My Leo is a hero

May 25, 2003 | Arpege92

[Arpege92]

I know alot of people have no room in their heart for Police Officer's and in a strange way, I understand that sometimes but before anyone makes a final judgement on all police officer's, please allow me to tell you my side of this debate.

I have been married to a police officer for twelve years....some good and some bad. He has seen some of the most tragic and de-humanizing sides of people and he has seen the best as well. He is the kind of police officer to stop at the house of a lonely elderly man who just lost his wife. He is the kind of police officer who will take the time to fix the mailbox for a family who can't afford to get it fixed for themselves....of course, he does this on his own time and with his own money.

He is the kind of police officer who cried at the drowning of a two year old little girl. This happened while I was pregnant with our son and to this day, he refuses to get a swimming pool. He is the kind of police officer who will drive a man to a hospital where his wife is fighting for her life and it doesn't matter how long it takes or how long he has to wait.

He is an excellent father to his son, he is an excellent husband to me and there isn't anything he wouldn't do for his entire family. His father is disabled and whenever he needs my hero, he is there.

My husband has been called just about every bad word you could think of......his patience has been put to the test.....and yet, he has this quality about him of never letting his anger get the best of him. His ability to stay in control in some of the worst circumstances is mind blowing and the respect he has of his junior officers is well known.

Am I biased? You damn right I am....police officer's don't get good quality press time. In fact, the only time cops get press time is when something has gone wrong. The press isn't interested in the truth about police officers....it's better stories for them! Al Sharpton and his cronies are the first to appear in front of a camera when a black person is killed at the hands of police officers and they aren't interested in the whole truth. It doesn't matter to them! Look at Tawana Brawley, this happened in my own back yard and the lives he ruined are just casualties in his quest for top black leader!

So, when you accuse all cops of being looters, murderers and whatever else you can come up with, please have the common courtesy of knowing all of the facts before you make final judgements. That is my hero you are talking about!!!

[Roscoe]

Given the attacks on our police officers this Memorial Day, I thought you might find the following of interest:


Did You Know?


More than 14,000 law enforcement officers have been killed in the line of duty. (Over 6,000 officers killed since 1960).


Every year between 150 and 165 law enforcement officers are killed in the line of duty. (Over 300 children of police officers will need assistance in dealing with the grief of losing a parent.)


Every 57 hours somewhere in America a law enforcement dies in service to the community.


Two police officers are shot every day in the United States.


Most officers are killed during arrest situations, disturbances and car crashes.


Most officers are killed between 4:01 P.M. and Midnight 25% of officers killed are killed with their own weapon.


Most officers are killed within 60 seconds of contact with suspect.


40% of the time the officer is alone or has no backup available.


More than 189 police officers are assaulted every day in the U.S. (68,985 assaulted yearly) and rising (that is one out of every nine).


The FBI reports that on yearly average: 380 officers are the targets of unprovoked attacks by ambush, resulting in 21 law enforcement deaths.


I am very confident in saying , that if a judge was killed every 57 hours, or 69,000 judges were assaulted annually, laws would be enacted overnight to severely penalize the offenders. It is a sad fact that in the majority of states, assaulting a police officer is only a misdemeanor offense.


"Police work is the only profession that gives you the test first, then the lesson" .

Source-The Constable Public Safety Memorial Foundation, Inc.
P.O. Box 6415
Bend, Oregon 97708-6415

[Arpege92]

Well, thank you! I will pass that on to him.

[Arpege92]

LOL....we got em on the run Roscoe!

[Arpege92]

I will be saying an extra prayer for those who are protecting us.....here at home and abroad!

[eno_]

What Roscoe doesn't say, of course, that cops are less likely to be murdered than the general population.

He also, rather tendentiously, lumps car accidents into fatality figures (without, of course, enumerating traffic deaths caused by police in high speed chases - another winning police tactic).

And the shot with their own gun thing - that would include suicides.

My numbers contain no such distortions.

[Roscoe]

Of course, the cop haters will belittle the deaths of police officers.

