‘We are the flesh on the bone’

Detective Steven McDonald discusses police and society, post-Dallas

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As his kitchen television silently aired CNN’s footage of the chaos the day after five white Dallas police officers were killed by a black sniper during a peaceful demonstration, Malvernite and New York City Police Detective Steven McDonald was listening to a speech by Robert F. Kennedy, made nearly 50 years ago, on the day after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination.

“…What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr’s cause has ever been stilled by an assassin’s bullet. No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled or uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of the people …”

For McDonald, Kennedy’s sentiment hits home on numerous levels, particularly at this time of year. Thirty years ago — on July 12, 1986 — McDonald was shot and left paralyzed from the neck down by a group of teenagers in Central Park.

The experience, he says, has taught him much and reinforced his faith in God, which he says is an answer to what is happening in society today. “To those of us who are watching these events on TVs or computer screens or radios and listening, wondering what can we do — I would say prayer,” McDonald said. “Prayer is something we do in our time. The answers come in God’s time.”

McDonald, whose father and grandfather were also New York City policeman, and whose son Conor recently became an NYPD detective, said that as the most physical representation of government and the law, police officers have a tough job. “We are the flesh on the bone,” he said. “People don’t get to see the mayor … the president or the governor. We are expected to do this job, and hopefully it’ll work out without anybody being hurt — emotionally, spiritually, physically.”

McDonald added that conflict and violence are inevitable in police work. Twelve members of his family have been members of the police force, he said, and his grandfather was shot and killed in the line of duty.

Asked what can be done to bridge the gap between civilians and police, he turned his attention to media coverage of recent and past events, which, in general, he said, has been unfair to the police. “In the last several days, a black police officer killed a black citizen/subject/victim in Brooklyn, and there were no riots, nobody turned over any cars, nobody’s calling for an independent investigation …,” McDonald said, adding that he doesn’t watch many news channels because he already knows what they are going to say. “Their position is, we are wrong. We’re the ones who started this mess,” he said.

Despite that, he steadfastly focuses on the need to speak more to God. “God’s is the only answer in my mind,” he said. “You can’t spend your way out of this.” Bridging the gap between police and civilians doesn’t lie in hiring more police officers, purchasing more bullets or “more whatever,” he said. “It’s got to be about our faith, our love of God.”

McDonald, who publicly forgave the boy who shot him and left him paralyzed, said his road to forgiveness and to a more spiritual self was not easy. While in the hospital, he no longer felt the desire to be awake because of the overwhelming reality that faced him, and he chose to heavily medicate himself whenever he was offered drugs. It was his wife, Malverne Mayor Patricia McDonald, he said, who jump-started his road to recovery.

“In October 1986, Patti Ann came into my hospital room and read me the riot act,” McDonald recalled. “Patti Ann — she’s only 24 years old — she said, ‘Is this what you want to do? Is this how you want to live? Is this the way life is going to be?’” Patricia was pregnant at the time with their son Conor, and when he came into the world, he reinforced his father’s desire to live.

Last Sunday, McDonald “celebrated” the day he was shot with family and friends at his home in Malverne. He said he considers it the day he was “born again.”