The cops in my town ain't half bad.

One of the things I think a lot of readers may not understand is that I have nothing against police officers.

They have a job to do and generally they do it as best they can. I figure the average cop is just another fairly decent guy that has chosen to try and make the world a little safer place to live.

While it is true I think there is a lot of stupid and police corruption in places like Philly, the average cop in the average town is just another guy trying to keep things down to a dull roar. The average cop wants to go out and feel he has made a difference.

Police departments seem to have the same headaches as most other organizations and probably suffer the usual 80/20 problems any other organizations seem to suffer. Eighty percent of the problems are generally caused by about 20% of the membership.

As I have posted here I generally draw a lot more police attention than a lot of my fellow citizens.

Much of this is of my own doing as I tend to do things that are a little unusual and the unusual seems to draw attention. Good policemen are curious by nature and tend to stop and check out things that they see as being unusual.

A guy parked in a mall parking lot with some sort of radio set up well after the mall is closed is pretty likely to draw the eyes of the local police who generally patrol mall parking lots after closing hours looking to make sure everything is secure. I would imagine that if they did not at least pull up and ask what is going on that they really would not be doing their job.

You have to expect such things and if you are not ready to deal with a police officer I suppose you ought to simply stay home instead of going hilltopping in a parking lot late at night. There are not a whole lot of hilltopping ham radio operators running around. It is an unusual thing to do and anything unusual is bound to draw attention.

Getting upset with the officer that is doing his job really makes little sense when you think about it because he is probably going to respond just like almost everyone else in the world. If you get all huffy and give him a hard time he is simply going to return the favor. You can't blame him because you would probably do the same thing.

You also can't blame him for being suspicious when you act like you are simply trying to get rid of him because his suspicious nature is going to wonder what you are trying to hide. More often than not a simple honest explaination of what you are doing goes a long way.

I can not recall ever having a police officer show up at my residence looking for me that hasn't been called
by somebody else. Nebby Larry, the chronic cop-caller has been responsible for the majority of it and there is another neighbor a few doors up that does not have a life that I sometimes bait by doing something like drink iced tea out of an old Jack Daniels bottle while cleaning a rifle.

The one up the street has been quiet lately probably because she has made a fool out of herself a few too many times.

A lot of people seem to get pretty resentful when they find themselves dealing with a police officer. Generally I don't find it upsetting in the least because I know that they have to respond to calls, even stupid ones like the ones Nebby Larry makes into the station when I bait him by telling him I am looking for land mines and other such things.

Granted there are a number of police officers on the payroll that really shouldn't be there but you have only to look around and open your eyes and you will see about the same percentage of idiots in just about any other field that don't belong in the field they are in.

One officer I know of fits the bill when I think of him. He is a jerk and should have found something else to do for a living. He makes trouble where there is none and I happen to know that there are a whole lot of officers that do not like him very much because of this.

One of the problems asssociated with a person like this is that he gives the rest of those that try and keep things simple a bad name. Besides making trouble for the public, he makes trouble for the department.

Still, you have to realize that police departments in general are little more than a cross section of the American public and that they have a job to do and are subject to the same problems and headaches as the rest of us have.

My most often read post is the one where I was in a motel and the maid walked in on me and freaked out when she saw me cleaning a service rifle. The police were called and a couple of rookies showed up and freaked out over the fact that I had a couple of service rifles and a pile of ammunition. They got carried away.

While the incident ended well when a sergeant walked in and sorted things out you have to look at the responding officers. Neither of them were at all familiar with the shooting sports and it is entirely possible that the first firearm they ever fired was at the police academy. You also have to remember that this event took place shortly after the Oklahoma City bombing and the media was on a feeding frenzy reporting militias behind every tree.

There are an awful lot of police officers that are not shooters and simply regard their sidearm as something they have to qualify with periodically. A lot of them do not own firearms of their own. They do not hunt. Some are really not comfortable around firearms.

This is to be expected to a degree because, as I have said, the police are nothing more than a cross section of the American public. There are an awful lot of citizens out there that are afraid of firearms for various reasons. I would suppose there are a few officers in this category, too.

When I think of police officers I do not think of heroes, nor do I think of a bunch of bums, either. I simply look at most of them as guys that are just trying to do a good job, take home a paycheck and raise a family as best they can.

We give the average cop a lot of authority that he seldom abuses and a lot of responsibility he generally manages to live up to and really, that ain't all that bad.

When you consider the fact that they are nothing more than human beings and as such are apt to make mistakes it is pretty noteworthy that in general they do as good of a job as they do.




my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/