[Teacher317]

Maybe I didn't word my post quite the way I should have. The advice was sincere, not snide. Since you were getting some rather standoffish replies, I should've tempered my dissent a bit differently. My apologies. Many posters say "all cops" knowing full well that most are not problematic. I recognize that, and just wanted to point out that it would be good for your blood pressure if you did, too.

As for the solutions I offer, this post of mine on a different thread addresses some of my proposals for Law Enforcement officers: One of the many reasons we honor LEO's so much is that they must do their challenging and dangerous job of protecting us in the face of these limitations. Personally, I'm all for those ideas that will make for a better police force... ideas like making it easier to fire bad LEO's (unions make every profession's performance worse in the long run), modifications to evidentiary rules (the Miranda warning exclusions are rather silly), accountability for those LEO's who make mistakes that harm others (including perjury), income tax exemptions (increases net pay which increases supply and allows for more competition), repeal of property confiscation laws (that encourage legal theft), etc.

Finally, I bash my fellow teachers just as hard as I do the boys in blue (and virtually every other unionized profession... this is no coincidence, LOL.)

So do me a favor and get off of your soap box and pay attention to those who are closer to the issues

Well, now, I've never smooched my father, uncle, brother, or male cousins as heavily as you smooch your hubby, but I feel rather close to them nonetheless. I'm comfortable asserting that I'm reasonably close to policeman issues.

[eno_]

your made up lies about police officers

Once nice thing about a superior attitude is it lets me skip right over any thoughts about asking for an apology and going stright to rubbing your nose in it.

To recap post #50, the facts are, in NYC, which is not the worst big PD:

In 1999 189,013 serious crimes were reported in NYC.

Sounds like a lot, right? Sounds like every NYC cop better be solving a burglary or robbery every two days - maybe 50-100 crimes per cop per year to cover that. Right?

Nationwide, the solution rate for violent crime is 46%, and for property crime excluding arson, 16% (FBI UCR). Do you think NYC is beating those numbers?

NYC has about 40,000 uniformed officers. That's right: More than one officer for every 5 serious crimes reported each year.

That means some cops, on averge, fail to solve even one crime in a whole year!

It costs NYC $118,025 in salary and benefits for one uniformed cop. Plus equipment, management overhead, facilities, etc.

Cost to solve a single serious crime in NYC: $25,000 to $30,000. That means the averge cost of a solved crime is at or near: $100,000

[Roscoe]

Police Clean Graves to Honor Fallen Comrades

By Rhina Guidos
The Salt Lake Tribune
MONDAY May 26, 2003

If anyone deserves to rest on Memorial Day weekend, it's anyone affiliated with armed services or law enforcement. But some members of Salt Lake City's Police Department do not see it that way.

For the past three years, a group of officers has marked the holiday doing hard work, cleaning the graves of the department's 24 fallen members.

Starting with a quick Saturday meeting, they spread to Salt Lake City area cemeteries, to Heber City and anywhere within a 50-mile radius where a past fallen member is buried.

No one gets paid except with the satisfaction of knowing that those who sacrificed their lives will be remembered, said Capt. Judy Dencker, who along with husband Steve Diamond, organize the event.

"And frankly, we wouldn't want anyone to come just to get paid," she said.

"This is to remember persons who gave their lives so we could have a safer place to live. They were stopped by evil."

The group attempts to make it to every grave.

It is sometimes a sad occasion because they come in contact with graves that haven't been visited or cared for in a long time, the result of families that have moved away or just drifted far from the memory of loved ones.

Even the police department had forgotten to pay respect to the graves over the years, until Diamond and Dencker decided it was time to start remembering the fallen officers' sacrifices three years ago.

"They just got lost in the shuffle," Diamond said. Nowadays, officers show up with cleaning materials and American flags in hand. Some donate money that goes toward maintaining the graves in good condition.

Though maintaining them in good shape is important, Dencker hopes the event will foster a respect for the lives lost on duty.

"Some are starting to bring their kids," Dencker said about the officers helping with the Memorial Day weekend cleanup. "This is going to go on so we don't forget the sacrifices."

[Roscoe]

So just what percentage of our nation's police officers are you trying to smear as bad, cop hater?

[Sally'sConcerns]

Just as in any profession, there are a few bad apples. Unfortunately those are the ones that receive the bad press.

