Ask Me About Being a Police Officer

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To be honest, I think drug prohibition needs to be reanalyzed. That means, and yes a police officer is saying it, I think some drugs should be legalized. However, since they aren't, I have to enforce the law and in the current state of drug policy, all drugs are illegal.

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So much respect for this answer. [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

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It's the same as alcohol prohibition. It didn't work! If I was a police officer at the time of the alcohol prohibition, I would have felt the same way - I think it should be legalized, but since it's currently illegal, I have to enforce that.

When alcohol was illegal, more people went to harder liquors like Vodka and Whiskey because it was worth more per quantity. You see that with drugs too. Since drugs are illegal, more and more heroin/cocaine/designer drugs are being produced because it's worth more. It's called the "potency effect."

Since alcohol has been legalized, people are still drinking vodka/whiskey, but they are also moving back to beer and softer drinks, like wine. I would expect the same thing to happen with drugs, but I can't be sure. If marijuana is legalized, I could see alot of drug users going back to marijuana.

[CORed]

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all drugs are illegal.

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I'm going to disagree with this piece of your post. While we could debate endlessly what is and isn't a drug, or what the definition of drug is, I would take the position that alcohol, caffeine and tobacco are all drugs, and all three are legal. Now, I will concede that caffeine is a pretty innocuous drug with little or no influence on behavior and minimal health risks, but I would still classify it as a drug, and it does seem to be somewhat addictive. I know I don't function too well without that first cup of coffee in the morning, anyway. I think alcohol is considerably more dangerous both in terms of its effect on behavior and detrimental health effects (for those who drink to excess, anyway) than some illegal drugs. Tobacco doesn't seem to have much detrimental effect on behavior, but is quite addictive and very bad for the user's health.

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all drugs are illegal.

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I'm going to disagree with this piece of your post. While we could debate endlessly what is and isn't a drug, or what the definition of drug is, I would take the position that alcohol, caffeine and tobacco are all drugs, and all three are legal. Now, I will concede that caffeine is a pretty innocuous drug with little or no influence on behavior and minimal health risks, but I would still classify it as a drug, and it does seem to be somewhat addictive. I know I don't function too well without that first cup of coffee in the morning, anyway. I think alcohol is considerably more dangerous both in terms of its effect on behavior and detrimental health effects (for those who drink to excess, anyway) than some illegal drugs. Tobacco doesn't seem to have much detrimental effect on behavior, but is quite addictive and very bad for the user's health.

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Thanks, I do believe you're a smart guy and all, but you knew what I meant.

[Elevens]

Do you have a truck enforcement officer on your department?

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Do you have a truck enforcement officer on your department?

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They work more closely with the state police.

[Elevens]

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Do you have a truck enforcement officer on your department?

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They work more closely with the state police.

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Well, for highways, yes. But, what about local streets? Anyone?

The reason I'm asking this is because of the money you can rake in for your department. The fines on overweight trucks are quite often thousands of dollars. Once you start bringing in this money, your chief would undoubtedly love you.

...and you can pretty much guarantee yourself 1st shift.

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-What are your feeling about the current state of law enforcement in this country? what needs improvement? How far from an "ideal" are we currently?

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I think it's quite necessary. Police work involves a large amount of personal discretion. I don't think there is an easy way to resolve the problems without sacrificing some kind of benefit. If police crackdown harder, the public will be more and more angry. If we do less, than the public is going to be more angry. I really never understood why most people hate the police, when the reality of it is that they are their to deter chaos and protect people. Yes, yes, I know, some officers are pretty bad. But there are good and bad people in all professions.

Look at Enron. They did a very bad thing, but people aren't crying out that corporations should be abolished. Look at teachers who sleep with students. People aren't arguing that teachers should be segregating from the population.

Everyone needs to realize that bad news is publicized more than good news. When is the last time you saw the news reporting on something good happening in Iraq? Probably not often because the political side of the war in Iraq is very negative. So my opinion is, until you really know what it's like, you can't complain. The police deal with some very shady people and they are always in a heightened state of alert. I could be called to any situation and blasted away by some crazy MFer. One story that we were told while in the police academy was that an officer was called to a domestic. When he arrived, he was attacked by a man with a sword. Another story, an officer went to a domestic, let the guy go upstairs to get something, next thing he knows, he's getting shot at through the ceiling by a shotgun. It missed him, but wouldn't that make you act a little differently?

Just putting on the uniform makes people hate us. I get labeled as a Pig because of my uniform, but in reality, I'm one of the nicest police officers you'll ever find. Most people are just too close-minded to be able to take a few minutes and get to know me.

As far as being ideal, I don't really think that can be answered. Everyone has their opinion on what the police should be, but there is not one answer that will sum it up. It's just like in poker, there really is not one way to play the game. You have to take in so much information, figure out the options/alternatives, and then decide what is best. When the human element is intertwined, it's almost impossible to find perfection.

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TY for your response. Through this thread i have gained a lot of respect for the manner in which you conduct your job and your general intellect. I have had both positive and negative experiences with police...though to be honest more negative. The most positive experiences have come when a mutual respect exists between both myself and the officer. imo a large part of the negativity was derived from a lack of respect and presumed superiority.

