Imagine, if you will, that you're driving home after a long day finishing concrete in ninety-degree heat. Traffic is a little heavy on the interstate, you're tired, hot and sweaty, maybe not paying as much attention to your driving as you should. The cool air blasting from the A/C vent feels luxurious as you uncap a bottle of water and take a good, long drink, distracting you just enough that you don't see the car in front of you stop abruptly.
Your full-size pickup truck slams into the back of the car ahead, badly injuring a nine-year-old child in the back seat.
That's a terrible scenario, on any scale, one that would forever changes many lives. But let the story play out a little further...
You're not drunk, under the influence of drugs or driving recklessly. Law enforcement shows up and completes the crash investigation, a driver in a car next to you witnessed the accident and you taking a drink of water. "He wasn't speeding", that witness said in her statement. "He just didn't see the car in front of him stop quickly enough." You're cited for ACDA (assured clear distance ahead) and released to your wife, who drives you home.
Headlines the next day: 'CONCRETE FINISHER INJURES NINE YEAR OLD'. Different versions of the story run for several days.
News at the top of the hour on the radio: "A concrete finisher yesterday caused a severe accident on the interstate which badly injured a child..."
Social media explodes with the news, embellished repeatedly as its passed along; the 'letters to the editor' section of the local paper prints no less than seven entries, all condemning you as the current version of Adolph Hitler.
All that's ridiculous, right?
Let's change the occupation from 'concrete finisher' to 'police officer'.
Suddenly it all makes sense, doesn't it? A cop almost killed that child. He of all people should know to pay more attention to his driving! He probably WAS speeding because he knew he wouldn't get cited if he was stopped...you know how those cops all stick together and cover up for each other! HE SHOULD BE FIRED AND LOCKED UP! People distance themselves from the police officer. Neighbors stop being so friendly. Worse, his kids are taunted at school because of what their father did.
As absurd as all that sounds, that happens daily across America.
It's something they don't tell you about in the police academy, this 'living under the public microscope', at least not when I went through it. I sure hope these young people who think they want to be cops are aware of it now, especially in a world where everyone literally has a video camera with them at all times, in the form of their cell phones.
I'll be the first to confirm that there are those officers who aren't law-abiding and have no business wearing a badge; convictions of three local cops in recent years, each resulting in prison sentences, are proof of that and they deserved all the negative attention they brought upon themselves.
I can't stand a dirty cop.
What happens, though, is that their brothers and sisters in blue suffer, too. They had nothing at all to do with the crimes their co-worker committed, but because of the actions of those few mopes the entire police department is dirty in the public's eyes. Keyboard warriors, living in Mom and Dad's basement, pound out vile slime and spew it across the internet, condemning everyone who wears a badge.
Police officers are human beings. They have emotions, too, and aren't immune from the same problems everyone else might have. They make mistakes and bad decisions.
I made mistakes. I was dragged through the mud of a bad decision in the media, too...and I deserved it. I owned up, took departmental discipline and didn't complain because I had it coming. The worst part of the entire ordeal was the disparagement I brought on the department and my family.
There'd have been no mention of it if I'd have been a concrete finisher, though.
Coppers today need to realize how closely they're watched, not only by the media but by the people they serve and protect. As a police friend of mine in Lexington once put it, they need to conduct themselves as if a judge and jury were in the cruiser with them.
Because, relatively speaking, they are.
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