COEUR d'ALENE - When the 13-year-old sexual assault victim walked into the room at the Ontario, Calif., police station 25 years ago, Mike Cover knew the investigation would challenge his ability to keep his emotions at bay. Other than her green eyes, she looked identical to Cover's own daughter.

In order to make a difference in the life of his daughter's doppelganger, Cover knew he couldn't let his emotions show while on duty.

"When you go home you want to just say, 'OK I am done,' and just leave it," Cover said. "But you can't. So you get home and you cry with your wife and you talk to her. Even to this day a lot of that follows me."

After 24 years with the Ontario Police Department, Cover retired and left California for North Idaho, settling in Spirit Lake with his family. Now he wants to help people see the human behind the badge when they look at law enforcement personnel.

"I think the vast majority of people really don't know what cops go through," Cover said. "I want people to understand why we do some of the things we do."

One of the biggest things, according to Cover, is the way police officers often seem "hard" or "aggressive." He said that attitude is formed from necessity.

"We have to come across that way, partially for survival and partially because we can't break down in a situation," Cover said.

Due to public perception of this attitude, Cover said officers have to do their job without looking for gratification from other people. In fact, in his years on patrol there were only six times when he said someone expressed genuine appreciation.

"But I would do it all over again if I could," Cover said. "It felt like I made a difference and I wanted to know that when my life is over, I made a difference somewhere."

As a former investigator into officer-involved shootings, Cover said it is an area of policing that is often hard for people to understand.

For example, Cover shared that if a person with a knife is 21 feet or closer to an officer, and that officer does not have his weapon drawn, the officer will not be able to draw and fire.

"So if a guy has a knife and he is walking towards me and not listening to my commands - he is now a deadly threat towards me," Cover said.

Cover was personally involved in one incident that resulted in the death of a combative man who was high on methamphetamine. He said the incident weighs heavily on him even though he knows the officers did everything else they could have done prior to firing their weapons.

"It's there," Cover said. "It's always there."

With the heavy weight of years of experience, Cover said he was lucky to have such an understanding wife.

"She was always my sounding board," Cover said. "If something happened that was really hard or really nasty, I would come home and talk it through with her. (Because of that) I didn't get jaded like some of us do."

By translating his experiences into a book, called "Behind the Badge," Cover hopes to help change the way the public views police officers. The book is available at Hastings and can be found on Amazon.com. He will be appearing at Hastings in Coeur d'Alene on Feb. 8 from 1 to 4 p.m.