I am a retired police officer. Please take note of the word “retired”. Though I have not spent 30 or 40 years in law enforcement, I’ve been there enough. In the words of my good friend Brad Spaulding, former deputy sheriff turned physician, “we’ve seen what no man should see”. I will spare you the gory details.
I turned to a career in law enforcement after having been an adult probation officer for three years. Frankly, I saw the futility of corrections and the uselessness of honest assessments of convicted felons in sentencing recommendations to judges. It all amounts to plea agreements between prosecutors and defense attorneys. Occasionally probation revocation happens, but the reality is that it is a joke. Probation officers, at least when I carried that title, were not to be feared nor respected nor were they a resource for help in cleaning up a life after serious misjudgments and poor decisions. They were tolerated at best. So, I made the move to policing. Other motivations for making the change sound like a job interview response, but nonetheless were genuine.
I didn’t win any popularity contests as a police officer. I had a few friends on the police department, but as I moved into administration you could say that a certain distance developed. In spite of that distance I knew I could always count on my brother officers to have my back. I found my name scratched into the paint in jail cells. Those were not love notes. I also saw my name spray-painted in the company of four-letter words on the sides of brick walls in town. I assumed that it meant that I was doing something right. In spite of what some may have thought I was able to go home each day at the end of my shift with my head held high and I could look myself in the eyes in the morning when I shaved. I think I can say the same for my good friends Chuck Barone, Gerald Weeks, John Chicoine, and New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy Directory Jim Burleson. There is something to be said for the Mirror Test.
Life as a police officer is different. They carry around an extra 20 pounds (less the bullet-proof vest, which really isn’t all that bullet-proof) with you while on duty. While off duty they might just carry an extra six or seven pounds-plus or minus. Police don’t drive police cars. They drive “units”. And, they don’t stop cars when they make traffic stops; they stop vehicles. Unlike television they do not chase UNSUBS; they go after unknown suspects and unknown subjects. DNA results do not come in an hour after you submit evidence to the crime lab. Generally there is such a backlog of evidence at the crime lab that you are lucky to hear results in months. Also, unlike their television counterparts they don’t all congregate at O’Malley’s for a pitcher of beer every night after work. (O.K., some go to O’Malley’s after work, but not every night.) They go home. At least most of them do. Each year about a hundred (plus or minus) don’t go home. Ever.
Not to belabor the point, but life as a police officer is in fact different. You learn to look at a person’s eyes, hands, and waist. Eyes telegraph movement. Hands carry out that movement. You often find that movement near the waist, but not always. You develop very few real friends outside of law enforcement. When you go to social events the only thing people want to talk about is what happened at three o’clock Tuesday afternoon when they heard all the sirens. “How’s police work?” is a common question. I guess that question replaces, “How’s the family?” Though you may be an expert in criminal law people forget that (1) you are not an attorney, and (2) that you don’t know squat about family law, torts, and patent law. You get a name change when you go into police work. It is brought to you by the letter “F”, and it isn’t Frank or Fred or Felix. It isn’t Officer Friendly, either. You don’t like to eat out in the town where you work because you know who is back in the kitchen. Yes, I’ve found things in my food. When you go out you sit with your back to the wall and so you can see who comes in and out the door. (I still do.) When you drive your kids to the big game on Friday night or when you head out on a road trip you tend to go “on patrol” looking at license plates or at signs that a car might be stolen or carrying something other than passengers and groceries. Trust is something that is earned over years and broken overnight.
There are some good things that help offset the bad. Once in a while you find a lost child. Every now and then somebody thanks you for changing a flat tire. You can be there to wipe away a tear or hold a person in your arms when you deliver a bad message. Sometimes you can solve a crime or return stolen property to its owner. Every once-in-a-lifetime you might be able to save a life.
I am a retired police officer. Please take note of the word “retired”. I loved my career. I wouldn’t go back to it for anything.
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