‘8:42’.

‘They called it’.

Moments earlier, a firefighter had stormed from outside the patient’s room to the ambulance bay, his face a dark cloud as he muttered profanities. Soon after, a nurse walked past as she tried, and failed, to hold back tears. It was less than an hour into my ride-along interview with a police officer.

The officer had picked me up 15 minutes late. Eight years as a civilian manager in law enforcement taught me that officers are habitually punctual and that the most likely reason for tardiness on what should have been a quiet morning was the investigation of an unattended death. At least, I hoped that was the reason and not that there had been an officer-involved shooting.

After we exchanged perfunctory greetings, the officer said we would be going directly to a local hospital because a former coworker had just suffered a cardiac arrest. Bystanders had called 911 and applied an automated external defibrillator.

At the hospital, we joined the group of officers standing vigil in the emergency department. Officers occasionally stepped outside to make phone calls to update their chain of command or request the presence of the family pastor. I listened to the sounds of a mechanical cardiopulmonary resuscitation device, to the occasional command of a physician to stop and then re-start the device and to …