Some of this came to my mind reading forum posts about the five police officers who shot unarmed groom 50 times and others are just things that my husband and I talk about frequently given he works in law enforcement.
I’m not talking about the killing of the man in this. I’m not going to get into whether he was a felon or not, whether he was in the wrong or the right, or anything to do with the case in question. I just want people to understand part of what prompted this post.
There are lots of heated discussions going on in various places that I’m reading about right now about this issue, some of them have valid points, and some of them get into those broad generalizations about our men and women in law enforcement, and for some time of this afternoon I was seeing red, and some of that red I feel was justified.
I know that most people understand that cops are people too, but sometimes some people forget that. They find it easy to slag off police officers because they feel that all police officers are “assholes” that cops seem to get some perverse joy in making their lives miserable and that any cop is going to be trigger happy, or tazer happy and does what they do out of some power-trip. That makes me upset and angry. A lot of people also seem to think that cops have an easy job, that they’re just sitting around eating donuts all day, talking smack, polishing their guns and looking for hot chicks to pull over so that they can get a free happy ending in exchange for not writing a ticket.
I had to leave one forum because I got sick of the juvenile behavior displayed by some of the people on the forum after someone’s party got broken up by a noise complaint and their attitude about the law enforcement officers who were just doing their job, by investigating what was going on. What got me the most about that one is that they were complaining because they got into trouble when there were underage people their drinking illegally and imbibing in other illicit substances. They were breaking the law, they deserved to get into trouble.
On to my part about cops and their jobs. Police officers are not paid a lot of money. If you want to make a lot of money, you don’t go into law enforcement, you go into medicine or you go into judicial practice as a lawyer, or you go into real estate. Police officers salaries are pretty low, they’re not as low as teachers, for example, and yes, they do make more than someone flipping burgers at a fast food restaurant, but they’re not rolling in dough. They also don’t get good benefits. A lot of agencies don’t get over time, but yet they’re still working on average 14 hour shifts. My husband’s general shift are twelve hour days, two days on, two days off, lather, rinse, repeat, but there are many times he works two to six hours over time because he works night shift, and cases run over. There are other days he’s worked longer shifts than that because of parade duty or having to go to court, or give or collect evidence on cases.
Insurance is another thing which isn’t great. When he first worked at the PD he could barely afford his own insurance, there was no way to get myself or our son on the insurance, and now even though he can get me on his insurance because things have adjusted slightly, our son wouldn’t have insurance if it weren’t for the HealthyKids program through Medicaid. If we had insurance for our son through his work it would take $900 a month to cover it, and we have a $3000 deductible for all medical expenses; and that’s good insurance for cops. Many have it worse. In some states officers are investigated any time they call in sick.
I know that not all cops are good; but not all cops are bad either. I know there’s going to be people attracted to the profession because they get to carry a gun, and that the power is going to go on to their head. They’re going to bully people around because of that, and those sort need to be written up, tossed out and in some cases aren’t going to. I know there are departments that operate on the “good ol’ boy” system. I know there are cops that cheat on their wives with people they pull over. I know all that.
But I also know that my husband works in a thankless job. People are rarely ever happy to see him. People drag him through courts over tickets because they want to punish him for costing them money, and generally they lose because they were in the wrong. I’ve seen my husband’s co-workers being reamed out on the side of the road, because the person they pulled over who was driving like an idiot doesn’t appreciate being delayed from driving like an idiot and endangering people’s lives. I’ve seen hubbie attempt to help people in horrible situations only to have them essentially and sometimes literally spit in his face by going back to those horrible situations. I’ve seen him wrung out because he’s been having to deal with juvenile abuse cases and I’ve seen him wonder why he ever hoped to make a difference, but he keeps persevering because every once in a while he is able to bring down some asshole who thinks it’s great to dope women up on drugs and sell them into prostitution, or someone who manufactures and supplies drugs out of their trailer to school children and others.
Those are the good days, but I’ve never heard him say that anyone’s thanked him, it only seems that good cops get mentioned in the papers when they get killed. Until then we mostly here about the ones who got trigger happy and ruined people’s lives, the ones who thought they were better than the system and that because they had a badge and a gun they could push someone down the stairs, or should get kick backs for allowing the druggies back on the street; but the majority of cops, the good guys who genuinely want to help people, and are trying to keep people safe. No one ever hears about them.
You know there are assholes in other professions too. We had assholes at the library I used to work at, people who would talk down to me because they felt that as a woman I was inferior to them; people who were ticked off to find out that their job at the library wasn’t just going to be sitting around reading all day, that they actually had to perform work and be a service to the community, any job I’ve worked I’ve seen people like that, and sadly in the police force it isn’t any different on that score, which makes it all the harder for the cops that are trying to improve the reputation of law enforcement and trying to do what law enforcement is supposed to do “protect and serve”.
There are cops in our community trying to put together programs to keep youths off the street and give them something to do. They collect toys for children at Christmas. They work in homeless shelters and soup kitchens. They work hard. Most of the cops I know don’t want to pull someone over for something stupid any more than the person wants to be pulled over, but it’s their job to remind you that there are other people on the road and that you should be courteous. Most cops I know try to give warnings because they know that tickets are expensive and they couldn’t afford one any more than you can, but they have to. That probably doesn’t make up to most of you that there are the cops that are ticked off and jaded and will write extra tickets as a punishment.
But remember cops are people too. For everyone one that screws you over there’s three more trying to help someone, you just never get to hear about it.
