Why such Assholes?

So, they want to know why police are so mean. Why they're such assholes. Why they're, basically the boogeyman.

Far be it from me to say that cops aren't assholes. Cops can be pretty mean. Cops can even "overreact". But I also know something else. I know why. I sat down with a number of officers, and we melded this story, based upon facts and circumstances surrounding a number of cases. This story is not intended to be historical fact. This is intended to explain a mindset. Specifics have been modified or removed to protect the sources and subjects.

Here's why police are such assholes:

I don't know about you, but everyone is a dick at 3 AM after their third naked guy of the night, and things don't get better from there. There is a certain dark side to the job that changes the people who have to deal with it. If you have a loved one who works in police, EMS, Fire or any job where their day to day life is stepping into everyone else's worst-day-ever, you've probably already picked up on some of the darker stories. If the officer is lucky, he'll share them with his incredibly understanding and supportive spouse. If he's smart, he'll share them with a counselor or trusted friend. More likely he'll keep them inside, in the dark, where they can hurt him in oh so many ways. 

This is a difficult story, and I heavily suggest having adorable animals nearby. Possibly a unicorn. But there was a girl, and her father hurt her. Her mother took her to the hospital, and tried to lie about what happened. The doctor, being a professional, was suspicious and called the police. A uniformed officer took an initial statement and contacted a detective whose division was focused on sexual abuse of minors.

I don't know how those detectives function. I only ever did initial statements and tangential work on these cases, as in this story, and that led to my rapid discovery that you cannot, in fact, drink to forget. Now I can't drink without remembering. Needless to say, they don't hang out in public with other cops much, and they definitely don't joke about work. But back to the story.

This detective did his work, talked to the little girl and the mother and nurses and decided to call out my unit's Lt. The Lt called my sergeant, who brought me along since I was the "safety" guy. My only role was to observe, make sure the detective got a valid warrant, and basically get details that would get us a safe arrest. And it went just like that, my bosses got briefed by the detective, and then that little girl asked from her hospital bed if she was going to be okay.

I need to point out that lying to people is part of policing. I've told folks with active warrants that they weren't under arrest, that I was a special escort for a meeting with an elected judge, and that they only had to wear handcuffs because it is department policy. It's far easier to lie someone into cuffs and jail than it is to fight them or chase them, no matter how funny some chases get. But that little girl was the only one I felt bad lying to. I told her she'd be just fine. You can find a psychology expert to validate this, but it's my understanding that that much trauma that early in a child's life is a life altering event. "Okay" is extremely relative in those cases.

As far as I know, she asked everyone who went in and out of that room the same question. But right then, in there, a little bit of my soul died answering her. I really don't know how people who work in child abuse do it.

We briefed my team, my only part in this was pointing out that since mom drove the girl to the hospital the dad, our suspect, probably knew we were coming. This means that dynamic entry was our best choice. I won't deny that I was angry, but the decision to enter "hard" was still valid, given the information.

So we went in. Our designated knocker broke down the door, I entered with the other 18 officers and I found our guy sitting on the corner of his bed. Slacks, button down shirt mostly unbuttoned. He looked like any other guy back from work. There was literally nothing to distinguish him from any other guy on the street. No way to look at him and see a monster who put a little girl in the hospital.

This is why academies stress that there's no such thing as a routine stop. The officer might stop a guy for a bad taillight. The guy might think he's being stopped because the officer somehow knows he just strangled his wife and drowned the cat. That's why Ferguson police released the video of Mike Brown stealing cigarettes. It wasn't to speak to the frame of mind of Wilson, but to the frame of mind of Brown. One guy thought he was witnessing jaywalking. The other may have thought a robbery was catching up to him.

It's very important to remain professional, especially when working with hyped up men carrying rifles. And the thing that most people don't understand is that it can be so incredibly hard to remain professional in the face of some things. Having an outlet for rage is a must. Some work out obsessively. Some play video games. Everyone has a different outlet, some healthier than others. I tried to put mine into my work. My team knows when I'm upset because the door usually leaves the hinges when I'm cross. And I was very upset with this father. I still had that cold clarity that training and adrenaline give you, but when I found the dad, and restrained him on the ground, I wanted to kill him. Because I saw that little girl, and I had seen what horrific trauma does to people as they grow up. I knew that shooting this man was the right thing to do. I still feel that way sometimes. That's easily the scariest thing I've ever encountered in my life, that certainty. Obviously, I didn't shoot the guy. I was, and hope I still am, a professional at the end of the day. But I also actively avoided following up on that case. Because I'm still scared that I will find out something to make me regret not pulling that trigger. That's a line that can't be uncrossed. I don't know that every, or even many, other officers deal with similar things, but I'm certain that more do than let on. Because those stories aren't funny, and they're not something you talk about with people, and expect to get a laugh.

