CODE 4

True stories from a 37-year police veteran

By: Terry Smith

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

• You step into a doorway to see a man levelling a shotgun at your chest
• You hold a dying child in your arms
• You crawl into a mangled car to help someone trapped and bleeding

These are a small sampling of the kinds of things that police officers encounter. Not everyone is able to do the job that cops do, fewer still are willing. Those who do it with grace and dignity are special people.

CODE 4 is an insider's view of the police profession, seen through the eyes of one of its veterans. Over a 37-year span Terry Smith worked as a uniformed officer, a long-haired undercover narcotics agent, an organized crime investigator, a SWAT commander, and a homicide detective. He and the men and women who worked with him looked down their gun barrels at murderers, armed robbers, rapists, burglars, and an assortment of other violent people. He began his career with the Bloomington, Minnesota, Police Department, then moved on to do thirty years with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA). During his last seventeen working years he ran a squad of homicide investigators for the BCA.

Smith has written about things that happened while he was "protecting and serving." Some of them were dangerous, some gut-wrenchingly tragic, some humorous. He speaks with insight about the people he worked with "who could be kind or hard-edged as circumstances demanded" and the toll that policing took on their lives. He gives an inside look at several newsworthy cases he supervised including two sad abduction/homicides involving victims Julie Holmquist and Katie Poirier. Both investigations received extensive national coverage. Smith appeared in an episode of "The New Detectives" featuring the Poirier Case on the Discovery Channel.

In 2001 Smith received the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association honorable mention award as Minnesota Police Officer of the Year.

CODE 4 will help you, the reader, feel the adrenaline, the excitement, and the occasional bursts of fear that are parts of the police job. It will help you understand why cops are willing to do what they do.

*The words "Code 4," spoken into a police radio, mean that a dangerous situation has been handled, things are under control, and no additional help is needed.

Interesting perspectives

AI narration wasn't bad, but it missed out on some of the nuances of the more emotional stories.

Other than that, great book.

Mostly Enjoyable

A few good recollections spanning a career, like each chapter is its own story. I'm frankly amazed by the Virtual Voice AI; almost undetectable that it's not human, except for the jarring nuances of "point-three-five-seven" (not "three fifty-seven", how most humans refer to a pistol) reading of all numbers, or referring to the classic as "Magnum Pie" (instead of "Magnum P.I."), otherwise soothing and enjoyable. This story goes off the rails in the final chapter (26), diminishing the rest of his work.