While going on free photo sites to secure a photo (yes, I do not have the funds yet to pay for them on a continual basis) that captures what I am attempting to discuss in this blog, I was disturbed at what I observed on these sites. When I went enter the tag like “community policing” or “police assistance” or even “good police”, I was unindated with photos of police in riot gear, arresting citizens, attending to protestors, and there was very few that convey the type of policing I knew, the type of policing I conducted in my career. The one I chose comes close, but it is not quite the photo I was looking for. There are two possible reasons why there are not enough photos on these sites that actually display what good to citizens, communities and businesses police officers actually perform.
First, the claim is made that any benefit police are for society is minimal, at best. They’re main focus is to jail and ticket as many citizens as possible and reek havoc in their jurisdictions. They lie, cheat, steal, assault, abduct and so forth. This is absolutely unfounded in that I have worked for twenty years as a police officer and as a believer in Jesus Christ, and the type of misconduct they purport as existing in all police departments very very rarely occurred in our department and was dealt with swiftly, usually resulting in the termination of the officer. Not to say it never exists, but not nearly to the extent it is alleged.
Secondly, most of the good police officers do are not reported to the media. If they are, it doesn’t get the same air time (if at all) that does a police shooting or police misconduct. I don’t lay the total blame at the feet of news organizations. They are there to get ratings, attract advertisement contracts and make money. Putting aside liberal slant and spin, if they feel that scandal and corruption is what viewers or readers want to see, that’s what they will produce to the exclusion of the opposite. If there were enough that would tell the broadcasting networks that they wanted a balance of the good and bad, and, if those demands weren’t met, they wouldn’t watch nor read, the most staunch anti-police liberal would be forced to comply just to survive on the air and in the press
Yet, as law enforcement officers, we could just sit and complain that we are being misrepresented and unfairly treated, which will do nothing, or we can act proactively. I am pitching customer service here, not like it is today, but how it was while I was growing up.
My first job was when I was sixteen. On that day, my parents gave my brother and I (same age, but not twins, he was my adopted brother) a birthday party on my birthday. I cannot remember what we got as gifts, but I do remember distinctly what our father said to us. He said, “Now that you have reached working age, you will go out on Monday after school and look for a part time job for after school and on weekends. Once you have been paid and have cashed your check, you will bring half of what you earn to us. This will be for your rent and utilities you use while you continue to live here.”
Wow, if this was done today, you would have kids calling up Child Protective Services bringing charges against the parents for child slavery. You may think my father went over the line. Nevertheless, my brother and I complied. My brother worked for a department store as a stocker and I started at a brand new grocery store as a bagger.
You may think I’m lying, but there were no self-checkouts back then. All register lines were manned by a living breathing friendly cashier. We didn’t have plastic bags back there (my heavens, Jonah, how old are you?), only paper bags. When we bagged your groceries, all you had to do is pay for them and open up your trunk or back seat, and we will bring them out and load them into your vehicle, and “No, thank you, ma’am. We don’t accept tips.” When you were looking for an item in the store, all you had to do is find an employee (now called associates, I guess to give people an inflated meaning of worth to the company) and ask them where to find an item, they won’t just point and tell you it is on aisle 7 or 8, they will actually stop what they are doing and gladly take the customer to the aisle and shelf pointing to where the item was. As an employee, it didn’t matter what you were doing at the time, the customer takes precedence because he or she is the reason you have a job. What a novel concept!
Oh, and so you don’t think of my parents as greedy monsters, unbeknownst to me, they were collecting that money and placing it in a savings account that they actually put in my name. They spent not a penny of it but presented me the bank book the day I left for college. They were not rich and could only pay for the first semester out of their own money. The cash they put away with a little bit of interest and their contribution was able to just about get me through the first year. God made employment possible to take care of the rest.
So, let’s fast forward to the present. Twice in the last month I have asked employees at a major mart (No, I am not going to say the company’s name, but I think a guy by the name of Wally used to work there) where I could find an item. One time an associate told me that she didn’t work in that department (even though she was in the department at the time) and walked off. The other said I needed to get the app so I can find these on my own and then also walked off. Associate stockers block off entire aisles with their carts, and when you say, “Excuse me, can I get through” you are told that you would either have to go back and around on another aisle, or you would have to wait until after they have stocked the rest of the shelf.
And don’t get me started on the self-checkout (too late). The store I go to usually has eight self-checkout registers and only one human cashier. If you refuse to use the self-checkout, you might want to call Door Dash or Grub Hub to deliver your dinner while you are in line, because you will be there a while. So I did the math. The store is open from 0700 to 2300 hours. That is sixteen hours. In order to have eight registers manned they would have to pay 16 cashiers (two sets of 8 for the two shifts) on the average (I am told depending where the store’s location is) of $15 an hour. I sat down and figured an amazing yet little known discover (which I won’t insult your intelligence by showing my work because you can easily take out your phone calculator and did what I did.) For a year, by replacing the cashiers with 8 self-checkouts available, this one store is saving, get this, $700,800.00 a year for getting you to ring up and bag your own groceries. If you consider benefits to the cashiers (since cashiers have time off too, the amount of employees are at least 25-30 in total), you are looking over a million dollars the companies do not have add to their expenditures. That is just one store. And do you get a discount or lower prices as a result of you working for free? You say no? Well, I have to say to you, stop being so stingy. The elite executives and the CEO of that company need their multi-million dollar annual bonuses, don’t they? So lighten up.
But I cannot single out just this one company. Most of you reading this were probably born in an era where when you pull up to a gas pump, you just automatically get out and pump your own gas. This was not the case when I was a youngster. You had a gas station attendant to pump your gas and clean your windshield. It didn’t cost extra. And regular leaded and unleaded gas was only about 35 cents a gallon (No, seriously Jonah, how old are you really, and did they really have color back then or was it all in black and white?) You go into the convenience store and you head to a kiosk and order food instead of getting personalized service and then you are reduced to a number on a ticket. When you go to pay for it, now you are seeing self checkouts there as well.
You may be saying I am being too picky. I say the era of customer service is dying. And with all the bad publicity and threats of defunding being made against the police, I truly believe we can turn this around through exempary service we would be able to provide the citizens with a little consideration. If we can win society back through one small bit of kindness at a time, it could change the perception many citizens have of us.
I do understand that there are limitations. We cannot be kind to those who are actively assaulting us or others. Active shooters need to be neutralized on site because an order to put the gun down could mean the loss of another life. No kindness there. And another limitation could be departmental policies or even what the coverage your workman’s compensation company would withhold because you got hurt doing something that was not your job. One such service that may not be covered is changing a motorist’s tire on the highway. I was made aware after the last one I changed by a wise officer that workman’s comp won’t cover you if you get hurt doing that because it is not in the job description. Either the motorist has to call for family or a tow truck/mobile mechanic.
Yet there are some things we can do to enrich our appearance with society that will not cost much or anything at all (but maybe a few minutes of our time) that will go a long way to restoring societies faith in us. This is aside from the management of the police departments to vet more thoroughly the candidates they put on the street and supervise (notice I did not say micro-manage) them in such a way the slightest bit of corruption can be discovered and dealt with. Other than that, consider the following:
Being courteous and polite to the public until they make it impossible to be so.
So, what am I talking about? For instance, if you are monitoring traffic while driving on the highways, and you are not in pursuit of a vehicle or have a deadline to meet, if someone want’s to get in front of you, why not let them do that, instead of speeding up and having them to slow down and get behind you. One time I allowed that, I noticed when he braked one of his brake lights had burned out. When I pulled him over, I discovered he was a fugitive from justice. And when I arrested him, he complied with everything, so I was courteous and respectful to him. He was amazed at how I treated him and he said he thought I was going to get rough with him. It was not any skin off my nose to be kind.
When you walk up to a business door and someone is behind you, open up the door for that person. You may say I am being too soft, but think about it. It jives with officer safety. Should you allow someone to come up behind you like that? So, just grab the door handle, and as you are opening the door for the citizen, turn and look at them. They will think it as an act of kindness, but it also has safety of the officer in mind as well.
Some officers cannot fathom changing into someone who is considered courteous and kind. They believe it will mark them as weak. This is so shortsighted. I do feel that many officers who always have to have a rough interaction physically or verbally with citizens are suffering from a low level of confidence. They feel they have to “show their authority” in order to mask their insecurites. They have got to get over it, because if they continue to challenge the masses, there will be those who will answer the challenge.
If you cannot have common ground, even with the law abiding citizens, you will never earn their assistance and respect. You may have an over-inflated ego thinking you can conquer the criminal activity yourself, but that kind of mentality is self-destructive. I will admit that most of my achievements through the years were done with the assistance of fellow citizens who took the time to assist us with information and with direction. If you discount this wealth of help, your world of achievement will be small indeed. We need them.
This also must incorporate how you speak to citizens. As long as the citizen (even the one we cite or arrest) is being respectful in his or her speech to us, why cannot we reciprocate in kind. I’ve always said that you don’t have to respect someone to show respect to them. There is a difference. If you have read many of my blogs, you will come across some that showing respect to someone I really didn’t respect has helped me with other investigations, and one time I believe it saved me from a mob beating.
Stop talking and actually listen to the citizen.
One of the biggest complaints and one that would infuriate people the most is the fact that they perceive they are being disrespected. When asked how, they point to the fact that the officer would not listen to them, but just barked orders or interrupted them while they were speaking.
Let’s face it. When citizens usually call us or make contact with us, it is one of the lowest points in their life. When we come in thinking this is a routine call and we already have it mapped out in our minds what we are going to do, we sometimes get impatient with the heated explanations of what took place. We feel that they are just wasting our time, and if an arrest is going to take place, sooner is better than later because we have to get back out on the street, or worse, it’s getting to the end of our shift and we want to go home.
There was an instance when I was on patrol one morning that I pulled up behind this pickup truck stopped at a red light. While I was waiting , I was looking around as officers do when patrolling, not really paying attention to the vehicle in front of me. I glanced forward to see the light had turned green, however, the pickup truck was not moving. I was about to give them a friendly honk when I looked through the back window to witness a brawl between the male driver and the female passenger going on. I hit my lights and siren and pulled them over. I had the male exit the truck and spoke to him to find out what was going on. He told me that she slapped him for a comment he made. They had just got back from a job interview she had at a logging outfit he drove her to. They were husband and wife which made this a domestic assault. While waiting out in the truck for her to finish her interview, he observed the workers coming and going from the building. When she got out and sat down in the passenger seat (both of them where white), he told her that he knows the reason why she wants to work there is because of all the black men that worked there, although not in those exact words. She then slapped him across the face.
After mirandizing her, she cooberated the story and I placed her into custody, took her with me to police headquarters and told the man that I needed his statement, so to follow me in his truck. I sat her down and asked her then to tell me what had happened. When she said the slap took place in the logging outfit’s parking lot, I was puzzled. Where I saw the fighting was a couple of miles down the road. I asked her if the fight continued from the lot to the light. She said no. When she slapped him, he just sniffed loudly, backed out and proceeded to the light. While they were sitting there, he back handed her causing her to fight back. It was then I realized I made an error. I did act on the information that I received and would have been okay as far as my actions, but had I taken some extra time to attempt to get her to open up to me, I could have gotten the whole story, as she was nervous to speak in front of him. I had an officer take her in another room while I got the husband and brought him back. I sat him down, mirandized him, and since he realized there was a reason I was doing so, he immediately demanded to know what was going on. I told him that his wife told me that the slap he gave him, which did not leave any marks on him whatsoever, happened at the logging lot and that, instead of calling the police, he had to pay her back at the light. She stated that he had backhanded her and gave her a distictive bruise on the face. He didn’t deny it, but said it was self defense. No, I told him, the school playground ideology of since she hit me I get to hit her back doesn’t qualify as self defense. I ended up arresting him as the predominant aggressor. I vowed from then on to take the appropriate time and listen to what is being said, and sometimes even as important, what is not being said.
As a police officer, you must take the time to listen even to the most outlandish account of what took place, because you may be surprised that it may be what actually happened. I have come across some strange stories in my life that were actually reality. Even if it is not how it took place, and the person is trying to cya, just by you taking the time to listen will quash any complaint that you are only listening to one version.
Also with law-abiding citizens, we may feel that it is a waste of our time and that we cannot take the time to be distracted. What you may be missing is some vital information that would help you solve the crime mystery you are working on. Even if you find that the information is not vital to your investigation, you would have shown that citizen the respect they deserve in even coming to you instead of keeping the information to themselves. They will be more inclined to reach out to you in the future with more information. See, sometimes, I would get out of my vehicle and go speak with business owners managers, and even citizens walking their dogs and they would tell me things they would have never called and told dispatch. As a police officer, I challenge you to get out of your vehicle and start speaking with citizens, and I am sure you will find a treasure chest of good solid intel. It will also dissolve the concept that police are not approachable and that speaking with them is never good. Once you have eliminated that, the will be more free to call the police in the future and you might find that missing piece of the puzzle in your investigation. But you must listen.
Going the extra mile–followup.
As I’ve said previously, those officers who feed their ego with thinking they can be the all to end all in policing with the foolish notion they can do it all themselves without any assistance from the public or fellow officers are quite dilusional. They are undoubtedly due for a major reality check. We need society to be our eyes and ears on the streets in order to curtail crime in our jurisdictions. The sooner we humbly accept this fact, the sooner we can conduct next level policing.
So, in that vein, it is important that when a citizen gives us some intel concerning the case we are working on, we need to show our gratitude then, and also let them know later, especially if that lead resulted in an arrest, or a correction of unlawful behavior. If we can call later and tell them what impact they made in the resolution of of the situation, it will go a long ways to have them feel appreciated and will also make them a valid future contributor of needed information.
If you have read my other blogs, you may have come across a story about the time I was looking for possible robbery suspects. That night, as I pulled into the convenience store parking lot, a cashier came running out and directed me to a man who was watching the business. I made contact and was able to arrest him due to bench warrants he had. I found items on him that led me to believe he was about to hold the convenience store up, although since it did not happen, I could not charge him with thinking about it. After I booked him into jail, when I got back to the precinct, I called the girls that worked at the convenience store just to let them know I had arrested him on other charges and he was in jail with no bond, so that they could finish their shifts with peace of mind. They thoroughly appreciated the followup call and it caused them to be more intent in helping the police in the future.
