A long time ago – in the late 1970s if I remember correctly – I wasn’t even a teenager yet and was visiting family in Memphis, Tennessee. At that time, the city police were negotiating pay and benefits with the city and threatened a strike if they didn’t get what they wanted. That was the first time I heard the term “blue flu” and came to realize it was another name for law enforcement officers calling out sick when they weren’t really… to make a point. I remember being disappointed that any officer would do that. As I said, I wasn’t even a teenager yet and my idea of the perfect police officer was Sheriff Taylor in the Andy Griffith show. I was young. I was naïve. It would be around six to eight years later that I’d learn anything about law enforcement, first as a military policeman in the Army and then as a police officer "on the streets."
To some extent I maintained my idealistic view of law enforcement. I was often warned that it would get me hurt, or worse, one of my brother/sister officers hurt. I spent well over 20 years in a police uniform in Maryland, just outside our nation’s capital. I definitely got my fair share "dose of reality," but I also never lost the focus I had on what the best law enforcement officers should be (in my opinion).
Now I was never so naïve as to believe that all law enforcement officers were perfect. I was never so naïve as to believe that every one of us had a good heart. We are all human and like everything else involving human beings, there will be the imperfect and those with dark intentions. Contemporary law enforcement recruiting and hiring practices go above and beyond to weed out those with less than honorable intent or with physical, mental or emotional issues that disqualify them for the work. It’s a rare occasion that someone not properly qualified gets hired, and then if they do, they are usually weeded out through the academy, field training and evaluation processes. It’s important to recognize just how much effort is put into making every attempt to hire only the most qualified. Still, with nearly nine hundred thousand law enforcement professionals in America today, a mistake in hiring or inability to identify the “problem officers” of even 1/10th of 1% means (potentially) 900 officers that shouldn’t be on the street.
We in law enforcement have a duty to filter out those officers as quickly and efficiently as we can and we have a further duty to insure, when we do identify them, that we prevent them from doing unjustified harm. Yes… I’m saying that we have to be our brother’s keeper. We are responsible for taking the appropriate corrective action when we identify a potential problem. That’s a hurtful and angering statement. I know a lot of officers would not only disagree with my statement but also consider me “not a real cop” because of it.
Let me defend my position before you crucify me. We have a duty. We take an oath. Our oath includes protecting and serving everyone in the community we serve. We take an oath to uphold the Constitution, to enforce state, county and local laws as applicable. Not anywhere in that oath does it say, “unless you see a police officer doing something suspect – and then it’s perfectly okay to look the other way.”
In taking that oath and pinning on the badge or star, we assume a responsibility that transcends our personal feelings. We all know that. We are taught to act with “cold professionalism” and to not let our emotions impact our performance. Anger cannot be allowed. But how do we avoid it? How do we do away with it? We’re human. To be human means to feel every emotion there is. We have to do our best not to act on those emotions unless they are charitable or compassionate and we incur no risk in doing so. Yes, it’s always a balance. The balance must always be in favor of us going home at the end of our shift. Or does it? We should never allow someone to stop us from going home, but we must always be ready to sacrifice ourselves – and not go home – if that’s what duty calls us to do.
One of the challenges we, as a profession, face is that the general public can’t comprehend the difference. They’ve never been put in a situation of being asked to accept a higher risk to themselves to alleviate risk for someone else. They’ve never been called (most of them) to give of themselves for no gain and no reward. They don’t understand how on the one hand we can so willingly sacrifice our safety to save someone else but on the other hand refuse to sacrifice our safety to defend ourselves from violence. Don’t begrudge them their inability to understand. They’ve never had to. The challenge we have is in helping them to understand the difference and to see the purity of our motivations.
We are and must be willing to sacrifice for good people. We must never be willing to sacrifice ourselves to the violence committed by bad people. Our further challenge will come in conversations with our community members who don’t believe people are inherently bad; that all people are good… if just given the chance. We know better. We’ve had it proven to us time and time again. We’ve seen the evil humans do. We’ve looked into the eyes of evil as we arrest it. We’ve seen the crime scenes and carnage after evil has passed through. We KNOW there are good and bad people in the world. Heck, even Jesus Christ knew there were good and bad people in the world. It’s an unfortunate reality of our work that we can’t turn the other cheek. We cannot simply forgive all ills and move on. We are not (most of us) priests or clergymen. Our job is to protect and serve, not forgive and condone. We focus on people… not souls.
For all of that, we take an oath, and we must abide by that oath even when it’s tough; even when it’s difficult; even when we’re being ridiculed and criticized and threatened. We answered a higher calling to stand in the gap against barbarism and anarchy. We pursue education and training to equip ourselves with the knowledge and skills necessary to protect society as best we can fully knowing that, at times, society will berate us for our efforts. Society will be unappreciative. Society will be critical. We have to remember that it isn’t SOCIETY talking. It is a very select number who take issue with how we did something or what we enforce. They forget that we don’t write laws. They ignore the fact that they elected the people who created the laws and then hired us to enforce the laws. Society holds us responsible for all of government at times, simply because we are the most visible representative thereof.
None of that relieves us of our duty. None of that absolves us of our oath. To all my brothers and sisters wearing a badge or star, hold the line. Do your duty. DO NOT call out "slick" with the blue flu. We're better than that. We are more honorable than that. We must demonstrate that our profession is one held above the pettiness of whiny children and pandering politicians. We have to demonstrate we are worthy of respect even when it is most difficult to do so. THAT is the true test. THAT is when we identify who among us is in it for the paycheck and who has been called. NOW is when we find out who are the warrior monks among us who can compassionately enforce the law and continue to help all of the innocents in society that we have sworn to serve, even in the face of all of the unfair criticism and ridicule. How we behave NOW is what will determine how society views us next year.
We have to help them. We have to be the kind of professionals that they can point out to their children and their grandchildren and say, “See? That’s a professional. That’s an admirable and honorable person. That is who you go to when you need help." We cannot criticize people for threatening their children with us if we're not behaving in a way to earn their admiration.
We have to accept the reality that mainstream media is NOT on our side. Every Chief and Sheriff should very carefully brief their Press Information Officers on what can and can’t be said. Transparency? As best we can manage. Political? Never. Politically correct? If it can be managed without compromising our ethics and honor. Truthful? 100%.
It is tempting to call out sick and not deal with it. The stress is difficult to mange. The ungrateful make our days even more difficult. But stay true to your oath. Do your duty. Make sure you have no guilt, remorse or regret when you say goodnight to your reflection in the mirror. Earn that badge/star every day and recognize the trust endowed with it.
