I had just arrested a stolen-car suspect after a short chase through a North Side neighborhood. Old instincts, clean arrest. As I stood there catching my breath, I remembered the new dash cameras. I wondered what the footage might show. And I realized something I had not admitted to myself before: Policing had changed, and I was no longer sure I belonged in it. Later, I would come to think of that moment as the beginning of my end of watch.
Cops use “end of watch” to mean retirement or death in the line of duty. But there is a phase we rarely talk about: The moment when the job lets go of you, or when you finally let go of it. It’s when the accumulated weight of violence, cruelty, politics and hopelessness quietly takes over your psyche. By the time you figure it out, it’s often too late.
I retired from the Chicago Police Department in 2014. It wasn't just one thing that led to my retirement. It was the frog-in-the-boiling-water effect. I was entering my 18th year, and I was tired of being tired — the kind of tired that doesn’t go away after a day off or a good night’s sleep. I was tired of the unpredictable and emotionally draining domestic disturbance calls, the departmental politics, the internal bureaucracy and the chain-of-command pressures that felt disconnected from street reality. I was sick of knowing that every decision I made left someone unhappy. If I’m honest, I was never tired of catching the bad guy. I always enjoyed that. That’s what it was all about, wasn’t it? Maybe for a young rookie cop it was. But I was not that anymore.
Luckily, I had a backup plan as an adjunct professor of criminal justice. All I needed to do was hang in there for two more years to get my pension and move on. That would be easier said than done because I felt guilty. Leaving felt like failure, a betrayal of the oath I swore as a rookie. I felt like I should have been stronger, more resilient. For months, I carried that shame quietly, until I realized that staying longer wouldn’t make me better; it would just make me someone I didn’t recognize.
My final steps toward the end of watch happened at the dinner table. My wife at the time noticed how silent I had become. It wasn't the peaceful silence of a man home from a long day. It was the tactical silence of someone scanning for threats. When she spoke about her day, I found myself interviewing her instead of listening — mentally checking her story for inconsistencies or vulnerabilities. (I still do that to people; I’m working on it!) I was no longer a husband; I was a cross-examiner.
Then came the irritability. Everyday life issues began to bother me. Being around too many people gave me mild claustrophobia. Small talk made me cringe. Traffic, noise and interruptions began to feel personal. I felt I was losing control. And my job was all about control.
I have spoken to retirees throughout the years, and they share the same sentiments. Most of us start with the idea of making the world a better place — and we do, each in our own way. But that idealism fades. It doesn’t return until years after we’ve left.
When idealism is dormant you see people differently. People you arrest aren’t just offenders, they are permanent threats. The media feels adversarial. Politicians seem opportunistic. Even public debate starts to divide cleanly into sides: us versus them. That mindset makes you feel like only other officers truly understand the dangers and pressures of the job. It creates a belief that the world outside the badge is inherently hostile. And when you feel socially isolated long enough, you retreat inward. Us versus them becomes the lens through which everything is filtered.
When my then-wife at the time confronted me at the dinner table, I finally admitted to myself that it was time to leave. All the pieces fell into place: my short attention span, irritability, lack of patience, quick temper and cynicism weren’t personality problems. They were a sign that I’d entered my end of watch.
But the transformation from officer to civilian is not easy. You have to relinquish authority. You have to step out of the brotherhood and become a spectator. You have to reintegrate into a society that moves on without you, and in five years, only fellow retirees will remember your name. While your memory will let go of many things, some things will not let go of you.
These memories stay quiet when you’re on the job. Some officers bury them in work, alcohol or extramarital affairs. But they never disappear because your conscience kicks in. No matter how many hours are in a day, all conscience needs is a second to remind you.
I remember one particular moment. I started a car chase after the motorist ran through a red light. The chase lasted longer than it should have. The pursuit ended when he ran another red light and t-boned a driver heading to work. The impact wrapped the other driver’s car around a cement light post. By the time I reached the wreck, he was trapped behind the crushed door. He died a few hours later, leaving behind a wife and two small children. I felt for his family and friends, but I told myself that I was within the rules and regulations at the time. I did my job.
For five or six years, I was fine with that narrative — until my conscience woke me up in the middle of the night, every night, for who knows how long. I stopped counting the days. To this day, I don't wake up thinking about it, because my conscience allows me to think about it occasionally during waking hours. But those sleepless nights reminded me that the work doesn't just leave us when we hang up the gun belt.
While conscience keeps you up at night, your pension keeps you on the job. The job of policing is set up to send officers into early retirement, both physically and mentally. Many stay because of the pension and health benefits. The math is simple. In Chicago, 20 years earn a pension worth 50% of your salary for life. Twenty-nine years and a day earns 75%. That gap — 25% — keeps mentally exhausted officers on the street for nearly a decade past their breaking point.
The problem is structural. Departments operate under a rulebook written decades ago, with little plan to sustain the officers working within it. Officers are left to fend for themselves, managing burnout as best they can.
In the meantime, departments lose experienced officers and expect new ones to figure it out on their own. Attrition grows, and the cycle continues. At some point in every career, the thought creeps in: Move to another unit, find an inside position, or hold on long enough to qualify for a pension.
I was fortunate to have other options: health care through the Veterans Administration and a professorship that eventually became full-time. I was able to choose a different path. I left — 20 and out.
But that wasn’t the end for me. I took my experiences — both good and bad — and wrote about them. Now I bring them into the classroom, where students learn aspects of police work that rarely appear in academy curricula.
When I look at criminal justice students who remind me of the rookie I once was, I don’t feel the old cynicism. They are fortunate to be entering a police era that has evolved significantly. Police departments today rely on better technology, improved training and greater accountability. Departments are proponents of mental health awareness and wellness. Officers have adopted customer service approaches and are trained in de-escalation, scenario-based training and crisis intervention.
It is comforting to know that this new era of law enforcement officers will have some of the same challenges we old-timers had, but they will be armed with tools that we never had. I feel a profound responsibility: to help them avoid the same pitfalls, to show them how to be better than I was.
I've realized that the other end of the watch doesn't have to be an ending. I spent 20 years learning how the world breaks. Now I teach the next generation how to repair it without breaking themselves.
For the first time in a long time, I am not tired anymore.
I am home.
Louis Martinez is a retired Chicago Police Department officer, criminal justice professor and UAS Coordinator at Oakton College, and author of “The Violent Brain: A Study in Neurocriminology.” He is a contributor to the Chicago Sun-Times.