Sometimes Utah Highway Patrol trooper Don Sagendorf can feel the bullets tearing into his body as he sleeps.
He sees the gun come around — bang, bang, bang. His body writhes in his bed as each slug rips through his flesh.
It's a dream he's had dozens of times since he shot 17-year-old Anthony Colwell during a traffic stop in Ogden on Oct. 26, 1996.
In the real shooting, Colwell's gun jammed as he pulled the trigger and Sagendorf escaped unscathed. After the gun was pulled on him, Sagendorf fired seven rounds into the the car, wounding but not killing Colwell.
It was all over in four seconds.
Six hours after the shooting, Sagendorf backed his patrol car into his driveway like he'd done hundreds of times before.
"I put that car in park and this whole thing of making it home at night hit me and I bawled," Sagendorf said.
That breakdown would be the first of several difficult steps after the shooting. Even today, more than four years since the shooting, Sagendorf's wife, Cathi, becomes emotional when she speaks of the ordeal that shook their entire family.
"When he came in to see me we looked at each other, and we both just started crying," Cathi Sagendorf said. "Not many people really understand what goes on behind the emotions of a shooting."
Officers are charged with the unique responsibility of protecting people, but at the same time face intense public scrutiny for defending themselves against danger.
"It's a judgment call usually made under very stressful situations," said John Wilson, FBI supervisory special agent over law enforcement safety and survival training. "The ability to actually pull the trigger — no one is taught that it's OK to kill people, and it's a tough thing to do."
After a shooting happens, every officer is subject to intense investigation and second-guessing by fellow officers, prosecutors and the public.
"He (the officer) knows there's going to be people questioning the use of that weapon — they know that going in," said Salt Lake Police Chief Rick Dinse, who's already had four officers from his department involved in shootings this year.
The Salt Lake District Attorney's Office has cleared officers Troy Siebert and Bryan Johnson of any criminal wrongdoing in the nonfatal Jan. 6 shooting of a robbery suspect who investigators say tried to run the officers over. The shooting incident was Siebert's second.
The district attorney also ruled officers Roger Nielson and Shanelle Boyd were justified in the fatal shooting of motorist Robert Adam Howard during a Jan. 1 traffic stop.
All four officers remain under investigation by police internal affairs to determine if they followed proper procedure when they discharged their weapons. Requests to interview them were denied.
Whether police are justified in these or any other shootings is hotly debated on both sides. Some of Howard's family and friends have threatened civil action against police, and a lawsuit charging Sagendorf and the Department of Public Safety with excessive force is still pending in U.S. District Court.
Former Salt Lake officer Rob Joseph is entangled in several legal battles over a March 29, 1996, incident in which he shot and wounded fleeing motorist Wesley Scott.
But beyond all the court proceedings and intense investigations, the emotional scars police suffer from shooting another person is something most people will never understand.
"It's a deeply personal thing to go through, and no one person reacts to it the same way," Salt Lake Police officer Mike Tuttle said. "Television has done us a great disservice by making it look like we can go shoot someone and then head over to 7-Eleven and make a chili dog."
Tuttle is over the Salt Lake City Police Department's Traumatic Incident Command, which helps officers deal with shootings and other stressful situations.
"We've had officers that completely fall apart after a shooting," Tuttle said.
The most difficult part of a shooting occurs after all the bullets have been fired, officers say.
First, media reports circulate for several days, usually containing reaction from outraged family and friends of the person who was shot. And through it all, police are not allowed to explain themselves.
"The frustrations come back because you can't tell people how you felt at the time, what you saw at the time," Salt Lake City officer Nathan Swensen said.
Swensen shot and killed armed robbery suspect Kevin Lee on Dec. 6, 1999, after Lee charged and hit Swensen twice, investigators say. Swensen had been on the force less than two years when the shooting occurred. More than a year later, the 25-year-old officer spoke for the first time with a reporter.
"There's never just one event that leads to an officer shooting somebody — it's a chain of events," he said.
But because departments often keep such information under wraps until an investigation is over, those details usually don't come out until long after the shooting.
In the meantime, officers are placed on routine paid administrative leave. During that time officers can experience a wide range of emotions.
"I went about a week and a half without more than an hour of sleep at night," Swensen said.
For their part, the Sagendorfs spent several weeks hibernating in their home.
"I felt like I was dead," Don Sagendorf said.
"Socially we just kind of fell out and just wanted to be together," his wife added.
When he finally returned to duty, traffic stops were never routine again, Sagendorf said.
To this day Swensen has flashbacks of the shooting whenever he steps out of his car into the cold air similar to the temperature the morning of that shooting.
For UHP Sgt. Steven Esplin, his flashbacks sometimes come as he's in the shower and notices the scar near his ribs where he was shot during a Dec. 17, 1999, traffic stop on I-15 near Fillmore.
Esplin fired 10 rounds in the space of three seconds at a motorist who opened fire on him and another trooper before turning the gun on himself.
"You go through the scenario and kind of tell yourself, it's OK," Esplin said. "If you're not prepared for something like that, then you're going to lose."
And for those who do survive, returning to work is never easy. Police can meet with psychologists or officer support groups to help them accept what happened and move on. Some never make it back.
"There's not a day that goes by that you're not scared of something, but it's just a matter of getting past it," Esplin said.
And so far, Swensen, Sagendorf and Esplin have done just that. Not one of the three has discharged his weapon at someone since those first shootings. All three say they hope it stays that way.
E-mail: djensen@desnews.com