The Real Heroes

This morning, while waiting for our synagogue's temporary quarters to open up, I met a police officer coming into the building. They have a community policing office nearby. As he came in the door, I took the opportunity to tell him my brother is a commander in a police department up north, and to thank him for his service to the community. I told him the media (which loves to distort the quality and value of police officers) can kiss my ass, because I know better. He brightened at that and spent a minute talking to me about how a local paper had deliberately distorted the facts of an arrest to make it look like police abuse of an innocent when in reality the guy had been a real creep and all the pedestrians near by had literally applauded when they arrested him.

This took me back in time to a classroom experience I had had where the students had been allowed to rant on and on about how terrible the police were. So I think today, I'll take a minute to reflect on the life of a cop.

People, the only thing that allows you to live a normal, reasonably safe life where you can go to work, go to school, go to the grocery store, go to the movies and go to sleep in relative safety every night are the men and women in blue who patrol the streets day and night keeping the ghouls and predators at bay. Because I'll tell you. The bad guys out there are legion and they've got their eye on you and yours all the time, and the only thing that keeps them from acting on their evil intentions is their fear of people like my brother (and others like him) who put on a blue uniform and a badge and a gun every day and stand between you, your kids and them.

The life of a cop can be summed up in microcosm in the amount of time it takes to pull somebody over for a routine traffic stop, get out of their cruiser, walk over and ask to see a driver's license. Because every cop knows, however much they may have immunized themselves to the constant realization, that that traffic stop could be their last. The guy or gal behind the wheel could be a crack head, a pimp, a bank robber, a wanted rapist or God only knows what else. He could have a knife in the space right under his driver side window, a gun under his driver seat, or even a semi-automatic weapon already resting in his lap, waiting for the officer to come around. Every cop knows no matter how experienced he or she is, this could finally be the guy or gal with a new angle or a new weapon and just as surely as they said goodbye to their spouse and kids that morning, a police department rep could be visiting their home that night bringing them some very, very, very bad news.

Every day cops suit up and get in their cruiser, they know they can face this situation, or much worse, multiple times in a day. And that, by the way, is maybe the easy stuff. Domestic abuse calls, family arguments, even disturbing the peace calls because of loud parties can end just as badly.

Sometimes people have a legitimate beef with a particular cop. Sometimes people bitch and moan because they can legitimize their non-participation in the larger society by carping about "how corrupt the system is, especially the cops(read: The system sucks, so I therefore don't have to be a positively contributing part of it)." And sometimes people bitch because they never went out and got themselves an actual life and complaining about the cops is the only thing they can think to do with themselves.

But understand this: The only thing that allows any of us the luxury of pursuing our own lives for better or for worse as we see fit is because we have the police protecting us, watching our back, and keeping the bad guys in check. Don't ever think otherwise, not even for a second, because you'd just be fooling yourself.

We'll talk more about our friends the police later.