My Dad did gunsmithing work for a lot of cops, and for years the local PD shot his reloads. My brother was a cop for almost 16 years. My son just started as an officer week before last and last night made his first arrest of a gang banger who was robbing a store. We are very proud of him.
That said, all it takes is one incident to sour you on police forever, esp. if you make the blanket assumption that one bad apple ruins the whole barrel.
Incident: we call the San Jose PD in 1970. Someone is breaking into the house across the street. 45 minutes later they roll up loudly with lights flashing. Sit outside with their spotlights flooding the front windows for 5 long minutes, while the thieves leave out the back and over the fence. Voila! No arrests and no paperwork.
Incident: A black man is sitting on the chest of a woman at 2 in the morning on our front lawn, slashing her with a straight razor. Her screams awaken us. She is a mass of blood, with defensive wounds all over her arms and hands. Her dress slashed open. I am 12. My Dad calls the SJPD, then grabs his 1911 and heads outside and holds it on the dirtbag. The cops show up and arrest my Dad and confiscate his pistol. While they are busy with him, the black guy gets up from the ground and saunters off, blood dripping from the razor. They never find him.
Incident: I am stopped in 1983 because my idiot boss didn't put registration stickers on my cab. It is called in and I found that it was paid but no sticker was put on the plate. Since he now has no reason to hold me, arrogant, abusive 30 years on the job CHP officer writes me up for doing 40 in a 25. I protest that the speed limit is 35 and that's what I was doing. Gives me a hard time, (for some reason the cops assumed all cabbies were scum), and drives off. I walk back 50 feet and check the speed limit sign: 35 mph. On the ticket the street name is wrong. The license plate # is also incorrect.
I drive over to the local coffee shop and spot a CHP Sgt. there and show him the ticket and explain the errors. He shakes his head, and says don't worry about, he'll take care of it. Then he takes a look at the officer's name and hands it back to me and says he'll talk to him.
3 weeks later at traffic court, the officer stands up, takes the oath, and swears that the speed limit WAS 25 mph. at the time of the infraction, but has since been CHANGED to 35 mph., and then looks at me triumphantly. I called him a liar. I was found guilty and paid a fine and my insurance went up with another point on my record.
Incident: It is 1986 and I am delivering newspapers at 3 in the morning because I am out of work and severly broke. I do 300 papers a night, for $25 cash. I am stopped by a Santa Rosa PD cop and cited. The reason? Littering. Throwing newspapers from the car, is littering.
Incident: At 1 in the morning a completely naked woman is standing in the center lane of 101 South. I narrowly miss hitting her with the cab at 70 mph. I take the next exit and pull into an all night coffee shop, run in and tell a CHP guy sitting there that there is a naked woman about to become roadkill out past the frontage road not 300 yards away. He just stares at me and takes another bite of his french dip and goes back to watching the TV behind the counter.
Incident: I spot two kids smashing a huge plate glass window with a brick. I call the dispatcher from my cab and she calls the cops. The kids are laughing walking downtown. I wait 20 minutes and turn down several calls waiting. A bored Santa Rosa PD officer shows up. I tell him what happened and point out that the kids are now a mile away, but I know where they are.
He asks can I ID them. Yes. Then he says I will have to fill out lots of paperwork if he files a report. Do I know that? Is that OK? Yes. Then he says I will have to appear in court. Is that OK? Yes. You know they will schedule it on your day off? Yes, OK. Meanwhile while this joke with a badge is trying to get out of writing a report, these guys are getting away.
Then he says it doesn't matter because the store has insurance! Then I get mad and tell him if he doesn't get off his ass and stop these guys, maybe his Chief would like to know that? He reluctantly follows me downtown, where fric and frac are kicking the hell out of a mailbox, trying to knock it over.
I park at the cab stand while he goes over and talks to them. After two minutes he shakes their hands and they walk off quickly. He comes back over to me. Well, I asked? He says, "I asked them and they say they didn't do it."
That's it??? Yep. So thanks for your assistance, and he drives off. I have lost at least $30 worth of runs.
I sit at the cab stand, and 5 minutes later a rock smashes my back window. I get out and fric and frac give me the bird, laugh and run off.
From that day on I could see the Hope diamond being stolen and I wouldn't lift a finger, and certainly would never call the cops.
Follow up: a few years ago I am driving home 150 miles at 3 in the morning and can't stay awake. I am the only guy on 6 lanes of 280 North and keep nodding off. The truck is drifting from the fast lane to the slow lane and back again for miles.
I am stopped by a CHP officer, who asks what the hell I am doing, he can see me nodding off, and do I want to get killed? He escorts me to a Denny's, tells me to go in and tank up on coffee, and to stop being an idiot, and if he sees me again on the road driving that way I'm his. He cut me a huge amount of slack, and that one guy just about made up for every one of the others losers I had run into over the years.
So, sorry for the long post, but I've learned cops are human beings just like everyone else. People expect perfection from people who are inherently imperfect, as are we all. The difference is accountability needs to be in place.
They have a huge amount of responsibility, and I could never be one. In the cab when someone gave me a really hard time I just thumped them and grabbed them by the collar and tossed them into the nearest roadside ditch and called in a "no service." Cops don't have that option, at least not usually...
Norm
