by Jack
Foreword: There’s really no words adequate enough to explain what it’s like to be a cop, you just have to live it to understand. But, I can tell you about the technical requirements and a little about the kind of personal sacrifices involved. In the most sincere terms, I’m not trying to make a case for the profession or to deny that cops make mistakes. Cops are only human. Sometimes they are held to impossible standards and sometimes they fall short of what the public has a right to expect. The following is just a very brief glimpse at what it takes to do the job and few personal observations, that’s all.
There’s an old joke that goes something like this, “Who makes you more nervous, a cop in your rear view mirror or a Hells Angel? Most of us would say the cop, Hells Angels don’t issue tickets! And because the cop may be watching us we don’t always appreciate their presence, do we? Yet, for thousands of years we have recognized the need for law enforcement, starting with Roman Centurions. From the earliest times to the present, the job description hasn’t changed much.
The California Police Code of Ethics sums it up like this in their first paragraph: ” AS A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER, my fundamental duty is to serve mankind; to safeguard lives and property; to protect the innocent against deception, the weak against oppression or intimidation, and the peaceful against violence or disorder; and to respect the Constitutional rights of all men to liberty, equality and justice.”
To be a good police officer requires the kind of qualities that would probably make them a success in almost any profession. The job requires above average judgment, discretion, honesty, intelligence and a decent education. But, in order to get your foot in the door, it also requires a lot of testing followed by an intense background investigation. Then an officer-candidate must pass a battery of personality assessments, aptitude tests and testing for overall knowledge, before the basic academy and then the testing really starts.
The academy time varies State by State, but in California it’s about 900-1000 hours of intense instruction covering 42 mandatory subjects selected by POST, Peace Officer Standards and Training. It’s fast paced learning and it’s estimated that an hour in the academy is equal to about 3 hours in a college classroom.
If a candidate can pass the academy, he’s still facing a lengthy probationary period; many departments require 12 to 18 months probation. Termination is not uncommon in this phase.
In a typical academy class it’s expected that 50% of the graduates will be gone within 5 years. It’s a stressful job! It’s a risky job. And it’s hard on your mind, body and spirit. It’s even hard on your family, but regarding the latter sometimes it can make the family stronger. Don’t ask me to explain, that would be a whole other article! However, just know that police actually have a lower than average divorce rate, contrary to public opinion.
If we were to profile a typical veteran officer, you would find most of them love their job because no two days are ever the same. There’s a lot of challenges and the opportunity to serve the public, take some risks and perhaps save some lives. That really makes this profession worthwhile, and its unlike any other profession in that respect.
Although, it’s a quasi-military force, unlike the military every day is a potential combat day and that’s no exaggeration. Police officers face a well armed criminal element and of course, crime never takes a vacation or has weekends off. That’s why deadly, split second decisions, may be forced on the officer without warning at any time. It could come during a simple daylight traffic stop or an evening family disturbance call, you just never know. This explains why 80% of shootouts often occur at a distance of less than 8 feet; officers often walk knowingly into some pretty bad situations, but that’s just part of the job.
As an officer, you don’t have the luxury of ever being off-duty. When a felony is committed the public expects you to respond – period. That’s not just a request either, its the law. When I was working as a police officer, I’ve made a number of arrests on my days off. I even made one in my retirement, but turning your back on a violent felony is never an option, even if you are a retired officer. Although, one’s age does require a certain amount of prudent restraint!
The pay and benefits are better today than they’ve ever been and that’s great, but then so are the requirements and expectations. Arguably the risks are as bad as they’ve ever been too, and perhaps worse for some of our newer areas of enforcement, especially narcotics or SWAT operations.
It’s not easy to keep your mental equilibrium and avoid becoming a cynic after seeing years of man’s inhumanity to man. Years of cleaning up after the public does that to you. It makes cops only want to hang out with other cops, because anyone else couldn’t understand. So, it’s a struggle to stay integrated with “civilians” in normal social settings. I always made that effort and in the long run I was much healthier for it. If there’s one major trap for all cops this is it. It’s too easy to become isolated and develop that “us verses them” attitude. So, yes cops can become isolated, depressed and jaded. This can lead to a lot of undesirable things, not the least of which is alcoholism and suicide.
A typical work week involves taking the misdirected anger from a citizen because he doesn’t like paying high taxes or a lambasting from an irate motorist over a speeding ticket in a school zone. Cops are a frequent lightning rod when it comes to angry citizens looking to vent.
But, its witnessing and dealing with abused kids that got me. It’s tough to remove a child from a dangerous parent, but somebody has to do it. It’s routine to encounter wife-beaters, drunks, diseased drug addicts, burnt out derelicts, sociopaths, bar bullies and bloody victims of something. It all takes it’s toll in time. It’s why the average cop tended to live only 7 years after his retirement, although that seems to be improving because the retirement age has been lowered to 55 in most areas.