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Do you have a truck enforcement officer on your department?

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They work more closely with the state police.

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Well, for highways, yes. But, what about local streets? Anyone?

The reason I'm asking this is because of the money you can rake in for your department. The fines on overweight trucks are quite often thousands of dollars. Once you start bringing in this money, your chief would undoubtedly love you.

...and you can pretty much guarantee yourself 1st shift.

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As far as oversized loads, they have to call in before they come through our borough. If they are wider than something like 11 feet, then we have to escort them through and our borough office charges them like $100.

Overweight, well, I don't know about that. We don't stop trucks and weigh them. State Police does that every now and then, not just on the highways. I'm not really sure though. I know for a fact it won't happen in my area that we start weighing trucks.

We do have some streets that have weight restrictions on them, and sometimes we catch them missing a turn - and of course, they can never speak English.

In my town we have a "special hill." The Dept. of Transportation has deemed it a dangerous hill because of how steep it is. Sometimes trucks go down it and sometimes they crash at the bottom because they can't get slowed down enough to make the turn at the bottom. Therefore, we have a bypass that is flatter and takes the trucks down to a different section of our borough.

However, for the past year now we've had construction going on at the bottom of that hill so all cars have to go down the bypass. We run alot of speed on the bypass because it's a long stretch that you can go flying on. A couple weeks ago we caught a guy doing 83 and it's a 45mph zone the whole way down. It's 20mph for trucks over 7000lbs.

[NhlNut]

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I really never understood why most people hate the police, when the reality of it is that they are their to deter chaos and protect people. Yes, yes, I know, some officers are pretty bad. But there are good and bad people in all professions.

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Police have power (authority), and one bad encounter can really screw up your life. So many things that people do on a regular basis are illegal (internet poker), they feel vulnerable.
Living in Las Vegas, I have no real fear of cops. But, I'm white, educated, and middle aged.

Fx,
Do you still get surprised by people? (How mean, ignorant, violent etc. they are)

[ItalianFX]

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I really never understood why most people hate the police, when the reality of it is that they are their to deter chaos and protect people. Yes, yes, I know, some officers are pretty bad. But there are good and bad people in all professions.

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Police have power (authority), and one bad encounter can really screw up your life. So many things that people do on a regular basis are illegal (internet poker), they feel vulnerable.
Living in Las Vegas, I have no real fear of cops. But, I'm white, educated, and middle aged.

Fx,
Do you still get surprised by people? (How mean, ignorant, violent etc. they are)

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Online poker is not illegal from what I heard, but in my opinion, it shouldn't matter if I'm not arresting people for it. If I'm not arresting people for illegal sportsbetting, then does it really matter if I do it (I don't)? If I speed, I don't arrest people for speeding. I may cite someone for Obedience to Traffic Control Signals, but not for speeding.

Yes, I still get surprised by how people act. Example: I dealt with a known local because he got into an argument with another guy. It has been an ongoing problem, and he was flipping out, pissed, and wanted the guy arrested for harassment. He was pretty nice to me because I was there to help. So I arrested the guy for harassment after getting other witness statements.

A few weeks later we get called there for a domestic and you wouldn't believe how ignorant, violent, abusive he was. That was my first real domestic incident, and I'll never forget it. There wasn't blood flying all over the place, but the screaming both of them did and the hatred in the air could knock you back a mile. It definitely made me realize that people will like you when you're there for them, but hate you when you're not there for them.

And that is what I mean by dealing with shady people and how we have to be on a heightened state of alert. We could drive around for 7 hours, quiet as the day could be, but that 1 hour when all hell is breaking loose, you better be on your toes. I'm not saying that happens everyday, but it's quite the rush.

About a month ago I worked a 16 hour shift. I didn't really have much for the first 8 or 9 hours, but then all of a sudden I had 4 fights within about 6 hours and got to tackle a kid for spitting on a State Trooper. In that incident, a fight began, and I was calling for backup while trying to pull them off of each other. Then the one kid started pulling a golf club out of the bag before his friend stopped him. State Police showed up and everything was fine. Then all of a sudden the same kid started getting mouthy with a State Trooper and the ST tried taking the kid to the ground, and his momentum brought him near me, so I grabbed the kid by the back of the neck and took him over my leg, and before I knew it I had 2 STs piling on. It was fun, but that kid is beyond words to describe what he is like.

Another incident, about 3 weeks ago I'd say. Stopped a jeep for running a red light. 6 juveniles who were out drinking. Called their parents. 1 parent comes down, the kid (15 YEARS OLD) flips out and is calling his mom everything in the book. Calling us everything in the book. Talking about his brother with every name in the book. We ended up having to handcuff the kid and take him to the back room to calm him down. Then his mom wanted to put him into a mental hospital, but the mental ward wouldn't take him until he was sober. So we transported him to the hospital and he started flipping out on the nurses. Then he called his dad who was in Las Vegas and was crying over the phone. Then he started yelling at his mom some more. Then the doctor wanted blood from him and he started crying like a little baby saying, "I want my mom, I want my mom!" and I said, "You didn't want her here a second ago." and he said, "I don't care, I want my mom!"

I left out the finer details, but you get the idea of how people can react to us as police officers.