NYC Cop Demands Answers From God

Responder 1: “Urgent!...One of the buildings has partially collapsed!”

“I went down there the day after the attacks took place,” Andrew shared. “I was on a Task Force…with other pastors and ministers.”

Responder 1: The other tower just collapsed! Major collapse! Major Collapse…Here it comes! Get in!

“There was this eerie silence,” he said. “There were people all over the place but nobody was talking. I was in shock. And I was praying…’Lord, give me the strength to minister here.’”

“I grew up in Staten Island, New York. I thought I lived a pretty normal life like most kids. My mother and father, we were nominal churchgoers. I excelled in sports. I did well in school when I applied myself. But there was just something inside…I always felt like there was something wrong with me and I didn't know why.”  

“I didn't handle rejection well,” he admitted. “If somebody didn't like me, it really bothered me. I would say, "What's wrong with me?"...Why do I feel afraid? Why do I feel insecure? When you're feeling insecure and uncomfortable with yourself, it's hard to think you're worthy of anything. Was I worthy of love? I don't know.”

“That kinda festered over the years,” he said, “and then as I got older and went into my teen years that's where the anger started coming in. I'd wake up in the middle of the night and I'd be literally shaking. I knew in my heart that there was something deep…that wasn't right…I was afraid to deal with it.”

“January 20th of 1987 - I was a macho guy...21 years old. I didn't look afraid, I didn't look insecure…and I think I had most people fooled. Then I became a cop. Now I have a platform to be aggressive. Now I have an outlet for anger.”

“I would not take crap from nobody,” he shared. “If you were going to say something to me that I didn't like, I was going to give it back to you. And I don't care if you were a sergeant, or a captain or whoever. This one sergeant in particular...he goes ‘Columbia!...I'm sending you to the Fighting 9th.’ And I said, ‘The Fighting 9th? Where's that?’ He goes, ‘That's the lower east side of Manhattan, just where you belong.’"

“The lower east side,” he continued,” from mid to late '80s into the '90s was one of the roughest areas in New York City…it was the drug capital of the country. The symbol for the precinct was an outhouse. It was a precinct where you got your hands dirty. There probably wasn't a week that went by that I wasn't getting into a physical altercation...dealing with...an emotionally disturbed person or someone who's whacked out on drugs or just crazy.”

“I saw situations,” he described, “where little children were raped, 3-year-olds…bleeding, crying...I couldn't process that in my brain. When I saw a child being hurt…I wanted vengeance. It would infuriate me…if a woman was beat up by her boyfriend, he was going to pay. I'm seeing this stuff every day. I'm trying to be a father and a husband and raise a family and I've got the pressure of the job…it was just building and building, the pressure was just building. And one of the guys I work with…one day, he said, "You know, Columbia, you look like you're going to explode."…Now it's like, ‘Okay, you're found out. You can't hide it anymore.’”
 
“That night,” he said, “I decided to have a showdown with God...And I went up to the roof that night and…I began to curse at God and scream at God. Everything that was in me, all that emotion, all that anger, all that frustration…I just had to let it out. Then I took my gun out and I waved it in the air and I said, ‘God, if you're real and you're there, what's stopping me from blowing my brains out right now. I want to know what's wrong with me, what is wrong with me? I want to know now!’ And when I did that, that's where everything changed. Words came out of my mouth, ‘You were molested as a child.’ And I said, ‘God, if that's real, I want another sign.’ And the words came out of my mouth again, ‘You were molested as a child.’ And I said, ‘God, if that's real, I want another sign.’ And the third time I felt this presence that I never felt before. This light encased around me. I just felt love.”

“It was the answer to my fear,” he shared. “It was the answer to my insecurity It as the answer to my pain. I saw God as this loving father who cared enough about me to be honest with me. He exposed the deepest…secret in my life that I was afraid to face or deal with, and He gave me a whole new life.”

“One of the things we had to do was on a Sunday morning, we'd have to walk up...up to ten flights of stairs to go to the top of buildings...to chase the homeless guys off the roof. I would get up there and I was mean to those guys. After I got saved, I remember one time I went up to the roof, there was this guy…urine and vomit all over him, and I looked at this guy and I was overwhelmed with compassion…And I walked over to him and I said, ‘Do you know that God loves you? Do you know that?’ And this man started crying. And I hugged him...and I prayed with that man on the roof. God changed my heart so much that what he did for me, I knew he can do for anyone else.”

“People went through this traumatic event of 9/11 on so many levels,” he said. “They were so traumatized by that event it affected other events in their life. And I was able to help people process that. It was a beautiful thing to be able to help people in that time.”   

“I believe this,” he shared, “There's a time and season for every human being to have their encounter with God. And for me, it was 26 years old. For somebody else, it may be younger, it may be older, but there comes a time and a season, in Ecclesiastes 3 it says, ‘There's a time and a season for everything.’ And God's waiting for people to see if He's real.”