Yes, it takes a certain kind of person to deal with the worst of what society can throw at them. Imagine being a police detective and trying to look past the gore of a triple homicide in order to focus on fragile clues before they degrade into oblivion. Not everyone can do this and fewer still would want too. This is neither good or bad, it’s just the way it is.
When the shift is over and the memories of what happened that day don’t just go away when the gun belt drops to the bedroom floor. There are always lingering thoughts that can return all too quickly. A car backfires and it sounds like a shot, a foul odor that reminds him/her of that dead decaying flesh or some other horror, they would rather forget. Imagine all the ugliness the average person might see in a lifetime then multiply that times 100 and you get a rough idea of the emotional trauma the average cop will experience. This is why it’s necessary to do those psychological screenings, because most people just couldn’t do it.
So, if you felt a little nervous because of that police car in your rear view mirror, try to take some consolation knowing a little of what that officer goes through every day to be there for you… when you really, really need him.
If you’re such a dumb-ass to be in a situation the cops have to take you down then hand cuff you, chances are you’ve been an dumb ass for a long time. Getting arrested and dropped to the ground usually doesn’t just happen one day out of the blue. Its because you are truly a dumb ass and will always be a big stupid dumb ass. “You have a right to your own opinion but not a right to your own facts” And that’s the truth. signed- CEOT6
Thank you for that insight Jack.
Good timing reaps the following from Mediaite:
Stewert was even angrier that Fox is using his “sloppiness” against the left spin about cops.
I hate to break it to Stewart, but media sloppiness has been exposed by Fox and others for over twenty-five years now. You haven’t learned a thing in all of that time!
Mediaite never gets around to explaining the “sloppiness…guess the error isn’t as important as the foul language.
Jack, thanks for sharing the stringent requirements officers must meet to enter the profession. I doubt it will mean anything to left radicals bent on destroying the institutions that keep America safe and strong. The attack on law enforcement just adds another layer to the class and race warfare being waged by a political party that no longer identifies with our founding principles and ideals, preferring Marx.
I did so tear up when my nephew’s class recited their oath.
But the fact is, the vast majority of urban cop-work is social-work, and they’re just not trained to do it. Cops with a knack pick it up and do well. The rest should be sacked, but rarely are … and then we have ugly incidents.
CEOT6 … come on … selling loose cigarettes? That was one wildly aggressive over-reaction. Whatever happened to:
“I see you on this corner again, and you know what’s gonna happen.” And then you let the terrorized beggar go rethink his professional options.
Seriously. “Breaking windows” is destructive, even violent. Peddling cigarettes? No.
The Garner officers perpetrated a serious lapse in judgment for which they should be punished.
Libby I think the point CEOT6 was trying to make is fairly clear, this guy had some serious anger issues. Selling the illegal smokes was just the trigger to set him off. It could have been anything and that’s the point CEOTG was trying to make.
He chose to behave badly, he chose to go into a rage, he chose to fight with the cops and act like a “dumb ass” and so he caused the incident to escalate. All his choices. Once he turned violent the police must act quickly to subdue him. So, again, it was the suspects choices that led to him having his medical emergency…heart attack wasn’t it? The cops didn’t give him a heart attack, he did. And while the man is still breathing cops can’t give him CPR! They could only wait until paramedics arrived. You wanted them to walk away, just give the guy a warning and that’s fine, but how do you know he hasn’t been warned before? How do you know the cops even had that option?
According to Sean Hannity who lives in NY, their radically extreme liberal mayor has instructed NY’s Finest to harass these people because their sales of single cigarettes cuts down on revenue from sales tax.
So cops that have better things to do are spending time making sure New Yorkers must buy taxed smokes…typical!
This man has been warned more than twenty times.
Get a clue, Libs. it isn’t the cops its the petty, ridiculous lefty mayor.
And I don’t care how innocent a person is when a cop says jump you jump…period! You do it out of respect and for your own safety and the safety of others, nimrod!
“Libby I think the point CEOT6 was trying to make is fairly clear, this guy had some serious anger issues.”
This is all soooooo Rashomon. Did you see anger? I saw terror. Getting arrested was gonna ruin his life, again. Instead of bringing home the bacon, he wasn’t coming home at all.
Terror? It was a misdemeanor bust? That’s irrational. Being afraid of the cops doesn’t make people violent, but being mad does.
Pie and Tina…thank you
Libby should be asking herself why this poor guy is forced to sell single cigarettes on the street in that liberal bastion of kindness and redistribution, NYC, and why he was being harassed.
It’s the progressive mayor and his petty, stingy, unworkable, freedom blunting liberal policies…stupid! (As Al Gore would say)
Jack its a da*n shame our boys in blue need defending just for doing their jobs but I’m happy to do it.
