On the surface, Davin Cole was a success story among San Francisco cops. He had a loving family in the Bay Area suburbs, the respect of fellow officers and – as the renowned acting lieutenant – was expected to be given the promotion permanently.

But the 59-year-old was hiding a terrible secret: He’d been addicted to opioids for more than a decade – and was now at rock bottom.

By November 2021, the father-of-two was knocking back the pills with vodka night after night, his main remedy for depression after 27 grueling years policing the streets.

So, when his supplies ran low just four days before he was due to fly to a wedding in Mexico, he made the ‘dumbest’ decision of his life. Cole took a swig of vodka, strapped on a face mask and robbed a Rite Aid pharmacy at gunpoint. 

His life of crime, however, was short-lived. Cole was arrested as as he fled the store – his promising career in tatters and a prison sentence guaranteed.

‘It was the worst crime,’ Cole tells the Daily Mail. ‘I was a s**t criminal.’ 

His story is one of a desperate man driven to drugs, addiction and ultimately redemption. And it raises the alarming question: What drives a law-abiding citizen – a cop no less – to such a dramatic rock bottom?

Davin Cole and his wife, Sonia, who stayed with him throughout his painkiller addiction, botched robbery and prison sentence  

In November 2021, Cole dropped off his two daughters, pictured above to his right, at cheerleading practice and drove off to rob a neighborhood pharmacy

Cole traces his mental health problems  back to his childhood, when he was raised by a single mom in San Francisco. After joining the city’s police force in 1989, battling gang crime and gun violence, his health began to worsen. But it wasn’t until two decades later that his addiction to opioids began.

While working as an officer in the K-9 unit in 2009, he was attacked by a police dog he was training. The animal latched on to his left leg, leaving a golf-ball-sized wound in his calf, which quickly became infected. 

Cole was prescribed Norco, a widely used opioid, to dull his chronic pain – pills that he quickly began to depend on.

After going through surgery on his calf in 2012, most of the pain went away. But he told doctors he was still struggling and asked to continue getting the opioid medication, hydrocodone.

With ridiculous ease, Cole had joined the more than two million Americans hooked on prescription painkillers – a scourge that has led to an explosion of black market opioids, including fentanyl.

‘This drug knows no boundaries,’ he says. ‘CEOs are addicted to it. There are doctors, nurses, lawyers, judges. It’s too easy. For the first two years, I never even realized I was addicted.’ 

Cole’s addiction to painkillers started when he was a K-9 officer in 2009 and a police dog latched onto his left leg, leaving him with an agonizing injury

Cole was admired by his colleagues for his work helping addicts receive proper treatment and housing in San Francisco and was heading for promotion, when he robbed the Rite-Aid

The sergeant, who was off duty at the time, was arrested outside a Rite Aid pharmacy in San Mateo

On the surface, however, Cole says he was ‘killing it’.

He had launched a city-wide homeless outreach team, and had become the city’s go-to expert on the crisis of small-time crime, drugs and vagrancy in San Francisco.

But behind the scenes was a far darker picture.

By 2018, he was washing the pills down with alcohol to enhance their effects, and stealing extra drugs from friends and family to tide himself over between refills. 

In the early days of his addiction, Cole told his wife, Sonia, a photographer, about his problem. She urged him to see a doctor and thought the problem was in hand.

But in later years, when she confronted him about his droopy eyes or slurred speech after one of his late-night sessions, he told her that he’d been drinking or had simply had some sleeping pills. 

In retrospect, he believes his wife, now 48, and two daughters, now 19 and 28, were aware he was battling serious demons. But the family struggled to openly address the depth of his personal crisis.

Then, on 3 November 2021, Cole’s life unraveled in spectacular fashion.   

He had one Norco pill left and wasn’t due for a refill for more than a week. In four days, he was due to travel to Mexico for the much-anticipated wedding.

By then, he would be crippled by an agonizing opioid comedown of sweats, chills, nausea, diarrhea and body aches. His supply lines among friends and family had run dry, and he didn’t want to try a dealer, who was likely stocking a deadly cocktail of fentanyl.

So Cole hatched a hare-brained plan: to rob the Rite Aid pharmacy near his home in San Mateo.

‘When you’re addicted to something, there’s a physical change in your brain,’ Cole says. ‘You’re not rational any more. The drugs, the alcohol, or whatever it is, becomes the priority.’

He collected a snub-nose revolver from his safe at home, dropped his two daughters at cheerleading practice, then drove to the pharmacy. There, he took a swig of vodka, covered his face with a mask and walked into the store.

Cole traces his mental health problems back to his childhood, when he was raised by a single mom in San Francisco  

The opioid crisis has ravaged California, thanks in part to the loose prescribing of powerful painkillers  

Cole now talks about addiction and PTSD among cops and other first responders in podcasts

Cole tried to keep his booze and drug addictions secret from his wife, but she knew more than she let on

When he got to the counter, he tried to remain calm. He handed the pharmacist a note, saying: ‘I HAVE A GUN GIVE ME NORCO DO NOT PUSH ALARM!! HURRY!!’

After she gave him 11 bottles of the painkiller, Cole showed her the note’s reverse side: ‘SORRY!! DOCTORS F’D ME UP WAIT 15 MINS TO CALL COPS.’

But it was already too late – a staff member had called 911, and a police cruiser cut Cole off as he left the store.

Within seconds, Cole was on his knees, cuffed, and being hauled into a car on the way to thestation.    

‘I’m f****d,’ Cole told the officer who arrested him. ‘My life is over.’

Now he admits he misjudged how the pharmacy store’s employees would react to being robbed at gunpoint. ‘Most companies tell their employees: “Give them what they want, wait for them to leave, and then call the police,”‘ says Cole. ‘I figured I’d be out of there in my car on the way home.’

While he was being processed at the San Matteo police station, Sonia was growing increasingly frantic. She knew he’d been having problems and was worried he had killed himself.

He eventually called her from the station, telling her he was ‘so sorry’. After Sonia bailed him out the next morning, an emotional Cole struggled to explain his addiction to his family. 

But the solution, of course, was clear: Rehab. He checked into a centre in Sonoma Country that day and retired from the force before he could be disciplined or fired.

In late 2022, he pleaded no contest to two felony charges and was sentenced to one year behind bars and three years’ probation. He served six months, mostly alone in a cell as a safeguard against other inmates seeking retribution on a cop.

Still his family did not abandon him. When he was released – on Father’s Day in 2023 – he returned home where he credits Sonia, who he celebrated his 29th anniversary with in February, for helping his recovery.

‘She stood by my side 100 per cent,’ Cole recalls. ‘She just stayed with me. She said: “We’re gonna beat this, and things are gonna get better”.’ 

Her vow, it seemed, came true. After struggling to find work due to his conviction, Cole started his first full-time job earlier this year, running operations for a private security firm. 

But he says his real passion is raising awareness, speaking about addiction and PTSD among first responders on a number of podcasts. 

Four years on from his crime then, and Cole’s message is a surprising one: Optimism.

‘In a way that arrest saved my life,’ he says now. ‘It got me to rehab. It got me the help I needed.’