Some heroes are born. Some heroes are made. Some are a fusion of the two. Lauren Card, 23, a Las Vegas Route 91 Country Harvest Music Festival concert shooting survivor, saw the heroic deeds of cops racing in to the stampeding concert crowd under fire by Stephen Paddock’s arsenal of firepower. Card turned her tragic ordeal into an awe-inspiring accomplishment. In life, we either stay stuck in situational starkness or we shuck the doom and gloom by standing tall and forging forward. Like she compellingly did on October 1, 2017.
On August 20, 2018, Ms. Card became a police officer with the Springfield, Oregon police department and is slated to attend police academy studies in Salem, Oregon in October 2018. Apparently, in Oregon a police recruit is first sworn in and then trained at the police academy, the opposite of what some other territories do. Nevertheless, she is on her way to achieving a full-fledged blue family rite-of-passage. With the swearing in on the books and comprehensive police academy training commencing soon, the one gray area was also succeeded. The universal applicability in the law enforcement profession is for every cop candidate to undergo a background investigation, including a psychological to determine if the mind possesses the traits necessary to fulfill the physical rigors and mental capacity (stamina) to not only act accordingly but to also withstand the surreal nature of police culture. We are hearing more and more about the dire straits posed by PTSD, and how exposure to gruesome tragedies and grotesque human behaviors can spawn seemingly insurmountable mental breakdown.
Given what we know transpired at the Route 91 Country Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas, Card was a fleeing spectator who witnessed unbelievable carnage.
Among the hiring board weighing in on her fitness, Springfield police Lieutenant Scott McKee qualified what may have been a glaring consideration regarding Card’s police officer candidacy: PTSD. Indeed, having gone through the trauma induced by the Las Vegas concert, it is an endemic concern of anyone for whomever survived that macabre incident. Such a notion is elevated when it comes to first responder or military applications, denoting how field experiences may trigger flashbacks thus presenting as severely atrophied ability to physically and emotionally conduct duty and preserve lives accordingly.
However, such dire straits usually surface after law enforcement experience culminates in overexposure to too much stress or a mind-bending catastrophe derailing human coping mechanisms.
Having been subjected to a few and subsequently serving on police officer candidate hiring committees, the process is grueling and is in itself nerve-wracking. It is designed to see how much every applicant can withstand. The questions are direct. The expressions (game-faces) are unforgiving. The inquiries implying you are sucking in your performance are a test of endurance and challenged confidence (plenty of that on the streets nowadays) to evaluate if a future cop is going to see-saw in his/her posture and performance. Suspects look to seize any advantage given them, so only galvanized cop candidates need apply.
Among those I had the duty to interview (oral boards), so very many capitulate at the slightest hint of challenge. Doubt creeps in and it all spirals out of control from there. We are indeed our own worst enemies at times when we must merely stand tall and telegraph our abilities and critical thinking skills. The Springfield PD hiring committee apparently applied the battery of tests and found Officer Card to be compatible and sufficiently grounded. She made the grade.
Having been shot at, Card wisely conveyed to the hiring body that interviewed her that she was well aware of what it is like to be, well…shot at. Given today’s anti-police barometer, that is a sad yet compelling feature to incorporate into one’s psyche for survival. “Yeah, I am a little more cautious of my surroundings,” Officer Card intimated. Besides breathing, that is a crucial ingredient to possess as a cop. Situational awareness saves lives, including one’s own. A pivoting police head is a good head to have on shoulders, especially in order to stay alive in the law enforcement profession.
Although I am retired, my family snickers when we are in a car or in any social setting: my head swivels like an owl’s, minus the hooting sounds. Active duty or retired, it is a conditioned, automatic rollout of observation skills all factoring into survival for me and everyone in my presence.
I suspect Card knows this quite well. Her mom thinks so. “I am very proud of her for becoming an officer and wanting to serve the community, especially after Route 91,” Card’s mother, Robin Baird told the media on Wednesday. “She works really hard. With her achievements and strengths, I know she’ll be very successful.”
After the Las Vegas massacre in which she survived, Card resumed college studies within a scant few days; heck, the crime scene was still a forensic fieldtrip. Perhaps that was the stroke of someone with deep-seated convictions to not only survive but to thrive and make something from the cards she is dealt. “We all went through our own thing in our own way,” Card said. “At first I was having trouble focusing. I went through the initial shock stuff, like, ‘Holy crap, what just happened?’ And it was hard for awhile just to mentally process it.”
Mrs. Baird said, “I know she’s much stronger and is excited to be able to take care of the job.” The Job.
The following testimony (sound-bar below) is compliments of The Register-Guard whose report on Officer Card came to the fore as the latest mass shooting was unfolding in Jacksonville, Florida. This intertwined factor denotes the fragility of life and humans who visit their depravities among crowds who are out entertaining their rights and interests. In the interests of Card, “being there” for frightened folks who experience traumatic events is her end goal, mimicking the heroism demonstrated by the phalanx of Las Vegas Metro police and Clark County law enforcement agencies who deployed tactics in a tactically-weakened venue of a mass populace vulnerably scrambling for safety. In all, Paddock’s graphic foray culminated in slaying 58 and wounding 850-plus Jason Aldean fans amassed on the concert floor.
Lt. McKee claimed he found Card’s testimony compelling. Obviously believable enough to warrant hiring her as a Springfield policewoman, one of only four on the force of 69. As Card elaborated on why she embraced being a cop after the ordeal in Sin City was handled by Las Vegas’s finest: “And in that moment, I kind of had a sense that, ‘OK, the police are here. They are going to fix it. They are going to make it better. Everything is going to be OK.”
Card asserted, “I want to be that person for someone else in that situation.” She speaks the passion and calling of cops, with her own ingrained reasoning resulting in self-sustained destiny.
Professionally, I am biased and therefore in favor of anyone passing muster to join a highly disrespected profession. Personally, I admire Officer Card’s chosen field of college studies at Oregon State University from which she graduated not too long ago. Clearly she hasn’t been swallowed by what occurred at the Route 91 mass shooting. Unequivocally, her degree in kinesiology will serve her just fine in police work. After all, if it is the hands which kill—it surely is—then the most-trained watchful eyes will be optimized for the preemptive strike, something valuable to have in the deck of cards.
