether fiction or non-fiction, will you please read this book because I think you will love hearing my actual real-life experience?
That said, I noticed as a police officer, the strange phenomenon where people would see the exact same thing just seconds to minutes after it happened and not be able to recall the exact same details. One person would say the car was green. Another person would say the car was brown. One person would say the guy was black. Another would say the guy was white, and they just literally saw it a few minutes ago.
How is it possible for people to tell such different versions of the same truth?
Maybe the truth includes everyone's version of it.
This book is non-fiction and recalled from the best of my memory. That said, there may or may not be anyone else who can agree or verify with some of the stories I tell.
My purpose in sharing this with you is to entertain. You might laugh and cry during this book like I did reading many other similar books, but nothing specifically with law enforcement stories.
I was inspired to write this book after listening to a book by Trevor Noah
talking about his childhood in South Africa.
I thought, "Man, I love listening to his stories. I bet you will love listening to my stories here, my time in law enforcement in South Carolina."
I will make this as interesting as possible. We will get into the very best stories. This will not be a read through of case notes.
"Well, this person, he shot them at that time."
This will be the really good stuff, the rawest and most honest stories from my time in law enforcement. It will include the darkest moments, when I was at the very bottom during the police academy. This will be all the crazy stuff I thought about and miraculously did not do, and thank God I'm free of having a bunch of thoughts like that today.
One thing that's important to emphasize is that while I was a corrections and a police officer, I was in my heavy addiction of drinking and a lot of the stupid things and the stories that come up in here are a function of drinking and the crazy sober state of mind that continues to take a drink anyway despite a bunch of consequences.
I'm grateful today that I go to Alcoholics Anonymous every day, and I've been sober for four and a half years or so now, and that experience is very relevant to what happened in this book. Many of these stories were very strong motivation for me to get sober and stay sober, and to continue to carry the message.
I hope this book is a demonstration of unconditional love, that if you can find anything lovable about me, if you can see what a mess I was before, and then see how great people think I am today, that if it is possible for this to happen in my life, it is possible for this to happen in anyone's life.
Anyone can go from a complete disaster, feeling like a worthless piece of shit into something or someone who is genuinely useful and makes positive contributions.
Thank you very much for getting started with this book. I'm honored you are here to share the stories of "Officer Banfield" and I hope you love it.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.