WHAT SETS COPS APART FROM OTHERS?

Mannerisms common to cops, suspiciousness of everyone that is not a cop, and self-imposed social isolation work to the detriment of police officers

In “Clearly Identifiable”, yesterday’s Sunday sermon on PACOVILLA Corrections blog, Greg ‘Gadfly’ Doyle illustrated what sets cops apart from others.

Greg, a retired Upland, California police sergeant, notes that most cops tend to socialize only with other cops, and when they do, it often results “in nonproductive grumbling-and-complaining sessions with consumption of alcoholic beverages in quantities beyond moderation.” Greg found that his home life was enhanced if he “left his work at work” and that through his church attendance he “learned more about the meaning of justice from reading Scripture than from any other legal source or instructor.”

Here are some excerpts from Greg’s sermon:

Perhaps the difficulty for others, in making a connection between my participation in church life and “life on the outside” (i.e., my [police] work), was because I had not exhibited typical “cop” behaviors at church. I did not strut about like a rooster. Conversations were not in code-talk, or turned into interrogations. Everyone I encountered was not a possible suspect. I attempted to greet folks by using their first names, instead of referring to them as “Sir” or “Ma'am.” And I never ordered anyone to “show me your hands,” unless it was to invite the congregation to raise them in an act of worship during a praise song.

Sworn peace officers are granted incredible authority and power by the State, yet they are also bound by oath to a duty that bears tremendous responsibility and public trust. The demands of the job, and the highly stressful nature of its calling, can emotionally cripple those who carry a badge and gun, if steps are not taken to counteract corrupting influences. Cops speak in ten-codes, penal codes, and abbreviations. Sometimes they are tasked to drive at tremendous speeds to chase fleeing suspects, then are scrutinized, second-guessed, and ridiculed by their superiors and the public, when they crash. Cops deal with complaints and other people's problems each shift. The people they serve often misunderstand them. On occasion cops are mismanaged by police staff. And peace officers are prone to make mistakes just like everyone else.

Sometimes people run from the police, spit in their faces, yell profanities and insults at them, threaten, assault and batter them, stab and shoot at them. Being a cop is about being in control of one's situation to maintain order, of survival, of overcoming resistance, and using physical, as well as deadly, force. To be successful, a peace officer must not only know the law, he or she must be the law, and that law must be just in its administration at all times. And when an error in judgment is made, cops can be disciplined, suspended without pay, demoted in rank, fired, sued civilly and, in rarer instances, tried criminally. And I had observed, all too often, that most cops tended to isolate themselves socially from the rest of the population. In other words, who better could identify and understand a cop, than another cop? In my experience, cops tended to associate with other cops to the exclusion of others and, unfortunately, to the detriment of themselves.