BY TONY BOUZA
The job sucks.
The Chief is a psycho.
We’re going to hell in a handbasket.
Morale has never been lower.
These are a few of the bromides that drive police thinking. Civilians, though, are looking at Atlantis and don’t know it. An unfathomable world, several fathoms deep.
Mayors speak in platitudes about the police, but actually know nothing about the profession’s inner working or how to control the cops.
Even lawyers have a real problem distinguishing police brutality from necessary force.
When legally challenged, cops (the name derives from copper shields they once wore) show up in uniform and testify they’re out there risking their lives for you. From whom? From blacks—which reinforces the racism that drives our society. Yet, that is their assignment.
Cops don’t quit—ever. They stay and stay and bitch and moan every day of service.
A cop’s partner is his closest attachment.
Women are accepted and part of the appeal is the hope of friggin’ in the riggin.’
A few cops are thumpers—alphas who lead one pack. They are usually brave, heroic, admired leaders who must be controlled. They set the pace.
Physical courage abounds in police ranks but moral courage is AWOL.
The blue code of silence exists and is enforced. Rats are the lowest form of life. Testilying (perjury) is routinely employed to protect self and partner.
Corruption has faded as the union secured great salaries and benefits. The union’s job now is to protect wrongdoers in the ranks.
Settlements against thumpers are paid by you.
Challenges to authority must be faced and put down. Those defying the cops are scumbags and assholes.
Self-pity abounds. Don’t rely on civilians to get it.
Police work is long stretches of boredom punctuated by bursts of excitement. It’s the bursts that get on cop shows.
A chief’s principal job is to control the cops and the only tool available is fear.
It is a big myth that cops control crime—a myth their chiefs embrace when the trend is downward. Crime and revolution—according to Aristotle—are caused by poverty (he forgot racism).
Aggressive police tactics are universally shunned. Decoys, stake-outs, stings and even choke holds are perfectly legal but rarely, if ever, employed. Black communities resist these approaches because they impinge disproportionately on black males, who make up a large segment of the street criminal population. And we must never forget we, the overclass, shaped the conditions of their lives.
Crime is declining in America (since 1990) because of Roe v Wade (abortions to impoverished teenagers who produce street criminals); sex education and welfare reform (removed the incentive to have your own apartment with your baby).
It’s economics and social conditions, stupid!
Drug gangs, the opioid crisis and the enormous proliferation of firearms threaten to reverse crime trends upward.
All attempts to control cops have failed—law suits (the citizens pay); the FBI (don’t really want to alienate their colleagues); Civilian Review Boards (co-opted, resisted, ignored or circumvented). Only the press serves as a sort of Inspector General.
The police union is to policing what the teacher’s union is to instruction—it is there to protect the unfit. Civil Service “reforms” are the Iron Maidens protecting abusers.
Police ranks, nationally, are bloated with supervisors who don’t control their charges—overtime costs soar and settlements for brutality are exploding, yet reforms are utterly and universally ignored.
In America—this great country—it is traditional to be upbeat.
Sorry.
