text: &#x200B; I’ve been a police officer for 13 years today. When I came to work this morning, my shift started with a cake offered by my colleagues, it was a chocolate cake with pink sprinkles and pink hearts on it with a large number 13 in the center. It was their way to mess with me, because I was the only female in our department. My cake was left unfinished as my partner and I got called in for a domestic violence case, and off we went. &#x200B; A neighbour had called 911 after hearing argument sounds coming from an apartment below theirs. As me and my partner pulled up to the apartment building, we heard the yelling coming from one of the open windows on the second floor. I rushed up the stairs with my partner right behind me, we knocked on the door, but there was no response, we knocked again, nothing. We could hear the man yelling and the woman crying. They were speaking a foreign language, so we didn’t understand what the argument was about. It was the third time we tried banging at the door without a reply, yet the yelling and screaming and weeping continued. We decided to knock the door down. &#x200B; Moments that followed were chaotic to say the least. The abuser was nowhere in sight, but his wife was laying on the floor, bloody and crying. I wen’t ahead with my gun pulled looking for the abuser. The woman was frantically yelling and crying, her black curly hair straight at the ends because of the sweat and blood, her eyes red, cheek bruised. Bruises on her arm showed that this was not the first time she has been physically abused. I made my way through the apartment and found the first bedroom, the room was open, I slowly looked inside only to confirm that the bedroom was empty. With my partner behind me we moved forward looking for the husband and found another bedroom. This bedroom was closed, I turned the doorknob slowly with one hand while holding my gun tightly with another, opened the door and saw a small bed, with pink curtains around it. A princess room. A child’s room. The room looked empty and dark so I figured it was empty too. I was about to turn around when I noticed something in the corner of the bedroom. I moved further in and saw a small child, maybe 4 years old, laying on the floor with her face down in a pool of blood, clearly shot in back from behind. What kind of a coward would do such a thing? With pain in my chest and tears filling my eyes I turn around to call for my partner and I see him. The husband, the father of this dead child, pointing a gun at me. I didn’t have time to react as I heard a gunshot, then another one. The husbands eyes widen as he falls down. Then I blacked out. One bullet shot from the gun my partner was holding, hit and killed the abuser. One bullet shot from the gun the abuser was holding. &#x200B; Today marks the last day of my 13 year long career as a police officer. Today was my last day alive. &#x200B; \*Please be honest, but kind.