Rahab knew the reputation of Israel and how they overcame all of their enemies so she asked that her family be preserved in exchange for giving them protection. Later, Joshua had his armed men marched around the city seven times, with seven priest blowing trumpets. On the seventh time Joshua said, “Shout; for the LORD hath given you the city. And the city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to the LORD; only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house because she hid the messengers that we sent.” Joshua 6:16-17. So, on the seventh time around the city, the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets with a great shout and the wall fell down and the city was utterly destroyed, save Rahab and her family.
In police work we often use informants who are criminals. This allows us to control more serious crimes while overlooking a less serious crime. The object is to keep our cities as safe as possible. And in this police event, like Joshua, I used a prostitute to overthrow the wrong doings of a criminal. This criminal was a fence, a person who buys and sells stolen goods.
It was a hot summer day as I loaded my shotgun to prepare for patrol duty on the day watch. I had developed a reliable informant, a woman that went by the code name of Running Red. She lived in a neighborhood full of thieves, burglars, robbers and drug dealers.
As I was working this day the dispatcher called me and requested that I contact “Running Red” as soon as possible. When she called it was to let me know stolen goods were being delivered to a fence that lived across the street from her. This fence took orders from customers in bars then would have one of his thieves steal the items and deliver the goods to his home for resale to his customer.
Running Red, who was a bar fly and prostitute, let me know the thief would be delivering a set of truck chrome wheels with tires that retail for about $2,000. The fence would sell them for $300 paying the thief $100 and keeping $200 for himself. In exchange for this information, I agreed not monitor her prostitution activities too closely until I needed more information to help keep crime down in my district.
I called for a cover car with a police dog in case the delivering thief tried to run from us. The K-9 officer set up behind the house and when he was in place I waited, out of sight, for the thief to drive up with the stolen goods in his car. I didn’t have to wait long when a utility type van pulled into the front yard of the fence’s home. I turned on the cruiser’s overhead lights and pulled up tight to the van so he couldn’t back up. I removed the shotgun from the rack and approached the driver’s door to look inside the van for the wheels.
As I was approaching the van’s driver I was watching his face and body movements in the van door’s rear view mirror. I was about four feet from him when he floored the gas pedal and smashed into the corner of the house as he tried to get away. He turned sharply and drove through the side yard, around back of the house then through the fence in the backyard into an alleyway. The K-9 officer was in the narrow alleyway with his dog as the van sped towards him. He had nowhere to go with a chain link fence on one side of him and a garage on the other. He put up his hand signaling to the driver to stop and when it immediately became obvious he was going to be run over he fired his service revolver three times at the van.
As I ran around the corner of the house I could see the van swerve sharply, just missing the K-9 officer and the garage, then hitting a culvert and flipping on its side. The driver climbed out of the driver’s door window covered in white foam, only to be met by a highly agitated K-9. I ordered the suspect to spread eagle on the ground while I searched him for weapons. He didn’t have any weapons on his person, but he did have a pistol that he wisely decided to leave in the van. The rear doors on the van had popped open when the van rolled on its side exposing the stolen wheels. The wheels were also covered in white foam.
I ask the suspect what the white foam was all about and he told me it was from the bomb we threw into his van. Upon closer examination we learned one of the rounds the K-9 officer fired into the van had hit a can of Burma Shave and it had exploded. He said that when the bomb went off he decide to give up and stop trying to get away.
The moral of this story is to live righteously so you don’t have to always be looking over your shoulder. Also none of us want to be found on the left hand of the Savior when He returns to earth because we have not been keeping His commandments.
In the Doctrine and Covenants Section 43 we read, "For the great Millennium, of which I have spoken by the mouth of my servants, shall come. 33 And the wicked shall go away into unquenchable fire, and their end no man knoweth on earth, nor ever shall know, until they come before me in judgment. 34 Hearken ye to these words. Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. Treasure these things up in your hearts, and let the solemnities of eternity rest upon your minds. 35 Be sober. Keep all my commandments. Even so. Amen."
To learn more about keeping the Lord’s commandments see mormon.org or lds.org
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