An American Cop

He stopped caring today. It was the end of his shift. He was taking off his Sam Browne, keepers,cuffs, and duty weapon and placing them in his locker. Just like he has done for decades. After the belt, came the uniform shirt, his ballistic vest, pants and duty boots. All neatly hung. He thought he could get another day out of the uniform. The dry cleaners raised their prices again and he has not had a raise in about four years, so things are really getting tight. He thought back all those years when he first put that uniform on, how proud he had been. To be joining the ranks of an honorable profession which almost all people held in high esteem. It seemed to him that things have really changed.

He could not put his finger on just when things changed. Oh, he was immune from the rich woman speeding through the residential neighborhood and, when she figured out her flirting wasn't going to get her out of a ticket, she started calling him a stupid cop,and worse. He thought it might have been the domestic incidents where he is met at the door by the wife with a blackened eye and a cut lip, with the husband screaming at her as he walked up. He took the husband into custody, and had to fight off the battered wife when he went to place the husband under arrest. It was at this point she started calling him names. He was used to this, he thought. Maybe it was the countless times he learned about thirty minutes before end of shift he had to hold over for at least a half of the next shift due to staffing shortages. He really did not mind. The overtime was helpful since the insurance did not really cover his sons braces he needed every six months.

He learned long ago that the people who promote up through the ranks are not always good leaders. They're just good at promoting. Then, once they achieve rank, they frequently seem to believe they got there because they are smarter than everyone else and are God's gift to police work. But, that didn't stop him. He was there to make a difference. He cared because he believed people needed him and those like him. He believed he had the respect of the community. Oh, he knew there were those that criticized law enforcement. They didn't have much traction, he thought, from the good people of his city. The complainers always expressed their belief the knew more about doing his job than he did and that all these problems would just go away if the stupid cops would just listen. But today was different.

Today he really started to come to the realization that there were many in government and the world that believed what he did for a living was fundamentally corrupt. There was the city counsel or county supervisor who expressed rather directly he or she did not trust their policing agency. Then there were the local citizens who voiced the same opinions. He got a radio call concerning a juvenile problem today. When he got there, mom said she called because her son would not do his homework, and she wanted him to tell the son he would take him to jail if he didn't get his work done. The boy cried and ran in fear of him. Today, like many days before, a young minority male yelled "crooked pig" when he drove by. He started to really think he had lost the respect of the community. How much more of this crap could anyone take?. The citizens seemed to not care, he started to really believe.

So today, at the end of the shift, he was really demoralized. He put is gear away. Changed clothes, and got ready to go home. He knew this would pass, or at least he sure hoped it would. He loved the job, or did, he thought. He pretty much knew when he came in tomorrow, he would be fine. He was not ready to walk away, he thought....not yet. He knew for now, at least, some people respected the job and his effort to help. He hoped these depressing thoughts would pass, they had always done so before. And as he sat in the locker room thinking, he started to care again. He really did, and he hoped he always would. He was an American Cop, and he knew in his soul, he always would be.