She showed no signs of life, so he entered her apartment. “I needed a moment to put this view together”

“Open! Police” is a book by Sergeant Bagieta, known from the YouTube platform. In it, the former policeman describes the realities of his work and advises how to ensure safety. Thanks to the courtesy of Mando Publishing House, we publish an excerpt from the “Interventions” chapter.

For me, the patrol jacket is the heart of police work. I came alive in it. Simultaneous enthusiasm and calm. I entered a reality in which I found the previously lost meaning of work and, at the same time, peace from the stupidity of my superiors. Time showed that it was the calm before the storm. However, at least at that stage, no one pressed us for fines, statistics or tables. We were supposed to go out on the street and do our job. I didn’t know what awaited me yet, so my happiness hormones were raging and I hit the street with a banana on my face. Most importantly, it wasn’t just me, because we had an awesome Team. A well-coordinated team is a great value in the police, and the managers and supervisors are the biggest pains in the ass.

The scenery is like something out of a horror movie

One of the first actions I had on patrol immediately made me feel at home. Domestic quarrel: a drugged son quarreled with his mother. Excited to the max, he went out into the stairwell and smashed the window with his fist. When his hand broke through the glass, it almost guillotined his forearm. Unfortunately, it hit the radial artery. When we arrived, the guy was walking around the block and gushing blood left and right, but as a result of the drugs he was still aggressive. “Come, f**ks, come!” he shouted at us. We kept a safe distance at first, but he still splashed me with blood. The feeling of someone’s warm blood running down your face is not a nice experience. My friend took it upon himself. to keep an eye on the guy, and I brought glasses from the police car so that the guy wouldn’t get any splashes in our eyes and we could see what we were doing.

The scenery was like something out of a horror movie, with red splatter everywhere on the walls. We were waiting for the right moment. My friend managed to talk to the guy, and I slowly tried to move to the side to finally get behind his back. At a given signal, we attacked him simultaneously from the front and from the back. Dude’s a tough guy, but he kicks. Each of us slides as if we were taking part in a raspberry jelly fight. Finally, we pacified the guy, handcuffed him, and I put a tourniquet on him so he wouldn’t bleed out. We threw the guy into the ambulance and on the horn to the emergency room. The guy started to weaken and had the first symptoms of shock: blurred vision, sweating, pale face. The doctor admitted that he was close to being on the other side.

Such situations always require some responsibility and risk assessment by police officers. Sometimes you immediately see that you will need medical help, but you have no way to call for it. In my career, I have never had an action so serious that one of the thugs required complicated surgery and who knows what kind of security in the hospital. Providing help is the most important rule, so first the hospital, then other police activities. Until you send a person to a detention center or to a prison, you are responsible for his or her condition. If there are grounds for arrest and the person has to be hospitalized, it’s too bad – you’re waiting in the hospital corridor. If it drags on, your shift ends and a colleague sits on the hot stool. This was the case with this intervention. In the end, it ended up falling apart and the only thing left to the table was disturbing the peace, because the boy’s mother did not want to report his violence.

Open Police Mando Publishing House

As I mentioned, in the police you have contact with death. You get used to it, but you can’t get used to it completely. Someone’s death is always your stressor. Its impact can be eliminated, but even if it seems to you that you have the stress under control, something may happen that will completely blow you away.

The dispatcher received the call. He sent us to one of the new housing estates. A group of kids were waiting for us and they informed the police. The apartment of their friend from college was located in the block. They came because she hadn’t answered her phone for some time and hadn’t replied to messages. They called on the intercom, but she didn’t answer either. Then they called us. I happened to be on duty with a young guy, he had started work maybe a few months earlier. Fresh out of school, he had never seen a dead body. When we asked the company about this girl, I felt that it would end with the discovery of a body in the apartment. The worst thing is that I haven’t seen this person yet, and I already feel great warmth towards him. Twenty-something years old, a student of a cool and important field, smiling and attractive in the photos, sociable, well-liked… Until the topic of heartbreak came up.

We approached the door of the apartment. The bell, knocking, silence. I started calling the tenant – silence. I asked her friends if they could try it. Maybe when he hears familiar voices, he will be motivated to open the door. Unfortunately, silence. I informed everyone that in this situation there was a clear suspicion of a life-threatening situation. I had no way of ramming the door to the apartment myself. They were burglar-proof and opened outwards. I called the fire brigade.

Girl, why didn’t you get up?

The guard boys rammed the door. Friendly girl, I asked to stay in the corridor. I went in first. The layout of the apartment: a hall connected directly to the kitchenette and a tiny living room, on the left side there is a small bedroom and an adjacent bathroom. I stand in the middle, look around, say, “I don’t think she’s there.” As soon as I finished that sentence, I saw her. She was hanging from the door handle. She looked like she was just sitting on the floor. I needed a moment to put the sight together. Then I didn’t know yet that this was a popular way of committing suicide. I still wonder how strong of a mind you have to be to do it. If you jump with a rope hanging from the ceiling, you can’t go back. Just one impulse, one step into the abyss. But when you try to hang yourself on a doorknob, you can always get up, give yourself another chance, give up midway. Meanwhile, people are so desperate, they want to die so much, that most often they suffocate on these doorknobs, they don’t break their spine and they don’t immediately lose consciousness All life instincts become subordinated to the desire to end oneself.

