I am/was a ranch kid. I was raised to be respectful. However, I was taught authorities are NOT not always right or justified just because the are in that position. That you had a moral obligation to refuse illegal orders and commands. Dad and all the uncles and nearly all the cousins that were WWII combat vets. Uncle Gerald was a Army Ranger (pathfinder) and was one of the first guys into several concentration camps. Those guys never forgot what "just following orders" could lead to. Uncle Darrel retired from the Navy as an E-9 having gone in in 1937 and retiring with service in WWII, Korea and Vietnam. ( Active duty through Korea and reserve unit called up for Vietnam) Dad had a pilot's license, an Engineering degree and was a wing designer for Curtis Wright in BUffalo, NY. In 1939 he went up and joined the Canucks in the RCAF. He flew recon flights over the channel in a Mosquito till 1941 when he was "transferred to the US Army Air Corps in 1941 and ended up flying 17s. Then back to the states and retrained for B29s and sent to MHAFB to train guys for the bombing of the Japanese home island. He met mom at a American Legion dance in Bruneau, ID pop 354 as a 31 year old Bird CLN whne she was 17. They waited 5 months till she turned 18 and they got married 4 days later. They were married 52 years before he died.
I feel damned lucky to have been raised by and around those old boys who had VERY strict moral and ethical code along with a sense of "justice" and stuck to it come Hell or high water
I have to admit it probably made me a terrible employee for the brass. You earned respect in my family and you didn't get "because" you occupied a position.
Real life LEO experience. Got out of the Army and went to work for ISP as a State Trooper. At the time I was the youngest guy they had ever hired. It was also the largest hire they had ever made, 32 guys. This was on an agency that from superintendent down had 88 guys.. This was with a huge LEAA grant.
First time I stopped a little old lady about 80+ years old and she started swearing at me, I just stood there thinking, my grandma and great aunts would NEVER do this stuff. Then she started slapping me in the face. I just stood there in confusion. My SGT had rolled up to watch the new guy. He walked up behind me and quietly asked "So, just how many times are you going to let her hit you"? I still had a hard time bring myself to wrestle her down and cuff her.
Same SGT watched me try and control my temper as some guy berated me while I wrote a ticket. Back then reprisals of a physical nature would get you fired in a heart beat. After the stop SGT walked up and said "Don't get mad or display anger". "Just keep writing tickets. Nearly every car on the road has at least 3 or 4 equipment violations unless it's new off the show room floor, especially out here in rural America". Next time I got a jerk, he blown a stop sign with no attempt to drake at all AND due to attitude was getting the ticket. As I wrote the ticket he was yelling at me and calling me every foul name he could think of. I presented him with the ticket and asked him to sign. At first he refused and I explained the signature was his promise to handle the ticket or appear in court at the designated time and place in lieu of arrest and posting bail and a bond. He signed. "Am I free to go"? NO. I walked around and wrote him the chippiest tickets on the books, that we seldom if ever wrote. #2 Insufficient tread depth. #3 Inoperative rear license plate light. #4 Crack in the windshield. At ticket #3 he actually shut up. At ticket #4 he said "I flunked the attitude check, didn't I"? YES. As I started on ticket #5 for improper placement of his annual sticker on his license plates he asked "If I apologize would you not write that ticket"? NO "If I apologize is that the last one"? YES. He DID apologize and he DID pay all the tickets without going to court, just a little over $500..
This was in rural Idaho and you run into the same people all the time. A couple weeks later I'm at the local Dennys having dinner. (We were required to take of meals in a public restaurant and they were part of our 8 hour shift and we had a meal allowance. That was so people knew we were around and the could come up and talk etc) They guy walked into the restaurant with a couple of friends and I braced for trouble. Then he got a HUGE smile on his face and started telling his buddies, "Hey it's that trooper that wrote me all the tickets I told you about". Like it was the funniest practical joke ever pulled. They walked over to the table and introduced them selves and were laughing at the "Victim". One of them said "Good for you, sometimes John can be a real A Hole". Huge smile and laughs.. They went to another table and laughed and joked while they drank their coffee. When they left they came over and said good bye, still laughing and joking with each other. I saw him quite a few times over the next year and a half and every time he smiled and waived.
