Abstract
In the book Seven Shots, Jennifer Hunt describes in rich detail the lives of the police officers who work in the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) Emergency Services Units, and their actions that helped foil a terrorist cell’s plot to bomb the city’s subway system. Instead of beginning with the tactical assault on the terrorist cell and continuing from there, Hunt describes the events leading up to the assault in full detail which allows the reader to witness the major turning points that changed the responding officers’ lives forever. She begins by describing how an immigrant with no reason to trust American law enforcement found the courage to alert them to a bomb plot that would have cost hundreds of lives. By beginning with the informant, Hunt is able to demonstrate how the officers gathered the necessary information to overcome their skepticism, and then use this information to establish a tactical plan for entry. Not only are the dynamics surroundings the gathering of information laid out for the reader but also the internal politics that could have crippled the tactical assault. From this point forward, the reader is propelled on a fast-paced, hectic journey toward the apartment where the terrorist cell awaits.
When Hunt brings the reader to the apartment, she gives the reader a glimpse into the split-second decisions that were made under extreme circumstances with limited information. Reading this section of Seven Shots, one can easily envision the dark, cramped room where pungent odors attack one’s senses and officers enter silently as a whisper. Almost as if the reader’s own head is on a bevel, Hunt describes the search of the apartment and subsequent emotional storm resulting from the realization that a single flick of the finger could have destroyed countless lives.
What makes Seven Shots a truly enlightening read is that it does not end with the foiled terrorist plot to attack New York’s subway system. The reader soon realizes that every successful mission has a darker side, and that this darker side is engulfed with the internal political struggles of an organization that wants to promote the daring and success of individual officers, but at the same time maintain and perpetuate an atmosphere of cronyism. Where jealousy and spite brew, creating an atmosphere of distrust and hostility that permeate the NYPD. Hunt helps her readers understand these internal dynamics by providing the reader an organizational flow chart of the nation’s largest police department and a listing of the department’s associated ranking structure. Through her discussion of the official and unofficial ways officers advance through the department’s ranks, Hunt is able to help her readers come to terms with the inner-workings and internal politics of the NYPD.
Although Seven Shots has implications for the recruitment and retention of qualified officers, it is more beneficial in advancing the discipline’s knowledge concerning the dynamics and politics of a police organization, issues about the use of force, and job stressors particular to the law enforcement profession. These dynamics are highlighted throughout and are presented in a format that is easy to read and understand. The flow of the book is occasionally interrupted when the author tries to incorporate the cases of Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima and their subsequent fallouts. Unfortunately, Hunt fails to capitalize on the underlying issues surrounding these two events, or even discuss how the cases of Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima changed or reinforced the dominant culture of the NYPD. The reader does get to see how officers are fettered by the dominant police culture when participants describe their thoughts and emotions upon hearing how the events unfolded, but then the reader is brought back to the aftermath of the raid as if the two cases were just asides instead of a progression to September 11, 2001.
When the book finally does conclude with 9/11, it fails to tie in how the information (or lack thereof) gained from the raid on the terrorists’ apartment in 1997 had any bearing on the successful attacks on New York City and the Pentagon. The only connection between the attacks on September 11, 2001, and any previously foiled attack was a quick aside to an officer’s offhanded comment in 1993, after the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, about flying a 747 into the side of the World Trade Center if someone really wanted to attack the building. The inclusion of this statement appears to be a way for Hunt to demonstrate a sort of sixth sense associated with law enforcement. Again, Hunt fails to capitalize on an issue by forgoing any discussion on the possible relationship between experience and crime prevention.
Even with these shortcomings, Seven Shots is a beneficial read for anyone interested in law enforcement. The manner in which the book is written allows readers without any law enforcement experience to relate to the unique experiences and changing emotions displayed by the study’s participants. This is accomplished by Hunt because she writes Seven Shots from her position as an individual who is on the periphery of the law enforcement community. Although Hunt does work on the periphery, she has conducted field work with the NYPD and the Philadelphia Police Department. She has published a book on ethnography, Psychoanalytic Aspects of Fieldwork (1989) by SAGE Publishing, along with various scholarly articles in the fields of sociology, anthropology, and psychology as well. These scholarly works along with her training as a sociologists give Hunt a unique perspective on the police culture as a whole.
Unlike other books written by former police officers in which the reader is taken on a grandiose journey down memory lane filled with narrow escapes and Serpico style moral dilemmas, Hunt grabs hold of her position as an insider–outsider within the larger organization of the NYPD and allows the stories of those intimately involved in the profession to direct the course of the study. This allows for a seamless incorporation of dialogue from those who lived the events into the narrative style of writing that transmits the feelings of joy, stress, animosity, and eventual heartbreak of the participants to the reader. Unfortunately, this seamless integration of narration and dialogue does not permit the reader to determine where the participant’s experiences begin and the author’s perception ends.
Overall, Seven Shots is a rich and detailed account of the aftermath associated with one of the finest moments of the NYPD. Although the in-depth discussion of cases such as Abner Louima and Abadou Diallo sidetrack the reader from the main point of the book, these cases nevertheless demonstrate the ever changing environment that law enforcement officers must navigate in order to protect society. Seven Shots does a thorough job of demonstrating how internal politics and childish jealousy exacerbate the stresses of an already stressful job. The discipline’s knowledge regarding the use of force by police officers is also enhanced by Hunt’s thorough account of the raid on a terrorist cell in New York City. Finally, the book alludes to the importance of a strong police–citizen relationship when it highlights the courage of an informant to disclose information about the terrorist plot to individuals and an organization that he had no reason to trust.