Through conversations with her friends and the photos they showed me, I felt like I got to know her a little and even liked her. I was terribly nervous, thinking: “Girl, why didn’t you get up?!”

Her body had already entered the stage of rigor mortis. She froze in this position, her face was beautiful and calm, and her neck was covered with a scarf. She did not have a hangman’s furrow, which appears on the neck as a result of jumping or pressing the body’s weight strongly against a rope. I suspect that she simply cut off the flow of oxygen to her brain and that’s how she died, hanging on a delicate scarf that she spread wide. I will remember her forever. That girl who looked like she was about to get up.

I had to get over the shock myself, and here I am – my partner is barely able to stand. I quickly turned him around to officially inform the company about what had happened, even though we were already hearing wailing and sobbing from the corridor. He also informed the family who arrived at the scene some time later.

I called a doctor to confirm the death. Back then it was a necessity, today it can also be done by a paramedic. This is a change for the better, because before the doctor took care of all the living people on duty, you usually had to wait many hours. Such situations were most often called upon by doctors from primary health care or from night or holiday shifts, i.e. those who always had a lot on their plate.

The young man was shocked. It didn’t work for me either. Fortunately, in the police, the help of a psychologist has already become something of a norm. Although I’m only talking about this from what I’ve heard, I didn’t have to – or maybe I simply didn’t decide to – take advantage of the consultation. However, I know that it is relatively easy to obtain them now.

Our culture is still dominated by the requirement that a guy must be, above all, tough

However, the problem lies deeper than the availability of qualified people who can actually help police officers. This is a cultural difficulty that may apply to various uniformed services more broadly. These are still professions dominated by men. More and more women work there, as I noticed in the investigation department, where they constituted the majority of the staff, but this is not the case everywhere. And our culture is still dominated by the requirement that a guy should be, above all, tough, without weaknesses, or at least he should never reveal them. He goes to the street, so he has to be like that. It changes. I see that we no longer castrate ourselves out of emotions. Sometimes someone told their friends that something moved him or that it had been on his mind for a long time. In the past, everything was solved by jokes and denial. This was true even among buddies who were on patrol together.

From the very beginning, I functioned a bit outside of this stereotype, which you can probably guess by watching my videos. But despite everything, it was not easy for me to talk to my colleagues about difficult issues. Several times I caught myself feeling like something was wrong with me and my head was as heavy as a lead bullet before I even spoke to Mariusz. Mariusz was my best partner in the patrol car. We’ve been friends ever since. I could talk to him about everything. At the same time, I knew that after an intervention like the one involving the girl’s suicide, I would not go into the police station and talk about it – neither about the details of the action, nor about my emotions, nor about the fact that it really bothered me.

I think that in the past, those who bottled everything up within themselves turned to alcohol for this reason, among other reasons. They were drinking away their work and thus their health and lives. However, if someone is not willing and open enough, you will not be able to force them to accept help in any way. You must make an appointment for a consultation with a psychologist yourself. There are no automatic referrals that if you have been involved in a murder, you should talk to a psychologist afterwards. That would be going the other way. Therefore, I assess the current model as good. Whoever wants it, uses it.

You can get used to the sight of death. Circumstances help in getting used to it, but also in preventing it from rooting for a long time. Many of these deaths occur in the presence of alcohol and drugs. Someone will overdose, someone will take his own life under the influence, someone will become aggressive and after a night of partying he will marry someone…

Only situations such as the suicide of this girl stir deep layers of empathy in a person. You see that a promising young life has ended without meaning. All because of some failure, which did not have to be a great tragedy, it is very possible that in a short time she would pick herself up and live to see her happiness. But the reasons for her decision could have been very deeply hidden, and the crisis in the relationship could have only been a catalyst. There is a man, there is no man. And only this cold, stiff body makes this whole scene feel any real.

***

You need help?

If you are experiencing difficulties and are thinking about taking your own life or want to help a person at risk of suicide, remember that you can use 24-hour, free help numbers:

800 70 2222 – Support center for adults in mental crisis

112 – Emergency number in situations that threaten health or life

00 12 12 12 – Children’s Helpline of the Ombudsman for Children

116 111 – Helpline for Children and Youth

If you need help, you can call the Helpline for Children and Youth on the free phone number 116 111 every day, 24 hours a day. You can also describe your problem in a message. The Empowering Children Foundation, in addition to consultations for the youngest, also offers help to parents and teachers who are concerned about the safety of their children. More information can be found on the foundation’s website