The Truth behind the Badge:
Who
Are We-Part One
I
sat and read the words of an essay written by an officer who did the job for
ten years. I see the things going on
around the country, things that spread into the world, went global. The truth is that everybody who ever pinned a
badge on a uniform shirt, everybody that ever raised their right hand and swore
to uphold the laws and everybody that ever ran into a scene or situation that
most would run away from has a story to tell.
These stories are no doubt going to bastardize being a cop and some of
them will do the same to law enforcement and public service. They will be written with the best of
intentions, to share the side of the system that is less talked about, to share
those stories untold by the men that wear the uniforms; that wear or wore the
badge.
A
few months ago, after over twenty years in the law enforcement community, I
found myself at a point where I had suffered enough. I no longer had an upside to being a member
of what once was a brotherhood, a family.
In my twenty-three years, even as just a college intern, I have seen
nearly every example of what to do, right or wrong. I've seen good men tested, bad men get ahead
and many others enjoy the perks of being from the right town, drinking with the
right boss or coming from the right background.
I found myself on the receiving end of many beatings at the hands of the
accused, accused of things I was innocent of, a few I was not so innocent of
and somehow managed to persevere in one of the most rewarding environments I'd
ever stepped into. It was, as I look
back, rewarding. It was rewarding, then
slowly, over time, I was forced to see the ugliness of men as it began to turn
into perhaps the most toxic part of my life for a lot of years.
With
all the time I had, seeing what the world has become in just a few short
months, I like many am seeing the stories of good and evil. I'm wondering how the system ever becomes
better as its' champions and detractors stand firmly on the extreme sides of
left and right. The smartest thing I
have heard, is it all starts with discussions.
Maybe, by getting the toxicity out of our systems, sharing our feelings
as human beings that have been exposed to this increasingly toxic system, we
can all steer towards a better world.
Therefore, with that in mind, I will share my experiences both good and
bad.
Why
do they do it? You can watch all the
videos and all the news coverage in the world.
The question is not likely to be answered by the videos because its' a
minority of people that are being shown in the videos. For that, you would have to go take a
poll. I can only give examples from the
few that I remember. One, a particularly
weasel was trying to follow his fathers' footsteps. It is a nice intention to honor ones father
but the ideas he had about people were so far off that either daddy came home
from nights on patrol and filled the kids head with hate because of the things
he saw as a trooper or the kid was a bullied child using his new found
authority to exact his revenge.
I
remember the kid. He was a young buck,
full of exuberance, living and breathing for the job. When we worked together in the nineties into
the early part of the new millennium he could be a fun one to work with. Occasionally I would have to rein him in;
occasionally I would shake my head in confusion. I'd find myself both disgusted and bewildered
by the young man. At first, we were
corrections deputies. Like most guys
that wanted to be cops, the stress of being locked up with the inmates proved
too much for him. I will never forget
his famed statement, "I'm glad you're here tonight. When you're not here I have to treat these
people differently." I, at that
moment, knew the kid shouldn't be there because if he needed someone my size to
do business "his way" his way wasn't the right way to be.
As
younger people working in a jail facility, especially back then, many of our
duties were less than officer like. We
would have to bounce back and forth between ancillary duties and the duties of
securing the inmates. On one of those
nights, I drew kitchen duty in our small jail.
I was preparing breakfast while we held a rather obnoxious drunk in the
holding area until he sobered up. My
partner, we'll call him "B", comes into the kitchen and shows me a
container of peanut butter. It was
apparently the peanut butter from the transient drunks' pack. B, in his youth, decided to punish the drunk
by urinating in the man's peanut butter.
Disgusting, right? Teaching a
younger generation of officer is a hard job and as much as you can guide,
instruct and try to teach the next generation of officer you cannot teach
maturity. Growing up, becoming a man
with a gun on your hip, is a thing the military specializes in, not local small
town police agencies or sheriffs' departments.
Even
after this young officer left the county, it wasn't the end of my work
experiences with him. Like many young
officers, moving on to a small town is the next step. Especially when the larger towns will not
hire you because you have invested nothing into a college education, a
requirement in most of the larger metropolitan police agencies and state
patrols. Fast forward to two-thousand
and four, this young man had been working in a small town we affectionately
called A-town. I had decided to try patrol,
having been my long-term goal from the time I went to college to then in the
story.
Now,
he had a few years of patrol experience so when I went to work in A-Town as a
part time patrol officer I was going to ride with the younger guy for a couple of
days. Day one went all right. Day two, we were sitting in an insurance
parking lot. I actually get my current
insurance from an agent there today. As
we're sitting there, going over a couple of things he could show me from the
patrol side of law enforcement, suddenly and without warning B starts yelling
and pointing at a car that was driving in front of us. "Get him, get him he yells."
I
lit that car up and chased it maybe a hundred and fifty to two hundred
feet. My first car chase was short-lived
and very anti-climactic. When we pulled over,
I asked him, "What did you see?"
What
did you see turned into an attempt at telling me three dozen vehicle code
violations. Most of the violations were
things that nobody would know other than a state trooper. In a town full of what the chief called
"Traffic Nazis" these guys thrived on traffic violations just praying
for something bigger. If B had been
paying attention, it was festival time in little A-town and these guys were
moving parts from a garage on one side of the main drag to a spot down the
street as the put together a demolition derby car. They actually appeared to be traveling around
fifteen miles an hour or less, carefully doing what the needed to do so they
could move the parts, get the car together and take part in entertaining the
town in just a couple of days.
The
driver and his passengers, they were all polite, wondered what they had done
and provided me with their insurance card and license. Knowing what the reason for our stop was, I
found it to be a ridiculous reason to cite anybody and seriously questioned why
the training officer found it such an imperative that we pull this car
over. We had watched the process all day
long as they moved from one house to another, getting their car ready. The result in B's eyes was going to be a
citation. As the driver of the squad,
"It's your call," he tells me.
Therefore, I promptly took their license and insurance card back to the
car, told them that we pulled them over because of their trailer being out of
code, told them I was not writing the ticket for it because I could tell how
careful they were being and it did not serve a real purpose and let them
go.
The
Chief of Police backed the call. I
learned that its' called officers discretion.
Officers have a certain amount of discretionary power in policing. The verbal warning, due to racial profiling
issues is somewhat outdated now, even though I am sure older officers heading
toward retirement probably use it. The
chief at the time took me into the office, told me he really did not need any
more traffic Nazis,
A
few months later, my main job changed my schedule and I had to decide between
part-time patrol and a full-time career position. Not much of a decision as a single parent, so
I was forced to move on with my life minus the patrol opportunity. My experiences with this officer though
showed me something as I hoped I showed him something. Not everything is as clear to people as they
think it is and just because, on paper, a young person has what it takes to
hold a job with the authority of a badge, arrest powers and use of
weapons.
I
don't wish any ill will to the guy. Let
us hope he matured into a great officer and made his father proud. Let us hope he became more secure with
himself and doesn't have to resort to underhanded and back door tactics. Let us hope he figured out it was all just a
job and not to take things so dammed personally.
By: J. Ray