After this is said and done, you have to put it away. There are six more hours left in your shift. There will be more arrests, more citizen interactions, and none of them can be made to bear the brunt of the horror you have to witness because they likely know nothing of it, and it certainly isn't their fault. You have to be a professional, and be courteous, and a counselor, and a hundred other things over the course of your shift that have nothing to do with a little girl in a hospital bed with an uncertain future. It's a rare person that can dissociate themselves from the reality that they have to tread in all day, and not be an asshole at least part of the time.

The weirdest part is, they'll be back tomorrow. They'll do this all again. It's hard to belong in other people's pain, and yet we have an entire profession of emergency responders who will accept that burden, wander into human misery and do what they can, every time. And some will be assholes. Many, in fact. Though I don't wonder why anymore. 

Bonus addition to an article

Bonus Addition to my Cracked Article

Surprisingly, the good people at cracked.com were nice enough to pay me for some of my sillier stories. Swell folks they are. A comment in the comments section (the seedy underbelly of any website) inspired me to write this bonus entry:

Holding your light and gun to look like a badass:

In movies you typically see:



And even more surprisingly you'll see them walking around, oblivious to the gun next to their face. Apparently the movie cop is unaware that adrenaline can and likely will cause them to jerk the trigger accidentally before they have a moment to get sights on anything. So now you're left with one functioning eye and ear. I can sort of understand why they do this. Tight camera shots of the hero(ine) are good, and adding a gun to that illustrates that this is a badass hero(ine), but it leads to terrible practices.

So how do they actually do things? Well, if you're old school, you adopt what is known as modified Harries technique:


Credit to

There are other techniques, example of which you'll see in the photo credit link.

If you're not, there are companies like surefire and streamlight that will gladly take your money to mount a light under your gun.

I can hear you asking: But do I hold this light up to my head? No (unless you're practicing the neck index, which always seemed like putting a target on your neck in the dark) you hold it either out from your body, as in the photo above, or very close in if you practice things like Center Axis Relock.

When actual police search buildings (and this isn't hostage or SWAT type searches, just your normal open building) they search at the low ready position. Both eyes open, gun in hand ready to move to sights position. This allows for a quick transition to firing stance, and keeps the barrel pointed into the unknown, which is where any threats are likely to come from.

Edit: Based on the pictures I forgot to say "Keep your damned fingers off the trigger"

I can't believe I need to write this down

There has been a long, proud, historical tradition of reasonable men being forced to actually write down the most painfully obvious shit for the benefit of those who really should have been weeded out by Darwinian selection for the sake of the species. Things like: "Don't attempt to stop chain with your genitals". If you need me to clarify, perhaps what kind of chain (chainsaw, bicycle, Nicolas Cage as The Ghost Rider) then you are the problem we're talking about. I cannot think of any single chain, moving or stationary, that I want to impede using my genitals. Having said that, I'm sure there's a porn website for it.

With that in mind, I really need to stress that jail is not the time, nor the place to be meeting members of the opposite sex. And yet, I find myself increasingly having to separate inmates, not because they're fighting, but because they have come to think of jail as some kind of dating site. Lulu love shack I guess (Bonus points if you can guess where I've been working based on that name). If you go to jail for something minor, it is not a safe assumption that everybody there is in for something minor. That woman you might be chatting up in the intake line might be here for some tickets she didn't pay, or maybe she just gutted her now ex-boyfriend in the bathtub. I really shouldn't have to explain that. It really should be obvious based on the context of where you are; namely, in jail.

So, if this article was informative and you learned not to stop the chain with your genitals, or pick up opposite digits in jail, then please don't ever breed. Ever.

Reasons to Walk Your Own Penis Across the Road

I'll be honest, I've got nothing. I met a man who was literally walking his penis across the street, before he assaulted a random person in said street. When I say he was walking his penis, I mean he was walking with his fly down, and his penis in his right hand as he crossed the street. My partner and myself were only able to come up with a couple theories before he started punching folks and we had to arrest him.

He was giving his penis a pep talk, telling it to keep its head up.
His penis is a frightened child and needs to hold someone's hand while crossing a street.
His penis functions as a dowsing rod to find liquor/drugs.

Alas, we'll probably never know why he was walking his penis across the street.

The Holiest of Spirits

In the Bible, it is written that Jesus would seek out the sick, the possessed, the infirm, the lame, and the blind and cure them of their ailments. In the Bible it is also written that "blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called Sons of God" (Matt 5:9). So, by the transitive property we establish that Jesus could lay hands upon the people and cure them of what ails them because he is the Son of God; therefore I (and any other officer) may do the same, as we are the peacekeepers and so the Sons of God.