One type of call that following up is quite essential is the domestic violence incidents we work. Usually, when the predominant aggressor is arrested, there is a protective order placed against the defendant many times prohibiting contact of any type with the victim. There were times that the next day, I would knock on the door where the victim was staying and the defendant would answer the door. I would then arrest the defendant once again for violating the protective order and usually they would stay in jail until the court date, even though previously they were bonded out. Another reason I would come back is that impact injuries have a tendency in many victims to show up with the bruising more stated and obvious the next day. Taking photos after a day or two has a more accurate ability to tell the true story of what took place. Also, at a time when the victim feels the most vulnerable and alone, you showing up on their doorstep gives them assurance that they are not alone in this struggle they are facing. Giving them pamphets and information on how they can escape the emotional and physical clutches of an abuser can make a fan of the police for life. They will feel you really do care.
Never, I mean never tell a citizen there is nothing you can do.
Why do I say this? Because in the vast majority of the issues they bring to you, it is absolutely not true. One such issue where police officers have a tendancy to tell the complainant that they cannot help them is with the question of child visitation. The typical gripe (although a valid one) is when, say, the father shows up at his child’s home and the mother will not let him have his child for the weekend. He will have a court order that details he is to rightfully have his kid or kids and that the mother must allow him to do so. For whatever reason, the mother is resistant and he then calls the police. He may even have the court order with him. He demands we go into the home and take the child or children from the mother and present them to him, because after all, a judge had signed the order.
The truth of the matter is, in Virginia at least, that particular court order is not enforceable by law enforcement. It is a civil order that must be revisited in court to get a resolution, and not at front of the house that night. Now, if the father takes the mother to court, it will be on a show cause hearing for the mother to present to the judge the cause why she disregarded the order. If it was found that her reason did not meet exigent or emergency standards for the health and well-being of the child or children (which needs to be proved), then she can be held in contempt, and she may be chilling her heels in lockup or jail for the undeterminate future. Yet, nothing will be resolved that night. This is when you as a police officer must be careful in what you say. Even though we do not have authorization to push our way into the home and take the children from one parent and hand them over to another, to tell the irate father that there is nothing you can do is both inflammatory and it is not true.
In situations like this where I was dispatched, I would explain this being a civil order, we cannot do what he is demanding, however, I would followup by saying, “Let me go talk with her and remind her of the legal implications of her actions tonight”, hoping that I can convince her with complying with the order. More times than not, the mother was not concerned about the well-being of her children, but was being vindictive. In those situations, I was usually successful in having the children released to their father. And it only cost me an extra ten minutes or so, instead of having this draw out all night or end in an assault.
This also includes other civil nuisance matters where it is up to the city to resolve. Instead of telling the citizen it is not within your scope or jurisdiction, you can at least direct them to the proper authority to handle their concerns. If you have read many of my blogs, you will remember a story of a lady complaining that her next door neighbor was mowing her lawn and allowed grass clippings to blow over into her yard. She was irate, and I could have told her that it was a civil issue and not a police matter. Instead, I went over to the next door neighbor and requested in the spirit of neigborly harmony, the next time she mows her lawn, could she have the ejector port of the mower face her property and not her neighbors. She was more than compliant and agreeable. While I was there, she went over and apologized, and I hear they became the best of friends. Again, just an extra few minutes to be part of the solution instead of an uncaring entity in their crisis goes a long way to foster a healthy relationship with citizens.
I really cannot remember ever using the words that there was nothing I could do for a citizen. Just listening to them and helping them brainstorm to sort out their problem for a few minutes did not hurt me. Hey, why did you want to become a police officer? Is it because, as I was flabbergasted to hear from one of my fellow police academy candidates, that “you get to wear a sharp uniform, gun and badge, you drive a cool car and chicks dig it” (no, I am not exaggerating what he said), or was it to help people. Well here’s your chance. Think outside the box. I know that some citizens may never reciprocate our kindness to them, but you will get the attention and appreciation of some.
Let me just remind you that we are in crisis as police officers. With the liberal media providing a constant diet of the negative activities that a minority of police officers are committing, and very little of the good you do, our service to our citizens we protect (yes, protect, because I could care less what the Supreme Court states concerning that we are no under obligation to protect the citizens), and serve needs to be over the top. This is “Hail Mary” time when special interest units are demanding the defunding of our profession. I challenge you by asking what can YOU do to promote this endeavor of displaying the police vocation as an honorable one again? Commit to providing the best customer service you can to those who call on you.
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