Proactive v. Reactive Policing: A Vicious Circle

I wrote this four years ago. Am I psychic, or does history truly repeat itself?

 

A Vicious Circle

 

Trouble

Kids Die

Gangs High Crime

Rape, Cocaine Bloody Murder

Burglary Assault Robbery Carjacking

Increased Patrol Stop and Frisk Illegal Weapons

More Officers Canines Large Police Presence Crime Reduces

Less Guns on Street Safer for Officers and Public Businesses Flourish

Neighborhood Secure Residents Happy Fewer Deaths Kids Play

Police are Scary! Protesters and Politicians Complain

Angry Crowds Burning Looting Destruction

Officers Beaten Battered and Killed

Rape Cocaine Bloody Murder

Gangs High Crime

Kids Die

Trouble.

 

And so it goes …

/by

You Might Be Dating a Cop, If ….

Police officers, because of the nature of their business are creatures of habit, and their routines are sometimes quite obvious. Here’s how to tell if the person you’re currently spending time with is, or once was, a cop.

1. Your new love interest takes you to the most exclusive restaurant in town, and when the host leads the two of you to a nice table in the center of the room your date declines and requests the minuscule table beside the wall next to the kitchen doors. It’s a horrible out-of-the-way table where the rumps of servers constantly bump and thump against the seat backs of diners’ chairs as they hustle to and from the kitchen. Yet, your dinner companion seems extremely pleased at the opportunity to sit facing the front of the room and other exits and entrances, with their back planted firmly against the greasy wall as their eyes constantly dart back and forth and up and down, scanning the room and other diners for who knows what.

2. You’re in a bar and you catch your date eyeing every female who passes, paying especially close attention to the areas around two specific areas of their bodies—torso and ankles. What a creep, right? Well, he knows no shame because he’s doing the same to other guys. Is your new man an over-sexed bisexual? Of course not. He’s a cop who’s merely looking for concealed weapons, and once he’s decided there are no immediate threats he’ll turn his attention to your arsenal of concealed attributes.

3. If you and your date arrive at the party and she stands to the side of the front entryway while simulataneously producing a huge Maglite from her purse, which she promptly uses to deliver a few loud, hard knocks to door, well, you might be dating a cop.

4. If the person you’re out with unbuckles their seatbelt 30 seconds before stopping the car, you might be dating a cop.

5. During the end-of-evening embrace you feel the slight touch of your date’s hands at the mid point between your shoulder blades. Odd, but no real problem, right? Then you notice the touch moving downward, slowly tracing the length of your spine, stopping at your waist. Still no problem. Kind of sexy, actually. And you were definitely surprised when you felt the hand gently and slowly slide into that area where your legs meet. After all, you’ve been dating for a while now and the next level has been on your mind. However, when she slipped on a pair of latex gloves and then squatted down to cup both hands around first one leg and then other, running those hands down each leg … Yeah, you’re dating a cop.

6. If your date rides with the car window down, even when it’s 20 degrees outside, and reads aloud the license plates of passing cars—“Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot, Seven, Four Eight.” Yep, you’re definitely dating a cop.

7. Your new guy intimidates people. For example, he often takes shortcuts through the most dangerous sections of town. While passing through at 5 mph you notice that as soon as your beau makes eye contact with two very shady characters hanging out on the sidewalk (and your sweetie definitely makes a point to make eye contact) they each look down, or away, before backing into the darkness of door frames and alleyways. Yes, you’re dating a cop.

8. When meeting your friends and family, your date stands a bit sideways with his dominant hand positioned at his waist, near his pocket (you later learn that the dominant hand is the gun hand). Fortunately, there’s no shootout, but your friends avoid the two of you for the rest of the night, and quite possibly for as long as you’re with this kooky badge-wearer.

9. Your parents, after meeting your special friend for the first time, say, “Please come back to see us.” If the response of your lover is, “10-4,” you might be dating a cop.

10. If your new girlfriend addresses all of her close friends by their last names names—Smith, Jenkins, Williams, etc.—, you might be dating a cop. “Smith, come over here and meet my new boyfriend, Jones.”

Bonus:

If you show up unannounced at the home of your new boyfriend and find him mowing the lawn while wearing shorts, a gun on his side, and a bulletproof vest beneath a crisp new police academy t-shirt, well, you’re dating a rookie.

You know, the best part of dating a fledgling cop is that you can order him to do things—an unlimited number of push ups, shine shoes, clean something, run as far as you tell him to, etc., and he will.

Bonus #2:

If you find loose bullets in the bottom of her kitchen “junk drawer,” you might be dating a cop.

Bonus #3:

If your annual family vacation is a whirlwind tour of the Cleveland Police Museum, Seattle Metropolitan Police Museum, New York City Police Museum, and the Los Angeles Police Museum, well, take some comfort in knowing that mandatory retirement of police officers is usually somewhere around the age 55. Only thirty years to go. Thirty looooong years.

Bonus #4:

If the hair you find on your significant other’s clothes belongs to a bloodhound and not the hunky guy at the gym, well …

FBI_agent_with_police_dog

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/by

Looking Sharp: A Bowling Ball, A Shiny Badge, And … Elephant Poop?

