{"id":768,"date":"2012-12-07T23:40:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T23:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2012\/12\/07\/thank-them-for-their-service"},"modified":"2012-12-07T23:40:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-07T23:40:00","slug":"thank-them-for-their-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=768","title":{"rendered":"Thank them for their service"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I feel this overpowering need to say something nice about police officers.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve known many cops over the years. I haven\u2019t liked all of them personally. As with any profession, law enforcement has its bad actors serving alongside the overwhelming majority of people who go out of their way to do good things.<\/p>\n

When I was a working daily journalist, I came to understand that police officers have this mistrust of media types. We\u2019re too nosey for our own good, some of the police would think to themselves \u2013 if not say it out loud. My response to that view? Too bad. That\u2019s what reporters and editors get paid to do. They get paid to be inquisitive and ask questions Joe and Jane Sixpack can\u2019t ask themselves.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve long admired the work that cops do. I\u2019ve tried whenever possible to say so publicly. I\u2019ll do so right here, once again.<\/p>\n

Some years ago, I got a peek into police life as a member of the Amarillo Citizens Police Academy. How did I get that gig? I wrote a column that was mildly critical of some police officers. One of the department\u2019s top brass called me out on that, telling me \u2013 in effect \u2013 that I didn\u2019t know what I was talking about. He invited me to apply for the next Citizens Police Academy class. I did. I got accepted and then spent one night a week for 11 weeks seeing how the cops do their job.<\/p>\n

We learned about such things as crime scene investigations, dispatching officers to trouble spots, how drug-sniffing dogs do their job, what happens when you get hit with a Taser. We fired weapons at the shooting range and got to ride along with an officer on patrol. <\/p>\n

APD didn\u2019t tell us everything. But we got enough of a look to understand more fully about the dangers that cops must face every time they report for work. \u201cRoutine traffic stops\u201d do not exist, as they can erupt into violent confrontations without warning. \u201cDomestic beefs\u201d are the worst of all, the police will tell you. Emotions run white hot and those events, too, can end badly. <\/p>\n

But perhaps the biggest takeaway I got from that academy session was the idea that police officers spend a huge amount of their time helping<\/em> people. Their workday doesn\u2019t comprise non-stop confrontation with bad guys. They are trained to lend comfort when the need arises. I\u2019ve seen them do it and I appreciate that side of police work as much as I appreciate their apprehension of criminals.<\/p>\n

Thank you for your service.<\/p>\n\n

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I feel this overpowering need to say something nice about police officers. I\u2019ve known many cops over the years. I haven\u2019t liked all of them personally. As with any profession, law enforcement has its bad actors serving alongside the overwhelming majority of people who go out of their way to do good things. When I … Continue reading Thank them for their service<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}