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Bellefontaine Neighbors, Missouri, according to Ann Landers, has the distinction of being the longest combined city and state name in the US. It's a thoroughly average middle class bedroom community, one of the 97 little Balkan Republics in St. Louis County. About a year ago, a friend suggested contacting an officer there who shared a common interest in public safety radio. Corporal Bill didn't mind people sharing a shift with him in the department ride-along program. The fact I'm a Federal Agent didn't hurt.
I continue to share holidays and weekends with Bill as a friend and soon as a Reserve Officer. Some observations and common misconceptions on local police work in general have come out of the hours riding a beat. These are my personal thoughts, and probably don't represent the views of any other sentinent being. At least one of the incidents on this page is fictional. So there.
"You can't understand what it's like to be a cop because you're not one".
Bzzzt. Thanks for playing. Nurses, police officers, fire fighters and ER physicians have the same problems. They see a lot of people that most folks would turn away from. They work odd shifts and long hours. They don't choose their clientele. All but the doctors must not be doing it for the money, since there are a lot of skilled trades that pay more and demand less. Anyone who understands service and commitment can understand what it means to be a patrolman.
"You just stopped me because I'm (insert excuse here)".
...A woman, Black, young, old, out-of-state. Hear those every weekend. The funny ones are the late night stops. A lone car going the same direction as our fully marked cruiser speeds past with a radar detector visible on the dash. We see the detector light up as the Ka-band moving radar logs the speed. Our rotating lights come on and the driver finally pulls over. First words out of the speeders mouth? (Hint: See above). Never mind the fact that at night you can't see the age, gender or race of the driver inside a darkened car when it's first clocked by radar, some people feel the need to toss out an insult or allegation to try to control the situation. Don't bother. After a month, even a rookie expects it and it won't work. You just talk yourself into a ticket when you may have gotten a warning.
"You see the best and worst of people".
Not a lot of the former, but not an avalanche of the latter as you may expect.
Some folks are amazing because of their strength. A young woman was leaving a party and someone threw a chair at her for no special reason. It split a long, deep gash near her eye. She and her boyfriend waited quietly as an officer dressed the wound with antiseptic and gauze, she even walked into the Medic unit. X-rays at the hospital revealed her jaw was also broken. No tears, no anger, no panic.
Others offer inspiration by their sacrifice. We had an ambulance call for an elderly woman with chest pains. The house was immaculate and filled with pictures of an older woman and her family. An attractive woman about 35 was also there. The officer was familiar with the two. The young woman had chosen to live with her grandmother years before and made a choice to forgo her life so her grandmother wouldn't have to live in a nursing home. She didn't get awards or recognition from any agency, but made a big a difference in the life of that old woman.
Some folks are alive just to prove Darwin was wrong. A man, woman, and young child are clocked by radar in a speeding car. They don't want to pull over for quite a while. Dad, the driver, begins to develop an attitude immediately. There were two problems. He had couple of arrest warrants for failure to appear on improper licensing of a motor vehicle and (what a shock) the plate on the car at the time of the stop was registered to a different vehicle. The Corporal asks if he would step out of the car to talk. He finally does, and is reminded that the video camera in the patrol car is recording the incident. Most people take this notice to mean "Neither you nor I have anything to gain by acting like a moron". Most people marry outside of their immediate families, too. This man, playing to the back row, loudly asked the camera why his son had to see his father arrested and handcuffed like a criminal. Only after they stepped behind the opened rear door of the police car (out of sight of the young boy) were the handcuffs placed on the subject. With that, Mom burst out of the car doing a good impersonation of Tammy Faye on a crying jag asking why little Johnnie had to see his father arrested and taken away. Obviously it was because his parents had no sense of responsibility and the coping skills of a rattlesnake, but we took the question philosophically.
He turned out to be a decent enough guy as soon as he away from the wife, but still ended up spending the night in jail because he had warrants at three different departments. All these problems because he initially didn't have about $30.00 for vehicle registration. The total cash bonds for all charges was over $300.00, but he was able to scrape that amount together. We all have to live with our choices.
"Police work changes you".
Absolutely. Police officers start by being entrusted with the power to defend themselves and others with any force necessary, including taking a life. With that power comes an equal amount of responsibility.
Criminals can take all the time they want to plan their crime, supervisors can second-, third-, and fourth-guess the responding officers, lawyers must do everything they can for their clients - guilt aside, and juries can do whatever the hell they please.
The patrol officer dispatched to a crime in progress may just have an instant to decide what others spend years rehashing. Theodore Roosevelt said it best.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
The other aspect that has to change an officer is handling ambulance calls. Everything from parents hysterical over a child with a small puncture wound to traffic accidents with entire families dead, these are Forrest Gump's proverbial box of chocolates - you never know from the description on the radio what you're going to get. Since the police are usually closer than the ambulance, they have to make do until paramedics get there.How can you hold a dying person's hand and not have it affect you? Could you tell a parent their child's last words and not have that memory stay with you forever? These aren't rhetorical questions for police officers.
So?
In the end, character really does matter. What you bring to the job is not just what you learned in the academy, it's about what you are. Some people want to be cops so they can be a bully. Thankfully, most of them get weeded out before they get through the front door of the academy. Others want excitement. This isn't a game like extreme skiing or motorcycle racing where you decide when it gets fun and when to give up for the day.
If, by excitement, you mean real fear, there's that, too. My first call with Bill was to a burglar alarm. The vast majority of them are false. This one wasn't. We got there 2 minutes after being dispatched. It was dark and the back door was kicked in. I've been trained on clearing a house for a search warrant with a team of 5 to 7 Agents, and actually doing it with the prospect of surprising a scared burglar was terrifying, but the 4 of us on the scene did it. A couple of months later, Bill and I cleared a house by ourselves. It's not much easier the second time.
An officer can't control the tedium of the midnight shifts in the dead of winter or the reports that are due if there is nothing to report for the week. (Those go to the Department of Redundancy Department, by the way).
The only thing any person ultimately controls is their reaction to a situation. Calmness and maturity go a long way in defusing the emotionally disturbed and just plain pissed off people you come across. Luckily, Bill is a decorated combat veteran and knows how to bring verbally abusive people under control. Having a good mentor will bring out the best in any new officer.
Anyone who wants to be a patrolman or deputy should closely examine his motives. The concept of public service and duty had better rank at the top, or that person will not be pleased with his choice. Neither will the citizens he comes in contact with.
Quotes on law enforcement.
About the writer.
Corrupt? No, but on the take.
What's it like to be married to an officer?
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