Posted on 06/13/2020 5:44:46 AM PDT by Kaslin
There are bad cops and corrupt cops and racist cops and brutal cops. But the great majority of police officers are not bad or corrupt or racist or brutal. If they were, given the 375 million annual contacts that police have with citizens, our country would look very different.
Think about it for a moment.
Police officers generally perform thankless jobs. (How often do you thank the officer who pulled you over for speeding, let alone thank the officer who arrested you for committing a crime?)
Police officers do not get rich doing their jobs. (Have you ever heard someone say, “I’m going to become a cop so I can make a lot of money”?)
Police officers risk their lives protecting us. (Yes, bad guys shoot at cops and try to kill them.)
Police offers do difficult jobs. (One of our sons-in-law is a police chaplain and has done many ride alongs, arriving at homes shortly after suicides or homicides, with devastated family members standing nearby.)
Yet in every community in our nation, we expect the police to be there if we have an emergency and call 911. That includes the police responding to calls reporting a domestic dispute or to calls reporting a neighbor’s dog barking in the middle of the night.
And if shots were fired in your neighborhood and there was no response, your first question would be, “Where are the police?”
Now it is the Parmount TV network dropping the Cops show after 30 years (!) on the air. As David Ng wrote on Breitbart, “Whatcha gonna do when the woke mob comes for you?
“Cops — the long-running reality series following police officers on high-speed chases, drug busts, and other dangerous missions — has been cancelled after a more than 30-year run as anti-police sentiment continues to sweep through Hollywood following last month’s death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody.”
Oh, those evil cops!
And be sure that your kids don’t play games like cops and robbers. Or, if they do play, remind them that cops and robbers are morally equivalent. Both are oh so bad.
I’m aware, of course, that Americans hold to widely disparate views of the police based on the communities in which they live (and/or based on the color of their skin).
As the Pew Research Forum reported on June 5, “Just a month before Floyd’s death, a Pew Research Center survey found that 78% of Americans overall – but a far smaller share of black Americans (56%) – said they had at least a fair amount of confidence in police officers to act in the best interests of the public. By contrast, large majorities of white (84%) and Hispanic (74%) adults expressed at least a fair amount of confidence. These views – and the wide racial and ethnic gap in opinions – had changed little over the prior few years.”
Where there is a pattern of police brutality, it must be addressed, and where individual officers are guilty, they must be held accountable by the law. With great power comes great responsibility. And where police reform is needed, let it be actively pursued.
But “cop” is not a dirty word, and we should not allow the police force, as a whole, to be vilified and denigrated.
For the most part, despite the horrific and inexcusable exceptions, cops are only your enemy if you’re trying to do wrong. If you want to do right, they are on your side.
I wish I had the exact quotes handy, but there was a recent interchange that really summed it up for me. I think it started with a tweet from President Trump —
Statement: “Lots of cops are good people”
Response: “That is probably the most racist statement I have ever heard in my life.”
1) Race wasn’t mentioned in the statement.
2) It’s a true statement.
3) We obviously live in a country where no one ever actually hears anything even remotely racist.
Not to show my age, but this morning I was watching Hopalong Cassidy rerun from 1954 and at the end of the show he talked about not calling policemen Cops. That is was disrespectful to the policeman. He also reminded Kids to go to Sunday School. My how times have changed.
COP = Constable On Patrol.
Something I learned quickly is that if you had something private to share, you didn’t share it with a COP. They don’t do privacy and confidentiality well. However, if you get on the “Team”, you’re good - everyone has your back. But I digress.
My assessment is that 99% of LEOs are straight-up folks with a strong ideology in the Civil Society Compact and do their jobs with that overarching cause. But I’ve heard, seen and witnessed how brutal, ugly and dysfunctional LEOs can be for reasons beyond anyone’s control. Some too heinous to post here or anywhere else. It shocks the soul.
I’ve had precious few contacts with LE on the “professional-level” other than a traffic stop here and there over many decades and a few incidents of “citizen assistance” and “welfare checks” for neighbors or family. I have NEVER departed those instances without saying “Thank you”, even when it was going to cost me a fine for doing something I should not have been doing. They have jobs I would never go near and I still have an appreciation of giving service to community.
Let us not forget to call out the scumbags that are psychologically deficient for that role in society and shouldn’t be anywhere near the civilian population, but sometimes get into the LE system where they become sociopathic and mentally ill. It’s a sad Paradox and like any other collective, throws shade on the entire category of LE. Not an easy fix.
I am also old, I am also a Leo. I will be 79 on August 6
COP means Constable on Patrol.
This is the real meaning for the abbreviation Cop. Wish the protesters and the news reporters would use it correctly.
There is about 700,000 police officers.
ALL democrat politicians are corrupt and will betray anyone to get money and power.
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