Perhaps he should have blamed the corrupting influence of television. After all, isn't there profanity on NYPD Blue? He could have brought this up as a defense and then dropped his pants and shown his butt to the judge. Gritty police realism with problems wrapped up in under an hour.
I agree with your comments, dix. Expecially about how being a policeman is gritty. Oftentimes, it's also an unrewarding profession. They put their lives on the line, every day. They are a target, every time they put on their uniform. They are willing to do what many of us are not. We call them to protect us, help us, or help others who are in situations that are dangerous (drunks loaded with guns or anger, or domestic violence, for example), where emotions run rampant and sanity does not. They see death, if not daily, then weekly. Like ER docs, they have to remove their feelings from tragedy, from the sight of death. Many deal with that by joking about it with their comrades. This is not done with disrespect toward the badly injured or dead, but to keep their own sanity and ability to "do their job." What good is a policeman, or doctor, who cries at every injured/dead person? I couldn't do this. And so, they are oftentimes perceived as uncaring or tactless. (I am not defending anyone who is unkind to the family/relatives of the injured/dead.....I'm just saying those kinds of jobs force one to act in ways that keep them from crumbling. Along with that, I suppose, the language they use becomes less than "proper." I have been around a lot of cops. They routinely swear---all of them. When they are around women, however, they try to refrain from this talk, but it's difficult to do because, when they're just around the guys, that's the way it is: "f this, f that," etc. I could care less about how my superior would talk if I worked in that environment, it's much different than the environment of, say, a bank or law firm, where I can expect the language used to be "proper." Just my two cents here on the language subject.