Thanks. Will be a while before I am in uniform again. Just had shoulder surgery and it will be a few months before I am back.
Injured my shoulder breaking up a large fight after a gang initiation led some little turds to jump a homeless guy and split his head open. I told the other officers to stick around because i knew it wasn’t done yet. I was interviewing some witnesses when the little punks came home. Of course no one would come right out and say they were the ones that did it, but everyone knew, including us(they jumped someone the day before and gave him a concussion and broke his jaw). The neighborhood began yelling at the punks(funny, they threatened them but would not go on record as witnesses) and the punks came out. I had to separate them keeping both sides back, when the fights broke out. I would shove one person back while the other person tried to get at them while my back was turned. There were at least ten people fighting. One kid, I shoved back and he came at me. I shoved him down and yelled on the radio for help. Of course they all went back to hq to start the reports. The kid I shoved down began fighting with a guy and I had to break it up again and the punk ran at me trying to get at the other guy. I had had enough of their bullshit, so I lowered my shoulder and tackled him into a car and put him on the ground. He started to run his mouth how I better get the fuck off of him or else, so I told him to shut his fucking mouth and handcuffed him. Some of his friends tried to pull me off of him and some of the citizens that had not been involved in the fighting yanked the punks off of me. It was kind of cool that the citizens protected me. One lady called 911 and was screaming that an officer was going to get hurt or killed because i was so outnumbered.
After everything was over, and the other officers finally showed up, I saw that the vehicle had a large dent in the wheel well. I was sure it was the kid’s head, but he was relatively unhurt and had not injuries to his head. It was only after the adrenaline wore off that I realized something was wrong with my shoulder.
The craziest thing was that three years ago, I injured the same shoulder on the job teaching a rape prevention class. It was almost three years exactly(five days) and I had to have surgery that time as well. That time was much more serious with more tears and a torn bicep. The surgery was almost three years apart as well-15 days difference.