Re #4 Libby : “But the fact is, the vast majority of urban cop-work is social-work, and they’re just not trained to do it.”
Libby is full of it, as usual. The big expert.
“Terror? It was a misdemeanor bust? That’s irrational.”
Of course it was. That man’s entire life was irrational. Cops deal with irrational people all day long, and the poor man’s demise is what happens when they’re no good at it.
Jack: “So, again, it was the suspects choices that led to him having his medical emergency…heart attack wasn’t it?”
A heart attack resulting from compression of the neck.
Tina: “Get a clue, Libs. it isn’t the cops its the petty, ridiculous lefty mayor.”
Good God–the mayor did not put his hands on Eric Garner, nor did he order the police to do that. This is insane.
The particular law Garner was violating has NOTHING to do with the excessive force used by these officers. He could have been violating any number of laws conservatives like yourself favor, such as selling marijuana, and there’s no reason to believe the particular cops in this case would have acted differently.
“And I don’t care how innocent a person is when a cop says jump you jump…period! You do it out of respect and for your own safety and the safety of others, nimrod!”
Translation: “Submit to the authority of the government, or die.” This is the logic of a tyrant. Any claim of being suspicious of government power you make in the future, when you have in the past 24 hours supported both excessive force by police resulting in death, as well as indefinite detention and torture of people–some of them innocent–without trial, should automatically be dismissed as dishonest.
I am very disheartened by the reaction of the conservatives here. I have seen many conservative and libertarian web sites and individuals express outrage over Garner’s death. You don’t have to tow some kind of party line here, if that’s what’s stopping you from admitting the truth here. You have nothing to lose! You don’t have to believe that police brutality is a systemic problem in order to condemn this one instance. You just have to be a halfway decent person who cares more about citizens’ rights to live than about…the danger of getting Ferguson protester cooties, or whatever the hell’s keeping you from admitting these officers were wrong to do what they did.
Ugh. This is an event that conservatives and liberals should be united in protest over. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Even George Will has said that the lack of an indictment in the Garner case was outrageous.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-eric-garner-criminalized-to-death/2014/12/10/9ac70090-7fd4-11e4-9f38-95a187e4c1f7_story.html
I wonder what it’s like to have less integrity than George Will.
Re #15 Chris: “Even George Will”??? A mildly interesting post for this reason —
You treat George Will as if he were some sort of ass who, in this case, would EVEN SAY that the lack of an indictment in the Garner case was outrageous. Then you compliment his integrity. May I suggest that THE ENGLISH MAJOR make up his mind?
Aside — I agree with George Will about the Eric Garner death. Garner should not have resisted arrest, but he should not have been killed for doing so. He represented no life threat to the officers involved or the public. (Well, except for the fact he was selling tobacco.)
“Garner should not have resisted arrest, but he should not have been killed for doing so. He represented no life threat to the officers involved or the public. (Well, except for the fact he was selling tobacco.)”
I know this is utterly meaningless to you, but I appreciate your willingness to voice this position here.
I would absolutely agree with both Pie and Chris that a tobacco violation is no reason to kill anyone. It might also be seen as an offense not rising to the level of an arrest, but the law says otherwise. It was a “may take” misdemeanor offense, although a citation may have been possible as opposed to an arrest. I don’t know if this was offered as an option, does anyone know that?
However, I think it is unfair to say that officers, for reasons not yet disclosed, were compelled to take the man into custody. In so doing he resisted arrested and in the resulting struggle he died from a medical condition. That is unfortunate, but is it a killing of a citizen over a tobacco violation? Yes, it is an in-custody death, but is it a deliberate killing?
I’m sure the difference is not relevant to the man’s family and supporters because they see it as a killing by cops. However, they didn’t set out to kill anyone, it happened because of the struggle and the man’s physical condition. It was extremely regrettable and in hindsight things could have been done to have a better outcome, but a Grand Jury has reviewed the case in great detail and heard things we have not yet been privileged too. I’m of the opinion that the police could have done better, but does their actions rise to the level of a killing? I think not.
Jack: “That is unfortunate, but is it a killing of a citizen over a tobacco violation? Yes, it is an in-custody death, but is it a deliberate killing?”
I haven’t heard anyone argue that it was a *deliberate* killing. But I don’t think it takes hindsight to realize that excessive force was used; that could have been established with regular sight, before it was done.
Warning strong language.
Lady Drops Viral Ferguson Rant On Who She Thinks is To Blame for the Michael Brown Shooting:
http://www.ijreview.com/2014/12/215819-lady-drops-viral-ferguson-rant-thinks-blame-michael-brown-shooting/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic&utm_content=conservativedaily&utm_campaign=Viral