Cop Stereotypes

Frank Borelli
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com

Let's face it, as wrong as stereotyping people can be it still occurs all the time. Quite frequently it's a joke. Heck, Jeff Foxworthy has gotten rich off of stereotyping rednecks. I laugh hard even though many of his redneck stereotype statements apply to me! So when one of the Officer.com feature articles was about Cop Stereotypes I found it both humorous and enlightening. Initially I found myself laughing because some of the stereotypes are just SO cliche - and pushed in various television shows specifically to poke fun at how silly cop stereotypes can be. The best example is the unbuttoned untucked Hawaiian short sleeve "tourist" shirt to cover the gun off duty. I don't know if it's sad or funny but cops actually wear those! (not me although there IS one in my closet) The enlightening part though was about how we cops tend to identify each other off duty. I was in the Orlando airport a few years back flying home from some work event and found myself in line a few feet away from four guys that I IMMEDIATELY knew were officers of the law. Now I could say that it was due to the physical appearance but it really wasn't. They all had haircuts within most grooming standards and two of the four had carefully trimmed moustaches, but they could have just as easily been military as police. Why did I just KNOW they were police? I think it was an overall presentation that they unconsciously made that I picked up on. They stood so that, as a group, they could see all the way around. Even as they talked to each other their eyes stayed busy watching what was going on. None of them had BOTH hands in their pockets - only one, and it was their non-weapon hand. When I finally said something to them the guy closest to me bladed his body so that his gun side was away and he was at least three feet away. Hmmm... Such behaviors are probably good because they are performed without conscious thought - and if we're doing that off duty then we're probably being pretty good about it on duty too. The funny moment was when the guy closest to me spent about 1/2 a second "sizing me up" and decided I was a brother cop - and therefore he could relax some. There were no words spoken in that blip of time. He looked at me looking at him, took in my appearance and body language, and just KNEW. Where this is most fun is at Police Week. Watching several thousand law enforcement professionals walking around in DC - as if they own the streets (and for that week they just about do) - all obviously "the police" even though they span the entire range of physical stature, gender, grooming, etc. is interesting. When you do something that your spouse or non-police friends might poke fun about it's okay. Everyone there knows why you did it and appreciates that you did! There's an unspoken understanding about the basic nature of the work and the kinds of people who do it. This unspoken basic understanding about the nature of police work and those who do it is at the core of "the brotherhood". Without being discussed; not being analyzed in fine detail; without so much as a "Do you understand...?" being asked - those that are part of the brotherhood (even the sisters in the brotherhood) all just GET IT. It's not a gang thing; it's not an "us or them" thing; it's just This is who we are and everyone is proud of it. Am I way off base here or do you guys (and gals) agree? Please share your thoughts. The article written for Officer.com by Michael Wasilewski and Althea Olson has a short quiz included so you can test YOUR cop "stereotypeness". My score was 11. I think you might find it fun and humorous to take.