Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Keeping It Simple -- Good Cops Versus Bad

By Terry McGahey

For whatever reason, the media today seems to air the actions of the bad cops over the good. 

For the most part, whenever you see something on the news that involves police officers, more than not, it has to do with an officer acting badly, and why? Because it makes better news copy than those officers who do good. 

True, we do have some police officers who commit crimes against the public, there have been instances of police planting evidence on innocent people, detectives who out and out lie just to make their case in court, as well as officers who have committed rape and even murder.

Just because someone becomes a police officer, that does not necessarily make them a good person.

For the most part it takes about five years for a rookie cop to become a good police officer. Usually the young ones have a tendency to be a little more brash because the weight of the badge fulfills their egos giving them the feeling of power over others.

If any of these young officers are reading this article I would say to them, always start out as a good guy because if you have to you can always turn into the bad guy, on the other hand, if you start out as the bad guy you can never go to being the good guy. Think about it?

On the other side of the coin, if you are pulled over by a police officer for speeding, a tail light out, making an illegal turn, or any other offense, you know within yourself that you committed the offense, so when the officer walks up to your car be pleasant. Just admit to the offense and the outcome of that situation will go so much easier.

Not to say you won't receive a ticket, you probably will, but the bottom line in that case, you have one coming and the officer is only doing his job.

Overall, the percentage of the bad police officers nationwide equals one to two percent. Not a bad average, but still not good enough when you are the person who has to deal with them in a one on one situation. The best way to eliminate these criminals wearing a badge is for the good police officers to begin reporting these guys to their watch commanders.

If this mess is to get straightened out it will have to come from within each and every department. We all know that being a police officer means that you have joined a brotherhood. No more should these guys cover for each other because if a good officer covers up for a bad one, then the good also becomes the bad.

The majority of police officers working the streets are good decent people doing a job that most of us wouldn't want anything to do with. They sometimes get verbally abused by the public, put themselves in harms way to protect you when necessary, they never know when a simple traffic stop might go badly, and if that isn't bad enough, the public seems to be putting all of the police officers in one bag because of the bad officers.

Remember this. The next time, like the old saying goes, and I will add to it, when you need help because of a burglary or other, call a hippie, call a Muslim, call a racist, call a rioter from Ferguson Missouri, or call a drug dealer and see how much help you receive from them.

I have met a lot of police officers over my sixty four years and the majority of the police officers are good decent people. Stop bashing them all just because of the few bad apples.

There are bad people in every walk of life no matter the profession.



1 comment:

  1. This reminds me of a simple fact about Old West history when it comes to lawmen. Sometimes, they worked on BOTH sides of the law.

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