Ride with me in Portland, Oregon while I chase a stolen car into the Willamette River, catch burglars with arms full of stolen tools, and wrestle violent criminals. Portland is a large metropolitan city, where in one month, an officer may wrestle knives and guns from suspects, take bank robbery calls, intervene in dangerous drug busts, and chase drunk drivers and run away teens. Guns are commonplace. Knives are an everyday experience. Felony arrests are nearly routine. Police work is dangerous, threatening, exciting work, and rewarding work. Ride with me. When I applied for the position of police officer, an interviewer asked why? I replied, "Because being on the street, in a patrol car, is where it's at!" I still feel that way, but I can no longer be on the street in a patrol car. Wish I could. Perhaps, I wrote this book, simply, longing for what used to be, but it is only the good things for which we long, and being a police officer was nearly the best in the world. The title, True Police Stories mostly In the City of Roses, was carefully chosen as an attempt to explain that while these are true events, as they happened, they are not accurate police-blotter transcripts. Reading actual police reports would put you to sleep before you finished this single page of introduction. Ray Tercek, in, The Investigation of Pepe Chavez et al, used a word that, I think, sums it up. While these stories are true, I took license with them to make them interesting and to attempt to explain, to the non-police officer, what was happening. The stories in this book are all true, or nearly so. All the officers in this book were employed by the Portland Police Bureau except one. One story features a Seattle Police Officer and the best cop I ever met. I went on a ride-along with him one night, and encountered such an interesting story that I just had to incorporate it into my book. It was my supreme honor to be a member of the Portland Police Bureau and to work with the greatest group of people in the world. I miss the people as much as the job, itself. I am no longer a police officer. In some weird way, that is akin to losing a best friend. It helps to write about my loss. That almost sounds silly, but writing these stories down was like living them again. The entire experience of writing this book was fun. That's all. Should there be more?