Alternatively, post Vietnam. with a BIT of a chip on my shoulder, I can assure you I was truly capable of pushing all his buttons (just about anybodies) and getting him to take a swing at me . Then you get the chance to knocked the every living ............. out of him and arrested him. Of course for the rest of his life and every person he ever spoke to would have heard what a bunch of over zealous A holes we were.
There's a time to react and a time when your job is to stay calm and control the situation that way.
Same outfit two months later I got a fatal up on I90. A Datsun with 3 maybe 4 aboard had veered off the road, over corrected, came across two lanes and through the medium and struck a semi head on. Shortest Datsun you ever saw. The Datsun contained dad, mom, a 4 year old and bunch BABY clothes. The car had Kansas plates. The quandary was, is there really a baby? I and a few bystanders conducted a search and found nothing, Back then this is NOT something you were supposed to need help/cover with. Besides the nearest trooper was probably 50-60 miles away. A couple of County Mounties ;-) did show up to help. I had dispatch run the plates and call the KS State Police. Is there supposed to be a baby in the car? They had to go out and talk the the grandparents. YES. They had been on vacation for X-mas to Spokane to see the wife's parents. with their new baby. :-(. Then I called WSP and they have to go notify the other grandparents and ask if the baby was in the car? YES Great. It's snowing and cold and we have at this about an hour. So we made another more detailed search including the vehicle. Still no baby. We expand the search. The County Coroner and was there and the ambulances were ready to take off and the wrecker guy is prying the car off the grill of the Peterbuilt. Suddenly he screamed incoherently and came running over with eyes about the size of hubcaps. The baby had apparently been on mom's lap and was under the dash, behind the glove box and not in good shape. Suddenly there are a whole bunch of traumatized guys standing around, including me. But you suck it up and do the job. By the time I cleared the wreck it was going on 3 1/2 hours. Another 3 to do all the paper work and make sure the notifications have been made etc.
A week later as I was walking in the office to check my mail box and the dispatcher told me I had a letter from headquarters in Boise from the CPT Inspector along with a "package". I read the letter and he did compliment me for handling the wreck professionally and doing a good job. Then I opened the package. It's a NEW Smokey Bear hat and a note. "I drove by the accident and noticed that you didn't have a hat on. I can only assume you have lost yours. Wear your hat at all times when out of the car except at meals." I went home that night and did some soul searching and figured out two things, one I was going to retire a Corporal and two, I was damned tired of chasing tail lights, investigating accidents and picking up dead people with zero desire to work there any longer. Two weeks late I was gone.
Some great guys, the SGT. Some REAL jerks the CPT. There's ALWAYS both, we've all worked with them regardless of profession.
I had been working for small city USA for about 5 months on graves when I got a call to the Eagles Lodge. When I showed up the Chief was standing on the side walk. He needed a ride home because he too drunk to drive his city rig home It's real hard to pretend you remotely respect the guy. Especially after you ask around and find out it's a fairly routine occurrence.
A couple of months later we got the memo that we were CITY Police and we were NOT to leave the city limits for any reason. Two months later one of the deputies down south was involved in an altercation that escalated into a shots fired deal.. Out of town and headed south I go, ignoring the radio and pushing the Torino up to about 120. After helping resolving that little donnybrook I knew darned well I was 39 miles outside the city that toast. . No big deal.
Except NOTHING happened, nothing.. I got past my probationary year and not a word was ever said.. Under Oregon law after a year you either pass probation and are certified or you are gone. I'd been there 16 months. I walked in one day and ask the chief about it and the response was "you are NEVER going to a permanent member of this department". I asked about the rule and his explanation is that he and the city manager had discussed it and they viewed me as one of their "problem people" and did not want to make me permanent. The answer was we have funding for your for 4 years and basically you are free to us. I filed a complaint with the BPST and that started stuff rolling. The outcome was pretty well predictable. The BPST said you HAVE to make him prominent. The city said no way but we'll keep him for the four years. The feds said, hey look the whole point of the grant is to get these Vietnam vets hired and in the work force with full time, permanent jobs and if you are telling us right now that you are going take our money for 4 years and NOT make him a regular member on the department,we are cutting the grant NOW. At the end of the month I was gone. The question then and now stillis, if I'm such a lousy cop and that you can't make me perinent, how do you rationalize keeping me for nearly 3 more years? Oh well , long ago and a LOT of water under that bridge.
