That’s what I consider myself and those I worked with in law
enforcement back in the day.
The job was a lot different back in 1979, when I began my
career. There was more respect for police officers from the public…and the media. We were allowed to do our
jobs and we were effective. You could call a scumbag a scumbag without fear of
a personnel complaint because, back then, there was no such thing as ‘political
correctness’. A mope wants to fight with the police? Most times, he went to the hospital
before he went to jail. The next time, he knew better.
Back then a police officer always wanted to have an edge
when it came to physical confrontation with a mope. That’s why we had sap
gloves, convoys, blackjacks and billy clubs. A true copper used those tools as
a last resort, after it became clear that talking wasn’t going to solve the
issue with a subject who was bent on violence. Those things are all gone now.
The new generation is the ‘kinder, gentler’ police officer…for the most part.
If a criminal is struggling with you to gain control of your sidearm, you can’t
slap him in the jaw with a blackjack anymore. That would be an open invitation
for the mope to file suit against you and the police department, and would
probably cause the cop to lose his/her job for using excessive force.
Now, police officers carry tools such as pepper spray,
Tasers and PR 24s, otherwise known as ‘side-handled batons’. A few things about those items: pepper
spray…I’ve seen people high on dope walk right through it. During training back
in the early 90s, we were told it was ‘target-specific’ because it comes out of
the canister in a stream. Ask any officer who’s been in close proximity to a
‘specific target’ and they’ll tell you it isn’t, that they, too, were
significantly affected by pepper spray.
Tasers….the name stands for ‘Thomas A. Swift Electronic
Rifle’. A guy by the name of Jack Cover, who was a fan of the Tom Swift series
of young adult action books when he was a kid, invented the device. A Taser
delivers very quick, repeated jolts of electricity through two darts connected
to the device via small, thin wires. Both darts must have contact within two inches of the target’s skin surface in
order for them to deliver the voltage, which then interrupts the neuromuscular
messages from the brain that controls limb movement, causing muscles to ‘lock
up’. It is also very painful. If one of the darts miss, the device doesn’t
work. If the target is wearing thick, winter clothing that inhibits dart
penetration, it doesn’t work. You can’t use it on children, obviously pregnant
women or persons with heart issues. You can’t use a Taser if a subject is at a
height which would cause injury if he/she falls. You can’t use it in a
flammable environment, nor can you employ a Taser on someone behind the wheel
of a vehicle that is in gear. You do not want to use it on someone holding a
firearm.
In other words, there are numerous things to consider before
using a Taser. Sometimes, those things must be decided in the blink of an eye.
I’ve often wondered what the ‘PR’ stands for in PR-24; I’ve
heard several different terms, but ‘Police Restraint’ seems the most logical.
Its 24 inches long, which is self-explanatory. I can count on one hand the
number of times I witnessed a PR-24 used in the field…and not use all my
fingers. I never used it because I had no confidence in it; I had TOTAL
confidence in the blackjack I carried in my back pocket so many years ago and,
in this day and age, if I knew where I could still get one I’d buy it. I cannot
tell you the last time I’ve even seen an officer anywhere with a -24 hanging
from their gun belt, which might mean they’re no longer in use. Oh, they’re
still out there, but either in a locker or a cruiser’s trunk, covered with
dust, road flares, rolls of ‘Police Line – Do Not Cross’ tape, the med kit, the
fluorescent orange reflective vest cops have to wear seemingly every time they
get out of the cruiser….you get the idea.
Technology has, and will constantly, change the job.
Disappearing is the written incident report; everything is seemingly done via laptop
computers in the cruisers; no more barely legible words due to poor penmanship.
Computerized traffic tickets, printed by the Mobile Data Terminal, are becoming
the norm. Cops no longer have to radio in a license plate number for owner
information; they run it themselves. Automatic License Plate Readers, mounted
on the trunk decks of police vehicles, scan thousands of registration plates on
cars and trucks passing by, alerting the on-board officer to such things as
stolen, lost, expired and wanted plates.
It is also breeding laziness in some police officers. I’ve
heard numerous car stops initiated by officers who ‘cherry-pick’; they’ll drive
through a business lot packed with cars and run license plates. Eventually they
come across one that’s expired or whose owner is under a driver’s license
suspension. Once they find one of those, they’ll bring up the owner’s picture
on the on-board monitor in order to verify that the car’s driver is in fact the
subject under license suspension. The officer then parks away from the vehicle
and watches it, waiting for the driver to get into the car and enter onto the
public roadway, where the officer then initiates a traffic stop. The driver
gets cited, the car gets towed and the officer pads his/her stats.
Peachy, right? In my opinion it is laziness. The time you’re
spending surveilling that car could be better spent patrolling a high-crime
area or any other of a myriad of tasks. Then there’s the whole liability issue:
what if that suspended driver pulls onto the roadway and hits a pedestrian or
another car, causing injury? The officer had prior knowledge of the
owner/driver being under a license suspension yet still allowed that person to
get behind the wheel…all for the sake of a traffic ticket. Same thing with the
practice of sitting on a bar at closing time, watching a patron stagger and
stumble their way to a vehicle and get behind the wheel. The drinking driver
pulls onto the public roadway and BAM! The officer stops them and makes a DWI
arrest.
Let me say this: I am not, and will not, defend suspended or
impaired drivers. There are better, time-tested ways of taking those people off
our roadways that actually might involve thought and good-old probable cause.
It also involves a little more effort.
To a man, all my retired law enforcement buddies agree: if
we could go back in time and do it all again, we would. In a heartbeat. But to
start today, right now, and do thirty-plus years?
Not on your life.