In the early 80's in Dallas I had 2 good friends who were police officers. One was ambushed in the parking lot of our apartment complex. Some a$$ho** decided to shoot him in the head. He was a great guy and in a lot of respects was like your husband. The funeral service was held in the biggest Baptist Church and had an overflow crowd.

My other cop friend was also one of the good guys. He and his wife (also a cop) were involved in a (for lack of a better word) shootout in one of the mall parking lots. He saw her get shot. She survived and when I met them, she was disabled.

I used to go riding with him as a civilian observer about once every 6 weeks or so. Sometimes he had a partner with him and sometimes he was a one person patrol. Cops have a thankless job.

I remember one night where a domestic distubance came in when it was him and I. I've never been so scared! Before he went to the door, he told me if he wasn't back in 5 minutes to get on the radio and call for back-up. He also got the shotgun and put it in my hands and told me to use it if I needed to.

BTW, to anyone who wants to flame me about whether it was a shotgun or a rifle...don't. It was dark because he worked the 11 pm to 7 am shift and I wasn't all that familiar with guns then anyway.

Kudo's to your husband, he sounds like a wonderful guy.

[Sally'sConcerns]

Go be a civilian observer in a big city and then come back stating good cops are very rare.

[Arpege92]

There has been a major change in police chases in my area and that was done to protect the innocent drivers. They are only allowed to chase vehicles under strict guide lines.

I know you refuse to believe it but most police officers don't begin there shifts with a "how many citizens can we kill today" attitude.....can you say the same thing for criminals?

As noble the police profession is, I don't want my son to be a cop. It's bad enough the criminals are well gunned but the situation is made worse when the public holds them accountable without knowing all the facts. I suppose you could partly blame that on the liberal news.....but then the public doesn't put much faith in there reporting. If this fact is true, then why do people believe these same liberal news media's when reporting on police officers?

I read an article about police officers profiling black drivers and according to this article, the police generally avoid pulling over blacks....they say it's not worth it. Who wants to appear on the news as that racist cop.

If people like you are constantly accusing police officers of illegal stops and searches, then why don't you turn them in? If your afraid of the local police, then call some reporters and have them look into your allegations. Your inactions remind me of the french in World WarII who turned a blind eye to the murdering of millions of Jews. You want police reforms then I suggest you get involved and try to help that change.

[eno_]

Go be a civilian observer...

"Civilian," eh? You probably don't even have a clue why that's wrong.

[Roscoe]

"Civilian," eh? You probably don't even have a clue why that's wrong.

Lemme guess: Because you imagine yourself to be an as yet undiscovered General in a militia that will someday gun down all the police?

[I got the rope]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/917640/posts?page=29#29

No I think he was refering to my previous comment.

[Roscoe]

What does that have to do with civilian observers?

[eno_]

If people like you are constantly accusing police officers of illegal stops and searches, then why don't you turn them in? If your afraid of the local police, then call some reporters and have them look into your allegations. Your inactions remind me of the french in World WarII who turned a blind eye to the murdering of millions of Jews. You want police reforms then I suggest you get involved and try to help that change.

That's a little nervy. You have no idea, for one thing, that I know the chief in my town very well and I supported him in throwing out the DARE program. I educated a lot of worried soccer moms that DARE was a counterproductive boondoggle.

For another, you probably haven't looked at those FBI UCR stats. You probably don't know your hometown's solution rates and the cost ratios relative to the police budget. You could be living in the perfect town: highly effective police that solve most crime. OR, you COULD BE living in a corrupted, over-unioned, overpaid, disabilty slacker hellhole. You don't know. Do you?

[Arpege92]

I will be sending out prayers for your friends. Domestic fights can be the most dangerous calls for cops. A former police officer from my husbands department answered a Domestic fight between the parents and there seventeen year old son.

To make a long story short, this teenager had a history of mental illness but the parents forgot to mention that fact before he approached this kid.....they also forgot to mention that the teenager had a knife. This cop was stabbed numerous times. The other cops had a hard time pulling this kid off.....at first they didn't expect the cop to live but he did and he also retired from the profession.

[Sally'sConcerns]

So explain why that's wrong since you consider me clueless.