With that introduction I'd like to talk about the Holy Spirit of Policing, which we call the Spirit of Slap. Every now and then we come across a man (and it's usually a man) who suffers greatly from a disease. It is a disease that paramedics and doctors find themselves ill-equipped to treat. It is a disease of the mind, yet no psychologist, nor psychiatrist, has found a treatment or cure. Only the police and corrections have determined a (temporary) cure for this disease. The disease is known by many names. Cranial-rectal insertion. Fecal encephalitis. Head-in-ass syndrome. I call it Asshattery. And, like Jesus before us, we lay hands upon these people in their time of need, to cure them of their ailment. Where Jesus was the Son of God and had the power of the Holy Spirit in Him, we turned to the Spirit of Slap. The Spirit of Slap occurs when the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost descend from Heaven to a choir of angels, and gently alight upon the shoulders of the officer in need. The Spirit of Slap grants the strength of God Himself to the backhand being delivered by the officer until his fist collides with the asshat's head, generally causing it to explode in teeth, snot, and holy light (sometimes). Having been delivered from the clutches of asshattery, the suspect is then removed to a local hospital, so that his more basic ailments can be healed as well, in addition to the side effects of laying on of hands.

I will lay hands on you, and you will be healed. Nobody said how long it would take, or what you'd look like after. Or if I need a team of surgeons to piece your face back together.

The Glossary of Political Terminology

This is somewhat off the beaten track, but I feel like perhaps it will be useful. Also, I'm no longer a police officer (though paradoxically I'm still a licensed peace officer in my state, and will remain so) so I only have my archived BS stories to share instead of meeting new and interesting people, and mocking them here.

A major part of the problem of modern politics, and life perhaps, is that people no longer remember what words mean. Words have a shocking power, to alter the very reality around us. Just as the past defines our present, it is unfortunate to find that the present can easily alter the past. The notion that 26 letters and a handful of punctuation, as Mr. Gaiman would say, can craft a tale to outlast civilizations should be downright frightening. So, remember this the next time you encounter someone who professes to have power over you.

Policeman: Root comes from greek word polis, meaning city-state. Thus, policeman literally becomes cityman, or man of the city. It's important to remember that the police are people. They don't work for you, the citizen, because they are you, and as importantly, you are them. They work for the city. And it's important to establish what a city is, lest you think that a city is no more than the bureaucracy that you're forced to deal with to build in your backyard, or to put up a fence, or pay a ticket.

City: Root from French word cite, which was a community of peoples. The city isn't the administration. It's not the mayor, or the city council, or the lands, or the population. The city is the unspoken contract between the peoples that they shall live here together in peace.

Politician: Base word politic, a Greek word for the voting body, or body of citizens, and suffix "ian" meaning belonging to or pertaining to. Thus a politician is one who belongs to the body of voters. They were basically slaves whose only job was to effectively petition for the betterment of his constituents. There was no career path, no future in such a job. You simply did your civic duty, and went back to what you did before, usually farming. It's no wonder that in the Roman days political office came through a system not unlike our own jury selection, rather than through men seeking office. If we somehow barred any who would want political power from ever having political power, I suspect virtually every government related issue would vanish in short order.

Right: A right, like the right to life, liberty, and property, is a negative right. This means that your right to life bars any from depriving you of life. Your right to your property means that none may take your property without your consent. What it is not is a positive right. A positive right would be a right to property, therefore someone must provide you with property.

As I think of more terms, I will put them here. If you would like something defined, leave it in a comment.

How to go to the mental hospital free of charge

 Heroine is a bitch. I've never done heroine, but I have met many many people who have and it strikes me as a bitch. You know, when you see someone from a distance and, even though you've never spoken to them, you can just tell (somehow, maybe it's the way they stand, or abuse oxygen, or they're that Joffrey kid from Game of Thrones) that this person is a total bitch. Maybe they have a bitch reputation. But heroine is a bitch. If, after this, you feel the need to go do heroine because you feel you can't bash something unless you've tried it, let me know how castration treats you. Combine mental illness, such as clinical depression, or schizophrenia, with heroine and you're gonna have a bad time. So, I meet this young enterprising lunatic crack whore. I don't use the term "crack whore" pejoratively, as this is actually her profession. She is standing there, telling me that the scars on her arms are from when she used to be suicidal. Due diligence being what it is, I ask if she's still suicidal. "No no, I'm cured. I don't hurt myself anymore." She then reaches into her own ear, gashes it open and starts playing with the blood. I don't mean this happened after I left. I mean, right there while talking to us, she gashed her own ear open. You can't tell me that you're not going to self harm, and then self harm in front of me and two other cops. You will end up in the hospital, and you will stay there until the voices shut the hell up for at least an hour. That's a lie. I know they'll toss her out to come back to her heroine house in a matter of hours.