Thank God The Bad Guys Are Still Stupid

I have a bunch of “dumb criminal” stories milling about smartly in my head. Once in a while I see one that just makes the ‘A’ list. Check out the genius who left his pants at the scene of a burglary. But wait, there’s more. He didn’t limit the idiocy to depositing his pants at the scene (possibly forgivable, since he was fighting with the homeowner / victim.) He left them there with pockets full of stolen property from other crimes in the same neighborhood.

Every so often during my tenure as a detective, I would sit on the witness stand and describe for the jury what the suspect had done. As I heard the words come out of my mouth I would think to myself, “thank god they are still dumb, or we might not catch anyone!”

Cop Observation #2: People Are Basically Mean

As I mentioned in my prior posts, I will include, from time to time, my observations on the world  -  and the police world in particular.  These opinions are not derived, I assure you, from scientific studies, nor are they the final results of much deep thought.  They are just the stuff that gets shoved into a cop’s head after a decade or so.

Your Grandma Was Wrong

So your grandma told you people are basically good.  Bull.  In the last several patrol shifts, in neighborhoods that cross all socioeconomic barriers, the following have taken place:

1.  A mother of three, living in a twin bed with all three kids, fighting violently with police who tried to arrest her.  The kids were not hurt, thanks to the professionalism of our women and men in uniform.  Well done, Mom.

2.  A 90 year-old man with dementia left in his bed for weeks by his children.  Bed sores, sickness, infection, etc.  Thanks for raising me, dad.

3.  A young man who wanted to join a gang.  Nothing new here, except the gang didn’t want him.  So they beat him into the ICU.  He was fourteen or fifteen, at the oldest.

4.  Finally, some common sense.  These geniuses killed a cat and hung it from a tree on a public highway.  Why?  Tired of the cat messing up the house.

I once met a police psychologist who gave a good presentation on why cops are “different” than other people.  His hypothesis was that all humans can take only so much “evil stuff” before it gets them in some way or the other.  Cops, he said, get their dose for life in the first five years of their career.  Not so far off, doc.

What do you think?

You Have The Right To Bite

I certainly hope I am wrong, but I think we might be looking at the next “incident” in police work coming to us soon from Florida. See this article and video for the details, but in summary, here is what happened:

A young girl was being arrested for stealing things. That is because stealing is wrong. Then she resisted lawful efforts to handcuff her. That is wrong, too. Then she bit the police officer. Still wrong. Eventually the police officer grew tired of all this malarkey and punched the suspect once, pepper sprayed and arrested her. That is allowed.

The cop did right, the suspect did wrong. So that’s the end of this post, right?

Not so fast.

You see, there is a problem in this video; one that is clear as day, but many of you might have missed it. In this video, the cop is white and the suspect is not. That will make this arrest an “issue.” It shouldn’t, but it will. Note the interview in the news video. She is concerned that the cop did not explain what he was doing, and that he did not read the girl her rights. What? Her rights? Should he have done that before or after the bite?

Freeze, Police!

It never ceases to amaze me. From time to time I stand at a critical or dangerous incident and think, “what on earth are you thinking?” I started this as a young patrol officer when suspects would continue to fight with 3, 4, or 5 police officers who were subduing them. Sometimes I would say out-loud, “Dude, do you think you can actually win this…knock it off!” Of course that was generally ineffective.

Anyhow, last shift the officers who work for me had to arrest a guy for beating up his wife. Nothing too serious on the injuries, but he was going to jail for certain. Who is there to arrest him? Count with me here, folks: three armed police officers (guns drawn), one police sergeant, one police canine (sounding quite hungry) and the Philosophical Cop.

Domestic Violence 101

I received an email from a college student doing research on police response to domestic violence calls. They were interested in knowing (1) why domestic calls were so dangerous for police officers, and (2) how we handled these incidents. I thought they were both good questions. And since more than half of my calls in the past decade have been domestics, it is fair to say that cops deal with more of these than any other single problem.

Not The Way to Treat Our 9-11 Heroes

I suspect there are lots of posts on lots of blogs about this anniversary. I won’t dwell on the loss to our country or way of life that day. Enough said. I do want to spend a moment talking about a friend. He consistently asks to stay anonymous, so I respect that request.

This friend worked the command posts at ground zero in New York. He knows all there is to know about emergency large-scale police operations. He also wrote the book on hazardous materials. No, really — he wrote the book. This is critical to my story because he knew exactly what he was breathing in those first 5 days. He knew, but he stayed. They all stayed.

Philosophical cop’s gangster timeline

I noted in my opening post that I have changed. In some sense, this blog is about explaining the experiences, thoughts, and feelings that have brought on these changes. The timeline is one such anecdote. Let me know what you think!

Gang violence is the primary issue in the city I police. Most of America’s large cities have a similar story. Last week in Chicago, a fifteen-year-old had his life cut short as he was charged as an adult in a tragic murder. Read the sad details here. New York is in the same boat, and so are Detroit, Dallas, and many others. Everyone always has a solution “of the week,” with politicians talking a lot, and doing a bit less. As this article shows, the Governator thinks another czar might help.

Why?

After slightly more than a decade of policing a major city, I have changed. I note at the outset that not all of these transformations please me. I look at people — just about all people, differently now. Some of the good guys don’t seem so good; some of the bad guys a bit less evil, and the line between the two is more blurry than ever.