“Excuse me, officer, do you have ADHD?”

Of course I didn’t ask him that — especially while he was writing my traffic citation. But afterwards, as we chatted and I happened to mention Adult ADHD, he assumed I could somehow tell that he has it.

Let me explain.

Neighborhood merchants have been complaining to the police department about drivers making dangerous u-turns, and the ensuing dragnet caught me. (Who knew that turning left into a diagonal parking slot constitutes a u-turn? At any rate, I’d never pulled this move before, yet parking was tight, rain was falling, and my post-surgical gimpy foot limited the distance I could walk to the bank. But alas, that’s been my lot since grade school: never getting away with a darn thing, even on the first attempt.)

The officer was cordial and professional, and I apologized for my unwitting transgression. When he handed me a warning, my gratitude prompted me to think about offering him one of my books (a case is always in the trunk). After all, I’d read ADHD and the Criminal Justice System: Spinning Out of Control (by Pat Hurley, a veteran law-enforcement officer, and psychologist Robert Eme), and knew that tragic escalations can take place when police officers don’t realize the person they’ve stopped has ADHD — or what ADHD means.

“Do you know about Adult ADHD?” I asked him. And before I could say, “I’d like to give you a book that might prove helpful on the job,” he responded, “Know about ADHD? I have ADHD. Diagnosed 12 years ago by Dr. X.”

I knew about Dr. X, a kindly psychiatrist who was a local pioneer in treating ADHD. He’d died recently, at age 72, in a tragic motorcycle accident; in the obituary, his daughter said that her dad would sometimes lose his focus on the windy mountain road near their home and underestimate a turn. Reading it, I remember wondering if he had ADHD himself. “I love riding motorcycles, too,” this officer said, with a big smile. “Lots of cops have ADHD, you know.”

“But how did you know I have ADHD?” he said. “Can you tell just by looking at me?” Not at all, I told him, truthfully. I mentioned it solely in the context of his work. “You know,” he continued, eyeing the book’s cover, “I’m 56 and have never been married. I was engaged once but it didn’t work out. Relationships just don’t work for me.”

“Maybe it’s not you, maybe it’s the A.D.D.,” I said.

Of course, I couldn’t give him the book, he pointed out, lest we both be accused of bribery, but I felt sure it would offer him some answers and, I hoped, some solutions. He accepted a bookmark and then, noticing another illegal maneuver a few yards away, continued keeping our streets safe from the likes of me.

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