Final Project
For my
final project I went to the maple lake police department and sat down with a
few of their officers. I asked them a few questions about their experiences as
a cop. How times are chaining and what kind of toll racial tensions play on their
job. For privacy purposes all officers requested that their names remained
excluded from this document.
Objectives-
·
Get to know the cop
·
Learn how being a cop has
affected their life
·
Learn how cop related racial
events have affected their experience as a cop
1.
Tell us about yourself?
·
“I consider myself quite on
energetic well rounded person. I enjoy spending time with my family, Hunting,
Fishing and going up to my cabin.”
2.
Has being a cop changed your
opinion on life?
·
“Well of course it has! I
used to walk down the street and only notice the obvious things. No bad ideas
crossed my mind about what could happen or be happening. I’m not paranoid but I
am more observant and understanding of what I see which means I’m usually on
alert.”
3.
As demanding as your job is
do you enjoy being a cop?
·
Yes, I like police work.
Patrol is neat. I also enjoyed running swat but I’m getting to old for that
now. I'd like to be an SRO and an investigator. Those are two roles I would
enjoy more. I like getting stuff in patrol that I can play out and investigate
rather than forwarding, and I like dealing with juvenile and school related
stuff.
4.
How have the racial tensions
regarding cops changed your time as an officer?
·
First off I’d like to say
that my opinion will obviously be biased due to the fact that I have been a cop
from many years and worked for man police departments. With that being said I
think that the madness about white cops all being racist is utter bull sh*t. I
don’t get it. Of course there are racist cops both black and white. That’s a
reality of life. But not every whit cop is a racist just as not every Muslim is
a terrorist. America seems to have the problem of grouping everyone together
based on the actions of a few. Because I am a white cop you may think that I am
biased. But every single one of my fellow black officers think in the same way.
We are all just trying to do our best to protect you, your homes, and your way
of life and this is what we get in return? Cops are people to. We have families
just like you. But the difference between you and me, is that we risk never
seeing our family again just to protect yours. People don’t seem to understand
that.
5.
Would you recommend being a
cop to people today?
·
Absolutely not. I used to
tell be all the time about how fantastic my job is. I used to tell them about
how it makes me a better person every day. About how it helps make others safe
and will bring out your inner potential showing you who you really are! Now, it’s
quite a different story. Now we stick our next out every day. But we don’t get
any support from the people we are protecting. There Is no support from the
media, the common man, or the court system. Because of the events over the last
few years we have no besides our fellow officers and sometimes, sometimes our
families. So when people ask me if I would recommend my job to another, the
answer over these last few years has been no. Again you may say that I’m alone
in this opinion. But your wrong. Every year when we start offering positions to
the public we usually struggle to sort through all the applicants. In the year
2015 we had over 480+ people apply for our openings. This year we had under 150
applicants. Being a cop used to be regarded as a position to strive for, a
position that people were proud to hold. But that time is long gone, and so we
start a new one.
Conclusion-
Although being a cop used to be a fun interesting
profession. It seems like that is no more. The tensions that arose over the
last year have changed the job for the worse. They
are scared to do their jobs. They are persecuted by us, crucified by the
media, and dismissed by the courts. As brutal and strenuous as this job is. The
officer was proud he served in the force of over 20 and said. “I’m glad I got
to do my time for the force. I hope that the next generation of cops is able to
keep us all safe and lord keep them safe as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment