A Gun Incident
Tony Snesko
If there were papers I loved serving more than any others, it was domestic violence restraining orders. I loathed men who physically abused their wives and I always laughed when the service instructions warned me that the husband was violent, because in twenty-five years of serving process, I’ve never met a wife beater who wasn’t a wimp around other men. As an ex-police officer, I had been trained in the art of disarming a person with a gun. It was just a matter of slapping the gun with your left hand and, with your right hand, pushing the gun barrel back toward the person holding it. Without exception it would always pop out of their hand before the trigger could be pulled. I had always told my wife, that I wished someone would pull a gun on me so I can prove to myself that I could do it in a life or death situation.
Early in my process-serving career I received a domestic violence restraining order to serve on an abusive husband. Upon ringing his doorbell, the man I was to serve opened the door with a dishtowel draped over his hand. When I informed him that I was serving him with a restraining order, he removed the towel, exposing a 38 revolver and pointed it at me and said, “No you’re not!”
Well, this was my chance to practice my lightning fast moves, but there was one small problem! The police academy failed to teach me how to disarm a man from the opposite side of a screen door, which I now found between me and the fellow with the gun. I quickly dashed to my left and hid behind a neighbor’s tree. The man closed his front door and went to the living room window to look for me. I then (for some strange reason) ran under the window he was standing at, opened his screen door, yelled “You are served!” and threw the papers in. I guess I just don’t like being intimidated.