As I sit and write this, the clock is about to bring us into a new day…January 6th…a day that will likely be filled with nonsense drama leading to nowhere other than more division. While people of all walks of life are preparing to cheer or scream (or both), the American police officer is preparing to do the same thing that he/she has done every day since having their shield pinned on their chest: do their very best to honor their oath – without prejudice or bias.
Oaths don’t mean much in America anymore, assuming they ever really did. Most professions don’t even require one and, using doctors as an example, with malpractice deaths averaging nearly 250,000 per year in the United States alone(read that again), a large portion of which result from unnecessary surgery, clearly even the professions that DO require them aren’t exactly beacons of hope. Michellene Davis, that was for you. We still haven’t forgotten.
The divorce rate in America in 2020 was nearly 40%, so we aren’t much better off the clock or in the eyes of God.
However, for the American police officer, that’s all we have. Our oath is the foundation of everything we do and everything we stand for. It’s the justification the family and friends of those lost in the line of duty fall back on as they stare at their loved one’s name on the wall in DC. It’s the sole reason that police officers continue to answer calls for service and 911 calls for help in the very same communities that are calling them vile names while simultaneously calling their defunding. I know this generation is not the first generation of police officer to be hated. This is nothing new. “F**k The Police” wasn’t written last week. That said, I think even those who came before us and have made their way to retirement can agree, the last decade has been a pretty consistent kick in the pants, to put it cleanly and grossly under-emphasized.
Best part? It’s only going to get more and more complicated in the coming days, months and years.
Regardless of where you work; regardless of whether your law enforcement employment is on a local, state or federal level; every police officer’s oath involves a pledge to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America – a task becoming increasingly more difficult when even our elected officials – the very ones MAKING the laws – seem to take that concept as a mere suggestion.
The average American, even those who consider themselves mildly politically involved, have a hard time telling you who their district’s State representative is, let alone where their office is. Doubt me? Try it out. Without warning, ask your spouse. Even better, ask your overly opinionated millennial child. You’ll be gravely disappointed at what you find. For those who DO know their representatives? Kudos! Now, tell me how to get in touch with them directly and prove that you can actually do it – you know, the one’s who are actually elected to speak FOR you. You’d think it would make sense that they should actually be able to hear FROM you, no? If you thought you were disappointed before, wait till you try that one out.
Yet, you know who everyone knows how to find? You know who everyone can locate and speak to on a whim about even about the most mundane complaint, regardless of whether the person even has any say or control over the issue? The American police officer. They are on nearly every corner, every block and every highway. I am willing to bet that most people know exactly where their local police department/precinct is; hell, most have probably protested outside of it or attempted to vandalize it (or worse). You would like to think that the vitriol being hurled at the American police officer is some kind of justified retaliation for some egregious violation of their oath. However, here comes the hurt bomb: You’d be lying to yourself. Virtually every narrative that has been rolled out there in order to defame the American police officer is an outright lie. No matter how many TRAGEDIES involving a boatload of shared responsibility and split second decisions you want to highlight, there is not one legitimate statistical form of data to support any of the false narratives. NOT ONE. You know it. I know it. Most importantly, the ones peddling the hate know it.
But what our elected officials know most of all is that they can effectively use the American police officer as a smoke screen. Police officers are the accessible face of government. As such, they are exponentially more likely to bear the brunt of society’s frustration for the “way things are”. In nearly every case, a police officer is enforcing a law that they had absolutely no input in regards too creating and likely weren’t even born, let alone ‘on the job’, when it was written. We enforce the laws that we take an OATH to enforce. While it’s no consolation to the person getting handed a ticket or being handcuffed, it would do you well to pause and realize that, whether a police officer PERSONALLY agrees with or disagrees with a specific law, that has absolutely no bearing on their responsibility to enforce it. If you work at McDonlad’s, there is literally a flow chart telling you how to assemble a Big Mac – Related: Spit is not part of it so ease back on that. You agree to follow the rules on how it is to be assembled, even if YOU think the special sauce is better below the lettuce. Apples and oranges. But not really.