I went out to the dam and got a job with the Corps of Engineers. Right after I left the city the county advertised for an immediate position for a Patrol Deputy. My wife worked there and there was a rule that that you could NOT supervise a relative. She was the "Relief" dispatcher and a female matron for the jail and two days out of the week the "cover" shift 8pm-4am Road Deputy was technically the supervisor. There was no point in me testing just so they could lay her off. I did not apply. They closed the announcement without filling the position.. About a week later I stopped to see the wife and the Sheriff was standing there. He pointed at me and asked "Why the Hell didn't you apply"? I explained the rule and our rational. His response was "Really, we have that rule"? Yep. Two days later he called me at home and said he had talked to the county commissioners and they had all agreed that as long as nobody complained they didn't see a problem and IF somebody complained they would figure out a solution. They re-opened the announcement, I applied and tested and was hired two weeks later. (I did have the highest overall scores on the written and PT tests but the 100% on the oral portion didn't hurt. Of course I was the only disabled vet that applied and under their rules you got 10 extra points AND went to the top of the register with a score of 117% I was pretty much a shoe in) I worked for them for almost 7 years. Then I got to the use it or lose point on my Voc Rehab GI Bill stuff and resigned to go to college full time in Boise. The Sheriff called about ten minutes after I got my AS in CJ and wanted to know when I was "Coming home". I explained I was on track to graduate in just over one more year and thought I aught to hang on. The week before I graduated with my BS in CJ Admin he called again and offered me the Chief Deputies job. I went home and accused my wife of ratting me out. ;-) She assured me that she had nothing to do with it. Right after finals one of my professors that was also Deen of of the CJ Department stopped me in the hall and asked me if I was taking the job? Apparently the Sheriff had called at the end of EVERY semester to see how "His boy was doing"? The wife and I really talked it over but decided against it. The only way up was running as Sheriff someday and giving up the civil service job, given that there was NO way I was ever going to be elected had a lot to do with the final decision. I had arrested way to many of the "wrong" people over the years to ever be supported or endorsed by the "powers" in the county. (THAYT was the thing the Sheriff liked about me most, I wasn't from there and didn't know who I WASN'T supposed to arrest. I just did my job.. So I went to the Feds. With 20/20 vision of hind sight I probably should have done it. It would have meant a LOT fewer moves over then next 10-12 years. Oh well.
LEO is JUST like any other gig. Your with a lot of guys you can get along with, most of who have your respect,. BUT there are some GREAT guys and there are some real A Holes that you don't trust, can never like and offend your world view to the core. Different stresses, different rewards but in then end the same satisfaction with yourself for a job well done as you all get from your job, if you love it. Dealing with the public you run into the same thing and race, religion and/or creed have little to with it MOST of the time.
Oh, while being a LEO is NOT that physically dangerous in terms of deaths on or off duty in the line of duty. Cops DO have the highest suicide rate and divorce rate in the county, for a variety of reasons and the burn out rate is only surpassed by EMTS according to the data. At least EVERY call we went on wasn't something to do with somebody dead or dieing. Thank God for small favors..
(just read more posts, it takes me a long time to type)
Sure they are demanding he be arrested, but you confuse being charged versus being found guilty or even having enough evidence to be charged. The assurances of the Chief and the Mayor sure wouldn't satisfy me without due diligence by somebody out side the agency and that doesn't mean the county, a city law enforcement agency across the state or the local DA all who are part of the CJ system. Way to many times that's simply a way to cozy of a relationship. Somebody other than the agency itself and probably the feds need to check things out. Sadly the "Blue Line" protects the truly unfit as much as it protects the innocent and it serves to foster the them them versus us cops attitude and the idea that we as cops and Civil Servants (my dad always emphasized the CIVIL part of that) are some how outside the society looking in. Just in the last few post we have heard of similar examples, ones that have been accepted and others that have erupted in violence. THAT"S what happens when you lose the trust, support and confidence of the population you serve and they honestly feel victimized.
Enough war stories and my personal opinion, it isn't going to change anybodys world view or attitude. ;-).
Take care
RWT
P.S. I do feel that the attitude nation wide among many/most Law Enforcement agencies, at every level has changed dramatically over the last 20 years and to my eyes not for the best. I honestly am thankful I am not there at this time. If I were coming out of the service post Afghanistan I'd be really reluctant to go into the profession, I simply do not like a LOT of what I see. There REALLY is a reason I live in the middle of nowhere.
