I should have been killed: But for the grace of God...

By: Joel E. Gordon

Five days after surviving an assassination attempt, President Donald Trump addressed the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In a speech lasting every bit of an hour and a half, he described feeling the assassin's bullet hitting his ear and being smothered by Secret Service agents. "I'm not supposed to be here," he told the crowd, adding: "I had God on my side."

I fully understand the personal discovery that our own mortality is real and fragile and death or serious harm could be realized at any time from my own firsthand experience. This assassination attempt was President Trump’s moment brought to the forefront the revelation that the hazards he faces are for real and that public events are not just promotional fun and games.

While I have experienced such events over the course of my law enforcement career, while disarming armed and hostile subjects, wrestling people to submission fueled with adrenaline or chemical alteration displaying unnatural strength while being handcuffed, a serious attempt to stab me with a knife, and other occurrences which I often chalked up to being in the wrong place at the wrong time, there was one event that had the most significant impact on me. It was my event, experienced as a rookie officer, which made me realize the true hazards that I was facing from that point forward. I was truly my moment when reality struck me.

This event, my being the sixth patrol unit on the scene of the murder of fellow Baltimore city police officer Ron Tracey resulted in a newfound appreciation for due caution and likely kept me from serious physical harm or death for the years to follow.

Officer Ronald Tracey was shot and killed with his own weapon after being attacked at the intersection of Monroe Street and Baker Street. He was handling a traffic accident when an unrelated person came up behind him and attempted to disarm him. During the ensuing struggle the suspect was successful in gaining control of his weapon and shot him twice. The suspect was convicted and sentenced to 45 years in prison. By the way, he was paroled in January 2014.

Ron Tracey was a kind field training officer who had been a person on my shift who reached out to me in support of my rookie need for expanded information. I felt an immediate kinship with him.

Here is my recollection of this event as excerpted, in part, from my memoir Still Seeking Justice: One Officer’s Story:

I graduated the police academy in April of 1981. On Monday July 20, 1981, barely 3 months out of the academy, Ron Tracey, one of the officers who reached out to me on my first day, was shot and killed toward the end of our shift while on duty. I was the sixth car on the scene. 

Officer Tracey had served with the agency for six years. He is survived by his wife and child.

It was the end of a busy 4pm x 12am shift; I was waiting to be called in for shift change about three blocks south of the Western District Police Station at 1034 North Mount Street. Officers were to stay on their post until called in, but it was commonplace to sneak in close to the station to expedite the end of the shift. Ron Tracey had a different approach this night and volunteered to handle a late minor accident so as to be able to get off on time.  A little before midnight, still waiting for the next shift to conclude their roll call and to be called in, a static crackling noise emanated from the radios speaker/microphone I was wearing. I don’t know why but I immediately placed my patrol car into drive, feeling that something was wrong; but where to go?  Almost immediately citizens began calling in “officer down” at Monroe at Baker Streets. I was immediately en route with only a few blocks to go.  As the sixth car on the scene, I saw a uniformed officer down in the road, lying in a half fetal position, in the gutter of Monroe Street. He had been shot once in the abdomen and once in his head. Other officers rushed him by patrol car to the hospital but to no avail. I took my lead from veteran Field Training Officer Dwight Thomas who was also on scene by then.

Numerous calls began to come in with what turned out to be accurate information as to the suspect’s direction of travel. Even information on the suspect’s identity and address of his mother’s house were accurate. When we were informed of the suspect’s mother’s address, several other officers and I turned up at the address but the suspect was not found.

Officer Dwight Thomas, another veteran guardian angel of mine, told me that I should “call my people” to let them know I was alright. I was still living at home with my parent’s then. I called (and woke them up) to let them know I was okay.

Two shifts of officers stayed on the street in our attempt to locate the perpetrator for several hours. It was as if the rest of the world was at a standstill.  The suspect was located on Tuesday about fourteen hours later in the Northeastern Police District and was taken into custody, alive and unharmed.

I learned, that night, that this was for real. Life and death was hanging in the balance. When one works in an inner city high crime area you learn, not to understand, but to accept that there is a criminal element that has no regard for human life, yours or their own. The loss of a fellow officer in this fashion is something that you carry with you forever.

While the wounds received are sometimes but not always life-changing; the situations themselves are. Yes we are supposed to be here. As I have often said, God isn't finished with us yet as it relates to our purpose here on earth. May God bless and continue to watch over President Trump and us all.

Joel E. Gordon, Managing Editor of BLUE Magazine, is a former Field Training Officer with the Baltimore City Police Department and is a past Chief of Police for the city of Kingwood, West Virginia. He has also served as vice-chair of a multi-jurisdictional regional narcotics task force. An award winning journalist, he is author of the book Still Seeking Justice: One Officer's Story and founded the Facebook group Police Authors Seeking Justice. Look him up at stillseekingjustice.com