Law Enforcement

What ever happened to respecting the police officers? The very people who put on the uniform to protect us. How did we digress to the point we are today?

Maybe we should look at what it takes to be a law enforcement officer. First they must have minimum of a high school education. Some departments, as well as federal positions require a bachelors degree. In addition they most enter the Police Academy. This training can vary from 14 weeks to six months and even more in some cases.

In the academy they study such things as professionalism, ethics, report writing, criminal law and traffic law, report writing, investigations, searches, traffic stops, emergency driving, weapons management, just to mention a few. 

The physical training is quite rigorous and demanding. During the academy they must complete a daily work out routine to prepare them for the job ahead. This includes timed runs, push-ups, sit-ups and other exercises.

It’s also important to understand police recruits must go through extensive psychological testing, background checks that may go back as far as grade school. Then there is the lie detector exam. And a financial background check. Most departments also require a physical exam which may include physical fitness evaluation or stress test.

These are special people who dedicate their lives to protect our homeland. Everyday they leave their homes and their families not knowing if they will return. It is a calling. It’s not for the great pay. Many officers are paid very little but they still pin on the badge and do what they have sworn to do.

Like any career there are those undesirables who have a bad attitude and don’t represent their department in the proper way. But these people are few compared to the good cops wanting to protect their communities. 

Understand that they see bowels of our society. They are expected to make split second decisions and when it is wrong, the public stands ready to crucify them. They are spit on, cussed at and ridiculed. They are ambushed for no reason, but are demanded to show respect for the very individuals who mock them and would kill them if they had the chance.

So the next time you see a law enforcement officer tell him or her how much you appreciate the work they do. They deserve our respect.

Blessed are the peacekeepers, for they shall by called the children of God.

-Matthew 5:9

In the early morning hours of March 16, 1975, appellants Carolyn Warren, Joan Taliaferro, and Miriam Douglas were asleep in their rooming house at 1112 Lamont Street, N.W. Warren and Taliaferro shared a room on the third floor of the house; Douglas shared a room on the second floor with her four-year-old daughter. The women were awakened by the sound of the back door being broken down by two men later identified as Marvin Kent and James Morse. The men entered Douglas’ second floor room, where Kent forced Douglas to sodomize him and Morse raped her.

Warren and Taliaferro heard Douglas’ screams from the floor below. Warren telephoned the police, told the officer on duty that the house was being burglarized, and requested immediate assistance. The department employee told her to remain quiet and assured her that police assistance would be dispatched promptly. Warren’s call was received at Metropolitan Police Department Headquarters at 6:23 a.m., and was recorded as a burglary in progress. At 6:26 a.m., a call was dispatched to officers on the street as a “Code 2” assignment, although calls of a crime in progress should be given priority and designated as “Code 1.” Four police cruisers responded to the broadcast; three to the Lamont Street address and one to another address to investigate a possible suspect.

Meanwhile, Warren and Taliaferro crawled from their window onto an adjoining roof and waited for the police to arrive. While there, they saw one policeman drive through the alley behind their house and proceed to the front of the residence without stopping, leaning out the window, or getting out of the car to check the back entrance of the house. A second officer apparently knocked on the door in front of the residence, but left when he received no answer. The three officers departed the scene at 6:33 a.m., five minutes after they arrived.

Warren and Taliaferro crawled back inside their room. They again heard Douglas’ continuing screams; again called the police; told the officer that the intruders had entered the home, and requested immediate assistance. Once again, a police officer assured them that help was on the way. This second call was received at 6:42 a.m. and recorded merely as “investigate the trouble”it was never dispatched to any police officers.

Believing the police might be in the house, Warren and Taliaferro called down to Douglas, thereby alerting Kent to their presence. Kent and Morse then forced all three women, at knifepoint, to accompany them to Kent’s apartment. For the next fourteen hours the women were held captive, raped, robbed, beaten, forced to commit sexual acts upon each other, and made to submit to the sexual demands of Kent and Morse.

Appellants’ claims of negligence included: the dispatcher’s failure to forward the 6:23 a.m. call with the proper degree of urgency; *3 the responding officers’ failure to follow standard police investigative procedures, specifically their failure to check the rear entrance and position themselves properly near the doors and windows to ascertain whether there was any activity inside; and the dispatcher’s failure to dispatch the 6:42 a.m. call.

The courts have consistently ruled that the police do not have an obligation to protect individuals. In Warren vs District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, the court stated; courts have without exception concluded that when a municipality or other governmental entity undertakes to furnish police services, it assumes a duty only to the public at large and not to individual members of the community.

Law enforcement is our country’s first line of defense. Everyday police officer’s dawn their armor to protect our communities. They have always been seen as the protector of the law and respected by all.

But then something happened. Now they are seen as the villains and many people are fearful of them. Some of our politicians have deemed officers, who have been engaged in shootings, guilty of wrongdoing before due process was allowed. This has created an anti-police sentiment that we see growing throughout our country.

Recently, the Oakland mayor notified illegal immigrants, all of which were wanted for crimes, that ICE was going to do a citywide raid. Instead of arresting over a thousand illegals as planned, only one hundred and fifty were taken into custody.

In that same city a coffee shop has made it well known that it will not serve police officers. My question is, Does that coffee shop expect officers to protect them?

A Wildlife Officer in Cleveland,Tennessee was in uniform when he and his wife went to dinner at an Outback Steakhouse. The manager approached the officer and told him he would need to leave his gun in his car. He explained that he could not do that because he was in uniform. The manager refused to allow him service at the restaurant. Another patron in the restaurant was so scared when she saw an officer with a gun, she had to be escorted to her car by restaurant employees. She was afraid that he would start shooting people because that’s what COPS do.

Now I will be the first to admit that there are bad cops out there. Along with bad firefighters, bad doctors, bad lawyers and many other occupations that have undesirables representing the profession. But most police officers are hard working patriots that care about our country. These people have earned our respect and our support. Next time you see a police officer thank him or her for the job they do.