2020 has presented some pretty interesting dilemmas for police officers and I fear they’re only going to get worse and more complicated. Laws, often in the form of ‘mandates’ from local and state officials, have been coming damned near close to being unconstitutional. The Chinese Virus and the subsequent social distancing “laws”, in the opinion of any honest answering police officer, are unconstitutional. Yes. I said it. You can reread it if need be.
Our elected officials would have you believe that the guidelines they are trying to legally bind you too are being imposed for the ‘greater good’…the betterment of society and the overall preservation of our collective health. Interesting. If that were the case – that our government really cares about our health and this not some form of manipulation in order to power grab and forward an agenda – riddle me this: Nicotine kills ON AVERAGE 500,000 Americans a year. Nearly 40,000 of those killed die from second hand smoke, meaning they are inhaling someone else’s cancer stick byproduct. Why haven’t we banned cigarettes?
Don’t worry. I’ll wait.
Despite the obvious and flagrant danger to the health of the American people that cigarettes present, we all seem pretty at peace with slapping a Surgeon General’s warning on a box of smokes and leaving the FREE Americans to decide their own level of risk.
Funny how that works, eh?
So, imagine the American police officer being told to enforce a mandate that may, in some cases, involve how many people you can have in your home. Is that order UNLAWFUL? Because, again, the only order a police officer is NOT obligated to follow is an UNLAWFUL one. I may not agree with the order, but unless that order is a violation of a law or someone’s civil rights, I am obligated to follow it.
Whether on the news or live in person, most Americans witnessed the debacle that unfolded in Staten Island, NY, a month or so ago, where the weasel dictator Governor Andrew Cuomo used a Sheriff’s Department to terrorize a local bar owner who, in an attempt to simply SURVIVE (a concept that NO elected official has even had to ponder for a second), defied mandates – not laws – put forth by a power-hungry lunatic. Hell, these Sheriff’s Officers even issued summonses to the owners attorney who was simply there to ensure that all of his people complied accordingly in obedience with the LAW. Do you know what this owner was arrested for? Criminal Trespass. Trespassing in his own bar. Contemplate that for a few.
More than a call for sympathy for the police officers whose situations like this are going to become more and more common should the inevitable change in power occur, this is a call to our Constitutional attorneys. NOW is the time for you to be in the front of cameras, microphones and any form of media you can be in front of and leading the charge. Using the aforementioned Sheriff’s Department as an example was not to slight them, yet it was intended to highlight the dilemma that the American police officer is being forced into; and we need guidance. That guidance cannot come from a “Yes-Men” bosses whose only goals in life are self-promotion and self-adulation. We need REAL guidance; because sh** is about to get real.
I can’t predict what will happen over the coming weeks. Honestly, after all we’ve witnessed over the last year, who the hell could? This is no longer about Trump and Biden and if you are still thinking on that level, we aren’t watching the same game. Focus.
“We The People” have lost our standing in the eyes of the very people elected to speak for us. Their greed and need for power has become so flagrant that they don’t even care to hide it anymore. Early in my career, a great friend of mine gave me guidance that has stuck with me nearly 15 years later: “Don’t look at how a Sergeant treats YOU; look at how he treats OTHER COPS. Because if he can do it them, he can do it you. It’s just that today might not be your day.”
Regardless of what happens in the coming days, one thing is undeniable: the system is failed, flawed and outright broken. You may celebrate if the pendulum swings in your favor, but if you do, you are missing the point that, if you willfully remain blind to what is happening to our republic, it may one day NOT benefit you; and on that day, I don’t want to hear your crying. Allow it now? Accept it later.
To those fighting for integrity regardless of party or affiliation, I applaud you and thank you. To the American police officer, I would implore you to remember your oath. I fear that many of us, at the end of this debacle, are going to become case law. That’s a badge of honor I never really wanted nor should you. Learn the Constitution. Follow it to the letter of the law. More importantly, have the spine to know when you’re over-stepping…even if dick’s like Governor Cuomo, with all due respect of course, think you’re “not a real cop”.
Tough words from behind a desk, nipple rings.
In closing: to our boys and girls in DC and around this nation, we are on the right side of right. Never forget that. Take care of each other. NOW. Don’t wait for something bad to happen to the guy and girl standing next to in order appreciate them We are all we have; and NO ONE takes care of a cop like a cop.
#BROTHERSBEFOREOTHERS
