Courage, Snipers and Riots

Editors Note: At least one of the authors is former military.

Police-Writers.com, a website dedicated to listing state and local police officers who have authored books, added five police officers and one civilian police employee to the growing list of police officers turned authors.

Captain Thomas G. Dempsey of the San Francisco Police Department researched the deaths of the 92 San Francisco police officers killed in the line of duty between 1878 and 1994, and authored the book Men of Courage: San Francisco Police Officers.

Curt Nelson has been a San Francisco Police Department police officer, a member of the Screen Actor's Guild and a negotiator for Rockefeller Center, Inc. in New York City. Curt has authored Darkstar and Heart of the Hunter. According to the book description, Darkstar “is a novel of sex, violence, murder and revenge, set in San Francisco and Hawaii, spanning a time period of twenty years before coming full circle.”

Peter E. Laksbergs was born in Wisconsin. While in the U.S. military, he received law enforcement training, ground defense tactics, and special weapons training. He is currently a police officer with the San Antonio Police Department (Texas). Laksbergs first novel is Scope of Lie: A Sniper’s Diary, is the story of a young man who enters the military, “learns quickly and respects authority, and is a great shot.” According to the book description, “these attributes do not go unnoticed.” And, the main character ultimately learns to “hit the target, confirm the kill and get home” for the "The Agency." Years, missions and lies pile up until there is one “lie in particular that Pete (the main character) cannot ignore-that what he is doing is in the name of national security. But the next mission targets Pete and his family. This time, Pete has to make sure that this mission does not succeed.”

Inspector Victor L. Short (retired) of the San Francisco Police Department explores his 32 year career in Only the Facts Ma’am.

Tom Owens, a former Los Angeles Police Department police officer wrote Lying Eyes: The Truth Behind the Corruption and Brutality of the Lapd and the Beating of Rodney King. According to Kirkus reviews, the book is “an inside look at the Rodney King case, the ensuing trials, and the L.A. riots that followed, by the private detective hired by King's attorney to investigate the police officers' conduct and provide security for the beleaguered beating victim. A former L.A. policeman, Owens does not claim to tell ``the Rodney King story,'' but rather, with the help of Hollywood writer Browning, to give ``the factual version.'' In reviewing his own 12 years on the LAPD (he's oddly vague as to dates, when he resigned and why, what he did prior to opening his agency, etc.), he contends that the violence demonstrated by the officers that night in March 1991 is systemic, and that there is a ``code of silence'' that helps ``explain the attitudes of some of the officers'' caught in the act on George Holliday's now famous videotape.”

As a former Los Angeles Police Department police officer, Tom Owens was also added to the list at LAPDauthors.com.

Police-Writers.com now hosts 340 police officers (representing 143 police departments) and their 765 books in six categories, there are also listings of United States federal law enforcement employees turned authors, international police officers who have written books and civilian police personnel who have written books.