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- Dec 9, 2014
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As a Police Officer who casually browses this forum and struggles to find his way to a better life of freedom, I take some offense to what you say. I'm not going to sit here and defend the points you made or try to make excuses for the situations you went through that were unfavorable to you.
Police are always judged by a single moment, but make decisions based on hundreds, if not thousands, of interactions they have daily with some of the worst of society. It's mentally draining to deal daily with the problems of the world that 99.9% of the population don't realize even occur.
Let me give you an example of a day I worked recently:
1. A guy calls 911 because he thinks people are trying to kill him. Come to find out he's high on meth, he broke into someone's house and then jumped from a second story window. We help him and get him to the hospital.
2. A guy threatens to stab someone because "someone must die today." We arrive and find him sitting in his car with a kitchen knife up to his chest. We try to talk him out of the car, but he cuts himself and then drives away. A short chase later, we stop him, punch out the window, retrieve the knife, and get him down to the hospital. I ride down with the ambulance to make sure he goes down safely without any issues. We get there. No problem. However, since he is dealing with some mental health issues, he has to be watched one-on-one by a nurse. They wheel him over next to another guy so one nurse can watch them both at the same time. Guess who? The guy high on meth.
He's talking to himself and, out of nowhere, he rips the IV out of his arm and goes running down the hall through the hospital. 20 nurses and I are chasing him until he runs down a hall with a locked door. There was blood all over the floor, on the walls, on the medical equipment, etc.
3. Finally leave the hospital and get a call for a vehicle fire. No big deal - the Fire Dept. is en route. On our way we find out it's an attempted suicide. A guy wanted to kill himself and when sitting in a garage with a car running and the door down didn't work, he backed it up, slit his wrist, and lit his car on fire hoping the smoke and fire would kill him. We got him out safely and got him the help he needed.
What is everyone else doing while we are running around trying to save the world? Oh, you know...carelessly passing people in the center lane because they don't want to wait in stopped traffic, driving double the speed limit because they just want to get home, texting and driving distracted and crash into the car in front of them because they have to scroll Facebook for the 3 millionth time, etc. etc. etc. And when we are running around getting our asses handed to us we have to respond to that crash, we're expected to keep the roads safe, we're expected to put down everything we're doing so we can check on that dog that has been barking all day -- but, then again, "don't we have anything better to do than to harass the public?"
But "F the Police," right? Every damn day we can't catch a break having to deal with the dangers of society, having your own administration trying to make your life harder, people who lie to you (yes, nobody really tells the truth to the Police), Attorneys who want to fight your every decision, Judges who may not see things your way, and case law that makes your job harder to do -- just to name a few.
I'm not going to sit here and tell you the system is perfect. It's definitely not. I'm also not going to sit here and tell you that I believe in everything I do. I definitely don't.
But, what I am going to sit here and tell you is that we are people too. And those people are members of this forum. Those people work a 12 hour day and just want to find some peace in the world, but then have to read about how terrible the police are and make the police out to be the enemy. Police are not the enemy. Police are people who took an oath to serve and protect their communities. Police are people who put on a uniform everyday and try to make YOUR world a better place and rarely ever get thanked in return, but are expected to always put on their happy face. Police are people who have families just like you, who joined the military so you wouldn't have to, with college educations and diverse backgrounds, with hobbies and interests, and dreams of a better life.
Police are not the enemy so please stop treating them like one.
Police are always judged by a single moment, but make decisions based on hundreds, if not thousands, of interactions they have daily with some of the worst of society. It's mentally draining to deal daily with the problems of the world that 99.9% of the population don't realize even occur.
Let me give you an example of a day I worked recently:
1. A guy calls 911 because he thinks people are trying to kill him. Come to find out he's high on meth, he broke into someone's house and then jumped from a second story window. We help him and get him to the hospital.
2. A guy threatens to stab someone because "someone must die today." We arrive and find him sitting in his car with a kitchen knife up to his chest. We try to talk him out of the car, but he cuts himself and then drives away. A short chase later, we stop him, punch out the window, retrieve the knife, and get him down to the hospital. I ride down with the ambulance to make sure he goes down safely without any issues. We get there. No problem. However, since he is dealing with some mental health issues, he has to be watched one-on-one by a nurse. They wheel him over next to another guy so one nurse can watch them both at the same time. Guess who? The guy high on meth.
He's talking to himself and, out of nowhere, he rips the IV out of his arm and goes running down the hall through the hospital. 20 nurses and I are chasing him until he runs down a hall with a locked door. There was blood all over the floor, on the walls, on the medical equipment, etc.
3. Finally leave the hospital and get a call for a vehicle fire. No big deal - the Fire Dept. is en route. On our way we find out it's an attempted suicide. A guy wanted to kill himself and when sitting in a garage with a car running and the door down didn't work, he backed it up, slit his wrist, and lit his car on fire hoping the smoke and fire would kill him. We got him out safely and got him the help he needed.
What is everyone else doing while we are running around trying to save the world? Oh, you know...carelessly passing people in the center lane because they don't want to wait in stopped traffic, driving double the speed limit because they just want to get home, texting and driving distracted and crash into the car in front of them because they have to scroll Facebook for the 3 millionth time, etc. etc. etc. And when we are running around getting our asses handed to us we have to respond to that crash, we're expected to keep the roads safe, we're expected to put down everything we're doing so we can check on that dog that has been barking all day -- but, then again, "don't we have anything better to do than to harass the public?"
But "F the Police," right? Every damn day we can't catch a break having to deal with the dangers of society, having your own administration trying to make your life harder, people who lie to you (yes, nobody really tells the truth to the Police), Attorneys who want to fight your every decision, Judges who may not see things your way, and case law that makes your job harder to do -- just to name a few.
I'm not going to sit here and tell you the system is perfect. It's definitely not. I'm also not going to sit here and tell you that I believe in everything I do. I definitely don't.
But, what I am going to sit here and tell you is that we are people too. And those people are members of this forum. Those people work a 12 hour day and just want to find some peace in the world, but then have to read about how terrible the police are and make the police out to be the enemy. Police are not the enemy. Police are people who took an oath to serve and protect their communities. Police are people who put on a uniform everyday and try to make YOUR world a better place and rarely ever get thanked in return, but are expected to always put on their happy face. Police are people who have families just like you, who joined the military so you wouldn't have to, with college educations and diverse backgrounds, with hobbies and interests, and dreams of a better life.
Police are not the enemy so please stop treating them like one.
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