Graveyard shift—those eight long and often mind-numbing hours between midnight and the time your relief signs on to take over your beat. It’s boring. It’s exciting. It’s sleep-depriving. And it’s getting dressed while everyone else in your household is undressing, putting on pajamas, and crawling between the sheets for a good night’s rest in a set and toasty-warm bed.

Speaking of getting dressed … there’s a daily ritual for cops—shower and shave, slip on underwear and t-shirt—rookies will quickly learn that it’s best to put on their socks at this point. You’ll see why in a moment. It’s also important to note that not all officers shave as part of the daily routine. Some simply don’t need to. For example, my wife, if she’d chosen to become a police officer instead of a scientist, would have the luxury of skipping this step.

Next comes the vest. You’ve left the upper Velcro straps in place to allow you to slip the entire contraption over your head like a 7lb sweater. So over the head it goes, followed by pulling the side straps taut and securing them in place. Of course, you never get it right the first time, so you riiiiipp the Velcro loose and do it again and again until the fit is just right.

The shirt is a process all to itself—pinning on the badge and other shiny do-dads in their appropriate places (sort of like decorating a polyester Christmas tree), and inserting a couple of ink pens in the sewn-in pen slot beside the breast pocket. After a quick check to be sure your name tag is not upside down, you slip on the pre-adorned shirt, pulling and twisting to make it lay properly over the vest.

Time for the pants. Out of necessity, you’ve placed them in a spot that doesn’t doesn’t require bending too far, because the vest has already limited your movements just a bit. Now, tuck the tails of the vest inside the waist band of the pants and thread a belt through the loops so your pants won’t fall down. Goodness knows, once you’re fully dressed it would require a huge effort to reach ALL the way to your ankles to pull your pants up again (now do you understand the socks issue?).

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Front and rear vest panels. The top two straps on the rear panel are often left attached to the front panel to allow slipping the entire vest over the head like a sweater, or t-shirt. The material at the bottom of each panel is tucked into the pants like a shirt tail. Obviously, the front panel (with the “U” shaped cutout) is for the “convenience” of male wearers during a trip to the restroom. Use your imaginations to determine the need for the opening in the material.

Shoes … They’re shiny and squeaky clean because that’s how you roll. Look sharp. Act sharp. Be sharp. One last, quick swipe with a cloth just in case a speck of dust has landed on the toes.

Next comes the duty belt/utility belt, with all its bells and whistles already in place. And yes, it’s heavy. Imagine strapping a bowling ball to your waist each day prior to heading off to work.

 

Securely connect the buckle hooks/clasps/snaps and then loop a few belt keepers around the duty belt and the belt holding up your pants. The last step is IMPORTANT. 

 

 

Belt Keepers

Without belt keepers, the thin straps made of leather or nylon with snap closures, the duty belt would easily and quickly fall down to your ankles, especially when running/chasing someone through a dark alley. Embarrassing, right?

Hamilton One 046

 

Hamilton One 094

Two belt keepers positioned between handcuff cases

Time to go to work, and by now everyone in the house is already asleep. So you tip-toe to the back door, with leather squeaking, keys jingling, and Velcro crackling all the way.

Outside, the neighborhood is pitch-dark, and still with the exceptions of a lone cricket chirping in the backyard and the owl who hooty-hoots at random times throughout the night.

The only lights on are a streetlamp at the corner and the sliver of yellow slicing through the narrow opening of the curtains at the front window in the house across the street, where you know the widow Jones is peeking outside. Tomorrow morning she’ll be there again so she can report to the rest of the neighborhood what time you went to work and what time you returned home. After all, they pay your salary and Mrs. Jones is not at all shy about reminding you of it, either.

Time to get into the car so you unlock the door, open it quietly, and then gently slide into the seat. I say gently, because if there’s even a tiny bit of love handle at your waist, that soft, floppy flesh will be severely pinched between the bottom edge of the Kevlar vest and the top edge of the duty belt somewhere near the pepper spray canister or your sidearm—a real eye-opening, tear-inducing way to start the shift.

You take care to gently close the door. Again, I say gently but this time it’s because  without fail, the sound of the door slamming shut causes the eruption of a cacophonous symphony of varying tones and pitches of yips, yaps, and howls from dozens of hyper-alert dogs, all from within a three block radius.

Thirty minutes later, at your first call of the night, you find yourself rolling around in the smelliest mud you’ve ever encountered, trying to handcuff two burglars who’d decided to lead you on a foot chase through the fairgrounds where, by the way, you realized the circus is in town and that what you’re rolling around in is not mud. Instead, it’s what elephants, horses, and other animals left behind while waiting for their time under the big top.

New Picture

And so it goes … night after night after night.

Look sharp. Act sharp. Be sharp.

Yeah, right …

 

/by

A Deadly Game at the Old Factory

Factory.
Massive, abandoned.
Machinery. Metal dinosaurs.
Tangled debris. Ceiling, leaking.
Pitch-dark.

Footsteps.
Flashlights. Shadows.
Graffiti. Glass, broken.
Odors, chemicals. Water, drips.
Echoes.

Hallway.
Leather, squeaking.
Keys. Rattling, jingling.
Vest, hot. Nerves, raw.
Sweating bullets.

There,
Hanging, swaying.
Body. Blue, bloated.
Steel rafter. Taut rope.
Dead.

Shoes.
Made for fun.
To play and to run.
Choking game, again.
Funeral.

/by