THEY CALL ME MR. PO PO

“BEING A POLICE OFFICER” or “THEY CALL ME MR. PO PO”


Someone asked me to share with them what it means to be a police officer. This is what I say….

When you first become a police officer, you think you are really going to make a difference. You feel like your presence on the street is going to bring peace to a chaotic situation, justice to an unfair world and light to all the dark places of evil in the city. Lofty and noble goals indeed, but that is how you feel inside. It is this dream that propels you as you endure both the physical, mental, emotional and financial hardships of training. It is this dream and the enduring of such hardship that makes you proud, your family proud and even some of your friends proud about your achievement. It is this dream that compels you to take on a job that asks the ultimate sacrifice from you yet, by comparison, compensates you so little. In spite of knowing that police officers work demanding hours, die earlier and have more failed relationships than the general public you still want the job. Why?

That is just it. Being a police officer is more than just a job, it is a calling. The values and beliefs of a free society determines the laws it develops for itself. The laws provide a boundary which sets limitations on and guidelines for individual and group behavior within a society in order to maintain social order and peace; provide for the safety of its citizens and their property and protect the rights of individuals afforded them by their government. The police are the guardians of the free function of a society who maintain or restore the order and peace of a society through the unbiased enforcement of its laws or through the sound application of its values and beliefs to achieve the purpose of the law. The police officer holds an office of public trust within a society and is a representative of the values and beliefs of that society. Therefore the police officer is expected, by the citizens of a society, to be the personification and embodiment of its values and beliefs, an equitable and just administrator of its laws and a model for the law abiding citizen to emulate.

As a new officer you are full of “piss and vinegar” as the old guys will tell you. You want to run after everything that runs, while the old guys tell you, “Let the radio catch ‘em.” You want to go through the doors first and drive the police car fast, with the lights and sirens blaring of course. Otherwise, what is the point? The old guys will tell you to still stop at every red light though. At roll call you want to look the best you can and at the end of the day you want to have made the most arrests, the most traffic stops, the most pedestrian stops and wrote the most traffic tickets. All, of course, in the most dangerous parts of your patrol area.

But then reality begins to set in quite quickly when you realize that most of police work is actually driving from place to place meeting with citizens who have complaints and problems that need to be written down in a police report. It is ironic that the one thing you spend the most time doing, you probably gave the least importance to while you were in training. After all, how glamorous is writing a police report?

As time goes on, the reports began to sound the same. Sure the people are different, but the problems and the complaints are the same. Could it be that all of these people share the same struggles and hardships. Can it be that they all share the same inability to solve the own problems without the intervention of an outside authority in their lives. Maybe it is that they have so become accustomed to “the government” doing everything for them that they just don’t have the desire to do for themselves. They look to “the government” to tell them how to be married, get unmarried, raise their children, be kind to their neighbors and have more respect for themselves. And since the police officer is the first line of “the government” these people see, we get the pleasure of having those types of conversations multiple times a day. Such a continuous flood of repetitive conversations about the same solvable “unsolvable problems”, with seemingly the same people, wears you down. It creates apathy and some disdain for the very people you thought you wanted to help in the first place.

This jaded position is certainly unrealistic because, in fact, most of the people in the community are not calling you with these “unsolvable problems” as they know how to effectively navigate life without the over involvement of “the government”. But those people never call. No one ever calls you to come to their house to see how well Little Johnny is doing in school. No one ever calls you to come over to their house to see how well their marriage is going. No one ever calls to show you that none of their worldly possessions have disappeared overnight. And certainly no one ever calls you over to their house just to say thank you. But then that is not what you were called to do. You were called “to protect and to serve” so just shut up and do it. For the most part, police work is a difficult and thankless job. But every now and then, something happens or you come in contact with someone who makes it all worth while.

Of course, the other aspect of police work is dealing with the criminals themselves. Contrary to the citizens, these people really don’t want to see you. They don’t call and they prefer to handle their own problems their own way. That would be fine and dandy except that their ways of coping and conflict resolution are the major reasons your job exists in the first place. I often have marveled at how much time, energy and talent criminals put into their escapades. It seems to me that the same amount of the same resources would have paid off in legitimate arenas and thus would have nullified the necessity of any future negative interaction with “the government”. After a period of time of seeing the blood, pain, tears, fears, dead bodies and broken lives, you just wag your head and ask “Why?” Each time you ask, you have a different answer. Is it the fact that the father is gone? Is the fact that the mother has to be absent at work? Is the fact that the children have to live in survival mode all of the time? Is it their environment? Is it the lack of religious training? Is it peer pressure? Is it a lack of education? Is it a combination of all of the above? You don’t really know, so you just keep wagging your head.

After a while, it doesn’t really matter. Someone will ask you who is that laying dead on the ground? You don’t know because you never took time to notice. He is just another 15 to 25 year old male who was killed. Same as the one two days ago. Same as the two a week ago. Same as the three a month ago. After awhile, they all seem the same. You just grow numb. Numb to the blood on the streets, numb to the pain and suffering, numb to the tears of the mothers, numb to the fears of the little children, numb to the sight of all the dead bodies and numb to the trail of broken lives such things leave behind as well as create. It is as though a part of your own humanity has died with them.

It is the repetitive nature of crime that gives it such a sense of permanence as to make you feel like all your efforts to prevent it are in vain. No matter how hard you try or how many you put in jail, there will always be another one to take the place of the one you put away. In most instances, due to the way the justice system works, the same criminals are freed and free to perpetrate the same crimes. Can you imagine how disheartening it is to, at great peril to yourself, apprehend a criminal only to see him in the same spot you arrested him in just a week later? Can you imagine how disheartening it is to see a criminal’s rap sheet and read multiple murder charges and robbery charges? Why is he free? After awhile you figure, “What is the use?” There will always be more of them than us. They stay the same age, 15 to 25, as we just grow older. They have the advantage in numbers, they have the advantage in the courts and they have the advantage on the streets. Or do they?

In reality, they do not! We perceive them to be everywhere at all times because we hear about them the most on the news. They appear to be all powerful because we are often reminded on the news of the dreadful things they are capable of. They appear to be invincible because most of our singular efforts to contain, control or eliminate them are often thwarted. It is this singular approach that gives them power and increases their number. I am reminded of the saying, “All that is needed for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing.” Well while we are not just doing nothing, perhaps we could work more closer together to get better results. The fact is that the good citizens, the police and the court system are infinitely more powerful than any group of criminals. It takes a cooperative, determined and unified partnership to defeat crime and its affects on our society. Policing should not be relegated to just a few souls who complete the training and hold the sworn office. Policing is an involved community effort and the police officer is merely the enforcement and apprehension arm of this effort. And in a more than symbolic gesture of the gavel, the court system should serve to lower the boom on criminals and remove them from the citizenry. It is only as this partnership works we will began to get a grip on crime and gain the advantage. And as we do, we can began to make a difference in changing the causative factors that lead up to criminal activity. But it will take all of us families, clergy, social organizations, business groups, professional groups, retirees, activists, blue collar workers, white collar workers and no collar workers to get involved and make a difference.

So if you really want to know what it means to be a police officer, look in your mirror and ask yourself, “What police work have I done today?” You are the police!


Written by:
@ewjjr
http://ewjtoday.blogspot.com


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